Thank you for a Real Good Time

a love letter to Phil Lesh

I woke this morning to a Whats App message from a dear friend of mine who knows me from another incarnation, a special, almost surreal period in my life, those dreamlike days between, when all we ever wanted was to learn and love and grow.

“A great tree has fallen”.

Before marriage, fatherhood and the often awkward initiation of coming to terms with life’s inevitably harsher realities, a small group of my midwestern-rooted peers and I seemed to care only about one thing, dancing to The Dead.

The first time I laid my eyes on Phil Lesh, my head was fully inebriated with Lysergsäure-diethylamid. He stood about a hundred feet tall. His wild, mysterious face gazing over Red Rocks, terrifying my gloriously naïve younger self. I had read everything there was to read about him and his band of merry pranksters and now that I was finally seeing the world through their melting, mind-bending pool of timeless psychedelia, I was, well, a bit horrified. I recall my friend calming me down as I screamed at the jumbo-tron, “This is all your fault!!”. It was after all. For better or for worse, if not for him and those wild-eyed searchers of sound, the world we live in now would be far less colorful.

His bass bombs knew no boundaries and filled the emptiness that Buddha himself often attempted to shed light on. Lesh could deliver eternal truths without saying a word. He was that good. And as I slowly grew into my own shoes and was exposed evermore to the miracles and shadows of humankind, he was never far away from my learning, holding down a solid, formless foundation.

Over the years, I must have seen him nearly a hundred times. Always with that evil, yet deeply friendly grin smeared upon his mythically funny face. He was 100% real. He was unshakable in his authenticity. When he said, “Fare thee well.”, he meant it.

I met him once my freshman year of college, in a hotel lobby in Boulder, Colorado. I was with my girlfriend at the time, a young hippy like me who was as starstruck as I was but less obnoxious. She remained on a big fluffy couch with other twirling deadheads as I waltzed over to my hero to say hello. He must have already had a thousand other hungover wooks bug him that morning but he still managed to make time for me and be kind. I stumbled through a foolish attempt to offer praise and he gracefully received it, all the while making it known that he knew I had left my lover alone with a bunch of freaks. At one point he interrupted me and said, “I think someone is waiting for you over there, better not let her get too lonely. You can never trust a prankster!”. He always knew what mattered most.

I was once offered a dream job to lead a group of college students to Bhutan, but when I learned Phil and the boys were going to be hanging up the towel in my home turf of Chicago, Illinois with three magical nights at the same place Garcia took his final bow, I knew I had to turn down the offer. My family was coming together one last time. This was before the world turned upside down. Before Trump became president, before COVID rocked the world, before John Mayer started filling in for Jerry and the Sphere turned magic into nostalgia. That was it. The most elegant end to 50 years of strange travels. I am so grateful I got to be a part of it.

I can still hear you in my belly. You have been with me on every tour. And that surely won’t end now. Thank you Phil, for a real good time.

---

If you could kindly tap the ❤️ at the top or bottom of this newsletter it will make it easier for other people to find this publication. Ahéhee'! བཀའ་དྲིན་ཆེ།! 謝謝! Thank you! ขอบคุณ!شكرا ! תודה! Спасибо! धन्यवाद! Cảm ơn bạn! អរគុណ! Merci y Muchisimas gracias!

<iframe width="688" height="387" src="

No our love will not fade away…

#maypeaceprevailonearth