3) How did they get the name? (Grateful Dead)
Description
This article is from the Grateful Dead FAQ, by John J. Wood, Eric Nay and Ihor Slabicky tcgdd@hotmail.com with numerous contributions by others.
3) How did they get the name? (Grateful Dead)
In Blair Jackson's book on the Dead, Garcia is quoted as saying:
"One day we were over at Phil's house...He had a big dictionary. I
opened it and there was 'Grateful Dead', those words juxtaposed. It was
one of those moments, you know, like everything else went blank, diffuse,
just sort of oozed away, and there was GRATEFUL DEAD in big, black
letters edged all around in gold, man, blasting out at me, such a
stunning combination. So I said, 'How about Grateful Dead?' And that
was it." The dictionary entry reads along these lines:
GRATEFUL DEAD: The motif of a cycle of folk tales which begin with the
hero coming upon a group of people ill-treating or refusing to bury the corpse
of a man who had died without paying his debts. He gives his last penny, either
to pay the man's debts or to give him a decent burial. Within a few hours he
meets with a travelling companion who aids him in some impossible task, gets
him a fortune or saves his life. The story ends with the companion disclosing
himself as the man whose corpse the hero had befriended.(Funk & Wagnall's
Dictionary).
The name has also been attributed to this quote, though it's generally
believed that they came across this one later..
"We now return our souls to the creator,
as we stand on the edge of eternal darkness.
Let our chant fill the void
in order that others may know.
In the land of the night
the ship of the sun
is drawn by the grateful dead."
-- Egyptian Book of the Dead
Chris Forshay <FORSHAC@ceb.ucop.edu> reports that the original
source for the quote isn't Blair Jackson's book; the source is
Mike Lydon's book "Rock Folk".
GDTS TOO (http://www.gdtstoo.com,
Customer Service Number: (415) 898-2364, Monday-Friday, 11am-5pm, PST
Tour information and mailorder telephone hotline: 415-457-6388)
now does mail order for many shows. Their mailing address is now
POB 8150
San Rafael CA 94912
Their new customer service number is 415-898-2364.
Like GDP, they moved to Novato.
Hotline: our main phone number for the hotline is still 415-457-6388.
We have modernized with a new digital hotline that works very well.
There is no more East Coast hotline.
Mailing: we are eliminating as much as possible the Registered mail.
Instead we use FedEx 2-day service. The charge is $8.00 for addresses
West of the Mississippi. $10.00 for addresses East of the Big River.
Registered mail is still available upon request, and for Canadian
orders.
Money orders: we accept USPS (postal) money orders and Western
Union money orders. (Western Union bought out American Express
a while ago.)
For Canadian orders, we accept only Canadian postals, in US dollars.
Postage: has of course increased to 33 cents... and will probably increase
again soon.
For the rest, we still do things very much the same as we always did.
Continue to:
My Books
