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You are here: Home / Absent Friends / Now This Is A Job Eval…

Now This Is A Job Eval…

by | 105 Comments

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How about a guy officially deemed “unreliable, irresponsible, immature, unwilling to accept authority…[who] has evidenced no  desire…to be assigned to any specific job assignment…?”

Which is to say thanks to old friend and lovely (and important) science writer Steve Silberman, I was led to a genuinely tasty military file, of which this is a sample:

The Patron Saint of Jackalry...

And who is this recruit Jerome?

That would be this guy:

Can you imagine being Jerry Garcia’s drill sergeant?

This thread: it is open.

 

Reader Interactions

105Comments

  4. 4.

    guachi

    It’s not? Huh. You’re right.

    Got into a stupid FB argument with someone who wanted to know if conservatives were as mean to Obama as liberals are to Trump.

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    Hah!

    Did Jerry lose the finger working motor pool?

    Given he was probably drafted, Garcia’s interest in getting out of the Army is quite understandable. Few years younger and he’d have been ;Nam bound. “Goin’ down that road, feelin’ bad.”

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @Tom Levenson: I give it as such.

    I REALLY have a hard time imagining Jerry Garcia in the Army. But I have to admit this is pure gold. I’m not a Dead Head but I do like “Touch of Grey” so there might be hope for me. Or not.

  10. 10.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    Absolutely loved the albums, but had no patience for the live shows, what with all of the endless improvisations.

  11. 11.

    Alison Rose

    @trollhattan: Nope, he lost it when he and his brother were playing around with an ax.

    Garcia wasn’t meant for military life, and thank God for that. I wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for the Dead. So watch your hater comments, folks, it’s personal! ;)

  14. 14.

    geg6

    @debbie:

    Not a fan of any of it but I stupidly got talked into going to a Dead concert at Three Rivers Stadium many years ago.  I’ve been to, literally, well over a hundred concerts and that one was the worst of them all.  Music was boring and droned on through endless, pointless solos and the fans were disgusting.  I left after about an hour and called a friend to come get me.  Made me yearn for a Hank Williams concert, previously my worst of all time.  I worked at a country radio station at the time and was forced to go to that one.

    ETA: And understand, I saw bands at CBGB’s back in the day, so I know about weirdo fans.  Disgusting as the place was, the music was fucking awesome.

  15. 15.

    MomSense

    The Dead plays a central part in a very sweet movie called The Music Never Stopped. JK Simmons is fantastic.  It is sad, but in the best possible way.  Watch it!

  16. 16.

    MaryL

    I don’t post here very often, but I need to unload and this seems like a good place to do it.

    My central ac is out, so I have window units in two rooms in my house – the den and the bedroom.  My husband has developed chest congestion, and while I’m 80 percent sure that it’s just bronchitis (which he is prone to), we’re obviously being extra cautious, so he is isolated in the den.  This means that, until we get our test results in 3-5 days, in addition to the constant terror of worrying that he has COVID (especially because the aforementioned tendency to develop bronchitis makes him especially at risk if he does have it), I am stuck living mostly in our not very large bedroom with 4 dogs.  And speaking of those dogs, we were told 3 weeks ago that she probably has lung cancer and only one week to live.  Of course, we were given similar news (though different type of cancer) 3 years ago, and she’s still going strong and seems totally recovered from the incident that led to lung cancer diagnosis.  Nonetheless, I’m still constantly concerned that she’s going to have another episode, which will finally prove fatal.

    Long story short – I’m fucking stressed and feel like I can’t talk to anyone about it, so thanks for providing an open thread for me to dump on.

  17. 17.

    JMG

    @geg6: You didn’t like the Grateful Dead OR Hank Williams? Surely you meant Hank Jr., didn’t you?

    So the song Uncle Sam’s Blues was autobiographical.

  18. 18.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    Heh. I saw the Dead about when the Ramones came out. I was a huge fan of two-minute songs, so the concert wasn’t enjoyable. The albums are far more disciplined; I will always say Workingman Dead and American Beauty are among the best albums of all time.

  20. 20.

    geg6

    @JMG:

    Sorry, to be clear, it was Junior.  But I probably would have hated the old man, too.  There isn’t much country music that I like.  Working at that radio station was a very painful episode of my life.

    And the Dead suck, too.

  24. 24.

    Eunicecycle

    @MaryL: so sorry you are going through all this, on top of everything going on. Hope you get negative test results; that will alleviate some stress. You and your husband are in my thoughts.

  26. 26.

    HumboldtBlue

    @MaryL:

    I’m fucking stressed and feel like I can’t talk to anyone about it, so thanks for providing an open thread for me to dump on.

    This is the place to dump, here’s to all the best for and you and your family.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    @MaryL:

    Mary I’m so sorry.  I’m glad you came here to hopefully lighten your burden a little.  Can you find something calming or repetitive to do?  Even some breathing exercises or a game of solitaire – anything just to slow down your thoughts.  Brushing the dogs or belly skritches and some music or a familiar movie.

    I’ll keep checking in case you come back to see how you are feeling.

  30. 30.

    Sandia Blanca

    @Van Buren: I was a college student in the Bay Area in the mid-1970s, and one of the people from my dorm used to go hear The Dead play every single night! Of course she was always stoned. But as far as I knew she also did just fine in her classes.

    I went to one concert of theirs, at the legendary Winterland, and it was fun, but it did not do too much for my fandom. Too many other great bands around to obsess about.

  31. 31.

    MaryL

    @MomSense: Thanks (and thanks yo everyone).  I meditate a little, play Candy Crush, and watch YouTube video essays on pop culture and fashion, which helps.  Things will be better once we get our positive test results (fingers crossed), although we then have to immediately start preparing for his knee replacement surgery in two weeks.  Sigh.

  32. 32.

    tzadtednitz

    Some of the best times of my life have been at Dead concerts (and in the parking lots afterwards). Honestly if you never used psychedelics at one of their shows, you never got the full experience.
    (archive.org has most of the Dead shows that you can stream for free)

  34. 34.

    trollhattan

    @Sandia Blanca: A college roommate played “Not Fade Away-Going Down That Road….” from the Skull and Roses album serially, daily, as he attempted to learn in on guitar. For an entire semester.

  35. 35.

    MomSense

    @MaryL:

    I got sucked into some Monty gardening  videos on YouTube  the other night.  I don’t know why I usually forget to check for good things to watch on YouTube.

  36. 36.

    Calouste

    I’m seeing reported by the Guardian that the shitgibbon just did a dementia-riddled interview on Telemundo where he was pandering to the Latinx by saying he who sign an immigration bill (non-exsistent) that would reinstate DACA and provide a path to citizenship.

  37. 37.

    Just One More Canuck

    When my daughter was about 6, we were driving home from a friend’s party. It was late in the afternoon on a beautiful fall day, when “Ripple” came on the radio. My daughter listened and said afterward, “I like that song – it sounds like he was singing about today”

    Ripple is one of the most beautiful songs ever written

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “I can foresee no national emergency that would merit recalling this officer to active duty.”

    My rater’s take on my lieutenant when I was a brigade Signal officer.

  42. 42.

    The Thin Black Duke

    I’m the oddball in that I enjoyed the live shows of the Dead more than the albums. Then again, those are the expectations I carry with me whenever I go out to a concert, because if the live show is an exact replica of my CD at home, why should I leave in the first place? At a concert, there’s always the possibility that something will happen that will absolutely amaze me. Those moments are priceless.

  43. 43.

    Ken

    @HumboldtBlue: Was the umbrella incident before the announcement that tomorrow’s New Hampshire rally is cancelled? Because I definitely see a causal connection.

  45. 45.

    frosty

    @MaryL: My wife did both knees about 3 weeks ago. The advice everyone gave us has been good. 1) Do NOT look at any videos of the procedure. 2) Do all the PT and exercises. Do more if you can. 3) Save the oxy prescription for PT and take one before each session.

    One other thing we learned was that for day to day pain relief as soon as possible switch from oxy to Tylenol Arthritis which will cover you for 24 hours and stay under the daily dose limit.

    I can’t think of anything else. She’s doing great, managed stairs 3 days out of the hospital, stopped using a walker after 2 weeks.

    Everyone I know who did it says it’s a life changer. Good luck!

  46. 46.

    Aleta

    @MaryL: That’s really rough.   I’m sorry you’re going through this miserable heat and worry.  Sometimes for relief I use small  ice packs in the house or driving.  (Made by freezing water in a plastic bottle or ziplock bag, or a frozen wet washcloth.)   Stick them in my shirt or under the dog’s bed for him.  For me it takes away the body heat for a while.  When the dog can’t stop panting  (hard to tell if it’s the heat or his health),  he seems to calm down if his feet and under his ears are cooled with a wet cloth.

  48. 48.

    Curtis Maine

    @trollhattan: Great question!  He lost half his middle finger as a young boy when it was accidentally cut off by his brother with an axe.

  50. 50.

    oldster

    That performance review?

    I think his CO liked him, and wrote it that way to help him get a discharge.

    If the CO had hated him, he would have written it differently –transferred him to worse duties, recommended re-training, made him jump through more hoops.

    This one basically says, “he wants out — so let’s let him out.”

  51. 51.

    TheronWare

    As expected, tRump is commuting Roger Stone’s sentence. The banana republic is complete!

  54. 54.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @oldster: I tend to agree with you.  He didn’t go the full Love and Death “You’re the worst soldier I’ve ever seen!” route.  I suspect he regaled his peers with “Jerry Garcia was in my command!” war stories for years thereafter.

  55. 55.

    geg6

    @frosty:

    My John had both knees done about seven years ago and you advice is spot on.  I think he only took the pain meds the first few days and never took them again.  He took Motrin from then on, mostly for PT.  And diligence with PT and actually doing a bit more every day beyond the PT did wonders.  It definitely changed his life.  In big ways and small.  He’s had no trouble since.

  56. 56.

    Kent

    Heh….

    When I was an undergrad at Reed College in Portland in the early 80s the frequent thing to do was take Dead road trips down to SF on the weekends.  It is about a 10 hour drive so you basically pile into a car with friends, drive down late Friday night or early Sat morning for a Sat evening show in SF, get severely baked, and then hope someone was still sober enough to make the drive back home on Sunday.  Maybe if we were lucky we would be hooked up with someone from SF who had a floor we could crash on but that didn’t always happen.  I honestly don’t remember the actual music all that much except that every song was a long long endless guitar improv.

    And yes, by far the worst concert I have ever seen was a Hank Williams Jr. concert in Seattle in the early 90s.  I went with a girlfriend who wanted to go with some of her friends.  He was obviously completely drunk, raged around some, played some of his old stand-by songs that everyone (but me) seemed to know the words to, and probably didn’t last more than 45-50 minutes on stage.  I was frankly glad he was too drunk to continue because the whole thing was painful and hard core Hank Williams Jr. fans are not my favorite sort of crowd.  Very much a pre-MAGA crowd for sure.

  59. 59.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Timurid: Commuted, not pardoned.  Stone is still a felon, but a pardon would have nullified Stone’s 5th Amendment out, leaving him in a position to be compelled to testify against the traitor.

  60. 60.

    Gin & Tonic

    @geg6: Doing your PT (and more if you can) is key. That’s what I learned after my arm thing. Two years after, I went to see my physical therapist, did a flat-hand push-up and she said “you should be in a book.”

  61. 61.

    cliosfanboy

    I always thought of them as the Dreadful Grate, but Im glad you all enjoyed the. Just not my cup of tea.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MaryL: Sorry to hear that.  Hope it’s just bronchitis too.  (Weird to say that)

    And I hope the pooch recovers and the AC gets fixed.

  68. 68.

    Patricia Kayden

    So much for the law and order President. It’s good to know that Trump is okay with commuting the sentence of a criminally convicted friend while decrying peaceful Black protesters as criminals.

  69. 69.

    Zzyzx

    I’m enough of a deadhead that I’m stoked to watch a YouTube replay (On the Dead’s channel) in 30 minutes of a concert in Raleigh I attended 30 years ago tonight.

  70. 70.

    Jay

    @MaryL:

    {{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}

    it is the human’s first time trying to change the world. and they are exhausted. so while they rest for a little bit. i have stolen their sign. and will trot proudly around the house with it. until they are ready. to fight again— Thoughts of Dog® (@dog_feelings) June 10, 2020

  71. 71.

    TS (the original)

    @TheronWare:

    Making sure Stone keeps his mouth shut – while anyone who tells the truth about trump is fired, resigns or goes back to prison.

  72. 72.

    Bruuuuce

    @The Thin Black Duke: Liking the live performances more than the albums doesn’t make you an oddball at all. I’d call it a mark of musical taste

    Then again, I like live music better than studio albums in almost every case (including both the Dead and my beloved prog rock).

  75. 75.

    JMG

    @geg6: We must agree to disagree. I spent one of the best 2 years of my life in a country band, and Hank Williams is one of the 15-20 Americans I’d call a true genius.

  77. 77.

    Jay

    ICE is set to launch a six-week "Citizens Academy" course on immigration enforcement, which will include training for citizens on how to arrest undocumented immigrants. https://t.co/mhpmRXBjPg— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) July 10, 2020

    they've also barred FOIA requests, so we can't find out precisely which members of hate groups sign up! beyond, of course, the fact that the course is a hate group, too https://t.co/AH1tuNwoik— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) July 10, 2020

  79. 79.

    mrmoshpotato

    @HumboldtBlue:

    Trump just committed a crime. By commuting the sentence of Roger Stone, a co-conspirator, he just engaged in obstruction of justice. 

    🎶A-criming we will go!  A-criming we will go!  We’re mobster shitbags, and a-criming we will go!🎶

  80. 80.

    Jay

    There are some texts which, when opened, lay waste the minds of those who contemplate them and spread devastation all around.And yet, knowing this, we still sought the release of Donald Trump’s tax returns. https://t.co/qh9Jr1eVpz— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) July 10, 2020

  81. 81.

    Barbara

    @Kent: I didn’t go to many concerts but a friend invited me to his annual summer Dead trek. Because he had an internship he insisted that it be on a weekend and the closest venue was Troy, Wisconsin. Did I mention I lived in Pittsburgh? We left on Friday night and listened to WOWO nearly the whole way there (This is a story about Jack and Diane . . .) and arrived in Chicago as the sun was rising. We kicked around the city and made it to Troy to see the band parachute onto the field. I fell asleep about 20 minutes in. Couldn’t stay awake through all those repetitive instrumental solos. We eventually returned to the car and slept beside it until it started raining at 3:00 am or so, and then we got in the car and drove home.

  86. 86.

    Jay

    If you’re heading there still, come with folks, create a plan amongst yourselves of how you’ll stay safe, let someone else know your number, legal name, and DOB and then set a time to check in with each other. https://t.co/umDlUSfHl0— We the People Michigan (@WeThePeople_MI) July 10, 2020

    If you’re heading there still, come with folks, create a plan amongst yourselves of how you’ll stay safe, let someone else know your number, legal name, and DOB and then set a time to check in with each other. https://t.co/umDlUSfHl0— We the People Michigan (@WeThePeople_MI) July 10, 2020

    They targeted the lead on the megaphone and 5-7 officers swarmed him, slamming him into the ground and kicking him in the head and then kneeling on his neck— abolicious (@telushk) July 10, 2020

  89. 89.

    kindness

    I saw the Dead once growing up back east.  Watkin’s Glen.  But I moved to the Bay Area and there we were seeing them 20 times a year and not having to travel out of the area.  Yea I’ve had some fun.  Still miss him.  His heroin addiction was showing.  Deadheads knew it all along but didn’t really talk about it before his diabetic coma.  In their prime you’d go to a weekend of shows and 2 of the 3 would be stellar and one would be good.  The last couple years 1 would be stellar and 2 would be good.  I still went.

    I think Jerry joined the Army.  Jimi Hendrix did the same thing.  Got in and immediately realized they made a huge mistake.  Hendrix was kicked out too.  I don’t think there was a draft in 1960.  That didn’t start till later.

  91. 91.

    Origuy

    Living in the Bay Area, I saw The Dead only about six times. The most memorable was a benefit for Vietnam Vets in 1982 at Moscone Center in San Francisco. Country Joe and Jefferson Starship played, too.

    I think it may have been the only rock concert at Moscone; not a great venue for music. I don’t remember much about the show except running up a down escalator.

  92. 92.

    kindness

    @Gin & Tonic: I was 16.  I told my parent that a neighborhood friend (who had a small sailboat) & I were going up to Kennybunk Port Maine for races that weekend.  They were fine with it.  We went to Watkin’s Glen instead.  Biggest group of people I’ve ever been in in my whole life.  I have stories about that weekend.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: It wasn’t that bad.  It had a kinda Mt. Rushmore vibe to it.  If you like that sort of thing…

    Ted & Helen, wasn’t it?

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    Jerry Garcia lived on a farm next door to David Grisman, who is a stellar mandolin player. They became friends and played together a lot. David had a recording studio in the basement, and he and Jerry recorded their evening sessions of acoustic music. Those sessions are at least in part available, because we have a few of them.

    It isn’t country music, kind of a cross between folk and rock. Jerry was a master on guitar, but also played other acoustic instruments. Highly recommended sessions. Any of David Grisman’s albums are good… one great one is duets using classic antique instruments. I forget the other performer, but really classic performances on wonderful instruments.

  99. 99.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    Hee! The first thing I *knew* about the Grateful Dead… well, let me back up.

    My older brother loved the Grateful Dead, so I assumed they sucked. (It was that kind of family. I loved the hell out of my brother – but I didn’t like him much, most of our lives.)

    The first thing I *knew* about the Grateful Dead was, they put out the word “Hey, guys, we can’t come back to Philly because of the gigantic mess y’all are leaving behind.”

    Within 48 hours, said “gigantic mess” was cleaned up. I was stunned, and boggled. That a band would *say* that; and that their fans would *respond*, like *that*?!? (I’m guessing I’m not remembering and reporting all the details correctly – but this *did* happen, in some fashion. I can still remember my first thought of “oh, yeah, right, like fans will… HOLY CRAP THEY DID!!!!”)

    And you know, I actually liked my brother a bit more after hearing that – he’d call himself a Deadhead, and I didn’t realize how complimentary that could seem, until the day he was dying, and I took him to a Dead (no longer “The Grateful…”; this was after Jerry died) concert in Camden. I told some folks nearby “hey, my brother’s sick, he can’t move too good, so dance, please, but keep an eye on him, he can’t get out of the way…” and by god, THEY TOLD OTHER PEOPLE!!! My brother had a safe boundary all around him.

    As a johnny-come-lately, perhaps I don’t have grounds to say this, but that sounds like a service report to do Jerry proud.

  100. 100.

    Philbert

    @kindness: Jerry joined the Army rather than jail after running off with his mom’s car evidently. Agree the CO was kind to let him go.

  102. 102.

    Peter

    For those of you who might be interested, there’s a podcast by Mike Guy called Last Days that does a pretty tremendous job of recounting the final 1995 summer shows and period leading up to Garcia’s death.

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