Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Welcome To Twitter, David Lemiuex!

Dear David Lemieuxseumofnaturalhistory,

Hi. How are you? I’m fine. How’s Canada? I see you will be legalizing marihuana soon. That’s lovely for you. We elected a urinal that likes to watch teevee. But I’m glad for you about the pot thing, honestly.

As always, David, I write as a fan and admirer. Your stewardship of the Dead’s catalogue has been consistently excellent, from your Picks (the latest of which, volume 22, was just announced and has already sold out) to box sets ranging from large to massive; you also oversaw the return of the fabled Betty Boards which will surely fill release slots for years. Like I said, I’m a fan and I’m on your side.

You need to be careful on Twitter.

You have recently signed up for the service–they make it very easy to get an account–and sent out some exploratory tweets. (I knew they were your tweets because I could hear the wind.) Many people rushed to follow you, and like and retweet you; that was fun, wasn’t it? Felt good, right? Hey, man: I know. I went viral once.

It was terrible and the site crashed and liberals yelled at you.

GET OUT OF THE OPEN LETTER. I don’t want David Lemieuxgoogaipan to think I’m weird.

He won’t notice.

Shh. Anyway, David, I just wanted to pass along some advice about Twitter now that you’ve joined, some things to keep in mind:

You’re gonna get 80’s Truthers Dude, it’s gonna happen. I can’t believe it hasn’t already, that some nut with a boner for 4/12/83 didn’t pigeonhole you second you signed in. You need to know that this will happen to you, David. It’s gonna be like the Dead.net forums times a billion.

When it does, there are three courses of action:

A) If the 80’s Truther is reasonable, you can explain the reason why the show he’s touting (which coincidentally happens to have been his first show) isn’t suitable for release.

B) You can block the person.

C) You can issue a SAVAGE BURN™. These are to Twitter what combos are to Street Fighter: if you hit the buttons in the right order, then you can rip your opponent’s spine out with your first move. If your SAVAGE BURN™is savage enough, it may make Buzzfeed and you will be hailed, along with Chrissy Teigen and whoever’s running the Wendy’s account, as the greatest bard of our time. Huzzah for you, David! (Seriously, don’t SAVAGE BURN™ people.)

Avoid tweetstorms if possible

The tweetstorm is the newest symptom of Global Warming. Twitter has a 140-character limit. It’s good for jokes and observations, and it’s an excellent platform to link to other sites from. However, Trump’s election has driven people so insane that they’re now using Twitter to post conspiracy theories the length of Infinite Jest (including the footnotes). What’s more, even if the tweetstorm has validity, the format makes it look like a conspiracy theory dreamt up in an opium den run by John Le Carre.

They all start the same way:

And then they get progressively pithier and abstract to the point where if you don’t read the whole thing it just looks like gibberish:

Sometimes they go off the rails for a few:

Just stay away. Looking at tweetstorms–or, God forbid, liking them–only encourages them.

Retweets totally equal endorsements People put this in their little bios, but it turns out not to be legally binding. Please do not be retweeting porn stars and Nazis.

The frog is not your friend If you see a cartoon frog, you are in danger. That frog is trying to trick you into saying something it can use against you. Do not trust cartoon frogs.

Do not anger Black Twitter They will drag you. Do not anger any part of Twitter, actually. Half of everyone on the service is just there to yell at people when they fuck up. But seriously never even mention Beyoncé. You do not want the Beyhive’s attention.

Memes are not magic I don’t know how down you are with the kids, David. They have these things. They’re called memes. They’re not for us. Do not meme. Maybe you’ll see a meme–say, Dat Boi–and think that it would be a good way to advertise the latest Dead release. It would not. Please do not meme.

Good luck on Twitter, David. May the retweets be ever in your favor. As always, my best to your wife, Regina, and your lovely children Gordie, Girl Gordie, Jean-Luc, Northstar, Fleece, and the twins, Micki and Bobbi.

Sincerely,
Thoughts on the Dead

10 Comments

  1. Tor Haxson

    I think the snake shirt has some internet tracking on me. I viewed some pics on archive, saw the snake shirt, and now like an ad for the best hoodie in the world it is everywhere I go.

    Take this for example, I search for “Bob weir with dog” and I end up watching the Snake shirt give some strange concert in Thailand 1996

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRfmW73eAdY

  2. 21st Century Dead

    Did you know the 80’s truthers have organized? They have pie charts
    https://mobile.twitter.com/80sgratefuldead

    • @80sgratefuldead

      Hey we deal in data and non-alternative facts, not just opinions.
      @80sgratefuldead

      • 21st Century Dead

        For the record, I count 90 and 79 with Brent to be 80s, does that change the graph? Not that that does much for getting rid of alternative facts or opinions lol

        • @eightiesgratefuldead

          Great point. And we count 1980-89 as 80s. But we want more Brentski, even if it’s 79 or 90.
          “Somebody has to do something, it’s just incredibly pathetic it has to be us.” – 80s Truthers Everywhere

      • mrcompletely

        The attempted quantitative analysis ignores quality of performance and recording, not to mention availability of recordings. I’m a big, big fan of the Brent era and hope there will be more releases from it soon but your approach doesn’t really seem very well reasoned. Just a friendly critique from someone that’s basically in your corner.

        A quick scan of your recommendations on twitter shows a bunch of stuff I know isn’t in the vault, unfortunately. Not all of it though, and since I personally am always looking for more great Brent era shows to listen to I’m taking some notes as I go through it…

        If you know anyone that has any of the master tapes Dan gave away, traded, or allowed to be swiped, by all means help get those back into the Vault…I guarantee you if they had the ’82 Frost shows or ’81 Greeks (for instance) we’d see some action…or something from April ’83…etc, etc

        • @eightiesgratefuldead

          Appreciate the insight, as we have no privileged info on the Vault. We think any remaining Fall 80 from Warfield or NYCRCMH would make good candidates, but I remember a story that some of those reels were used for recording studio demos of Way to Go Home or something. Read more on our blog http://www.eightiesgratefuldead.com for our quantitative/qualitative approach. Thanks for the comments — we really aren’t intending to be adversarial . . . it’s not a zero sum game and other cliches about “the smaller the stakes. . . ” apply here.

          • 21st Century Dead

            I would love to see more Spring and Summer of 1980 too, like Boston Garden in May or Cleveland in August. Never been a huge fan of Go To Nassau, even though it’s also from right around then. That Boston show smokes

  3. John

    Appropriate use of cartoon frog:

  4. Luther Von Baconson

    stay away from the Reefer Mr. Man. you’ll end up like Gene Krupa (Neil @ 20:14)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xglVMxLUrJ0

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