BRAIN DEAD

“It’s funny, the end of time has just begun.” Bob Dylan

There is a new Grateful Dead CD out whose proceeds will go towards the opening of Terrapin Station, a theme park acid test that will hope to recreate the Dead experience. The Dead (Weir, Kreutzman, Lesh and Hart) are banking on new technology that will allow them to create a holographic replica of a Dead show, in a multi-media smorgasbord of live and “stored” chaos. Jerry once said that Virtual Reality would allow the audience and the band to put on goggles and realistically experience a simulation where everyone was “lobsters.” Now, it seems that “virtual” is the only choice for left for Deadheads now that “actual” means, a band that cannot get along without quibbling and lackluster shows that provide little for true fans to hold on to. Sure, strap me into the seat of the Mr. Charlie’s Wild Adventure and let me knock back a few at the Deadhead Jamboree, I like a good E-ticket just like the next guy, but something about Terrapin Station just doesn’t sit right with me.

Bass player Phil Lesh says “we want to build a place where Deadheads can feel something of the community and freedom and abandon of Grateful Dead shows.” Though according to recent bickering among the living Board of Directors, abandonment of the original vision and spirit seems more likely.

I hope that Terrapin Station has antechambers where you can re-experience other peak moments of the sixties besides Dead shows. Can you imagine being in a hologram of Leary’s Milbrook Estate, wandering in the corridors of a hidden wing, when a bespectacled little bald guy tries to pull your pants down? “Look, it’s Allen Ginsburg. And over there its Gordon Liddy, why I think I’ll go beat his ass.” Great fun and hours of entertainment.

While Blair Jackson, archivist for the Dead, says “there’s something slightly unsettling,” about an interactive multi-media venue, I say it’s downright wrong. I would imagine that the Dead, raconteurs for freedom of speech , would want to have an authenticity to the virtual experience. So with that in mind, how about this scenario for one of the multi-sensory experiences:

You’re in your virtual VW heading to a coliseum in North Carolina, when a screaming shrill erupts from your engine. As loud as you crank the tape deck, the engine noise competes, decibel for decibel. You pull over to the side of the road and start to inspect the shards of metal that are pouring out of your generator, they look pretty as they sparkle in the sun. Immediately you realize that your only hope of getting to the show in time is if your Dead/ VW insurance card is still valid. Within 15 minutes another VW pulls over and out jumps a fellow that works in a VW repair shop. He tells you that your generator is fried but you can probably get the thirty miles to the show, if you don’t stop. You start tooling to the show as your simulated side-kick, Cyber-Mountain Girl, rolls a blunt. As you approach the show, you see a snaking line of two hundred cars. Being an East Coaster you choose to use the emergency/cop lane. Luckily you can’t hear all the other cars honking at you because your engine is screaming like a banshee. The man at the gate tells you that you have to get back in line. You reason with him and say that if he doesn’t let you in to the parking lot, your engine will explode and many innocent people will die.

Do you get in or does the MAN shut down your whole trip. Who knows? Your $35 token just ran out and the cyber-dream crackles to a crisp end as you find your self outside the Terrapin Station Terror Dome bumming change to get back in. Unfortunately there’s two thousand other vagrants wandering in front of the multi-million dollar theater with their fingers in the air begging for “miracle” Terrapin tickets. We can only hope Terrapin Station doesn’t hire any of the staff of the other worlds greatest theme park, where longhairs and loitering are more than unwelcome. Then again, maybe Terrapin Station should borrow some ideas from Disneyland. You could have the Mickeyhartketeers. And hats that have three ears on them!

The Dead has let loose that visitors will have to enter the exhibit through “the Parking Lot.” Virtual weather will be projected onto the ceiling while vendors sell “tofu dogs.” Be afraid, be very afraid. There is no truth in this little candy land of Oz. And who is that behind the curtain pulling the levers? This would be a more realistic scenario:

You drive your car 800 miles and end up in a parking lot that is so ineptly run that there’s no chance of getting out of there for three-days. Some bro-brahs ask you to watch their tent as they scamper off looking to get many beers. While you try and figure out how you’re going to sneak into the show, three drug addicts sneak into the tent you were supposed to watch. They shoot up heroin and burn holes in the tent. You leave before the bro-brahs return.

Phil Lesh also states that “the community needs a place to gather so they can continue feeling as connected to one another as they did on tour.” Is it me or doesn’t it seem what is really going on here is that the Dead want all Deadheads in one place so they can get all their money? E Pluribus Unum, from the many to the one.

The trippiest thing that I’ve heard about Terrapin Station is from Ralph, a confirmed acid/dead/head. It’s not that Ralph doesn’t have a last name, he just can’t remember it. Ralph says this, “Dude, don’t you see? Terrapin Station is ground central for the confirmed. Like at the New Years Eve show at 12:01a.m., in the year 2001, all the heads will be there. And dude, the UFO will beam up the Dead and all of us dancing at the show. We will become like Mayan light bodies. The theme park will be left behind like a reminder of who we were and what we were like. It will be like the Great Pyramid. The remainder of a great civilization.”

Well who knows? Ralph once predicted a St. Stephen at Madison Square Garden!

Here is my top ten list why a Grateful Dead theme park is cool.

10. Many of the heads who were put in jail in 1989 will be getting out just in time to attend the opening of Terrapin Station.

9. Maybe you can find the girl who stole your Birkenstocks in Landover, Maryland.

8. The heroin will have quality control.

7. The de-lousing room has free issues of Jambands….

6. You can reminisce with friends how it wasn’t cancer that killed Bob Marley, it was when the Dead played “Stir it Up.”

5. The room where they play “Around and Around,” is permanently closed.

4. You can make believe that you went on tour.

3. Real dancing bears!

2. When the big quake hit’s the bay, at least you can die saying you saw Virtual Jerry.

And the number one reason a Grateful Dead theme park in San Francisco is a great idea (drum roll please)……………

1. It will get the hippies out of                                                .
                                            (insert your towns name here)

So until the last grilled cheese gets sold, I’ll see you in the street. Late.