Yesterday’s invitation-to-explore from Daily Jocks:
(#1)
Kev, they said, short hair and facial
Scruff mean ‘butch’ to our faggot
Customers, that’s good; and a
Smooth, hairless body invites them to
Stroke it, so ditch the fur, dude, and
Bring them down to your
Treasure crotch.
So Kev suffered the pain of depilation, oiled himself lightly, and wore his skivvies down low, all to please the customers.
And now on “Depilation Row”, which will take us back to Palo Alto in the 60s.
“Depilation Row” is of course a play on “Desolation Row”:
“Desolation Row” is a 1965 song written and sung by Bob Dylan. It was recorded on August 4, 1965 and released as the closing track of Dylan’s sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited. It has been noted for its length (11:21) and surreal lyrics in which Dylan weaves characters from history, fiction, the Bible and his own invention into a series of vignettes that suggest entropy and urban chaos. (Wikipedia link)
Instead of giving you a Dylan performance, here’s a 7/19/89 performance (in the Alpine Valley Theatre in Wisconsin) by the Grateful Dead, with Bob Weir on lead:
On the Dead, from Wikipedia:
The Grateful Dead were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. Ranging from quintet to septet, the band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of country, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, rock, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, space rock, for live performances of lengthy instrumental jams, and for their devoted fan base, known as “Deadheads”. “
Weir (who grew up just up the road in Atherton) was a teenager when he came across the somewhat older Jerry Garcia (who grew up in San Francisco and in Menlo Park, next door to Palo Alto) playing the guitar in downtown Palo Alto, where he gave guitar lessons at Dana Morgan’s Music Shop (still in existence when I first came to Palo Alto, but now, alas, gone):
(#2)
Then came the Grateful Dead, which lasted for 30 years until it broke up in 1995. Of the original five members, Garcia and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan have died, but Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Weir are still performing. The video above is from the band’s last great period of performing, in the late 80s and 1990..
