Fare Thee Well - Some of My Grateful Dead Tickets

"I know the rent is in arrears, the dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears, but it's alright"

With the last Grateful Dead show now behind us (for now) I suddenly found myself rekindling that long forgotten desire to shake and dance like some fool. And with this being a collector blog - of sorts - I was inspired to do what I do.  (Actually inspired by a Phungo post)

I figured I should scan and share some of the tickets from those early days or yore.  When I was young, stupid and carefree.

So take a look at some old tickets from my Grateful Dead adventures - when I jumped on the bus far too late in my life - but just in time to experience some great music, good folk and some lasting memories.

Above are my tickets to the only three shows I ever attended while Jerry Garcia was alive.  My first show was in Las Vegas during a scorching June summer in 1994.  I remember getting a speeding ticket somewhere between Barstow and State Line.  Then, I somehow wrangled a hotel room at Sam's Town that I filled up with at least ten other vagabonds - no easy task when you consider that they were looking out for fools like us.  I don't remember hearing Steve Winwood's band Traffic opening up for the Dead, but that's probably because I was roaming around looking for a place to cool down. 

That second ticket is for the Vegas show the following year, and if memory serves me right, this was the weekend before finals in college.  The Dave Mathews Band opened up.

The last ticket was at Shoreline in Mountain View, and was just a couple months before Garcia's passing.  I had just graduated from college and decided to take a short trip up north to reward myself.  Somewhere along the way the clutch on my truck gave out, I slept on the floor of a VW bus since I didn't have enough funds for a hotel room and witnessed the greatest rendition of the Dead's "Standing on the Moon" I had ever heard - not that I'd heard it many times before live.  It's just that Jerry's wailing of the lyric "I'd rather be with you" had me transfixed in some cosmic gaze.

Shortly thereafter, I joined the suit and tie wearing club and thought these days would be far behind me.  Little did I know, the remaining members of the band would get back together five years later at the Further Festival - The Other Ones.

Here are tickets from some of those shows; including a Bob Weir ticket where a friend introduced me to the guitar player. 

Also of note is the Alpine Valley ticket from the Grateful Dead Reunion show on August 2, 2002.  Several of my closest friends decided to have a reunion of our own, so we packed our bags and saw the Dead in Wisconsin.  Naturally, being a card collector I turned one of the photos we took into a Baseball card.  Check that out below.

These days still hold fond memories for me (both good and bad) and this past weekends shows in Chicago had me reminiscing just a bit.  I had hoped to make it to one of the recent shows, but fate had other things in mind... And that's OK. 

As any fan knows, I can always hear the show at any time online.  In fact, if you're so inclined, you can listen to the very last show from this past Sunday on soundcloud, here.

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2015 Panini Elite Baseball - All the Dodger Insert Cards

Following up on the Dodger base cards found in 2015 Panini Elite that I shared last week, below are most of the insert cards that can be found.  Of note, there are Dodger cards of both Ricky Henderson and Adrian Beltre available. 

For the 21st Century Signature cards directly below I decided to share both the base signature card and one of the parallels that are available.  On the left is the base card and on the right is a Purple Status Die-Cut Signature card numbered to 99 copies.

21st Century Signatures

#15 Joc Pederson

Blog Kiosk: 7/7/2015 - Dodger LInks - Bowa, All Stars and Jimmie Rollins

A reunion with an old friend.  Featured above are Don Mattingly and Tim Wallach with former Dodger coach Larry Bowa.

As you'll recall, Bowa was hard-nosed, grumpy and ultimately right about the lack of fight and guile within the hearts and minds of several up-'n-coming Dodger rookies during his tenure.  He preached about the old days and how players had to sacrifice to win games.  He said our future stars needed to get their butts into gear and take advantage of the opportunity they had to win now.  Instead, they lackadaisically skipped through the season like a bunch of posh reality tv stars.

He was the man sent by Joe Torre to whip those kids into shape.  Unfortunately, it only lead to a bunch of heartache. 

The above photo via Jon SooHoo/LA Dodgers 2015.  Go here to check out more pics from Jon from yesterday's game.  Below are some links to check out:

• Contrats!  Via Jon Weisman at Dodger Insider, "Gonzalez, Grandal, Greinke and Pederson join NL All-Star roster."  Per a Dodgers press release:  

 In addition, Dodger left-hander Clayton Kershaw was selected as a Final Vote candidate and has the opportunity to join Gonzalez, Grandal, Greinke and Pederson on the NL All-Star team via fan balloting, which begins immediately on Dodgers.com or MLB.com/vote, and runs through this Friday, July 10, at 1:00 p.m. PT.

This marks the second consecutive season that the Dodgers have had four All-Star representatives (2014: Dee Gordon, Greinke, Kershaw, Puig) and if Kershaw were to win the Final Vote, the club’s five All-Stars would be its most since 1995 (Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, Jose Offerman, Mike Piazza, Todd Worrell).

• Via Ron Cervenka at Think Blue LA, "‘The second half is my half’ says Jimmy Rollins Dodgers shortstop confident he will have a better second half at the plate."

“Get on the grind, that’ll do it,” Rollins said confidently. “The second half is my half anyway.

• Via Mike Oz at Big League Stew, "MLB unveils limited edition Beats headphones featuring five teams," and the Dodgers are included.  Check out a pic here.
• All-Star Weekend means that there'll be an All-Star Fanfest in Cincinnati and Topps is sponsoring a wrapper redemption program for collectors in attendance.  Go here for information.  There are six cards available and Clayton Kershaw is included.  Check it out on the right.
• GCRL brings us pics of all the Steve Garvey cards from 2006 - a whole bunch of them.  Check them out here.
• Via Dustin Nosler at Dodgers Digest, "Buehler, Funkhouser, others still unsigned from Dodgers’ draft class."

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