21 years ago Jerry Garcia passed

[ghostsinthemachine]

I wrote this on the 15 anny of Jerry Garcia's death:

The day Jerry died, I was working on changing the photos and frames of the GD to blues artists for some blues festivals coming up..(I sold photos then). Michele, my girl at the time, called me from work to tell me. I was floored. Something we all knew was coming, but something we were not prepared for, too... I got on the phone and made a ton of calls, Some of my friends knew but a good number did not....many people called me to share their condolences, some who were not deadheads or even friends, but they knew that this was a tragedy for me and they wanted to share. For that I thank them. I spent a good deal of time on the phone with Toni Brown, then Editor of Relix, talking aobut how and what we were going to do.

Michele could not hold it at work and came home and we all went over to my friend Eric's house to talk and reminisce. At the time the GD meant a lot to me, not only musically but also as an income source. They weren't my only income generation but still about 1/3 of my income came from Dead tour....

At Eric's, I thought why don't we do a retrospective of the Dead and Jerry and put up a display at the Memorial planned at the State Capitol in Sacramento later that night. So we stripped all of the blues artists out of the frames and replaced them with Jerry/Dead shots. Shots from 1965 and shots from the Vegas run a couple of months before and everything between....

I thought, man we need to get something to remember people's thoughts and stuff, so we went to Borders and found these incredible music notation books with Beethoven on the front. So we got them and after we set up the display we put them out with a couple of pens so people could express their thoughts on them.

We didn't sell anything (wouldn't be right), we just put up the display so people could connect. We had a hundred photos, all framed 11X14 and 16X20, and people loved it. We lit the display with candles and so many people wrote the most incredible stuff in the books. Page after page of people pouring out their feelings about Jerry....The next night there was a memorial in Tahoe, so we got more books and took the display up there (again not selling anything). More people came out and more people wrote the most incredible stuff in the books.

Now we had three of the books filled to the brim with some of the most incredible stuff about Jerry in the books, so we needed to get some more. But our local stores were out... We scoured all the Borders books in NORCAL till we found some in Emeryville. And we bought them out, ten in all, I think.

We then headed to Golden Gate Park for the big memorial there in the Polo Grounds...We set up the display in the middle of the polo field and set the books out. This time Dead crew, family etc all came by. All wrote in the books.... Again we did not sell anything, but eventually we made a lot of money by handing out cards to people who wanted to buy stuff on those days...

They had a New Orleans funeral parade and a friend, Jeff who I knew from 49er games, was at the display with me and I asked him if he could watch the display so we could march with the parade. He said sure and off we went to join the parade. that was the last time I ever saw Jeff too.....

At the end of the day I was reading the books and I could not believe the incredible stuff written in them. Some stupid stuff too, but people really poured their hearts out in them. Dead family members, crew and fans all contributed...

We switched business focus back to street fairs and blues festivals, but we decided to honor Jerry with his own special space in the back and kept the books out there. Let me tell ya, we sold a shit load of Jerry shots everywhere we went after that. More people wrote in the books. We went to LA for the OC Blues fest and Street Scene in San Diego and did very well with Jerry being the big seller...(As he remains to this day)

Then on labor day, we went to the Hog Farm PigNic up at Wavy's place in Mendo. Ratdog (Just Rob and Bob then), JJ Cale and Leftover Salmon were among the bands at that fest. We had prime vendor space and set up a huge display for that show. Also in attendance were Tim Leary, Ram Dass, Kesey, the Bus, the Pranksters etc...It was the first time anyone in the GD family had a chance to really mourn for Jerry in a way that was appropriate. And they did. By mid day it was obvious that everyone was tripping balls. Leftover Salmon told everyone they were tripping too hard to finish their set due to the giant electric balls on stage. Hilarious.

This guy came in the booth and asked if I had any JJ Cale. I told him that I wouldn't know JJ Cale if he came up and pissed on my shoes. the guy left and about 10 minutes later I looked up on stage and there that guy was, JJ Cale! (for the record, I still would not know him if I saw him)..

After RatDog's set the mainstage closed down for the night and my girl and the kids all went to sleep and I thought that i should write the last page of the books. By now we had 15 of them all filled with the most incredible stuff ever. But I had not written a word and thought I should get my thoughts in there. I was all tripping and schrooming and sitting in the booth with pictures of Miles, Jimi, Jerry, Dizzy, FZ, Pigpen etc...Heavy stuff. I was bawling like a baby, writing in the books and all alone when Wavy came in the booth...

He said "Photo guy come with me" and took me backstage. there were huge dayglo banners all over. A trippers paradise. Eventually we ended up at the center of the compound. One that was surrounded by 20 huge teepees. and in the middle was a campfire. Around the fire was Leary, Kesey, Wavy, Bobby, and many GD family members and Leftover Salmon... We sang songs and laughed and told stories about Jerry and our experiences etc.

I thought to myself though I can't do this without Michele, she will be pissed off to no end if I tell her I was there without her, so I left to go back to the booth..I also knew I needed to grab a couple of the books so these guys could share their thoughts in them...So I woke her up told her to come with me and she (of course!!) was pissed to hell that I even went there without her in the first place (It was that moment that decided for me that our relationship was over) .

I wasn't even sure if I could get back there, but I knew I had to try to get her and the books. We got back there, no problem, and showed those guys the books and asked them to write something in them and then give them back after the show was over the next day. They all wrote the most incredible stuff in them too, but most did not sign their names, all except Wavy and Kesey that is.They both wrote poems and signed them...

For the next couple of months I tried to get the books published. Had a couple of offers, one for a good amount of money.

In january, me and Michele broke up for good and she stole the biz and the books from me and tried to sell them herself... Of course she couldn't and couldn't run the biz either so she screwed the photogs out of money and kept the books. Now they are worth nothing (gotta strike while the iron is hot you know).

But for me, they are priceless. I would love to get them back and donate them to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame or to the band or something. Seems a shame they are collecting dust somewhere...

And that is what I was doing 21 years ago...

[ghostsinthemachine]

1. Bob Dylan on Jerry......

"There’s no way to measure his greatness or magnitude as a person or a player. I don’t think any eulogizing will do him justice. He was that great, much more than a superb musician, with an uncanny ear and dexterity. He’s the very spirit personified of whatever is Muddy River country at its core and screams up into the spheres. He really had no equal. To me, he wasn’t only a musician and friend, he was more like a big brother who taught and showed me more than he’ll ever know. There’s a lot of spaces and advances between The Carter Family, Buddy Holly and say Ornette Coleman, a lot of universes, but he filled them all without being a member of any school. His playing was moody, awesome, sophisticated, hypnotic and subtle. There’s no way to convey the loss. It just digs down really deep."

When Dylan turned from Jerry's casket he said "There lies the only person on earth that knows what it is like to be me".

[ghostsinthemachine]

2. Ken Kesey

Hey, Jerry-- what's happening?
I caught your funeral.
Weird.
Big Steve was good. And Grissman. Sweet sounds. But what really stood out -- stands out -- is the thundering silence, the lack, the absence of that golden Garcia lead line, of that familiar slick lick with the uptwist at the end, that merry snake twining through the woodpile, flickering in and out of the loosely stacked chords...a wriggling mystery, bright and slick as fire... suddenly gone.
And the silence left in its wake was-- is-- positively ear-splitting.
Now they want me to say something about that absence, Jer. Tell some backstage story, share some poigniant reminescence. But I have to tell you, man: I find myself considerably disinclined. I mean, why go against the grain of such an eloquent silence? I remember standing out in the pearly early dawn after the Muir Beach Acid Test, leaning on the top rail of a driftwood fence with you and Lesh and Babbs, watching the world light up, talking about our glorious futures. The gig had been semi-successful and the air was full of exulted fantasies. Babbs whacks Phil on the back. "Just like the big time, huh Phil." "It is! It is the big time! Why, we could cut a chart-busting record to-f******-morrow!" I was even more optimistic. "Hey, we taped tonight's show. We could release a record tomorrow. "Yeah right--" (holding up that digitally challenged hand the way you did when you wanted to call attention to the truth or the lack thereof) "--and a year from tomorrow be recording a Things Go Better With Coke commercial." You could be a sharp-tongued popper-of-balloons s***-head when you were so inclined, you know. A real b******. You were the sworn enemy of hot air and commercials, however righteous the cause or lucrative the product. Nobody ever heard you use that microphone as a pulpit. No anti-war rants, no hymns to peace. No odes to the trees and All things Organic. No ego-deaths or born-againnesses. No devils denounced no gurus glorified. No dogmatic howlings that I ever caught wind of. In fact, your steadfast denial of dogma was as close as you ever came to having a creed. And to the very end, Old Timer, you were true to that creed. No commercials. No trendy spins. No bayings of belief. And if you did have any dogma you surely kept it tied up under the back porch where a smelly old hound belongs. I guess that's what I mean about a loud silence. Like Michaelangelo said about sculpting, "The statue exists inside the block of marble. All you have to do is chip away the stone you don't need." You were always chipping away at the superficial. It was the false notes you didn't play that kept that lead line so golden pure. It was the words you didn't sing. So this is what we are left with, Jerry: this golden silence. It rings on and on without any hint of let up...on and on. And I expect it will still be ringing years from now. Because you're still not playing falsely. Because you're still not singing Things Go Better With Coke.
Ever your friend, Keez

[Photographer]

3. Sighs deeply.