Thank Goodness It's Monday #408

SHARING SECRETS OF THE DEAD

Día de los Muertos -- Day of the Dead – takes place on November 1 and 2 in connection with the Roman Catholic observation of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. 

So why is TGIM bringing it up in the Merry Month of May?

Because the corporate folks in the wonderful world of Disney recently made headlines by attempting to secure Día de los Muertos name rights for merchandise such as snack foods and Christmas ornaments as it partners with Pixar Animation Studios Inc. to create an animated movie inspired by the holiday.

This attempt died fairly quickly once social media got involved. IMHO rightfully so. Any Disney Day of the Dead primacy is pretty farfetched. 

Thumbnail background: It’s a “holiday” celebrated primarily in Mexico but it and commemorations similar to it occur around the world. 

In Brazil, Dia de Finados is a public holiday that many Brazilians celebrate by visiting cemeteries and churches. In Spain, there are festivals and parades, and, at the end of the day, people gather at cemeteries and pray for their dead loved ones. Similar observances occur elsewhere in Europe, and similarly themed celebrations happen in many Asian and African cultures.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern Mexican holiday to indigenous observances dating back hundreds of years and to an Aztec festival dedicated to the goddess Mictecacihuatl.

Candy Calaveras

The holiday focuses on gatherings of family and friends to pray for and remember friends and family members who have died. The traditions connected with the holiday include building private altars honoring the deceased using sugar skulls, marigolds, and the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. They also leave possessions of the deceased. In Mexico, Día de los Muertos is a national holiday, and all banks are closed.

But, getting to the TGIM point, for me, all this brings to “top of mindness” –

The Grateful Dead

You don’t even have to be of a certain age or musical sensibility to be aware of the Grateful Dead and their lasting influence on popular culture. At the minimum, in their heyday, the group was the world’s biggest concert draw.

Now before we get deeper into this, let me establish that, compared to many, my Dead knowledge is sparse.

I wasn’t a Deadhead. So please, if you’re an authority, I know I’m not. I appreciate your expertise and if my take is a bit less than accurate, be cool, man. Unless I’m grossly off the mark, thanks, but we don’t need to dialogue.

 

That said, I was and am an interested fan of their eclectic musical style. And, for our TGIM purposes, today I’d like to connect the Disney … Día de los Muertos … Grateful Dead dots and explore --

 

The Grateful Dead business model. Yup, if your vision of the Dead is ‘60s, hippie, Haight-Ashbury, street-party psychedelic, Woodstock, love & peace, think again.

Counterculture -- but not. No doubt a great deal of the Dead’s counterculture image was legitimately earned. Among many other things the band –

• Maintained that all the members were equal (although Jerry Garcia was perceived as the leader and spokesperson).
• Gave 4-hours-+ highly improvised shows from no established set list.
• Allowed fans to record and share tapes of shows as long as no profit was made on the sale of the show tapes.

But … the Grateful Dead also transcended the laid-back vibe that made them attractive to many. 

In a Disney-ish way, Uncle Walt might have been proud.

Unlike many other artists of their era, they kept the rights to their intellectual property and merchandising. (And every pint of Ben & Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” ice cream still earns a royalty payment.)

And while the Disney lawyers were considering locking up the rights to Día de Muertos, Phil Lesh, original Dead bass player and reportedly the motivating force behind recent revival tours, provided some insight into an mirror-image source underlying their operative business philosophy. 

Like the traditions associated with days of the dead, “Grateful Dead” appears in folktales of a variety of cultures.

So here’s the Lesh version of how the band took on the name.

 

 “… Jer [Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary… [and] …In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, ‘Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?’” The definition there was “the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial.”

And it was done.

Coincidence? Perhaps not. Speaking of acts of charity, in their early career the band also dedicated their time and talents to their community making free food, lodging, music and health care available to all comers. According to Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia the Grateful Dead were “first among equals in giving unselfishly of themselves to hippie culture, performing more free concerts than any band in the history of music.”

Guitarist Bob Weir recalled: “The first gig as the Grateful Dead was a benefit. It always seems to us that you get some, you give some back.”

And they continued to do so. Even a half-dozen-or-so years ago when the band reformed to tour the Dead put aside a number of tickets for top-notch seats and auctioned them off online for charity. 

Weir explains: “It makes good sense. It’s just something we’ve always done, and this latest round is, I think, a well-conceived, somewhat newer version of it.”

While this Día de los Muertos debacle in the Disney world of business seems insensitive or estranged from that operative philosophy, corporate Mouseketeers too probably know –

The Secrets of the Dead: If you want to be (more) successful, help someone else become successful. You get some and you give it back. Better yet, you give some first and you get it back.

Pay it forward pays. While sometimes, especially in hard times, it may seem life doesn’t happen that way, The Law of Reciprocity is called a “law” for a reason.

It’s derived from practical experience and observation. Like laws in chemistry and physics, maybe we can’t quite get the concepts or see stuff happen at a molecular level. Still, it happens. Action begets action; doing “good” triggers more good deeds. The more you help others get what they’re looking for, the more likely you are to be helped.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: The sooner we each start to make our “Pay It Forward” payments, the sooner we’ll have banked some “reciprocity” to draw on. Begin today.

Success? It’s dead ahead. If you get confused, listen to the music play.

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373
tgimguy@gmail.com

P.S. “It’s not somebody’s idea about the way things might be, or the way things could be or should be. It’s what it is.” “Bear” Owsley, legendary 1960′s Grateful Dead soundman (and more).