due to the clouds of smoke that i swear are still stirring in my brain even though i haven't touched pot in years, i forgot that today was the annivesary of the death of jerry garcia until jeff reminded me. and it's the 10 year anniversary! that's a big deal, because people place importance on numbers like TEN. i don't know why.
as i've mentioned before, i was a hippie. i was a lot of things, but for a number of years i think i was mostly a hippie. though i was simultaneously obsessed with nine inch nails, nirvana and pearl jam. so, i wore a lot of black and a lot of flannel, but it was always with hemp necklaces and birks. this is going to come off like it's more about me than about jerry, and it sort of is i guess, but it's about how he and his band affected me. originally i was just going to post my journal entry from the day that jerry died, but i can't find it. i know i wrote it though. i remember i was in a car driving that day, and the sky was really red and i remember thinking how i'd write about that red sky when i got home. because surely it had something to do with jerry's death. i mean, he always wore black t-shirts on stage - but if i remember correctly the last show he played his shirt was red. i felt this was significant, plus...red skies are just cool, especially when you're stoned. which likely i was.
i couldn't find that journal entry though. all i found were pages amongst pages of drivel about how my glassblower boyfriend left me for some chic he met on tour. after he met her he was living in my bedroom at my schoolyear beach house rental in rhode island. he brought tanks of nitrous and we got a dog named pheobe. we only ate organic food, that i purchased with money i made by selling hippie clothes i'd constructed of corduroy and assorted scrap fabrics, and of course hemp jewelry. after that it was all about my plans to go on tour, where i could meet "real" people. needless to say tour lost, school won and i settled in to my college life. these were my friends. and i dated john, my first musician boyfriend. he was in a jam band.
but you know what, that was all after jerry died. that was all around the time i was living in burlington, vermont for a summer between semesters. we had a tribute on our furniture-less living room wall to jerry. it was made of construction paper. if you are ever in the presense of both myself AND jenna at the same time, we will tell amusing tales of our adventures that summer in burlington. for now, just take a look at our wall mural.
before jerry died though, i went to highgate for the dead show in '94 or '95, i forget which. i went with sarah and my brother. we took shrooms and i bought a dancing bear necklace...because i thought the bear was actually dancing. we then pushed our way through 12 foot high grass to get to the stage (phil side), except the grass wasn't 12 feet high - it just seemed that way. our minds were altered. once we sat down someone gave us a super ball that i insisted on wiping in dirt before touching, because i was convinced it was covered with liquid acid. i never took acid. it wasn't "of the earth".
in july of 1995 sarah and i went to a dead show in jersey. giants stadium, i suppose. drinking, drugs and heat in the parking lot for so many hours were not a good combo for me that day. once drums + space started i thought my mind was going to explode. not my brain, my mind. i put a baseball hat on, thinking that may help, but ulitimately had to get out of there. that was the last time i'd see the grateful dead. and over the next couple of years i'd slowly transform in to something further away from a "hippie" (i mean, the scene totally changed after that).
it was another lifetime ago that i sat in dirt at shows (both dead and phish) and sold jewelry. today i have stacks of dusty tapes that i traded with people on the internet (still using dial up!), countless foggy memories...and a damn good recipe for grilled cheese (secret ingredient: garlic powder!) i could quote a bumper sticker here, but it would sound sentimental and for some reason, i'm just not feeling that sentimental today. i think all sentimental and emotional feelings were sucked out of me after sunday nights six feet under. i will leave you with this entry from my DREAM JOURNAL (i know), it's dated august of 1997:
living on a bus with lara (on tour). we're at a dead show walking around in the parking lot. we meet some people and hang out on their bus. walking around the next day we smear red and purple glitter on our faces. we find out it's acid and try to get it off. the next day we decide to repeat the same night we had before - down to the same conversations. we get to our friends bus and i decide to leave, i know what's going to happen and i'm on to new adventures.
i totally remember where i was when i heard about jerry's death, not because i was a hippie really but because that summer i worked as a counselor at predominantly hippie Jewish camp. that night, we said shiva (the prayer in honor of the dead) for jerry. a bunch of people wore tie-dye. i think we sang uncle john's band.
next time i see you, i want to have a conversation about whose death you think mattered to your more: jerry garcia's or kurt cobain's? (see i have six feet under on the brain too!)
Posted by: karen | August 09, 2005 at 11:46 PM
I second that emotion. Great post.
Posted by: Lockhart Steele | August 10, 2005 at 07:41 PM