Grateful Dead

interestingly, watching an old X-Files last night, the show opens with a soon-to-be-wrecked guy driving up to a burger joint drive-through...in a Buick Riviera.

"Aztec submarine" is indeed a tremendously cool image

hopefully with no human sacrifices

my lil' ol' white Prius is a "Mayan marshmallow" (insert Goofy laugh)

Ah yes, I remember that little run well...a weekend run, we skiied in Tahoe Saturday, went to Reno that night, and then Davis was on the way home to SF from Tahoe. What fun!

Doc, I would love to peruse your 71 tome, please send to me also. Thanks also for your 'this day in 1971' posts, very interesting.

And the Psychedelic Remark of the Week Award goes to The Crow, for "Aztec Submarine" for a Buick Riviera! (Man, that's a blues vehicle if ever there was one.)

I never trusted myself driving on psychedelics. I still don't. But I still do it! (Dirt roads in the backcountry only, with ABB and a beer, just to remain calm...)

Thin -- glad you scored your DP replacement. Enjoy!

Vguy -- how do you justify putting the word "normal" into a sentence with Las Vegas??

That’s good news! Through the rabbit hole, but you’ve come out the other side. I’m glad you received it. A dozen scarlet begonias for Marye, again, for making magic happen. (Marye would make the most extraordinary concierge ever - any restaurant you wanted, any tickets you needed, and problem solved!)

Enjoy 36!

....starting to feel a little bit more normal around here.

My DaP36 arrived today. Thanks to all for the good thoughts and other help along the way.

I agree Dark-Star that the issues may be few and far-between. And yes, Marye and Dr. Phil ARE very responsive, but only if you know to reach out to them! Their existence is NOT listed anywhere publicly (if I'm wrong, please show me where). Bottom line: If they're the only ones who can provide an actual answer, why have a Customer Service link that's just a black hole?

Thanks to Dead.net for resolving this issue. I'm looking forward to now checking out these shows. I see Dave's liner notes indicate this Bird Song is the best he's ever heard? I have to listen to that....

:)))

Nappyrags post about Reno/Davis brought back a memory! Strange that I still have them, but sometimes I do. And I think maybe this really happened.

I remembered, somehow, that me and my roommate Claudio drove to Davis without having any idea where the venue was. Davis is a small town, we thought, how hard could it be to find a Dead concert there? We didn't really know where Davis was, either, but we knew it was on I-80, so we figured that would work out. We had in our possession various herbs and exotic fungi, but being responsible lads, we had decided we would not indulge until we found the town and the concert.

Well, you know how that goes. At some point we started calculating arrival times, did a few algebraic equations and decided it would OK to down maybe 1/2 of what we had now, and save the rest for later. Like I said, we were being responsible. And a few minutes later, look, there's a sign, it's Davis! We found the town! Now, we just need to find the venue.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, my '69 Buick Riviera, usually capable of piloting itself in these kinds of situations, melted into an Aztec submarine and I could neither find the periscope nor properly man the mizzenmast. We were forced to abandon ship and wander the mean streets of Davis, looking for clues as to where the concert might be.

Suddenly we found ourselves in a parade. We were part of a Flowing River of Freaks, longhairs and tie dyes and space aliens and a guy who looked like Santa Claus except his glow in the dark dashiki, all going in the same direction, so we went with the flow. And just as suddenly, we were standing outside the venue, which looked suspiciously like Peewee's fun house, but never mind, the show was starting (with, IIRC but this can't be real, 'Saturday Night'), let's get in there!!!

Once inside, all was bliss. Except ... oh shit ... what happened to Claudio? Aw man .... I lost my roommate and I'm never going to find him, never ever in all eternity, here in this writhing mass of legs and eyes and antennae. What to do? Well, obviously, the first thing was to eat the rest of the shrooms. And enjoy the show. Done, and done.

Afterwards, two miracles happened. First, Claudio and I found each other, by literally bonking foreheads in the restroom after the show. We were momentarily elated, with much excited jabber about the show, etc. Then we realized: we had no idea where the car was. None. We started walking anyway. By now, the Earth was regaining its familiar contours. But our spirits were sinking. There was really No Way we were ever going to remember where we docked the Riviera.

And yet ... we walked right to it. We couldn't have taken a straighter path if we'd had a map and a GPS. There it was, parked halfway up the curb in front of some unassuming person's abode. There was a brief muted celebration, as we quickly realized we better quietly get the flock outta there. We jumped in, pulled the periscope down, engaged the 8-track, and hit the road.

I have had a couple of scratched CDs that came loose during shipping on Get Shown the Light box set. I have had what appeared to be box cutter slice damage to a Dave's Picks. I have had dented in CD case corners due to the CDs being shipped in bubble wrap mail envelopes. I had a damaged 30 Trips box from the shipping handler. Customer support, Mary E, and Dr Rhino took care of every issue I had. It seems to me there is an escalation chain, and sometimes customer support can take care of a problem and sometimes Mary E or Dr Rhino need to care of it. The box cutter incidents happened to a few people 2 picks in a row then stopped. Issue taken care of by management. There has never been a box set with loose slip covers like GSTL since then. Issue taken care of by management. Dave's Picks now come packaged in a sturdy cardboard packing cover to protect them from shipping damage. Issue taken care of by management. The point is that the customer support team is obviously aware when issues occur and they ensure they do not occur again. If the front line customer support phone number and email does not get you the results you want, simply get hold of Mary E and she will either take care of it or let you know she has let Dr Rhino know. That has been my experience and why it seems to me there is an escalation chain for customer support. I occasionally hear people report that they don't get results fast enough or that they don't hear back from the customer support phone number center reps. Out of 25000 Dave's Picks, it doesn't seem like a very high number to me. If I did not hear back from customer support I would simply get a hold of Mary E or Dr Rhino. Their contact information is not a secret. I don't know the reason that customer support reportedly does not respond up to expectation. Personally I've never had this kind of experience, but since several people have reported it on the message board I assume it happened. I ask those those people who report these troubles, what would you do to fix it? I hope not throw money at the problem. That would just mean more expensive product. I would rather have the prices remain reasonable and deal with the occasional issue one at a time. All of this we're not going to take it talk sounds a little overbaked to me.

Only love can Phil.
Live-Dead 1971 papers are super detailed, well researched. It adds to the knowledge of an amazing era of one of the most significant bands in American history.
Safari so good.