You're living your dream

White picket fence

Trophy wife

and a beautiful little girl

who I hope has given you

the title I never could

You seem happy

Though all that guilt

in your eyes that night

in November tells

a different story

I hope they tell you

that I'm doing fine

Not that they

would know or care

They're anything

but altruistic

Eight years later

Still waiting for things

to get better

Cursed with the nightmares

Reliving every second

of something no one

can ameliorate

We may live in two

separate worlds

Though this Sunday

those two worlds will collide

for a split moment

when the 'most famous' words

in motorsports are delivered

I'll sit and watch the first few laps

sipping bourbon infused tea

from your old coffee mug

and wonder what your thoughts

are on the new kid behind the 24

before my break is over

and I have to get back

to my twelve

Becoming defined by a false label

well now... that is akin to giving in

to the notion of life as a fable

a story, others tell, which is a sin

because then nothing is your own to own

the beginning, the middle, and the end

those are just a tall tale told for some bones

in hot pursuit of a book that will trend

for a few weeks, maybe even a year

then after that comes the bored apathy

due a worn plot so obviously clear

it doesn't even deserve empathy

well now... that is just a form of defeat

not worth even a token cup of meat

The Central Intelligence Agency

conducted research with mind bending drugs

specifically one called "LSD"

while this might seem to be the work of thugs

far from it, because pursuing mind control

led to freeing consciousness from restraint

like a bad parent that wants to console

a spoiled child who cries over his spilled paint

turns the floor into a brand new canvas

they only turned the world into a place

where imagination's brand new compass

expanded beyond the limits of the space

The Beatles could stop singing "Love Me Do"

to write songs like "Within you without you"

With a hambone juba juba git

strum a rhyd'm dun made dem all  gon' quit

goin' t'church to play in dat gig band

play wit da devil while dey dance in sand

ware da co'bra snake fo dare ol' necktie

wid a ear ring out of rattler snake eye

cuz de devil he go on to look best

when he dun look bet'ta dan all de rest

dance dat rhyd'm all way from Africa

danced it a'gin when got to 'merica

ya know ya herd it 'n de eye can see

cum from th' one de only Bo Diddley

so go on tell me now who do you love

dat sand below or dat heav'n above

finally. 

we're doing it, 

we're really going places. 

I heard that you bought a plane ticket, 

so I bought a radio. 

I might take a bath with it. 

Waylon Jennings counted his lucky stars

because he was supposed to take that flight

getting frostbite on a bus behind cars

stuck in the snow turned out to be a plight

preferable to crashing and burning

in a plane that crashed into a corn field

but that is a lesson well worth learning

because the truth gets finally revealed

Even though on the day the music died

those names would live on in eternity

being reborn's a miracle implied

that close call earned him his posterity

so let's drink some whiskey to the near miss

like Jesus staring into the abyss

Through the backdoor he went, he preferred it

out to the dark street completely hidden

because that was the only way he fit 

through the door without his getting ridden

by as many hangers on could hold on

the pretty girls screaming, the gossips, good ol' boys

they all take their piece of meat whereupon

stripped naked of all of life's earthly joys

the Colonel makes sure to get his cut of half

of everything including his soul

sacrificing him as his golden calf

to worship the cash cow's blood in a bowl

he promises to handle all life's ills

following to mop up where the blood spills

Lightning strikes bright light flashing in the sky

the briefest burst of electricity 

which lights a fire to just a passerby 

prone to his own insensitivity

it rocks his socks off and opens his eyes

wide as can be due to the sudden shock

for it comes on as a complete surprise

like getting hit in the head by a rock

but expecting the unexpected when

you might least suspect it is denial

of life's great possibilities often

it's enough to ruin most people's smile 

because if you could see lightning coming

earth angels would not be as becoming

The Grateful Dead have a very unique history that is full of intriguing facts but here are five that tie them to tech and engineering in surprising ways.

1. One of the original "Acid Tests" which included Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters was hosted by Stewart Brand, who created "The Whole Earth Catalog" and the original online community "TheWell"; the Grateful Dead were the house band for the event and members of the band including the lyricists John Perry Barlow and Robert Hunter were original participants in TheWell.  

2. The tech connection deepens... Some of the first files traded on ARPANET were Grateful Dead set lists. The founder of archive.org is a deadhead, and Wozniak and Jobs were fans and had the Dead play at their US Festival,  

3. Sound system and instrument technology companies launched through pioneering efforts in support of the band, including Alembic and Meyer Sound. The only free gear Alembic ever gave a musician was the guitars it gave to Jerry Garcia. Meyer Sound used the band's live shows as a laboratory to develop groundbreaking sound systems in conjunction with UC Berkeley. 

4. The Dead's "Wall of Sound" concert system (shown above) in the early seventies of the past century is still considered one of the best stadium sound systems ever developed, and literally innovated the world of concert sound production.

5. Barlow, one of the lyricist's, is a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation which protects rights online.

Always knew talent when he heard it

the way a cook knows when the meat's ready

just by the sound of the sizzle; it lit

his imagination, held it steady

so that he could settle the arrangement

the colors of chords in brass, strings, those things

that put light forth from the core filament

in a steady back beat, the triangle's tings

it takes one to know one, genius, that is

for otherwise who would have even known

but you see that was a talent of his

seeing in others how the light is shown

only never to be recognized too

except by those that were the chosen few