This is the Season of What Now

I saw Bob Weir and Rat Dog play a stellar show in Raleigh on Sunday night. Weir's fellow musicians (Young Turks all) seem to have morphed from a back-up band to a highly accomplished ensemble of improvisational players, playing with Bobby instead of behind him. The opening set was fairly workman-like--a little over an hour in length to limber up. The first song out of the box, however, was the Hunter/Garcia tune "Here comes Sunshine"--reminding all assembled of the sheer joy that lay at the heart of much of the Grateful Dead experience. After a 45 minute break, the band returned to the stage to play for another couple of hours--jamming for much of the time in Dead-like fashion. It was an inspiring performance. But what was perhaps most inspiring of all was the way that it ended--with the Dead's "The Eleven":

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now
Now is the time of returning
Our thought jewels polished and gleaming

Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming

Eight sided whispering hallelujah hatrack
Seven faced marble eye transitory dream doll
Six proud walkers on the jinglebell rainbow
Five men writing with fingers of gold
Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale
Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
Ride away in whale belly, fade away in moonlight
Sink beneath the water to the coral sand below
Coral sand below
Coral sand below

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now
This is the season of what now
This is the season of what now
What now...

No more time to tell how
This is the season of what now...
What now...

The 60 year-old Weir fairly shouted the final refrains as a challenge to whomever had ears to hear: this is the season of what now!

And for those who still weren't sure what had hit them, Bob returned to the stage to encore with the Rev. Gary Davis classic "Samson and Delilah":

If I had my way in this wicked world/I would tear this building down!

Yes, the criminal plutocracy has our democracy against the ropes, but this, my friends, is the season of what now, what now...

We must thank Mr. Weir for his years of Deadication by moving forward with the Whitmanian Republic. All of our politicians are irrelevant--even the one or two decent ones. All they can accomplish is self-service and disaster. But this is the season of what now.

What now...