Call Him Back, You Never Will. Jerry Garcia 8/1/42-8/9/95

     

     On the evening of August 9th, 1995,  a nurse at Serenity Knolls Drug Treatment facility passed by Jerry Garcia's bedroom to clearly hear an absence of his stentorian snores.  As she crept in she saw Jerry lying motionless in his bed, with a beatific smile on his face.  When the coroner asked why she made his face like that, she explained that she didn't; that is just how she found him.  That evening, Jerry entered his next trip with a smile.
     The culture is filled with legendary musicians.  Jerry and The Dead hit their stride when the "best" were a dime a dozen, at least in their scene.  What makes Jerry different?   What makes him an icon above all the other musicians, living or dead, of his time?  There has always been a cultural phenomena with The Grateful Dead, that actual scholars have dissected with differing opinions.  While the intelligentista muddle over this, the real question should be why there are millions of other people in their twenties, who have never traveled with Jerry era Dead, writing, listening to, or discussing, Jerry Garcia, as this sentence is so poorly typed.
      There is a clear difference between Jerry Garcia and his colleagues: this man was no rock star.  He lived a comparable life; filled with the sex, drugs, and music.  His attitude was different, however, then the demigods he would share the stage with.  His humanism is what makes him a prophet.   With his vices, insecurities, and drawbacks, he embodied the antihero, like the Steinbeck protagonists he admittedly grew up adoring.  While the rest of the world chose to sing-from-the-mountaintop, light their guitars on fire, and display their fictitiously massive bulge, Jerry kept his frail yet mischievous eyes on his guitar and microphone.  The juxtaposition of Jerry is what makes him so goddamn likable.  His is honesty personified: real person in an industry full of idols.  He walked the line between happy and flawed, and it showed in his emotive playing.  This would also reflect to the audience, who most likely saw themselves in Jerry.  All the world, multiple times throughout their lives, caroms from megastar on stage, to thin voiced muse.  Like Jerry, we are all weak, but possess the capabilities to be transcendent, and that is why we will never get enough of him.  Rest In Peace, Jerry.  You changed more lives than you ever planned on.