Grateful Dead Cover Duo, Lost in Space Jam, Returns to Earth Displaced in Time

The very same musical excursion that lasted a brief instant for Steve Roy (mandolin) and David Surette (guitar) actually elapsed over the course of nearly five minutes for those observing from terrestrial vantage points.

PORTSMOUTH, NH — During a set of Grateful Dead covers last night, Steve Roy and David Surette experienced the phenomenon of relativistic time dilation, with both jammers becoming lost at high-velocity in the un-navigable reaches of outer space before eventually returning to Earth, a planet where far more time had passed.

“It was a classic space jam,” said Lina Tullgren, a stationary observer positioned at a table in the audience at the Dolphin Striker restaurant.

A space jam, (not to be confused with the 1996 movie of the same name starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny) is a free collaborative musical endeavor that appears to non-participating listeners to be composed of haphazardly paced constellations of random notes, often separated by vast amounts of space or silence.

Roy’s and Surette’s duo, now called Grateful Times, uses just a guitar and mandolin to recreate the magical, jam-oriented arrangements of the entire classic Grateful Dead band.  Both men sing.
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Whole Foods Ground Beef Outscores Touring Musicians on Animal Welfare Scale

Space to move around, access to enrichments earn livestock superior marks

In addition to a healthy diet, these animals enjoy ample personal space, clean, uncramped sleeping quarters, and numerous other basic provisions typically unavailable to human musicians on tour.

BOSTON, MA —Whole Foods has recently adopted an animal welfare rating system for its beef, pork, and chicken products, and the national chain is touting what it calls a new level of transparency in how farm animals are raised.

As many folk musicians know, meat sold in Whole Foods stores is now labeled with color-coded stickers indicating the source farm’s score on a five-tiered animal agriculture scale.

According to the Global Animal Partnership, the independent auditing agency that assigns the grades, even achieving the lowest rating of 1 still requires that an animal be raised on a strict vegetarian diet devoid of antibiotics and additional chemicals.

“It’s really important to note that getting to Step 1 is a huge accomplishment in the [meat] industry!” wrote an enthusiastic Theo Weening of the Whole Foods blog.

“In the music industry, very few, if any, human touring professionals make it to Step 1,” noted T. Galpin, a recent music school graduate.

“I’d be disqualified for exposure to large amounts of caffeine, penicillin, pesticidal bug spray, automobile exhaust, very questionable keg beer, secondhand smoke, firsthand smoke, methyl anthrinilate, Early Times, so much processed meat, generic suntan lotion from China, Diet Mountain Dew, that kind of thing. And of course, the occasional psychedelic,” said Galpin.
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Steve Kaufman Tapped To Head Federal Guitar Program For Unemployed Men

Prolific guitarist, educator to bridge gap between acoustic music, US federal bureaucracy

Sociological research indicates that unemployed and underemployed men who play guitar are significantly more satisfied with a life of poverty than their guitar-less counterparts.

WASHINGTON, DC — In the face of a never-ending employment crisis, a weak economic recovery and intractable Republican opposition to almost all legislation of any kind, the Obama Administration is developing bold new initiatives aimed at improving quality of life for the nations jobless masses.

One current proposal that specifically targets young adults coincides with the revelation that one in two recent US college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed.

According to White House sources, the president will soon unveil the United States Acoustic Guitar Initiative (USAGI), a program offering tax credits for acoustic guitars and federally sponsored guitar training for unemployed young men.

“Putting people back to work is still our ultimate goal, but even in the best-case scenario we’re looking at many more years of record unemployment,” said a source within the Department of Labor (DOL).

Indeed, experts are describing the program as a creative and politically realistic stopgap measure aimed at easing the nation’s unemployment problem without actually creating jobs.

“To a good guitarist, food, shelter, clothing, and personal health are not just secondary, they are almost irrelevant,” said Jordan Tice, an expert.

“These young men happily survive on nothing but their own dreams of grandeur,” he added.
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Musical Masturbation Renders Teen Banjo Player Temporarily Blind

In his convalescence, Gabe Hirshfeld reviews a live Bela Fleck solo, transcribed from tablature to braille.

WEST NEWTON, MA — Gabe Hirshfeld, a highly promising teenage banjo prodigy from Massachusetts, has returned home to be with his family as he recovers from a severe, acute loss of vision suffered during a recent late night jam.

The jam, which took place in West Newton, MA, at local band Crooked Still’s afterparty, started out very well but soon grew beyond a controllable size, beginning a steady descent into musical decadence and depravity.

Hirshfeld, who is known for his sweet banjo tone, flawless technique, and a very refined sense of taste, also has a well-deserved reputation as a restrained and considerate human being.

But even he was powerless to resist the party’s musical temptations, and as the jam slowly but inevitably devolved into an amoral orgy of self-indulgence the hesitant boy gradually succumbed.
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