I'm a few hours early and I know that I won't be the only one on here to post about this. In a few hours it will be exactly Ten Years since Jerry Garcia passed on to his rest. Tommorow as we all mourn his passing lets also remember to celebrate his life and his music. His heart may have stopped but the music never will. Rest In Peace Jerry.
Now that I think about it, 10 years doesn't seem that long... It's a shame the Dead didn't do anything this summer...I loved seeing them last year.
Thanks for the post. We can all share the memories together. 1995 seems a long time ago now. Had the privlige of seeing Garcia live in concert. He was a true artist and survivor.
August 3, 2005 Ten years since old Jer kicked the bucket? Seems more like fifty. Nothing about his passing seems like "only yesterday," rather as long ago and faraway as my childhood. From the sublime to the vicious, everything that could be said has been said and said again. Yet, the essential mystery of who Jerry Garcia was remains. What can be said with fair assurance is that he was a source, an original way of seeing the world that agreed with others in a few broad and important outlines, but which in just as many other dimensions confounded all expectations. I wouldn't say he delighted, in any Whitmanian sense, in what appear to be his contradictions, nor that he had control of them; predictability was not his strong suit. Not even self predictability. He could be alarmingly kind in situations where kindness was the last response to be expected - and altogether gruff where sympathy seemed the more natural response. You could almost say he had weather rather than climate. Few would disagree that a key part of him remained isolated, unknown and unknowable. His art is the closest thing to an available roadmap of his singularities, amorphous clues, and clues only, to the nature of his true affections. Where he entered, he dominated, generally to his dismay. He knew he was not a leader, more a scout striking out in the wilderness of his intuitions, unwittingly summoning others to tag along through virtue of his magnetic personality and apparently deep sense of inner direction, but basically antipathetic to following or to being followed. Driving back and forth across the bay from Larkspur to San Franscisco on Workingman's Dead recording sessions, our conversations would range wide, or, sometimes, nothing would be said at all. I remember once we got to talking about directions. He professed to having none and inquired as to mine. "For the time being," I said, "I'm just following you following yourself." "Then we're both lost," he muttered. A persistent image I have of Jerry which seems strangely resonant with his coming and going: a brilliant sunny day on a boat bobbing above the abyss of Molokini where the floor of the ocean suddenly drops off a cliff and plunges to unknown depths, I watch him check his gear then sit on the edge of the boat and tumble over backwards into the water, which is clear to a depth of several hundred feet. I watch him dwindle in size as he descends further and further, spread eagle and motionless, until he is only a speck to the eye, then disappears altogether from view and there is no more Jerry, only ocean.
Don't shed a tear...............I Know it's hard not to. The teacher of my life, who made me Smile, and made me Tear, who made me Laugh through out the years. I once wondered where I would get the song, now that the poet was gone? And then I found him, sitting in a chair in the attics of my mind. Strumming on my heart and playing in my soul. GOOD BYE to JERRY GARCIA Grateful But never Forgotten
10 years ago today I woke up to the news that Jerry was dead and that my roomate had stepped on my kitten. Oh well, I spent the previous year following the Dead up and down the west coast so at least I caught the tail end of the era. Thanks for everything Jerry! (couldn't have waited a cpl more years huh?)
Ten years ago I was living in San Diego and had talked with a friend about going to see the Grateful Dead later that year when they played in L.A. That morning my alarm radio was trying to coax me out of bed when I heard the DJ say, "I'm going to play a song by the Grateful Dead, then I have an announcement to make." While listening to Casey Jones I could only think it meant they were going to play a concert in San Diego and I got stoked, but instead was rocked by the news that Jerry had died in his sleep that morning. Throughout the day mourners gathered in Ocean Beach to play drums, dance and sing GD music in a tearful tribute. As for me, while I liked them, I was never a Deadhead, but still his passing affected me more than I thought it would because I felt it was the end of an era. I was wrong. Jerry's music is far from forgotten and he has become a legend. The counterculture spirit the GD helped inspire is still going strong. Hope to see you in Rock & Roll Heaven someday Jerry!
First time for me was 1969 outside hanging upside down in a tree doing LSD 25. Very clean and had a ball
