I feel a little unqualified to talk about the passing of Bob Weir.

I’m not a Deadhead—at best, I’m Deadhead-adjacent. I don’t covet set lists, don’t wear the uniform, and I lack the encyclopedic knowledge required to argue confidently about the Scarlet — Fire transition at Cornell ’77.

Growing up, I wasn’t just indifferent—I actively railed against the Grateful Dead. They seemed to represent everything I thought rock wasn’t supposed to be. Too loose. No center. I didn’t get it.

Then I met my wife in 2007, who’d been indoctrinated at a young age by her sister and brother-in-law.

She didn’t immediately convert me, but suddenly, the Dead were just... around. In the car. In the house. On vacations. Before I knew it, I’d seen Dead & Company more times than any other band in my life, which remains deeply confusing. And my introduction to Dead culture was just as jarring. My first trip to Shakedown was...abrupt: a maze of vegan burritos, balloons, bootleg tees, and ephemera sold out of makeshift camps by people with an aggressively laissez-faire relationship to personal hygiene.