BrightestYoungThings: Help Animal Collective Fight Parkinson's Disease

Do you like Animal Collective? Do you dislike Parkinson's Disease? Then put your preferences together and donate to Geologist/Brian Weitz's Walk for Parkinson's Fund. But more on that in a minute...

I somehow ended up at the Grateful Dead concert with Brian last night, and rather than giving a full review of the show, of which I suprisingly knew A LOT of the words to A LOT of the songs, I would rather post this plea for a bit of help in fighting Parkinson's Disease.

But before I get to that, I'll give my summary of the show: it was acutally pretty sweet. Yes, the typical 10,000 wacky, living-in-another-world neo-hippies were there. I don't know where they all come from, but it's definitely not DC. But the lights were low and you couldn't see much aside from the psychedelic stage. The dude from the Allman Brothers is filling in for Jerry Garcia, but honestly, from where I was sitting, you couldn't tell it wasn't him. I can't remember what they played aside from Dark Star and a cover of the Beatles' Come Together, but the second half of their show was fantastic. Anyways, I'm a terrible concert reviewer, so I'll just turn this into another impromptu Animal Collective Interview:

Me: Dude, have you ever seen Jimmy Buffett?

Brian (paraphrased, it was loud and there was no tape recorder): I saw him in concert once. It was a private show at this sprawling, private estate in Greenwich, CT with all of these millionaire Wall Street Bankers attending this really wealthy Wall Street Banker's 40th birthday party. The governor of Connecticut was actually there.

Me: Okay, why were YOU there?

Brian: Long story. I was working at this parrot shop in the Village and some lady came in and said she was having a party for her husband and she was looking to have a bunch of parrots at their party. So I got paid a hundred bucks to go to this party and bring a bunch of parrots. There were two parrots that were pretty friendly, so one would sit on my shoulder and I was there to make sure he/she didn't attack anyone or bite anyone's finger off. It was back when I smoked, I was maybe 21 or 20 and I kept sneaking off every hour or so to have a smoke down by the water. Well, all of these Wall Street Bankers started following me out to bum smokes off me. They were all telling me how their wives thought they had quit smoking and they had to hide it from them. They couldn't quit smoking because of the stress and pressure of their jobs. I was like the Pied Piper of these Wall Street Bankers down to the docks to smoke cigarettes. This dock had about 30 sailboats all owned by the guy whose birthday party it was. It turns out that the reason Jimmy Buffett was performing was because the guy had lost a bidding war with Jimmy over some yacht. Jimmy ended up becoming friends with the guy and doing him a favor since he lost out on the yacht.

Me: Wait, you worked at a parrot store? How did you get that gig?

Brian: They were hiring. I went in and applied.

Me: Fair enough.

So there you go. BYT Animal Collective Interview #3. The SECOND one that's taken place at Verizon Center, of all places. Alas, this post is really about Parkinson's. Please do what you can to help Brian with his cause. If you are rich, donate $500. If you are poor, donate $5. Please donate something though. This is serious. Here's Brian's email:

Hey friends, sorry for the mass mailing, but on April 18, 2009, I will be participating in a 10-mile walk to help raise awareness and money for Parkinson's Disease. I will be walking in memory of my grandfather Morton Lipschutz, who passed away in January after struggling with Parkinson's for almost 10 years. This walk has become an annual tradition for my family and in the past two years, we have raised over $30,000.

I know things are tough in these uncertain economic times, and I am aware that donations may be difficult, so no worries if you can't make it happen. That said, the walk this year has special significance to my family as the last two years we have walked to honor my grandfather and this year the walk will be in his memory. I hope to raise $2,000 this year and any amount your could contribute would be very much appreciated.

Thanks and take care,
Brian

Walk for Parkinson's Fund.

------------------------------------------

Once you're done donating, check out all the old BYT Animal Collective coverage:

Our first (and best) Animal Collective interview:
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/interviews/tripping-balls-with-animal-collective/

Our second (and also pretty good) Animal Collecitve interview:
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/music/geologist-unmasked-not-your-average-animal-collective-interview/

An old live review:
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/live-dc/live-dc-animal-collective-930-club/

Merriweather album review:
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/music/record-review-animal-collectives-merrweather-post-pavillion/

And a weird post that also starts with the sentence "Do you like Animal Collective?":
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/tangents/day-1-nycanimals-collective/