All posts tagged: Weir

‘Project Hail Mary’ Author Andy Weir Takes a Shot at ‘Star Trek’

‘Project Hail Mary’ Author Andy Weir Takes a Shot at ‘Star Trek’

Published by Daniella Wilson

The author of Project Hail Mary is firing a photon torpedo at Paramount+’s Star Trek efforts. Bestselling writer Andy Weir criticized modern Trek shows while on the Critical Drinker podcast last week, and even revealed he pitched a Trek show that was shot down by Paramount. The topic began with the podcast’s host, Matthew Marsden, saying how refreshing the box office hit Project Hail Mary has been, especially for audiences who grew up on Star Trek and now suffer from “a lack of” such sci-fi efforts nowadays. “Yeah, I saw a … I forgot who it was — I wish I could remember who it was who said it, some analyst — he said something like: ‘All modern science fiction TV shows and movies have been heavily influenced by the original Star Trek — except for the current batch of Star Trek shows,’” Weir said. Marsden replied, “Yes!” and they both laughed. At first, Weir left that comment open to interpretation, but then added, “I’m Gen X, so my sci-fi was like original series Star Trek …

10 Sci-Fi Books and Movies That Inspired Andy Weir and ‘Project Hail Mary’

10 Sci-Fi Books and Movies That Inspired Andy Weir and ‘Project Hail Mary’

Published by Jenni Sidey

Nicholas Meyer’s beloved sequel/corrective to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. GQ: Not to spoil, but I watched this after Hail Mary, and there is a climactic scene that makes it hard not to connect the two films. Weir: Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t do that consciously, but this was a movie that had such a big impact on my life. I think most people would agree that it’s the best Star Trek movie. I’m sure it had an effect on my concept of narrative style. Red Planet (1949) Robert A. Heinlein’s novel about students at a boarding school on Mars. Weir: You can credit Heinlein for getting me really, really interested in Mars. The Mars as depicted in that book is not remotely like real Mars, but the rules that he set up were really interesting. And in fact, at one point, the main character is inside of a plant and he doesn’t have enough oxygen to survive, so he turns on his headlamps so that there would be light pointing at the inside …

A Look Back at the Laid-Back Style of Bob Weir

A Look Back at the Laid-Back Style of Bob Weir

Published by Jenni Sidey

Bob Weir may have become famous as a rhythm guitarist, but he was never your run-of-the-mill rhythm guitarist. The founding Grateful Dead member, who died last week at age 78, left a permanent mark on the instrument by finding unexpected magic in chord changes and developing a spry style of strumming that felt both intuitive, improvised, and quietly radical. You could say the same about his personal style. “I just wanted to be kind of elegant,” Weir told GQ in 2019, speaking about his chosen wardrobe. “People were paying good money to see us, and at the time I figured that meant we ought to dress up a bit.” Weir’s style lived in the space between elegant and eccentric: preppy polo shirts, flashes of Westernwear, and cut-off denim shorts that revealed as much bare thigh as a mid-century surfer catching the perfect break. He loved hoodies worn without undershirts and would cleverly layer performance fleece within his outfits. He wore crunchy sandals onstage and on red carpets alike. His signature look was as if an …

What happens to the religion of Dead-ism after Bob Weir?

What happens to the religion of Dead-ism after Bob Weir?

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — One of the largest “churches” in America has no building, but it has a liturgy, a sacred story, prophets and priests. Its congregation, while aging, still numbers in the hundreds of thousands. Of course I am referring to the passionate devotees of the Grateful Dead, those whom we call Deadheads. Deadheads worship the classic rock band — not in the crude sense of idolatry, but in the way religions actually function: through ritual, memory, shared language, pilgrimage and community. The Deadhead culture began in the 1970s, as fans started traveling any distance, for any length of time, to attend the band’s concerts. The shows were unpredictable, unrepeatable and, to the faithful, transformative. Their minhagim, or customs, were to record concerts, trade recordings with each other, annotate and publish set lists, and circulate lore. They created an informal economy revolving around tie-dyed shirts, veggie burritos, jewelry, buttons and stories. They even left their mark on American pop culture with an ice cream flavor named for Jerry Garcia, the late leader of the group. The …

Bob Weir was a troubadour of American myth, spirituality and belonging

Bob Weir was a troubadour of American myth, spirituality and belonging

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — There was something mythological about Bob Weir — utterly timeless and almost primeval. An American original troubadour telling stories that felt older than the nation itself, he somehow oriented toward a future just beyond our reach. You could imagine a world before him, but a world after him was unfathomable. Which is why it landed with such force and sadness to learn that Weir died over the weekend at age 78. His story begins like a folk tale. A teenage kid, forever known as “Bobby,” wanders the storefronts of Palo Alto, California, on New Year’s Eve, 1963. He hears banjo music drifting from somewhere nearby — familiar yet mysterious, close enough to follow. Something in that sound feels like truth, or at least a trail toward it. Palo Alto at the time was still a place of apricot orchards and suburban promise, not yet the global nerve center of big tech and artificial intelligence. Bobby follows the music down an alley and meets a fellow traveler: a young man named Jerry Garcia. Instruments …

Bob Weir Made the Grateful Dead

Bob Weir Made the Grateful Dead

Published by Daniella Wilson

In the summer of 1968, three years into the Grateful Dead’s existence, the band fired singer and rhythm guitarist Bob Weir. Jerry Garcia, the band’s other guitarist and its reluctant leader, and bassist Phil Lesh had decided that Weir and keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan were dragging the band down musically. Weir was just 20 years old, the youngest member of the group and the least technically accomplished. But Garcia didn’t have the heart to pull the trigger himself, and he made the band’s manager do the deed. Or at least he tried to. “It didn’t take. We fired them, all right, but they just kept coming back,” Garcia remembered later. The failure was auspicious. A few months later, the band performed the shows that would be released as Live/Dead, one of the greatest psychedelic albums ever. The first sound heard on the record is Weir’s guitar, which methodically builds “Dark Star” up, sewing together Garcia and Lesh’s riffing. Weir’s place in the Dead was never again in doubt. When the group disbanded after Garcia’s death …

Bob Weir, Grateful Dead founding member, dies at 78

Bob Weir, Grateful Dead founding member, dies at 78

Published by Sam Flores

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Minneapolis Mayor Frey: ICE enforcement ‘not normal’ 00:44 Suspect in murder of Ohio couple makes first court appearance 00:56 Kelly defends lawsuit against Hegseth 00:53 Tiny deer takes on rhino at Polish zoo 00:27 Command change at ISS ahead of Crew-11 return to Earth 00:41 Mattel unveils new Barbie representing people with autism 00:29 Paramount sues Warner Bros. over Netflix deal 00:56 A skier and her dog survive an avalanche 00:39 Trump says Russia or China could take Greenland 00:27 New York nurses go on strike over contract disputes 00:21 More immigration officers being sent to Minneapolis 00:36 Trump weighs military options on Iran amid protests 01:10 Now Playing Bob Weir, Grateful Dead founding member, dies at 78 00:36 UP NEXT Powell says DOJ has subpoenaed the Federal Reserve 00:54 Golden Globes: Teyana Taylor’s message to ‘brown girls’ 00:19 U-Haul drives through a crowd of anti-Iran protesters 00:16 Highlights from the 2026 Golden Globe Awards 01:15 ‘Hamnet’ director Chloe Zhao …

Truckin’ on: Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead’s 10 best recordings | Music

Truckin’ on: Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead’s 10 best recordings | Music

Published by Sam Flores

The Grateful Dead – The Faster We Go, the Rounder We Get / The Other One (1968) The Dead’s love for the road is in evidence on this segment from That’s It for the Other One, the four-part opening track of their second LP, Anthem of the Sun. A rare Bob Weir-penned lyric details the Dead’s youngest member being busted by the cops “for smiling on a cloudy day” – referencing a real-life incident when Weir pelted police with water balloons as they conducted what he took to be illegal searches outside the group’s Haight-Ashbury hangout. It then connects with the band’s spiritual forebears the Merry Pranksters by referencing Neal Cassady, driver of “a bus to never-ever land”. The song later evolved into The Other One, one of the Dead’s most played tunes and a launchpad for their exploratory jams – as in this languid, brilliant version at San Francisco’s Winterland in 1974. The Grateful Dead – Truckin’ (1970) “What a long, strange trip it’s been,” reflected Weir on what is arguably the Grateful Dead’s …

Elementary School Choir Sings the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple,” “Box of Rain,” “Brokedown Palace” & More: RIP Bob Weir

Elementary School Choir Sings the Grateful Dead’s “Ripple,” “Box of Rain,” “Brokedown Palace” & More: RIP Bob Weir

Published by José Betancourt

?si=euaFB6jMJ_TPxRmf Down in Austin, Texas, music teacher Gavin Tabone leads the Bar­ton Hills Choir, made up of 3rd- through 6th-grade stu­dents. Backed by pro­fes­sion­al musi­cians, the choir per­forms a wide-rang­ing mix of music, from clas­sic pop and rock to indie songs by artists like Wilco, Muse, The Flam­ing Lips, and espe­cial­ly the Grate­ful Dead. Above and below, you can find per­for­mances of such Dead clas­sics as “Rip­ple,” “Box of Rain” and “Going Down the Road Feel­ing Bad” → “I Know You Rid­er.” And if you head to their YouTube chan­nel, you can find ver­sions of “Cas­sidy,” “Touch of Grey,” “Scar­let Bego­nias,” “Broke­down Palace,” and more. With the pass­ing of Bob Weir this week­end, it seems like a fit­ting time to high­light these per­for­mances. Weir first joined the Dead when only a teenag­er, still basi­cal­ly a kid him­self, and then con­tin­ued the jour­ney for the next 60 years, intro­duc­ing the Dead­’s song­book to suc­ces­sive gen­er­a­tions of fans. In recent years, he talked about the Dead song­book endur­ing for the next 200 to 300 years, much as Beethoven …

Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Bob Weir has died | Ents & Arts News

Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Bob Weir has died | Ents & Arts News

Published by Daniella Wilson

Bob Weir, guitarist, singer and founding member of the Grateful Dead, has died at the age of 78. His daughter, Chloe Weir, confirmed Weir – who was diagnosed with cancer in July – died “peacefully, surrounded by loved ones” after developing “underlying lung issues”. Weir was one of the ⁠group’s two frontmen and main vocalists for most of the band’s history. He joined the Grateful Dead – originally the Warlocks – in 1965 in San Francisco at just 17 years old. He spent the next 30 years playing on endless tours. It was Weir who sang the verses on the band’s trademark boogie anthem Truckin’ and who wrote such key songs as Sugar Magnolia, Playing In The Band and Jack Straw. After the death of fellow co-founder and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia at the age of 53 in 1995, Weir carved out an interesting but neglected solo career – much of it with his band, RatDog. He also participated in reunions of surviving Dead members in different configurations. He was linked to numerous other rock …