61 Reasons to Hate the Grateful Dead

1) At their Colma store, Sprint PCS has programmed some of their sample phones to not only play a Grateful Dead song, but also to flash iconic "Dead" images -- the hippie skeleton, a crown of roses, etc.

2) Jerry Garcia once said that he "produced art like some people sweat." Besides being a pretentious thing to say, no fat, hairy guy should ever draw the conversation towards sweat.

3) Bob Weir has performed in little shorts and a polo shirt since the early 1980s.

4) Bands with two drummers suck.

5) Entire generations of children have been forced to believe that this medium-tempo, country-blues music was somehow better than anything produced since.

6) In the words of Diane Arn, "I don't get what this (pointing to stage) has to do with this (pointing to audience hippie doing falling-down-the-stairs dance)

7) Unlike punks, Deadheads don't fight back. If you slam into them, they give you a hurt look and continue grooving.

8) Body odor. Plain and simple.

9)White guys with smug, self-satisfied expressions doing endless arhythmic undulations and making darn sure that you know what a great time they're having.

10) Slow, old vehicles lacking catalytic converters actually pollute more than efficient, modern ones.

11) Dogs wearing bandanas and oversized sunglasses are not funny (see previous entry).

12) Pop songs are not meant to be 25 minutes long.

13) They hijacked a set from John Fogarty during the 1992 Bill Graham Tribute concert at Golden Gate park, proving that the Grateful Dead can make any song sound identical to the one they just played.

14) You could go to a Grateful Dead show and set up a razors and deodorant concession. You'd go broke.

15) Phish.

16) The adjective "noodling," as it applies to guitar solos.

17) The band has a 100% death rate for keyboardists. And keyboardists aren't even cool.

18) During the 80s, did you ever peek into a friend's cassette collection and find 150 homemade tapes with dates and places written on them? "1/15/77, Red Rocks."

19) They hijacked many punks (including my once fierce little sister), making them into what they once hated, hippies.

20) "Hey, dude, I've got no beef with you! Mellow out!"

21) Tie-dye should, by all rights, have never lasted as a (bad) fashion choice beyond 1971.

22) They were the highest-grossing touring act in the world for the last 5 years of their career, and yet continued to promote themselves as part of a roving community of like-minded peers.

23) My little sister's friends humiliated my dad by telling him he "looked like Jerry Garcia!" while undoubtedly wearing beatific, vacuous smiles.

24) Body odor. Oh, wait, I already said that. But have you ever been to a Dead show? It's strong enough to merit two mentions.

25) Mardi Gras shows included gigantic heads being paraded around by guys wearing stilts. I ask you, where are the mimes?

26) Jerry Garcia died, and yet the band continues to re-form and play under various names.

27) Now that they're old (the ones who aren't dead), the surviving members of the Grateful Dead intend to carry on their public personas as rockers and members of the cultural elite. Witness Mickey Hart's books about drumming.

28) Mickey Hart's books on drumming and percussion have opened the eyes of legions of Babyboomers to drumming from around the world, thus setting up very uncomfortable situations for teenage boys who enter their date's home, only to be assaulted by faux-hip parents grooving to indecipherable drumming.

29) Drum circles.

30) Crop circles. Okay, that's taking it too far.

31) The verb "grooving."

32) The fact that the only good brew pub in the Haight is called "Magnolia," after the Grateful Dead song, "Sugar Magnolia." You can have the psychedelics, but please leave us the beer.

33) 22-year-olds shouldn't listen to 40-year-old rock and roll. It's just wrong.

34) Vegans who smoke cigarettes.

35) When we lived in Seattle, the Grateful Dead would play shows at Memorial Stadium. Two things would happen: 1) The entire of lower Queen Anne would be overrun with hippies. 2) We could hear the freaking Grateful Dead from our place on Capitol Hill. There was no escape.

36) Panhandling kids from upper-middle class homes.

37) My neighbor has a gigantic Grateful Dead tattoo.

38) Twenty-minute drum solos that include bongos, timpanis and weird, gong-like things.

39) Sometimes a Deadhead will talk for more than an hour about the intricate musical changes that took place after Pigpen died.

40) Deadheads somehow equate following a band around with being an artist. Sorry, making friendship bracelets doesn't count.

41) My brother-in-law the Rocket Scientist professes to like the Grateful Dead. It seems unlikely, because he's as straight as they come, and he has a very dry sense of humor, so I'm not sure if he was telling me the truth, but frankly, he kind of intimidates me so I was afraid to ask.

42) Dreadlocks on white guys.

43) Massive groups of people laughing uproariously at stuff that's not at all funny.

44) Dirty, naked kids running around because "they're free."

45) Each member of the Grateful Dead lives in a gigantic house. I live in a small, 2-bedroom place. I'll bet your house is closer in size to mine than theirs.

46) There is in-fighting among the surviving members of the group and mismanagement of the group's business. Dude, mellow out.

47) The word "mellow."

48) The fact that any group with a strong, grassroots following and a good live stadium show is automatically compared to the Grateful Dead.

49) Too many band members. Again, two drummers? Two guitarists AND a keyboard player? Do the guys on stilts wearing the oversized heads get the same percentage of the cut as the guy who hits the timpani?

50) Dirty hippies saying "trips" and "bud" as you walk through the parking lot.

51) Hacky-sack is not a sport, though it is kind of fun to walk up to a bunch of hippies kicking that thing around and say, "I've got winners, okay?"

52) Some of Jerry Garcia's country-tinged side projects were pretty good. As a result, however, Deadheads now claim country and bluegrass as their own, and nothing can destroy a good country or bluegrass show as quickly as a couple of hippies doing the falling-down-the-stairs dance alone in front of the band while everyone else is just watching.

53) Deadhead dads still think that putting their kid in a tie-dyed t-shirt is a totemic expression meaning "I'm not uncool like those other, old dads." Even worse, tie-dyed t-shirts that say "Grateful Dad."

54) Suede boots with soft soles. Totally impractical

55) Tevas with white socks. Tevas with skirts. Tevas with camping shorts. Tevas.

56) Jerry Garcia OD'ing on cocaine in the front seat of his Jaguar.

57) They ruined Ken Kesey. Okay, maybe it was the other way around?

58) Creepy skull.

59) Deadheads seem to lack any critical skills. Or perhaps it's more of a willful jettison of them. Either way, it's hard to debate someone who's bobbing their head and humming.

60) Everything is most decidedly NOT cool and mellow, and sometimes there ARE worries.

61) Even now, some ten years after Jerry Garcia's death, this band who recorded their first single in 1964 still dominates Bay Area culture enough to annoy me.