Learn Real English Conversations 4 - Grateful Dead

Joe: Hey, did Tim call while I was out?
Kristin: No, he didn’t, why?
Joe: Well, he told me he had an idea he wanted to run by me. So, uh, I figured he
might’ve called.
Kristin: What, what’s the idea?
Joe: Uh, well, he’s actually thinking about writing a book about, uh, the time he spent
on the road with the Grateful Dead.
Kristin: Oh, that would be a great topic for a book. You know, whenever you speak
to me about the Grateful Dead, I’m all ears.
Joe: Yeah, I mean, I, when I look back on the years I spent following them around,
jeez, I, I followed ‘em all over the place. But, I mean, that was some of the most fun
I’ve ever had in my life I think.
Kristin: I can imagine.
Joe: I mean, y’know, first off, y’know, they’re my favorite band.
Kristin: Right.
Joe: And, uh, second, the other thing that really drew me to the scene was the fact
that there was just this traveling, uh, group of people that followed them everywhere.
It was like, almost like a bazaar sort of…
Kristin: Mm-huh…
Joe: …y’know…
Kristin: …mm-huh…
Joe: …and…
Kristin: Well, it’s definitely a subculture of America.
Joe: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean some people even called it a cult [laugh] y’know…
Kristin: [laugh]
Joe: And, uh, it was so unique at the time, uh, y’know.... Because there really wasn’t
anything else like it. I mean you had all these hippies driving around, following the
band from city to city. And, uh, y’know, when you’re on the road driving from one
place to the next, you’d see the same people. You’d see the same cars, all these VW
buses drivin’. And, uh, y’know, uh, people supported themselves, uh, by, uh, selling
things in the parking lots at the concerts.
Kristin: Mm-huh.
Joe: Like, a lot of people would like make jewelry and sell it. A lot of people would
sell, uh, clothes that they made, um.... Another, uh, favorite amongst people was to,
uh, just, uh, sell beer or to make food. And that’s what I actually did a lot of the times.
I’d make sandwiches or I’d sell beer in order to help, y’know, defray the cost of the
tickets.
Kristin: Uh-huh.
Joe: Because it could get a little expensive, y’know.
Kristin: Right.
Joe: But, y’know, the other strange thing is that you’d have this, like large circus
traveling essentially following the band. And it was all these, like, hippies. People
with like really long hair and beards and like, y’know.... Really sometimes like people
who hadn’t like showered for days. Because they were just traveling with the,
y’know…
Kristin: Yeah.
Joe: …around, following the band.
Kristin: Yeah.
Joe: Because, you know, especially during the summer, you’d just stay at
campgrounds, y’know? So you’d camp and they might not have a shower, y’know…
Kristin: Right [laugh].
Joe: I remember like, so many times washing my hair, like, under a, y’know, a faucet
in a sink of a bathroom. Or, y’know, under a hose somewhere [laugh].
Kristin: [laugh]
Joe: And having someone help me because, y’know, I had the long hair.
Kristin: [laugh]
Joe: Oh man, and, uh, y’know the other thing is, you’d travel around. And
sometimes be driving through these really small conservative towns. And you can
just imagine what it must have been like from their standpoint. I mean they see these
people who don’t look anything like them. I mean…
Kristin: Right.
Joe: …they’re all clean-cut looking, these people who live in this town.