Walter Cronkite Is A Deadhead?

(Just heard it on the O'Franken Factor).

Gotta love Uncle Walter!

:bounce:
dbt

He talked about it on Conan not so long ago.
He said that, yes, you could smell weed in the air and also that he enjoyed himself mightily. But he also said it was the first rock concert he'd ever been to, so "Deadhead" might be overstating it.
John
As we all know, there is NOTHING like a Dead concert. That's the way it is.

He likes the Jerry shows. :hippie:

This guy is so great!!

of Mickey Hart."

I can hear his live report in my mind's ear:

"Sitting and staring out of the hotel window,
Got a tip they're gonna kick the door in again."

:hippie:
dbt

He wrote a glowing little 'review' of Mickey's first book, "Drumming At The Edge Of Magic".

I guess they occasionally hang out.

<snip>
"Cronkite and his wife, Betsy -- they've been married 63 years and have three children, assorted grandchildren and a new pair of cats -- were in town last week. The occasion was the newsman's sold-out Commonwealth Club appearance at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, preceded by a night of merrymaking with a friend, ex-Grateful Dead drummer and world percussion specialist Mickey Hart. A torn Achilles tendon Cronkite suffered on the tennis court 2 1/2 years ago had slowed his step, but not his avidity to be out and around a city he once toured regularly with the late Chronicle columnist Herb Caen."
<snip"



http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/03/02/DDGV95B58K1.DTL

or hangs his doff in a halleluja hatrack, but knowing Mickey Hart is good enough.

(other fans include of course Al & Tipper Gore and Peter Jennings)

I was forwarded this:

From a Berkeley resident:
>
> Here's a story you'll like. I was lucky enough to be invited to the
> Kerry fundraiser in SF last night. At $1,000 a head for admission
> (fortunately, I was a guest), the Grand Ballroom at the St Francis
> Hotel on Union Square was a friendly -- if high-powered -- sea of
> gray suits, bald spots, and diamonds. A music stage at the far end of
> the immense chamber was occupied for a while by an over-amped
> acappella group, who were fair, no great shakes, but too loud to
> stand anywhere near; so we stayed at the opposite end, where the
> excited small talk of 2,000 well-heeled Bush defoliators provided a
> pleasant sonic buffer. I was frankly getting a little bored, waiting
> too long for Kerry to come out and speak from a podium midway down
> the left-hand side of the room. After the acappella group ended, I
> thought, "Finally! We're going to hear the guy from Mass with JFK's
> hairline." But then, oh bummer, more activity onstage - another band,
> another 30 minutes of standing around, waiting, having to settle for
> more little pieces of pork tenderloin with lime glaze on tortilla
> chips, and bits of marinated chicken in miniature cracker cups - if
> you can stop a waiter - instead of the classy dinner I was expecting
> for a grand a head. (Typical freeloader, aren't I?) So the playing
> starts up and I'm tuning it out, immersed in funny conversations with
> my friends, not really hearing the music. Then this bass line catches
> my ear. It sounds awfully familiar, and penetrates the buzz in the
> room. Hey, I say to Pam without looking up, these guys are covering
> "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," and they're ripping off the Dead's
> arrangement! But it sounds pretty good. So I look up and squint at
> the players, who are a good 75 yards away. What? Can it be?? Holy
> Shit! THAT'S PHIL! "When you're lost in the rain in Juarez, and it's
> Easter time, too!" And there's Mickey pounding some pads! And that
> guy with the gray beard on drum kit, it's Billy! And shit, there's
> Ray Manzarek on keyboards! And Boz Scaggs is playing guitar! And Roy
> Rogers on double-neck! And that's Norton Buffalo on harp! We work our
> way through the crowd toward the stage, which was only slightly
> easier than at the Coliseum on NYE, and all the gray suits, bald
> spots, and diamonds within 30 yards of the stage are rocking out! The
> band fires up Johnny B. Goode, and we all know who they're talking
> about. Then they blast into Iko Iko, with Mickey taking lead vocal,
> shouting the refrain that became, in my mind, the anthem of the
> night: "Gonna set your flag on fire!" It was inspiring and
> incendiary. Afterward, Kerry came out and told us, among other, more
> important things, about how he discovered the Fillmore West and the
> Dead when he came to SF after Viet Nam, and how the Dead have
> remained a big part of his life ever since. As soon as he said it, a
> woman just behind me screamed out, "Yeaaaah!!!!" I turn around
> expecting a hippy chick who got in, like me, on a miracle ticket. I
> see a 60 year old, perfectly coiffed woman in a $2,000 gown, looking
> every inch a CEO, with a huge grin on face, shaking her fists in the
> air. Every one around me is grinning, too. A couple of high-buck,
> gray-beard lawyers in front of me start up the chant: "Go Johnny! Be
> Good!" And you know, I started to believe he will be. What a night. I
> arrived with the intention of voting for the hairline - anything but
> a Bush. I left with an honest belief in the man.
>

at home. She plays drums.

made me 6 years old again. *wisftul smile*

I can still remember being miffed when Rather took over the news desk. *lol*