birdenwheel_gg80nt – Birdenwheel

Collage for Percy

“Percy let his legs, wrapped in baggy pants, dangle over the side of the train. He smelled the dank coal wafting from the open cars and listened to the bump and rumble of the tracks not far from his feet. The train screeched too and occupied Percy’s mind with notes higher and less pleasing than his fiddle music. He thought maybe he could find a place on the ground in the next few days, maybe build a fire, rest, hunt something decent to cook up and eat. That’s what he wanted. Maybe life was supposed to be that simple.”

Original excerpt from Birdenwheel by Lindsay Anne Rice

#deadhead #birdenwheel #gratefuldead

Collage for Hettie

Character Collages

“As she sat out on her back porch, peeling a bucket of early apples, Hettie scanned the skies for that bird. For the past few weeks, a raven the size of a small vulture had started visiting her porch. As soon as Hettie would come outside, he’d fly away. She knew it was the same one visiting though, because through her window she could see, in the outline of its body, that its right wing had a whole section missing, like he’d gotten caught in a cage or something. He wasn’t a particularly comforting presence, all sooty black, something waiting to turn to ash, and his piercing caws had woken her twice in the middle of the night.”

Original excerpt from Birdenwheel by Lindsay Anne Rice

#deadhead #gratefuldead #birdenwheel

Collage for Rowen

Character Collages

“Jerry and Bob walked on stage, picking up their instruments. The band members looked at each other, and then broke into the funky low-down rhythms of “Shakedown Street.” It was a good surprise for Rowen and he stood up with all the others letting the guitar grooves and the piano notes bend his knees. The band sang, encouraging everybody to find the heart of the city, by just looking around. The music enveloped Rowen. He was cool. It was fine. He watched Bobby’s wrist moving like a steady metronome. The room between the seats began to widen and Rowen let his feet swivel back and forth, feeling the whole audience. It was this kind of groove that he came for and the wah-wah flavors of Jerry’s guitar tempted him further”

Original excerpt from Birdenwheel by Lindsay Anne Rice

#deadhead #gratefuldead #birdenwheel

Collage for Devon

Character Collages

“Devon searched the lot, but he also searched the skies. He didn’t know, maybe PJ was just a bird now. Maybe he swooped the skies over the lot, or anywhere, and listened to the music from above. Or maybe the music and partying didn’t mean anything anymore to him. He was such an institution in the scene though. Back in the 80s, Devon remembered PJ everywhere he went, sitting on a blanket talking to a lady, swinging his goods on Shakedown, twirling with the spinners, holding lofty conversation with Deadhead come lawyers. He could bridge things and people.”

Original excerpt from Birdenwheel by Lindsay Anne Rice

#deadhead #gratefuldead #birdenwheel

Collage for Cass

Character Collages

““You need a ticket, Doll?” He said.
Cass blushed. “Yes, face value. Do you have one?”
He nodded. Cass pulled the cash from her back pocket, but the man pushed her hand gently away.
“No need,” he said handing her the General Admission ticket.
“Really?” Cass asked.
“Yeah, I always bring an extra. Have a good show.” He winked and took off towards the entrance.Wow, Cass thought, looking at the date on the ticket: June 25,1991 Bonner Springs, Kansas. She beamed, holding it as she walked towards Hill.
“Oh, good girl! You got one!”
“Yeah, this guy,” Cass said looking towards the entrance, “just gave it to me.”
“Perfect! A miracle for your first show, you lucky girl,” Hill said.
“Miracle?” Cass asked.

Original excerpt from Birdenwheel by Lindsay Anne Rice

#deadhead #gratefuldead #birdenwheel

Dark Star Jubilee 2019

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Me and my Little Blue Wing made it ten hours across the Midwest, flapping the wide lands—a lake holding trees, bordering highway and fields. On 70 going west from KC, I passed Kingdom City—gateway me towards the Jubilee grounds. I stopped in Ozarkland, those hilly stretches that landed me in star-studded, chewy-taffy Missouri. I soared across a bit of Illinois, chasing bluebirds and Grateful Dead on my stereo. I dipped and darted across Indiana- shouting “Terre Haute, Terre Haute,” like a backyard football coach, just to remember an old tour friend from there. Under the arches, into Ohio, Stella blue stretch and onto Columbus, thenHebron. Oh, Dover, oh, Buckeye Lake, oh playground. Truly this is where it started, back in 92’ trekking here with high school friends, and breaking the world of the freedom-riding America wide open, to stick with me and keep me coming back.

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Back in the early 90’s when I was still in high school, my love for the Grateful Dead began. It was easy to flow with the free ramblings of the music, the words that became my backdrop, the creativity that stemmed from my love of poetry and color and nature.

Even before I graduated, I logged hours on the road, and turnstile entries around the country. It didn’t hurt that I had a cool Deadhead boyfriend from California, who knew how to mail order and sell cases in the lot.

After my first mini tour, I finished my last semester of high school, tracing tape covers and stringing beads during class. I walked around with a songbook, and always wore my patchy hat and long hair flying underneath.

Everything was geared on getting back to Dead tour, back to the music and the glimpse of an American freedom, I didn’t know before in my small town Kansas life.

Birdenwheel: Novel set in the Grateful Dead scene of 91′-94′

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Set in New Mexico, Southern California and across the United States, this novel incorporates the music of the Grateful Dead…its magic, storytelling and roots.

Ex-con and Deadhead Devon Maxwell must come to terms with his humanity and pain, even as he encounters mystical experiences of becoming a free-flying raven and the realities of being a father to the daughter he does not get to see. When Cass, a beautiful teenager who longs to enter the larger world like her absent but worldly photojournalist father, is lured into defying her mother and joining the Grateful Dead scene by young Rowen, who avoids his own grief at his mother’s death by continually following the band, Devon befriends Cass and tries to protect her from being hurt by Rowen. Yet Cass is too naïve to see how damaged the older Deadhead is or the complexity of the younger man’s escape from emotion.

Meanwhile, Rowen’s grandmother tracks the mystery of an old quilt hanging on the wall of her remote New Mexico cabin with the help of her great-grandfather’s spirit. She wants the spirit to assist her grandson Rowen, while the spirit pushes her toward helping Devon, who is distant family, recognize the importance of ceremony in his search for his true self. As the Grateful Dead summer tour progresses, Cass becomes a key to helping Rowen process his grief and Devon find the ceremonial marker of his humanity before he can fly away.