March Issue: Home | Editors | Features | Columns | Photos | Regional | New Groove Road Trip | Tour Journal | Venue | Levels | Ghosts | Homegrown | Inaudible | CDs | Charts

Splintered Sunlight
by Michelle Waughtel

Splintered Sunlight #2

"I can't figure out…if it's the end or beginning…" (from "Terrapin Station")

"I prefer to let the music speak for me but I will respond to this because of my great respect and love for all Deadheads... after my surgery I was approached about doing another tour…I decided to spend some time in nature with my family this summer, and will try to do a few Phil and Friends gigs at some of my favorite places along the way…" Quoted from Phil Lesh's announcement on http://dead.net

If you are an interested party with a pulse and a keyboard, chances are you've seen this dead.net post from Phil Lesh pass across your screen in the last two weeks. This post contained perhaps the worst news the Deadheads have received since 1995: No Furthur this summer.

Ouch! OUCH! For me, last year's Furthur was as close as one could hope to get to seeing the Real Deal in full swing again. The older Deadheads who sat out the first few Furthur Festivals started coming out of the woodwork to catch the remnants of the old magic that burst forth from the summer '98 shows. I was convinced that this year was gonna be da Bomb due to the long strange trip Phil had just been through with liver transplant surgery and the success of the previous tour. It just doesn't make SENSE not to do it again, right? Apparently, it makes sense to Phil…and we are left to the unselfish task of coming to terms with the his decision.

Phil seemed to understand that people would be disappointed. He also chose to disclose the information directly to us in his own words rather than have us wait for the spin doctors to catch hold of the story (assuming the media still cares about thing Dead). This is the part that seems to have the most significance to me. Granted, the medium of cyberspace has made such immediacy more possible. But how often in the last 20 years have the fans been addressed directly by a band member in such intimate terms?

Given the undying loyalty of the fan base and the outrageous percentage of personal resources we contributed to the cause, the CIA-like secrecy of the organization and its publicity staff seemed inappropriate. There were two families…the Deadheads and the Organization, each denying the full reality of the other, despite the obvious interdependency. What did the band members really know about our ways of relating…who we were…or why we were drawn to them? What did WE really know about Jerry? Phil? The business end of running the Grateful Dead? We weren't particularly interested in knowing about whatever ugliness lived there. It was much more convenient to project onto the Grateful Dead all of our ideals and beliefs…to regain a certain sense of childlike innocence and trust…while forced to live in an outer world that has rendered such simplicity "unsafe."

So often, as Deadheads, we refer to one another as "family." And, indeed, the Grateful Dead organization uses that term as well when referring to others within the organization that were there from the beginning. At what point did these families really join….or separate? One might guess that when Jerry left us, the rest of the Grateful Dead needed us as much as we needed them and the walls started to come down. Without the physical presence of the Grateful Dead in its full glory, the organization had to reach out to the fans more in order to perpetuate itself and continue paying for basic operating expenses and salaries. Dead.net itself seemed to arise from the need of both families to connect and share information. On the surface, one can see the capitalism bubbling…the drive to keep Deadheads connected to ensure sales of the vault material, the merchandise, and whatever live music the remaining members could conjure up. Granted, this is a very cynical perspective, but a viable possibility when one family is a business and the other is a consumer.

It's often been said the Grateful Dead and Deadheads are like a dysfunctional family. What happens when a dysfunctional family HEALS?

I think we may be witnessing it right now. It happens when individuals are able to put aside their personal agendas and look directly at another family member and see their actual value unselfishly. Reading Phil's message, it is quite clear to me that there could be no other motive for his statement than a genuine desire to connect with us and provide direct information about his plans, which, unfortunately do not include Furthur. The challenge on our side of the "family" is to accept and respect this individual's decision without letting our own needs and desires muck up this moment of possibility.

Believe it if you need it.

--Michelle Waughtel