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Bob Weir was chilly.
It was a partly cloudy July night time and temperatures had been falling as Lifeless & Co. performed earlier than tens of hundreds of followers in San Francisco, ancestral dwelling of the band’s legendary forebear, the Grateful Lifeless.
Typical summer time climate within the metropolis, and Nancy Pelosi knew what to do.
Socks, she advised the Birkenstock-shod guitarist on a go to backstage. And a hat.
It could be simpler to image the previous speaker, nonetheless one in every of America’s most influential ladies, surrounded by fits and wingtips than beads and sandals. However Pelosi, who grew up listening to opera waft by the streets of Baltimore’s Little Italy, is a real tie-dyed within the wool Deadhead, as cultists and aficionados of the group are identified.
She’s buddies with Weir and drummer Mickey Hart, having seen the Lifeless and various iterations extra instances than she remembers. On a number of events, the elegantly styled lawmaker has been seen dancing within the wings, 4-inch heels and all.
It wasn’t sure she’d make the band’s valedictory efficiency that night time, one of many final of Lifeless & Co.’s lately concluded farewell tour. The Home of Representatives was pitching one other match, with balky Republicans performing up, must-pass laws stalled and stressed lawmakers anxiously eyeing the exits.
However ultimately, the Home accepted the obligatory protection spending invoice with time to spare and Pelosi simply made it dwelling for the Friday night time present, mingling with the band and scoring the night’s set record as a memento.
When Weir returned for the second half he was nonetheless sockless.
However he had on a hat.
Going by a closet not way back, Pelosi got here throughout a “Deadheads for Dukakis” purse from the 1988 presidential marketing campaign; she was a freshman lawmaker on the time.
Practically 20 years later, a number of of the band’s alumni performed at a Washington gala celebrating Pelosi’s path-breaking election as speaker. (A overview describes an uptight viewers principally sitting on its arms, although “Iko Iko,” the New Orleans normal, lastly received a few of the Beltway slugs transferring.)
Hart was within the Home gallery watching as Pelosi claimed the audio system’ gavel for a second time in 2019.
How and when did they meet? “I haven’t the faintest thought,” she says. Over the many years, San Francisco’s yeasty music and political scenes have blurred collectively, although, no, it’s not due to some dangerous acid.
It’s been an extended, historic journey.
“They’re fantastic musicians,” Pelosi mentioned of the Lifeless and firm, placing a deceive the notion — propounded principally by haters — that the group’s kaleidoscopic catalog can solely be loved in a drunken stupor or chemically induced haze. (Pelosi doesn’t drink and has by no means used medication.) “It’s nice music.”
Possibly it’s a congressional Democrat factor.
The late Harry Reid, one other teetotaler and a Senate chief when Pelosi was speaker, had a Lifeless poster signed by all the band hanging in his dwelling in Searchlight, Nev. He referred to as it his “prize possession.”
Perusing the menu at San Francisco’s Delancey Avenue Restaurant — a favourite of native politicians, staffed by ex-convicts and recovering addicts — Pelosi savors the liberty of life as simply one other member of the Home.
“It’s important to bear in mind,” she says, “that for 20 years, both as speaker or [minority] chief, I used to be liable for all the pieces that occurred on the ground … by way of what occurred with the Democrats … and I didn’t even notice that it was a burden till it was gone and I used to be like, ‘Oh, my God. What a reduction.’ ”
She continues learning the menu.
“I nonetheless, clearly, take an curiosity within the laws,” Pelosi goes on, “and I nonetheless increase cash for the Democrats,” although not the $1 million a day she pulled in as speaker. “It’s a very completely different story.”
Different diners crane to see the movie star of their midst, seated in a sales space barely away from the primary eating space.
Orders are positioned. Quickly lunch arrives, a global smorgasbord of latkes, kale salad, a hen quesadilla and matzo ball soup.
“Liberated” and “emancipated” are phrases Pelosi usually makes use of in her new incarnation. She’s began on a e book — not a memoir, however an account of sure choices. Her husband, Paul, continues therapeutic from the ghastly hammer assault by a QAnon loopy who broke into their San Francisco dwelling final fall, seeking to take the ex-speaker hostage.
Will she run once more subsequent yr for a nineteenth time period, one thing many on this politically hyperactive metropolis are panting to seek out out? “I’ve to make up my thoughts,” Pelosi responds, purposely opaque, “after which see what I wish to do.”
Again to music.
She ran a finger alongside the crumpled set record pointing to a number of favorites — “Hearth On The Mountain,” “Ramble On Rose,” the trippy sound-collage “Drums/Area” and “Standing On The Moon,” with its indigenous lyric:
Someplace in San Francisco/ On a again porch in July/ Simply trying as much as heaven/ At this crescent within the sky.
So stunning, Pelosi rhapsodized, “I might take heed to it eternally.”
In terms of music, Pelosi says, she’s one thing of an omnivore, with an urge for food for “all the pieces from rap to opera.” Drake, Taylor Swift, U2, Keith City, Elton John, Metallica, Stevie Surprise.
The Democrat is on a first-name foundation with Bono and Cyndi Lauper in addition to the opposite Paul and Nancy. (That may be McCartney and his spouse Nancy Shevall.)
She’s hard-pressed to select a favourite present of all time, however recounts seeing Bob Dylan with the Rolling Stones in Argentina — the “Bridges to Babylon Tour,” Pelosi specifies. She introduced alongside a fellow Democrat, former New York Rep. Nita Lowey, who was seeing her first rock live performance. (Naturally the efficiency included “Like A Rolling Stone.”)
At one level through the present there was an announcement, Pelosi says, looking for donations to struggle HIV and AIDS. A younger man circulated by the gang and after receiving a contribution from Lowey, handed her a thank-you present. “She’s like, ‘I don’t know what that is,’” Pelosi remembers, “‘it’s all in Spanish.’”
A pause.
“Condoms!” Pelosi exclaims.
The dishes are cleared. Time for dessert.
Pelosi considers the profiteroles, however abstains. She had three peppermint patties on the best way to lunch, she confesses, and ice cream for breakfast.
These are fraught instances. She turns critical.
“I’m a robust believer that the humanities are the key, our greatest hope for the longer term,” Pelosi says.
She describes the nice and cozy reception she obtained years in the past when she was launched at a Barbra Streisand live performance.
“In that viewers … they’re not there as a result of they’re Democrats. You’ve received a really blended group of individuals. And it simply fully drove dwelling the purpose … which is that [music] is a unifier. Individuals overlook their variations, they don’t even consider it. They snigger collectively, cry collectively, are impressed collectively, discover widespread floor collectively and I do suppose that’s our hope.”
“That’s our hope,” she repeats.
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