OK, music geeks, freaks and fans. It's pop quiz time.
I will now tell you four things and you must guess which of them is a verifiable truth:
A) Hilary Duff is a Coke mule wanted for murder in six states and the Territory of Guam.
B) Ann Coulter was a Deadhead who attended nearly 70 Grateful Dead shows before Jerry Garcia's 1995 death.
C) Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee is under consideration for sainthood.
D) Andy Kaufman, Elvis Presley, Tupac Shakur and Princess Diana are living together on a deserted island together after faking their deaths.
OK. Time's up. Pencils down. Ready?
If you selected B, you are correct.
I'm fairly certain I would be sued for libel if it weren't 100 percent pure, unsaturated, polycarbonated, irrefutable fact, but it's so "what did you just say?" unbelievable, it bears repeating. So, I say again, Ann Coulter is a Deadhead.
Chalk this up as a lesson not to judge a book by who's on the cover.
Picturing Coulter clad in a tie-dyed shirt beneath a haze of freshly toked hippie lettuce makes you reinterpret your perception of her. A disbelieving liberal friend of mine had a hard time embracing the reality. "Her favorite song is probably 'Friend of the Devil' since she is one," he quipped.
Call her what you want, but she doesn't appear to be a phony. The linguistic blonde bomber gave an interview to Jambands.com in 2006 exclusively about her interest in the Grateful Dead.
Coulter rattles off Dead minutiae such as buying uniforms for the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team as well as joking she's talked with members of the band, although "none of the band members were present for those conversations."
I found it further interesting her remarks on die-hard fanaticism, the way live music provides a commonality amongst strangers and assuages the worries of the world for a brief time.
"You always felt like you were with family at a Dead show," she told Jambands. "The one time I missed not being able to go to Dead shows more than any other since Jerry died was during the Clinton impeachment. There was so much viciousness. … I kept thinking: 'Boy, would I like to go to a Dead show and dance with happy, friendly Deadheads for just one night!'"
Coulter is the last person from which I'd expect such sentiment. Not because I think she's incapable of enjoying a live show, but because of the band in question.
However, because she's the one saying it, the point demonstrates a beautiful truth about live music. Because of the way a live show breaks routines and brings people out of their homes and into a shared space, it forces people to interact, to meet strangers and have a shared adventure. As thrilling as the show itself often is, the surprise of meeting new and interesting people can be equally gratifying.
If the music of the Grateful Dead can unite someone as staunchly conservative as Coulter with the pinnacle of rock's tortilla-tossing, tie-dye wielding hippie fanaticism, maybe rock 'n' roll can yet save the world.
Sure, that's naïve. Maybe people once believed it was a possibility, but the austere optimism of the "Summer of Love" generation resigned that hope around the same time Richard Nixon did so from the presidency.
It's important to remain pragmatic but hopeful, to absorb and contemplate the thoughts of those with whom one fervently agrees (Coulter, for some) and those one disagrees with vehemently (Coulter, for others).
As divisive a figure as she can be, Coulter's status as a Deadhead and embracing of its community is a reminder to give everyone, even a point of view you might not always agree with, a voice.
Dismayed as my liberal friend might be at the thought, I guess a friend of the devil could just be friend of mine.
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