RIP Vince Welnick

The curse of the Dead's piano bench claims another victim.

Vince Welnick, the Grateful Dead's last keyboard player and a veteran of other bands, including the Tubes and Missing Man Formation, has died, the Grateful Dead's longtime publicist confirmed Saturday. He was 51.

He's Gone
music: Jerry Garcia. lyrics: Robert Hunter

Rat in a drain ditch
Caught on a limb
You know better but
I know him
Like I told you
What I said
Steal your face
right off you head

Now he's Gone
Lord he's gone
Like a steam locomotive
rolling down the track
He's gone
He's gone
and nothing's gonna bring him back
He's gone

Nine mile skid
on a ten mile ride
Hot as a pistol
but cool inside
Cat on a tin roof
Dogs in a pile
Nothing left to do but
smile, smile, smile

Now he's gone
Lord he's gone
Like a steam locomotive
rolling down the track
He's gone
He's gone
and nothing's gonna bring him back
He's gone

Going where the wind don't blow so strange
Maybe on some high cold mountain range
Lost one round but the price wasn't anything
Knife in a back and more of the same
Same old rat in a drain ditch
Out on a limb
You know better but I know him

Now he's gone
Lord he's gone
Like a steam locomotive
rolling down the track
He's gone
He's gone
and nothin's gonna bring him back
He's gone....

Shit!

Vince Welnick was a fucking suicide.

Excuse me while I rant for minute.

According to the report, he was depressed. Over what, exactly? A career most of us can only dream of? Being part of two influential bands? Being, if not rich, well-off enough to be able to pursue whatever dream caught your interest?

The report states that Jerry's death hit him hard. Excuse the fuck out of me, but this is how I heard about Jerry's death. I was alone in our one room apartment in the Murder Capital of the US. I had been diagnosed with cancer and told that my survival was essentially a coin toss. I was in total fucking agony from a blood clot. And Kirsten called me to say that Jerry, the only man in history who could make me dance publicly, had died. To say that the bottom fell out of my life is not over-dramatic. One of the things i was living for was seeing the Dead at New Years. Yes folks, my original short-term survival goal was to dance in 1996. And now it was gone before I could even start fighting the disease. I really felt like dying. It was too much. I hurt, everything was going wrong, and Jerry Garcia was dead.

I got over it. Jerry's death still hurts today. I still miss the magic of the lights going down, I wonder whatever happened to the guy with the animated dancing bear jacket, but I got on with the business of living.

I have never walked onto a stage and had tens of thousands of fans cheer for me. Probably never will. I never played an instrument so well that it made people weep and cheer at the same time. Vince did both these things. And killed himself. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with half my original issue of teeth, still climbing out of a ten-year sinkhole in my life caused by cancer. So I'm pretty fucking pissed at Vince right now.

Fucker, do you have any idea what I would have given to be you for one freaking show??? To just once be able to affect people like, to get them to dance? To create joy the way you and the band did? I would have sold my soul and called it a good deal.

I just do not get it. Even after a decade and a half with Kiri I do not understand depression. But I do understand that it can be controlled with therapy, drugs if necessary, and willpower. Vince had the money for the first two, guess he lacked the third.

Fuck him. Fuck him for hurting me and all the other Deadheads.

And just to make the suck-fest complete, this is only the latest death to hit the Grateful Dead family recently. Since May 17, three other members of the band's extended family have died -- crew member Lawrence "Ram Rod" Shurtliff, drummer Hamza El-Din and road manager Jonathan Riester.

Fuck today. Just fuck.