Do. It. Yourself.

 

Home Grown

The reporting in the first season of Dead and Gone stands in stark contrast and opposition to the story Patricia Gioia tells in her book, The Berkeley Marina Murders:  One Family's Story.  Ms. Gioia raised eight children—three daughters and five sons.  Mary Regina (named after the Virgin Mother, "Queen Mary") was the seventh child and youngest daughter.  In the preface to her book,  Gioia tells us:

"After Mary's death, I collected countless newspaper articles, made endless notes of telephone conversations, and filled box upon box with legal documents, all relating to our court case.  It is an inventory of pain, with nothing discarded, because I promised Mary one day I would tell her story." (p. 11)

Her book is a self-published work of love and memory.  Many Deadheads recognize "Do-it-yourself" as an important maxim in the community's traditional ethos, and will probably appreciate this work.

Examples of Deadheads abiding by this maxim abound.  One need only consider the work of the tapers, tape-traders, and the work of all those who hand-decorated the envelopes in which they sent their ticket requests.  Or there's the handmade bracelets, the t-shirts, the grilled cheese, and the kind burritos.*  And then there is the work one finds in The Golden Road and Beyond, Deadbase, and Skeleton Keys.  One also finds examples of Heads following the "Do-it-yourself" maxim in in academic books like Reading The Grateful Dead, Studying The Dead, and Deadhead Social Science.  There's fiction like, U.S. Blues, The Millennium Shows, Might As Well, and Tiger in a Trance.  And finally, there are films like Deadheads and the recently released Box of Rain.

Compare all of this to the work of Lindsey and Brennan.  Their work is derivative.  They followed the lead of Todd Matthews, a writer who has done work for NAMUS and the Doe Network, in creating a podcast about dead and missing Grateful Dead fans.  And then there's the matter of their lack of candor with respect to having followed a line of investigation that James Barnes had already pursued back in the 90's.  They repackaged publicly available court documents for our consumption.  To his credit, Lindsey interviewed many of the people involved in helping Ralph Thomas with his habeas petition.  And he interviewed Weston Sudduth, albeit by resorting to some shady moves at first.**  

When it comes down to it, Dead and Gone has been far from "do-it-yourself" in its first two seasons.***

* Here's a plug for a wonderfully funky cookbook:  Kind Veggie Burritos from Walkabout Writing and Publishing.  It's filled with great recipes, and the envelope my copy came in was hand-stamped and the human touch brightened my day.

**Something's still bugging me:  Did Lindsey ever follow-through and address this question, "Who was the woman who questioned Weston about the murders in that coffee shop?"

*** Can one rationally assume that Lindsey's minimal participation in the second season broadcasts was due to the fact he and Brennan were working on a deal with Joe Berlinger (and, one assumes, Netflix)?