October

Interview, Oct, 1995 by Ingrid Sischy

When Jerry Garcia died and all the testimonials started, some of the speeches, especially the ones by politicians, gave me an uneasy feeling, the source of which I couldn't quite pinpoint. So I went back to our Interview issue on family to read what Garcia had said. In addition to his observations that family is a collective matter and not just a matter of blood ties, he said a lot that put into focus why I'd felt so uncomfortable reading the words by all those powerful pols who became all nostalgic instead of all fired up on the occasion of Garcia's death. One heard about their days among the crowds at Dead concerts, and about how Garcia's death brought the curtain down on that time for them, signaling that their youth was truly over. I was uncomfortable, angry even, because of what I sensed lay beneath these statements - an equation between adulthood and an acceptance of life as it is, something that Garcia never took part in.

Garcia was a total believer in what could happen. In the interview we did with him, he said, "America is in danger of losing its adventurous spirit in its pursuit of some kind of illusion of safety." And he described the Dead's music this way: "What we're doing is nonformulaic. You have to allow it to happen. Generally, we don't know how it's going to turn out. It's an intuitive walk. It's something you have to feel your way through. You can't say, Well, last time we played I did this and this and this, and everything worked out real good. It doesn't work that way because the time is different, the universe is changed, and everything is changed. . . . We allow for the possibility that something miraculous could happen. And the audience participates in the process with us. They know it the way we know it. They know that you coax and you squirm and you wheedle and you try all these different things, and then things start coming together."

No wonder his fans are feeling as if they have nowhere to go, now that Garcia is dead. When they went into a Grateful Dead environment, maybe there was a sense of family they hadn't felt before. There was certainly a suspension of disbelief, just as there was often the sharing of food and the notion that they were a part of the process of what was happening on the stage. Yes, for some there were also drugs. And yes, Garcia's internal life was clearly at odds with the peacefulness that is now part of his legacy. You don't become a drug addict and an alcoholic if things are so rosy. But perhaps one of the bonds between Garcia and his audience was this knowledge of how cold it can be out there. One could say, "Wait a minute - a lot of the Dead's fans have been members of the more privileged classes." Indeed, this is true, but not exclusively so, and anyway privilege doesn't necessarily make people feel they have a place in society. Dead concerts made people feel that they were a part of the music.

Politics today seem to be based on separating people. Instead of working toward inclusiveness, the official leaders of the country are sending the opposite message, one that is a dagger to idealism and seems to say: Cool it on all those issues that stood for change and a sharing of power and opportunity; cool it on this notion that America has room for everyone (immigrants not welcome); cool it on women's fights; cool it on affirmative action; cool it on gay rights; cool it on freedom of expression. The guys who have been out there attacking progress have influenced an atmosphere in which it seems as if almost everyone who wants to win in the next election is wavering, even those who were once champions of change. While Garcia - who seemed to be mostly involved with environmental issues - didn't often get into these other kinds of politics, and while the fans went to Dead concerts to have a good time in an apolitical way, idealism was at the heart of what was going on. And there's a hole in idealism today.

This pulling back from idealism is why it seemed particularly icky that Garcia's death didn't motivate those public figures who seemed so saddened by it to do something more than wax nostalgic. Why, as they were remembering him, didn't they remember what the band was all about: "You try all these different things and then things start coming together"?

Adventurous is certainly not the word I would use to describe the mood on the Hill, but adventurousness is alive and well in other places. There are lots of people who allow for the possibility that, as Garcia said, "something miraculous could happen." One such person is bell hooks, who is interviewed in this issue. Her book Killing Rage: Ending Racism comes out this month. She told me she was motivated to write the essays in it because of her frustration at all the people she has heard saying that it's no use - things will never really change. She shows that things have changed and works at how we can keep on making sure that they continue to. Hers is a hopeful book. The hope brought by the civil rights movement comes alive again so clearly in her writing that it makes hopelessness seem like the terrible thing that it can be. Killing Rage also crystallizes how we are all in this thing together. And how if you go overboard for what you believe in, you won't drown.