Obama Secures Tie-Dye Vote
- 02.07.2008 - 12:52 PMReuters reports that three surviving members of the Grateful Dead reunited in San Francisco on Monday to perform in support of Barak Obama. The baby-boomer house band (whose album about aging “Touch of Grey” is now a mid-career work) clearly has no problem with the candidate who said:
“So, when I think of Baby Boomers, I think of my mother’s generation. And you know, I was too young for the formative period of the ’60s—civil rights, sexual revolution, Vietnam War. Those all sort of passed me by.”
Undoubtedly, those things sort of passed the band by, too. Here’s Reuters:
The concert started with a short video from Obama, filmed on an airplane, thanking the band. A thick cloud of marijuana smoke wafted through the air then and throughout the concert, and some fans engaged in free-style dance as though magically transported from 1968.
Magical transportation is a familiar theme in Obamaland. As best I can tell, it’s the mode of travel that’s brought him within striking distance of the presidency.
It should be no surprise that the first post-boomer candidate has support amongst boomers. To this generational enclave, in perpetual mid-life crisis, Obama is the Corvette convertible purchased at fifty years old or the new young girlfriend. (Which makes Hillary. . .) And on Obama’s end of the equation, it should be understood: boomers begat boomers-on-steroids. If baby-boomers are defined by self-importance, what greater fulfillment of their sensibility is there than a man who wants into the White House simply because he is who he is?
However, it seems this endorsement won’t give Obama much of a boost.
“Long live the Dead!” said Ron Svetlik, 51, who said he had attended more than 200 Grateful Dead concerts, starting in 1974.
The home builder said he had already voted by mail for the Green Party candidate, but added: “If I had to cast a write-in ballot, I’d put Jerry Garcia.”
WWJD? You know, What Would Jerry Do? Well, in a 1985 interview he sounded a bit like a psychedelic neocon:
“The weirdest thing lately for me was that thing of the Ayatollah and the mine-sweeping children. In the war between Iran and Iraq, he used kids and had them line up like a human chain, holding hands, and walk across the mine fields because it was cheaper than mine detectors…It’s amazingly inhuman. And people complained about the Shah - a few fingernails and stuff - but this is kids walking across mine fields. It’s absolutely surreal. How could people go for that?”
Frankly, that’s a clearer statement of foreign policy inclinations than anything we’ve been able to yank out of Obama.
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February 7th, 2008 at 1:38 PM
I greatly enjoyed the concert the other night on a musical level, I contributed to the cloud of marijuana smoke, yet I am registered GOP, originally supported Rudy, voted for Romney on Tuesday, and will vote for McCain on 11/4. Go figure. Actually, there has always been a significant minority of conservative Deadheads. And thank you for pointing out that Jerry Garcia was no moonbat.
BTW, the surviving members of the Grateful Dead and their projects have, as time has rolled by, accumulated large numbers of Gen X and now Millennial Generation fans. After all, as people get older, their interest and ability to go to concerts diminishes. And actually, if you use the orthodox definition of the Baby Boomer, two of the three former Grateful Dead members on stage were too old to qualify, and that goes for the late great Jerome Garcia as well.
February 7th, 2008 at 2:37 PM
Abe: To this generational enclave, in perpetual mid-life crisis, Obama is the Corvette convertible purchased at fifty years old or the new young girlfriend. (Which makes Hillary. . .)
…the ex-wife?
February 7th, 2008 at 4:47 PM
And actually, if you use the orthodox definition of the Baby Boomer, two of the three former Grateful Dead members on stage were too old to qualify, and that goes for the late great Jerome Garcia as well.
Indeed. Jerry and Bob and Pigpen were shaped by the ’50s Beat generation more than the ‘60 hippies. The Dead were never political.
February 8th, 2008 at 12:35 PM
At least the Grateful Dead have the excuse of being stoned for supporting Empty Shirt Obama. What excuse do sober people have? He’s the American Idol candidate for President.