Seventh Hour on April Fools 2000

Odie Anderson and I are friends on Facebook and knowing him now is as cool as it was to know him then. Lift operator during the Winter. Smoke jumper during the Summer. Odie had a little brother Corbie who also lived in the Valley in 1999 and he worked at Grassroots TV. On my first Saturday on the hill I met Corbie for breakfast at the Wildcat Cafe and he turned the camera on me and asked some great questions. I hope to find that clip and I will post it when I do. I Remember hoping to team up with Corbie on this project and "borrow" one of Grassroots digital cameras to shoot some high quality action shots. We skied that day I think and must have shot some footage, but high quality it never was or would it ever be. Ended up only being me and my little 8mm video cruising around on Saturdays asking my friends what day it was. Here on April the 1st 2000 I asked Odie what day it was.

I get a little shout out from Seventh Hour! John Carlin I think says welcome to Andy's Saturday Tape and Tom says yoooo! I think we're up to 17th or 18th Saturday...I was kinda like a groupie. Cool band of guys John Carlin, top of Ten Tom Van Amburgh, John Hause ripping the drums  and Tom on base. Tom Tom John John I told Tom that should be their name and he said something like yeah it should if it wasn't so gay, fagot! You had to know how close we were to know that that was really funny. He liked to give me the finger at random times and it would always crack me up. Any who check out this short shout out!

Because of my friendship with Top of Ten Tom I got to see Jerry on his last tour. We road-tripped with Lionel in Tom's pick-up truck. We caravaned with a butch of people, Sabrina and the soul sisters and hooked up with most of the posse when we got to Las Vegas. Three shows in Vegas, my last three shows of the Grateful Dead. Sucked when Jerry died. Hard to explain the loss I felt or feel when another person I love dies. As I get older seems to happen all the time. A few years later my dad would die. A couple of years back I lost my big sister to cancer. I'm still struggling with being normal with that. 

Well shoot I didn't mean to bring down the vibe, but the truth of it is I'm sure everyone has lost someone since 1999. I would bet there are a few people who were caught on the Twenty Saturday tapes who are no longer with us.

One of the first posts on this blog was to dedicate this work to King Henry Honey-butter Keith the best dog ever. He will make an appearance soon. Also would like to dedicate my efforts to Sammy dog. Sammy-D and me moved to Aspen from Maryland together. I wouldn't have made it without him, seriously. He loved it here. He'd say all the time, "Aspen beats the shit out of Baltimore" right up there with  him saying, "I freaking hate the UPS guy!" Sam talked. Sam listened too, but only to me. He died in 1999. Friends said he threw himself under that bus after we made him move out of the Red House to live in Basalt with me and Suzy. He was not for the wedding, bitt Suzy twice, peed on her pillow, called her bad names. When I was out of town he took matters into his own hands. It was pretty rough. Suzy was devastated. 

I put him in the back of the rig and tookhim up  to the top of Basalt Mountain and buried him there. It was harder than it sounds. At one very low point in my life Sam was all I had. Literally. Without him I wouldn't of made it.