Captain Trips was a majestic conduit of pure Being when he played the guitar. He wove soaring, wailing sonic explorations of space and time, heartache and joy which took ecstatic Deadheads along for the ride.
Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead could take the ineffable, the wordless and express it with breathtaking eloquence and sensitivity and nuance. When Uncle Jerry plugged in, he didn’t just plug into an amp. He plugged into Godhead itself.
He was born in San Francisco on August 1, 1942. August 9 will mark the 15th anniversary of his death in 1995.
Happy Birthday and Thank You, Jerry!
“You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only ones who do what you do.“ ~ Jerry Garcia
“Death comes at you no matter what you do in this life, and to equate drugs with death is a facile comparison.“ ~ Jerry Garcia
“I think it’s too bad that everybody’s decided to turn on drugs, I don’t think drugs are the problem. Crime is the problem. Cops are the problem. Money’s the problem. But drugs are just drugs.“
“What we do is as American as lynch mobs. America has always been a complex place.“
“Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.” ~ Jerry Garcia
“You need music, I dont know why. It’s probably one of those Joseph Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic and bliss, and power and myth, and celebration and religion in our lives and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it.” ~ Jerry Garcia
“Nobody stopped thinking about those psychedelic experiences. Once you’ve been to some of those places, you think, “How can I get back there again but make it a little easier on myself?“
“What’s been great about the human race gives you a sense of how great you might get, how far you can reach.“ ~ Jerry Garcia
“Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.“ ~ Jerry Garcia
“What we’re thinking about is a peaceful planet.
We’re not thinking about anything else. We’re not
thinking about any kind of power. We’re not
thinking about any kind of struggles. We’re not
thinking about revolution or war or any of that.
That’s not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt.
Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would
all like to be able to live an uncluttered life.
A simple life, a good life.
And like think about moving the whole human race
ahead a step, or a few steps.“
~ Jerry Garcia