Milo grabbed the gold

The Grateful Dead were one of the most successful rock and roll bands of all time, generating what is estimated to be over $393 million dollars in ticket revenue during their long tenure.

Their most current lineup, Dead and Co., generated over $130 million dollars in revenue on their most recent 30 night Las Vegas Sphere run alone.

This does not include merchandising and record sales, which are absolutely enormous. 

That in itself is said to bring $70 million in annually. A lot of gelt.

The Grateful Dead members have gotten very rich, god bless them. 

I have seen wildly divergent estimates of Bob Weir's net worth, somewhere between $60 million and $200 million dollars.

I bring this up because of something I have noticed recently. For the second time in the last six months a longtime member of the Grateful Dead family has had to appeal to a Go Fund Me site in order to get proper medical care.

Harry Popick is a familiar face to deadheads, having run their monitors for years. I was not a close friend of Harry's but I was a friend to many other members of the sound crew, including Don Pearson, Howard and Chubbs. 

Apparently Popick suffered a debilitating stroke.

Ultimately, after Garica’s 1995 passing, Popick was able to keep busy after parting ways with the band, using his union membership to seek various work opportunities. Popick suffered a stroke, and despite recovery efforts, which included extensive physical therapy, he experienced issues such as chronic muscle contraction in his right hand. Further hardships ensued, and Popick left his family and friends in California for familial duties in Florida, which coincided with a cancer diagnosis and subsequent surgeries, including an unrelated hip replacement followed by the challenges of a global pandemic–and its own set of woes. Recently, he was diagnosed with hypertension and sciatica, which implicates daily tasks. 

This was posted on David Gans site:

Candace Brightman was the brilliant visionary behind the Grateful Dead's lighting. She made all the beautiful things happen visually. She is hurting too.

Candace wrote this in a note on her Go Fund Me page:

The money you all contributed has been a huge relief. We have no pension or health care. dumb .

But the love, wow gorgeous! Mahalo. You,ve changed our life in a wonderful way.

My vision went way down hill a few weeks ago. i'm not freaked. I live to laugh.

ive been trying to order a 50" tv/ computer display from the mainland, but they've stopped shipping to Hawaii!!! and i need to get a 2nd septic pronto. Trex the stairs.... more panels in the roof......but we can't drive.... BOO HOO. and we fall over a lot. Larry takes it gracefully, I whine. or laugh.

No pension or healthcare? A company that has generated about a half billion or more dollars in revenue can't take care of the people who got them there? Seriously? It seems indecent to me. These were not bit players or hangers on, they were major cogs in the machine. Apparently, when the band is done with you, you disappear and end up having to rely on charity.

I brought this up with BigDave the other day. His response was something to the effect that he had worked for Microsoft as upper management and they weren't obligated to give him a pension so Candace and Harry have no right to expect one either.

Perhaps he is right.

But I thought that the Grateful Dead were far bigger than that and there was certainly enough pie to make sure that everybody was taken care of and received a fair slice.

Guess not.