Greg Proffit Writing

Tag: Memories

  • Listening To The Grateful Dead Will Teach You Everything You Need To Know — But You Must Also Dance

    Listening To The Grateful Dead Will Teach You Everything You Need To Know — But You Must Also Dance

    listening to the Grateful Dead
    Photo by Jay Blakesberg

    # 99 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: You can learn everything you need to know in life from listening to the Grateful Dead — but you must also dance.

    The Godfather is the i-Ching, I beg to differ

    My tip is a derivative of this Godfather scene in You’ve Got Mail, the 1998 rom-com starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. In the classic scene, Hanks answers Ryans questions with references to the Godfather, assuring her it is the “answer to every question,” the “i-Ching,” and “the sum of all wisdom.” It is a brilliant scene Hanks pulls off with aplomb, throwing in some impromptu Brando imitations for emphasis.

    I love the scene, but beg to differ. My go-to source is the Grateful Dead. Within their musical catalogue is everything you need to know. Non DeadHeads don’t understand (and don’t want to know) how their music infiltrates, penetrates, and saturates a Dead fan’s mindset to the last brain cell. 

    “For the truly Deadicated, theMusic Never Stops” 

    My someday book

    I plan to write a book in which every chapter will be a life-topic with related song titles — like this sampler:

    • Love — They Love Each Other, Sugar Magnolia, Not Fade Away, Comes A Time
    • God — Hell in A Bucket, Lay Down My Brother, Wharf Rat
    • Family — Me & My Uncle, Brother Esau, Mama Tried
    • Relationships — Row Jimmy, He’s Gone, Cold Rain & Snow
    • Politics — Throwing Stones, Standing On The Moon
    • Philosophy — Terrapin Station, St. Stephen, Eyes of the World, Box of Rain
    • Justice — Dupree’s Diamond Blues, Stagger Lee, Viola Lee Blues
    • Economics — Deal, Loser, Easy Wind, Big Boss Man
    • Psychology— China Cat Sunflower, Brown-Eyed Women, The Other One
    • Death— Death Don’t Have No Mercy, To Lay Me Down, Brokedown Palace, Black Peter

    This partial, non-exhaustive listing is exemplary of how songs in their extensive repertoire have application to every aspect of life. Like I said above, you can learn everything you need to know from listening to the Grateful Dead.

    Discovering all these connections made the music the soundtrack of my life; and one of my favorite lyrics serves up advice for all life’s uncertainties:

    “If you get confused, listen to the music play”

    ~Grateful Dead: Franklin’s Tower

    One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest

    As a young adult, I got lost for several years in the hippy lifestyle (including the drug use part). I travelled cross-country following the band from show to show. The community was like none I’ve experienced since. The traveling kaleidoscope of clowns was family — a home on the road. 

    On my journey in 1985, I met Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, himself instrumental in the hey-day of what is known as the 60’s movement, and equally pivotal in the Dead’s beginnings as the house band for the infamous San Francisco Acid Tests so marvelously chronicled in Tom Wolfe’s seminal volume, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. 

    I went to dozens and dozens of shows became more and more lost in the mysticism and mythology and mis-application of truths and nearly lost my physical and mental health in the melee. 

    A year later, I met someone even more famous than Kesey. At a show in March of 1986, I met Jesus. My life forever changed, though the music has remained the soundtrack of it. The accoutrements of drugs and touring, I left behind. They aren’t necessary. They really never were. The music itself is a healing gift. One I’m Grateful to God to still enjoy. 

    Dance as if your life depends on it

    So many Grateful Dead songs are about impending mortality. The idea is in their very name. A fellow writer on Medium wrote this beautiful essay Accepting Your Mortality is the Beginning of Living Well. I heartily concur. The Grateful Dead’s music helps remind me. And it reminds me that the only effective antidote against an encroaching death is to live, to sing, and by God, to dance.

    Is there anything more celebratory, more filled with life and joy, the kind of life-celebration powerful enough to mock death — than dancing in the face of it?

    I think often of the story in the Old Testamanet, when the Ark of The Covenant was restored to Israel and Jerusalem after spending months and years outside the city, a young King David danced in such ecstatic jubilation, he danced right out of his clothes. 

    I still dance that way — celebrating life — warding off death. Now, I spin and whirl and shake my bones in the privacy of my home. Almighty God is the recipient of my Gratitude as He watches the overflow of my pent-up life. Nothing expresses exultation for the joy of living the way dancing does. As I dance before my God, the band playing is “Jehovah’s favorite choir“, the Grateful Dead.

    Everything you need to know—Just remember to dance

    So yes, I’m quite convinced, you can learn everything you need to know in life from listening to the Grateful Dead… but you must also dance.

    “Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.”

    ~ Grateful Dead: Eyes Of The World
  • The Magic of Ritual & Why You Should Buy A Burr Coffee Grinder—With a Childhood Story Added to Boot

    The Magic of Ritual & Why You Should Buy A Burr Coffee Grinder—With a Childhood Story Added to Boot

    buy a burr coffee grinder
    KitchenAid burr grinder like mine. (Image from KitchenAid website)

    # 15 on my 99 Life Tips–A List is: Buy yourself a good burr coffee grinder when you can afford one. This is the one I’ve used for 20+ years. Use whole beans. You’re welcome.

    My first encounter with coffee

    I’ve been a coffee drinker since I was little—maybe 4 years old. I remember being at a family gathering at my maternal grandfather’s brother’s home in Podunk, SC. The name of the town is 96. Which has always seemed odd to me. It is nearby North, South Carolina, and even closer to Ware Shoals, which the locals pronounce as War Shoals, so I was scared to visit there as a youngster, not knowing when a battle might break out.

    Anyway, at this reunion of sorts, my grandfather’s brother, who I called Uncle James, and who was an old-school, handsaw carpenter with forearms like Popeye’s, was serving coffee. I don’t mean to give the impression he was carrying around a pot and refilling cups like a waitress at Waffle House. Just that coffee was available for self-serve all day. All. Day.

    At 4, I liked sugar, but my mom limited me to one piece of cake or pie. To my amazement, there was no limit on coffee. And there, right beside the coffeepot, sat a large cardboard tube of Dixie Crystals sugar with its own pour spout. All. Day. I probably had 8 or 10 cups of coffee-flavored syrup during the hours we spent listening to our relatives speak slow. (My mom was born in SC, near this gathering place, but she grew up and went to school in the Midwest where I was born, in Davenport, Iowa. So we spoke differently) By late afternoon, the combination of caffeine and sugar made me a nuisance, and my mom turned me outdoors to race and wrestle the dogs out back.

    But this is about burr coffee grinders isn’t it? It’s not about Southern Drawls.

    My love affair with coffee matures

    To the point. Coffee is ritualistic. It is good food. Sure. To my mind, it is the breakfast of champions. But there is something about making coffee, similar to making a cup of tea, that invites the coffee lover into the magic of ritual.

    When I was a younger man, I used to spoon Taster’s Choice or Folger’s into a cup, pour in boiling water, add milk (I stopped with the sugar), and think I was drinking coffee. That was fine on those mornings I when I’d gotten little to no sleep and the boss was in his pickup blowing the horn for me to come out and go to work. Speed was of the essence. A jar of pre-ground black dust in a jar was fast, if nothing else.

    Later, I discovered the finer things. First, I got a blade grinder and started buying whole beans. It was cheap and plastic, except for the thin metal blade that spun around to dice the beans. I learned somewhere, probably from my habitual reading and accumulation of unrelated facts, that coffee was better if you ground the beans just before brewing. I did this a while, but it wasn’t until I met a real coffee-man, a barista in a fancy coffee shop in the local mall, that I learned about burr grinders. His knowledge inspired me to buy a burr coffee grinder. I’m paying it forward.

    Burr beats blades

    Burr grinders use opposing, spinning pinwheels of ridges to crush and grind whole beans. Whereas a blade grinder will heat the beans, enough to change their composition—tainting their flavor, burr grinders don’t. Blade grinders also chop and dice uneven shapes. The grind is not consistent. Burr grinders are the slow and gentle approach to coffee bean perfection. There is a dial-in setting on burr grinders to match the grind to your coffee maker and taste preference. The grounds are uniform and perfectly alike.

    I have had the same Kitchen Aid grinder for at least 30 years. A workhorse, it has outlived 5 computers and as many televisions. It sits on my counter beside my Cuisinart coffee maker. My grinder is integral to my morning ritual.

    The Magic of Ritual

    Each morning, I empty the prior days grounds from the Cuisinart into the trash (I’m not currently composting, though I have in the past). I fill the tank with water, then I reach down my tub of beans and one Melita bamboo, unbleached #4 filter from the box I’ve cut open to expose the filters in the cupboard. Using a scoop I keep in with the beans, I shovel 7 scoops into the top of my grinder. 

    My kids recently pointed out that I use a peculiar cadence when scooping—it’s quick scoop, slow pour… quick scoop, slow pour… If they’ve been awake, they’ve heard me do this every morning for their entire lives. My grinder is older than all but 1 of my kids. So they know the peculiar rhythm of my coffee ritual.

    After the 7 scoops, I flip the toggle switch and hear the satisfying churn of the grinder. It is deep and resonant, not like the high-speed whine of a blade grinder. Those sound more like a smoothie maker or blender. My grinder is more like a throaty wood chipper. I watch the heap of grounds slowly disappear into the grinder’s maw. I assist with a tiny pastry brush, sweeping the reluctant beans into the hopper to disappear. The aroma is fresh, instant, and intoxicating.

    buy a burr coffee grinder
    My burr grinder at the center of my morning ritual. (Photo by Author)

    The ritual is peaceful, serene, almost hypnotic. It is half-mindful-half-autonomic magic. I could do it asleep, but I remain aware of every step of the process. I know every quick-slow scoop matters to the outcome, so I pay attention with a much deeper part of me than normal thinking. Like I said, it’s magic. And my burr grinder is at the center of it all.

    So, buy a burr coffee grinder. It is a fantastic investment in excellent coffee, healthy ritual, and the beauty of single-purpose, well-engineered tools. Which means it is a fantastic investment in yourself. Win-Win-Win.

  • In Remembrance of the Boulder of My Youth

    This is Boulder from up in the mountain park. This view is as close as I could find, but it isn’t as beautiful and it definitely needs a hawk. Still…

    I have the fondest memories of my brief time spent in Boulder, Colorado in the summer of 1985. I was 20 years old and On The Road. 

    I remember seeing the first Ashrams I’d ever come across. Though unusual in my limited experience, their presence gave me a cosmopolitan sense of security and serenity. There were several here with mystically-odd-sounding Eastern names, like Way of the Lotus, or Green Mountain Enlightenment Center. They were perched on street corners like watching sentinels, the way the First Baptists and Third Presbyterians are in towns back on the East Coast where I’m from. 

    At almost any time of day, I would notice little knots of 10-12 orange-arrayed buddhist practitioners moving together through the streetscape like bright, humming basketballs rolling through the kaleidoscope of pedestrians. Especially so on the weekends when the normally serene downtown park, usually frequented only by frisbee throwing tie-dyed hippies, became a veritable street fair. From the right vantage point, you could monitor three or four orange balls of slightly different hues; the distinctive robes signifying disciples from different ashrams. They moved along in the crowds like competing characters in a PacMan game, gliding as single entities pausing only to sell flowers to passers-by.

    Throngs of happy people crowded in, and the aromas of food trucks, and music on the air, reminded me of the Stumptown Festival of my boyhood in my hometown of Matthews. The park at something and Broadway with idyllic Boulder Creek running through it (every Western town I visited had a downtown park at something and Broadway) became Central Park West. Those scenes of living innocence, peace and safety, and harmony, and happiness, and good vibes, will forever live in my mind.

    On my last Sunday in town, I was invited to attend the wedding of a giddy young couple who were friends of friends. Mind you, having been there less than a month, everyone was a ”new friend” to me, but as hippies and DeadHeads, we were instant family in a way I’ve never experienced as part of any other community. 

    Early in the morning, maybe twenty of us attended the ceremony high up on the scenic overlook above the town. The Native American who performed the ceremony deemed it a ”good match” and a ”good omen” when a hawk flew out, gliding lazily into view over the backdrop of the sleepy town on the prairie floor, just as he pronounced the lovestruck pair man and wife.

    That was a good omen. That was a good day.

    That’s the Boulder of my youth. Lovers kissing on a mountain with a hawk circling overhead in approval. That’s the Boulder that I’ll remember, even though the image of peaceful, hippy town was murdered yesterday along with the poor people and policeman who lost their lives to a deranged gunman. 

    My God. May the people of Boulder lift their eyes up unto the Mountains, from whence their help comes. There is no help but in You, Maker of Heaven and Earth.