Jerry’s Dead

I’ve always hated the Grateful Dead. I hate them in a very active way; I lunge for the tuning dial as soon as the first bars of “Truckin” meander out of my car speakers; I never accepted an invitation to a Dead show, and I’ve always had a disdain for the soggy mixture of liberation and self-destruction that the band has never managed to sort out.

Now that Jerry’s gone - and I think it’s taken us a while to realize that he really means it this time - there is no chance that he will ever resolve the maddening questions he raised. Jerry will never be able to tell us why his remarkable extended family couldn’t keep him away from the needle. He lost his chance to show us how - and if - there is a way to distinguish between a bad trip and a bad way of life.

During sessions of late night cable-surfing, I occasionally come across a documentary on John or Robert Kennedy - footage from an era that will be forever linked with the music of the Dead. I hope that my nostalgia is not just a pathetic crutch, because the way I see it, even though John Kennedy and MLK were both womanizers, even though Altamonte was every bit as real as Woodstock, hope LIVED. That now-dead dream of a better way, that absurd faith in the future of America, and by extension the prospect of a peaceful humanity - at least for an instant, that motherfucking dream was real. I realize now that Deadheads, up until Jerry’s death anyway, had found a way to keep the remnants of that dream alive, or at least resuscitate it for a few hours, and Garcia was their priest, the unlikely direct line to the sacred.

I don’t understand that dream. I want to believe it, but where some saw utopia I saw an unrealistic and selfish cop-out. Artists who have the guts to say FUCK YOU have always been more my style. The rampant individualism of Jim Morrison, the Sex Pistols’ ruthless mockery of convention, even the unapologetic heterosexuality of Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin) and Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) - these were the rebellions I admired.

I guess I never understood why Jerry didn’t get PISSED. Everything he believed in was trashed somewhere along the way. I perceived Jerry as an escapist, not a fighter. And from my childhood, probably no less bitter than many of my peers, there was no escape, and desperation has no patience for jam sessions. To me, anger is the most vital emotion the creative muse can tap. Jerry’s refusal to raise his middle finger dulled his edge for me. I saw him as a coward.

But looking back I can see that he was also a good man, gentle, in many ways a better man than me. In terms of his broad positive impact on others, a MUCH better man than me. The legendary spirit of improvisation and spontaneity that came so easily to him has consistently eluded me. I have yet to find my audience.

A respected citizen like George Will can judge Jerry’s unorthodox lifestyle as harshly as he wants - which he did, in the issue of Newsweek following his death, but Mr. Will has yet to contribute one good song for his country. And I doubt he’s saved one life, give or take his own. Jerry, on the other hand, has left a musical legacy behind him. Although I don’t think much of this body of work personally, I’d be an idiot to deny the powerful influence it has had on so many of my peers. Ultimately, Jerry’s legacy is more important than his problems, and more durable than the whining analysis of his detractors. Those of us who think we tamed our demons may be wrong. Perhaps all we have done is avoided them through a focus on more conventional goals. Jerry’s creativity was like a Pandora’s Box to him - once he opened it up, he had to face the bad with the good.

Until we open our own Box and reckon with what’s inside, we sound pretty weak passing judgment on a man who has been brave enough to live out his deepest contradictions in the glaring eye of the public. Perhaps the hardest lesson from the death of the GREAT DREAM is that human nature does not sustain utopian perfection. Those who are crazed or drugged out enough to keep this hope going, to believe in human potential even as they check into drug clinics for heroin addictions - these may be the only heroes human enough to be convincing anyway.

Jerry’s protracted battle has given the world more to remember than a dutiful life of PTA meetings and mortgage payments would have. “Voted in every election” is not enough to justify a tombstone. Some of us have conquered our obstacles more effectively than Jerry - after all, Jerry may have lost his most important battle - but is that because he took on something a whole lot bigger? Jerry couldn’t find a way to save my life or redeem my hope in humanity, but he did manage to speak to millions of others. My own bitterness is my problem, and faith is mine alone to salvage. I’m not sure if I want the job; I guess Jerry didn’t want it either.