Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Anything with a few of Hunter's lyrics thrown in is going
to be light years away from anything the Eagles will ever do.

These autonomous zones suffer just about everywhere.
The sustained trajectory of the Dead's scene seems like one of the
longer epiphany fueled attempts at musical community in the U.S.,
despite it's rough edges, I can't help but see it's existence as a
groping ray of hope.
  

    
deadlists has them doing a short dark star tease in the first set and
returning to it 5 times in the second on 6/17/91. this must be the
reason they invented time travel in 2025.
  

    
"groping ray of hope"----> I Love it. Perfect.

But in your Eagles comment you do an injustice to the moment in time
when Don Henley secretly wrote "Desperado" about me.
  

    
Heh.
  

    
It's interesting to me that as the Grateful Dead's early leadership as
one of the great musical explorers within the context of rock and roll
declined, in the 1980s and '90s, into comfortable, less risky snooping
and poking around, the adoration of the band's fans seemed only to
grow stronger. Why is that, do you think?

I never listend much to the JGB, so cannot comment at all on the arc
of that band's musical journey, but I thought Garcia was doing
exceptionally fine work -- some of the best of his career, in my
opinion -- in the '90s with David Grisman. In the years since his death
I've wondered that if he had lived, whether Garcia would have
eventually grown terminally bored in the Dead, quit the band, and then
focused all his energy on other projects, or whether those other
projects would've re-invigorated his interest in the Dead and produced
a new era of greatness for it.      
  

    
There are many eyewitnesses who will tell you that Jerry was much more
relaxed, engaged and happy-looking at JGB shows than at GD shows over the
last several years of his life.


> as the Grateful Dead's early leadership as one of the great musical ex-
> plorers within the context of rock and roll declined, in the 1980s and
> '90s, into comfortable, less risky snooping and poking around, the adora-
> tion of the band's fans seemed only to grow stronger. Why is that, do you
> think?

The phenomenon, the legend, and the scene attracted people.
  

    

>There are many eyewitnesses who will tell you that Jerry was much more
>relaxed, engaged and happy-looking at JGB shows than at GD shows over
>last several years of his life.

Boy, was that ever *not* my perception of the last several Jerry Band
shows I saw.
  

    
Hm.  I can't say from my own experience, 'cause I didn't see the JGB at all
int he later years.
  

    
Max, there are at least a couple of young writers reading this topic who
would someday like to do what you do for a living.  Do you have any Path
of Writing advice specifically for young folks who want to write novels
when they're older?

And also, what's next for you?
  

    
Advice. Hmmm. I guess the oldest advice in the book is still the best:
Write. And keep writing. The second most important thing, I think, is
to read passionately. Find writers you admire and read all their work,
to get an idea of their evolution.

 I'm reading Mario Vargas Llosa's "Letters to a Young Novelist" now,
which is great. I may not be on board with all of his generalizations,
but it's deep stuff, worth considering. I especially like the first two
chapters. He modeled it, of course, on Rilke's classic.

What's next for me is another novel, which I'm working on. It's
somewhat slower going this time around, and will probably be a very
different book from Tiger, but it's exciting. God knows when I'll
finish it.
  

    
Hi Max.

I really enjoyed the book. I was impressed at how you made Jason a 
compelling and likeable character despite his many flaws.  It was very
telling early in the book when, after seeing how he appreciates being in
a place like Worchester, he can't find anything better to do in NYC than 
freebase in a hotel room all night!

My wife liked the book as well, but felt the female characters were not as
well drawn as the males.  (I disagree ... I thought Melanie was particularly
well done).  What bothered her was that all of the female "tour heads" 
just seemed to be someone's girlfriend.  I wonder if you'd care to comment
on the role of women amongst the serious tour-heads?

Oh, and not that it mattered, but opening the book with the aftermath of my
first show (11/2/85) sure sucked me in early!
  

    


A. TOSCANO writes, regarding post <77> in this topic:



I was at this AMAZING show, one of the best of the
90's, hands down.  Not only did it open w/the ONLY
Eyes of the World to ever open ANY of the 3,000+ GD
shows, but it was also a killer version, w/Jerry and
Bruce swaying and grooving to that beautiful song's
peaks and valley's.  I thought they might go into the
old 73/74 style jam at the end, but alas, it was not
to be.  OK, the Dark Star teases....there were way
more than five or six.  If you listen to a tape/CD of
the show, listen to Jerry and especially Hornsby, fool
around w/the Star theme all night long, even before
Bobby sings Masterpiece.  Might As Well ended the
first set, and it was a roof raiser (if Giants Stadium
had a roof....:), but that second set....WHOA!  A GD
tour-de-force.  Just when you thought the groove
couldn't get much hotter, after New Speedway Boogie
(and what a great song to revive BTW!), Jerry veers
the band into a totally unexpected Uncle John's,
followed by a jam that seemed to never end (all the
while, we were all expecting that they would do Dark
Star, considering the teases, but it didn't matter-the
show was THAT hot).  We knew that post-Space would be
short, since the pre-Drumz was very long,
BUT...anytime one gets a haunting China Doll->Sugar
Mags to close a show.....jaw droppping.
You had to be there.  It rained, it stopped, we
danced, laughed and cried.  The GD, and especially
Jerry could do that. On 6/17/91 Jerry's muse visited
him again, and we were blessed w/a classic show.

Tony
  

    
Thanks Carl for your comments. I'm glad you liked Melanie-- of all the
purely fictional characters I have written (meaning characters not
based primarily on a person from my life), she is the one I am most
attached to. She still feels like a real person to me, and it makes
sense to wonder sometimes how I might track her down and catch up with
her.

It was my experience that there didn't seem to be very many solo women
on tour, and if they were they didn't stay solo for long. This may
have been mainly because there were always more men than women in the
tour scene, as I remember. Anyway, I tried to make the people whole
personalities, whether they were someone's girlfriend or boyfriend or
not, but I'm still starting out so maybe I'll learn to do that better
with women as time goes on. Always room for improvement, which at least
precludes the possibility of forced stagnation. Thanks...
  

    

> This may have been mainly because there were always more men than women in
> the tour scene, as I remember.

I remember seeinng something in TIME magazine, probably int he late '70s,
that characterized a variety of rock audiences.  Their assessment of the
Grateful Dead crowd: "male lonerism."

Over time it became much more of a family scene, as all those guys graduated
college and got lives. :^)
  

    

Our next interview has begun in topic 203, but there's no reason for this one
to stop.

Max, it's been a pleasure to have you, and I hope you'll stick around!
  

    
Thanks David, and Steve, and everyone who joined in. It has been a
real pleasure. I'll check back in case there are any more questions.
Peace,

-Max
  

    
Thanks so much, everyone, and especially Max.  I can't wait to read your 
next book!
  

    

"TIger in a Trance" is now out in paperback.  Check it out!