Questions, questions, questions. It seems that all us older Deadheads spend half our time answering the newbie's questions. Don't get me wrong, it's not that we hold any perticular grudge against newbies. After all, all of us were newbies at one time or another. I remember the first time I stumbled into the Haight-Ashbury back on Aug. 28, 1967. There was a scene going on in Golden Gate Park which turned to be the wake for Chocolate George. That was my first Grateful Dead concert and if I hadn't been a newbie, I probably would have taped it. Just think how many Deadheads would have gone nuts over that tape. But the thing that's a drag is having to answer the same questions over and over again. Therefore, here's a new FAQ to help all the newbies find their way around here. Although many of the questions are serious, others seem to be the result of too much LSD...

Q. Can anyone around here tell me where little Hippies come from?

A. A Deadhead by the name of Snuggers or Snuggles must have answered that question a thousand times on this newsgroup. Now he's burnt out so I'll take a crack at it. Look for an article heading that starts with. "You" and ends with "Hippies." It's the word in between the two that answers that question. If that shot in the dark fails, go to your adult video store and look for the X rated version of the movie, Woodstock.

Q. Where do I find the @#$%& FAQs for this newsgroup?

A. This is a pain for every Deadhead because when the newbies can't find the FAQs, it means real trouble for every Deadhead on the net (you know, servers crashing left and right, trashed file areas, blown directories). The FAQs are usually posted under the heading rec.music.gdead FAQ part 1 (and part 2). The problem is that "rec" is near the end of the alphabet and most newbies give up before they find it. Another problem is the FAQs expire (like any other posting) and the folks down at gdead.berkeley.edu (or is that cs.cmu.edu?) don't know about it until they get tons of email over it. Also, be aware that there is a special web site just for FAQs on all the newsgroups. The only catch is that it has no listing for rec.music.gdead. You can also get them from a FTP site at gdead.berkeley.edu, but I lost the file that tells what the directory path is. I must be the only Deadhead in history to find the FAQs the first time I logged on, and now I'll be damned if I can tell newbies where they are. That was last summer. Then today, I logged onto gdead.berkeley.edu, followed a path that looked right and found them in about two minutes. I can't figure out why I couldn't find them before. Now that I've found them, you might try looking on my Grateful Dead page.

Q. Why aren't the Grateful Dead in the movie Woodstock? Did they get the bad acid?

A. No, it was Mother Nature who got the bad acid and most of the Pranksters agree that they haven't seen as bad a freakout since the Who Cares Girl got dosed at the Watts Acid Test. Luckily, Hugh Romney was able to get her into the bad trip tent before she toppled the freaking stage.

Q. Why doesn't Pigpen answer his email? I need to get the lyrics to Good Morning Little School Girl.

A. I'm afraid we haven't worked all the bugs out of the servers for the life hereafter. Actually, the problem is with the router. It seems that nobody knows whether Pigpen went to Heaven or Hell.

Q. Why doesn't Jerry answer his email? I know he's dead, but I thought the name of the band was the Grateful Dead.

A. I'm afraid that Jerry has a similar email problem as Pigpen (see above).

Q. How do I find the HEYNOW.ZIP dancing skeleton screen saver that Compuserve is supposed to have? I'm tired of the dancing bears. Besides Owsley hasn't been around for years.

A. Yes, I'll admit that that has to be the revolting development of the year. I figured out that the trick for a successful search is to enter the ID number of the contributor of the file. Then I lost the print-out that tells which forum the file was in so now I'm back to square one. I don't think that file is on Compuserve anymore. What probably happened was it violated someone's copyright and they king's Xed it.

Q. Everyone knows where little Hippies come from but where did big Hippies come from?

A. Why, from Beat Generation cats and chicks, of course.

I've got a feeling I know what the next question's going to be so I'm going to cut out of here and let some other deadhead take over this FAQ. Dig you all later...