early adopter

i see the grateful dead - or The Dead, musta took a hit to their portfolio's and are gonna tour this summer. neverminding the issue of why in the world you would want to see The Dead without jerry garcia steering the ship . . . . . . . . i am reminded of a disturbingly persistant and moderately embarrassing GD phase i had thru the swirling morass of Bad Decisions which was the late 70's and early 80's - a remnant of which - a dancing bear emblazoned canondale SR-900 POS frame i rode at the halloween-cross this year. that bike is remarkable in other ways, i am sure i will hit on them at some time or another - but the real thing the grateful dead brought to cycling in my book is this bad boy you see here.

that's right - the sony walkman circa 1980 ( - ish did i mention the murkiness of those days ?? ). this machine brought tunes to the bike - in my case in the form of stacks of maxell UDXL-II cassette tapes i diligently provided my local "taper" with. a taper was a guy who recorded dead shows, and then traded with other tapers - all ya had to do to have a never ending supply of new shows was flow the taper with blank tapes, and the occasional extra botanical bonus from time to time. never money - it was Bad Form to even insuate money exchange take place. anyway, this device was not for the feint of heart.

for one thing, it was the size of, well, a cassette tape player. no clipping this sucka onto yer belt, or arm, or god forbid - pocket. you wore it slung around yer shoulder like a chrome courier bag. and it ate AA batteries to the tune of 6-8 every 6 hours or so. so, ya had to run down to Radio Shack and set yerself up with a gigantic newfangled ni-cad battery set and charger for around 40 bucks. oh yeah, and the walkman itself was over a hundie . . . . . . those are 1979 dollars, when a tap beer was under a quarter, and gas under fitty cent, and minimum dirtbag wage was i dunno - 3.25 ?? for god's sake, a full campy derosa was under a grand !!

but i will tell you this, it rocked like a mofo. 'cept for those stainless steel goof-ball head-bands getting stuck in yer center-parted hippie hair, that is. and, i will say those trails out atpets that jerry D and the 'goat ride nowadays ?? they were ridden first by a yayhoo on a one speed schwinn with a motorcycle handlebar, malcom smith aftermarket motocross brake levers, a cruiser fork, with a big ass walkman blaring dead tapes thru bandana-held-down headphones.

so good luck to bobby W and phil L and the boys this summer. but i think i'll pass, stay home, and dust off some old cassettes when they play alpine valley. or, i'll record some alpine valley show from sirius radio and go ride the old c-dale that day. how many days since the last Dark Star, anyway ??? i think i'm out of the loop.