Story Time…..a two hander at that

Intro: Just how I got ~~introduced~~ initiated into the Grateful Dead scene. Why does everything suck now?

Ok, I’m getting old and have all this crap rattling around my brain. So this is kind of a brain dump sort of story. I have to more or less fill in the details here and there cause well it was 35 or so years ago and I wasn’t exactly sober most of the time. Rarely would be a more accurate way of putting it. I’m writing this not to shit on Dead and Company (well not exactly), but more to sort of explain the differences between between the Grateful Dead scene and later groups if you will. Hey, I’m a sensitive bitch trolling is welcomed but, shitting on my writing hurts. First thing you realize about the Grateful Dead scene is people went out of their way to NOT be a dick (kind of the opposite nowadays). This will be about the scene not the music, I didn’t get into Grateful Dead music till much later.

So how did I get introduced to the GD scene? Well, its a funny story really. I was a kid just 15 and I was literally a punk kid. I mean I had a mohawk and wore combat boots and listened to the Exploited. I spent my time skateboarding and being a general miscreant. I had ADHD to such a severe degree that I was in trouble constantly. I also ran away constantly, don’t know why. Anyway enough about all that shit, I had run away this one time and found myself sleeping on a bus stop bench. Why was I sleeping on a bus stop bench? Because, I was a 15 year old dumb fuck. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. While I’m trying to sleep a little I hear someone call my name. I look up and it’s this girl Stephanie, from the neighborhood. She was a bit older than me but we had gotten stoned together and she bought me booze a few times, totally innocent unfortunately. I’m happy to report that she wasn’t a creeper. I guess in those days older and younger people hung out without it being all taboo and weird. I mean, I had a full time job by that time so it wasn’t a big deal. If Stephanie wanted to hang out in that way, though my horny 15 yo ass would have been down in an instant.

Anyway she asks if I want to crash at her apartment. Does a Walrus need a toothbrush? Of course. The next day or sometime later the details are fuzzy don’t worry they will get fuzzier. She tells me that her and some friends are headed to the beach. A bunch of hippies were going to hang out and party before summer tour. I didn’t know what TF summer tour was but, I did know that it beat picking splinters out of my ass at the bus stop. So this other girl named Kali shows up and then this old guy pulls up in a truck pulling a trailer. Kali is like very blonde and nice but she seems sort of out of it. I think I liked Stephanie cause even though she’s a hippie, which to me at that time was an insult she had street smarts. The old guy was named Al he was a 40 something guy who recently like cashed in his 401k or something and was going “on tour”. He has that extremely receding hairline where all thats left is the back and sides (cut that shit off). Al has some really nice bud and is down to share. I’m used to very poor quality herb, so I get a little too stoned on the drive to the beach.

Al informs us that he needs to stop in Oakland. I’m basically greened out so, yeah sounds good. He has one of those four door trucks I’m in the passenger seat and the girls are in the back. He comes back from his stop and hands me a brown paper bag. I hear the tinkling of glass. Put that under the seat he says as if he’s handing me a box of tissue. What is it? It was 50 vials of liquid LSD not those little dropper vials either the big-uns. I had taken acid before maybe once or twice and enjoyed myself immensely. I’m a little shocked and thinking wtf did I get myself into. So we arrive at our destination the beach. This really is another world I’m entering I didn’t know Grateful Dead from The Beach Boys before this.

End of part 1