2000 From: terrapin@cats.ucsc.edu (Beth Dyer) Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead Subject: Stoned Sunday Rap, part 2 Date: 4 Jan 1994 02:05:42 GMT Organization: University of California; Santa Cruz Lines: 406 Message-ID: <2gaitm$sl5@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> NNTP-Posting-Host: si.ucsc.edu >From Signpost to New Space, an interview by Charles Reich with Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl, circa 1972... reprinted without permission, by popular demand :-), for your reading pleasure.... CR: No, I don't see the hawk. MG: He's sitting right on top of the pine tree. CR: Right on top of the tree there, watching. MG: Well, you see it's foggy and they can't fly up in the fog, they have to come down below the fog to get anything to eat and they fly blind and they can't stand it. CR: Jerry, think about like consciousness and then think about how a hawk can see six times better than you can. JG: Yeah right. CR: Now... JG: Far out! CR: Now, do you realize there will be a day when our minds, when we can see six times more things than we see now. JG: Yeah. CR: Like, and music will be like six times more cosmic than it is now. JG: Well I'm pushing for that day. (*laughter*) CR: That's what I think is a great fantastic thing that we'll get to where we can see like, for instance, looking at another person we'll be able to see *six times more*. JG: Well I think, I think LSD is that, man, and psychedelic drugs are that, you know, really, you know, because I've seen things that you know (*laughter*) there would be no other way to do it, you know what I mean.... CR: I've got to tell you about this thing that I did. This is just the last three weeks; I would sit in one place and could like get back to say age seven years, and I could go through all the feelings of seven years, I mean when I was seven years old. JG: Right. You better watch that stuff. You may want it when you're old. (*laughter*) You can't play those things back that much. CR: Really? JG: Yeah, right, because they start to lose it after a while because you start playing back your second playback and then you play back your next playback and it's cumulative, it's like tape, there, just exactly like tapes. CR: It *is* a tape and it went through my head. I saw some family scenes, and you mean that's a like a limited play, that's ... JG: Yeah, you'll only hear it that way so many times. CR: God, what an incredible thing! JG: It's like a tape because there's an entropy thing happening, you know, withthe energy and the electrical connections and the neurons and all that shit daring around in your brain, all that stuff is matrixes, you know. CR: Because you know what I did, I had a lot of it sort of scribbled as I thought of it in the note book and I tried to read it back and I couldn't experience it. JG: That's great, yeah, well, of course, but now your next problem will be playing back that in addition to your commentary. CR: Yeah, I see. JG: You know what I mean, you see. CR: So it's slowly covered. JG: Exactly - *eventually*. So like it's like, you know that's the thing I mean, it's like go forward now, man, because someday you might want to play those memories back. (*laughter*) CR: Well, I did want to play them, this was like, but Jerry, I wanted to find out why I was so terrified. JG: Oh, there you go, okay, I can dig it. Well then, in that case you *want* to play it back, in fact, you probably want to play it back so much that they're gone. CR: The terrors, because... JG: Yeah. CR: You see, like I was a *frightened person*. You know what? You know there are some people in the world who are frightened persons and some people in the world who are like unfrightened. JG: I don't believe it. CR: You think everybody is a frightened person? JG: No, no, I don't believe that anybody is a frightened person. I believe that any truly frightened person would have died out thousands and thousands of years ago, because you can't survive and be frightened indefinitely. I don't think that there is an organism that's frightened, I think that there's an artificial fright energy implant that's like the horror movies. CR: Yeah. JG: It's not real fear because if it was real fear you would have been afraid to live this long; you're part of a surviving strain, man. CR: Yeah, but I've had tolike put an awful lot of energy into building up safeguards against the fear. JG: Oh, well, that's a drag, you know, that's a drag. CR: And if I could put that energy into positive forward motion, it would be much better. JG: All you need is positive forward... MG: Confidence. JG: No, not... CR: You have to keep that dragon in you which is fear. JG: All you need is a form through which to be positive. CR: Right, but like if a lot of that form is dictated by fear... JG: Oh well, whew, the old switcheroo. CR: Then you have to like go back and look at the fear, take a trip and run that tape again. JG: Yeah right. CR: And say, "What the fuck, this is all over with, forget it," and then you can come forward and you may not carry that tape again. JG: Well, you could also come to the realization about the nature of ultimate fear. You can scare yourself as much as you can possibly scare yourself and find out what it is, what the fear really is. CR: Yeah. JG: You can experience real fear, I mean you know (*laughter*) it's like with me for example, fear, I'm fearful, but the thing that like when I played out my fear fantasies like, you know, I was high and all of a sudden I begin to feel that feeling of "Oh oh, I'm scared," I'm afraid, and I'm afraid of something that's just back here and I know that if I turn around it's going to be the most horrible fear possible and at that moment I went into it and it was plenty scary but, you know it wasn't that bad, you know what I mean. The worst, the thing that was afraid of was that I as afraid of dying horrible way, in a horrible way. That's what I was afraid of. Ultimately, I didn't want to die horribly and painfully and just at that time I went through all of the horrible and painful deaths that I could possible go through and it wasn't like I said, "Okay, now I'm going to die horrible and painful deaths," it was like all of a sudden, man there they were, here comes the insect horrors and all my flesh was stripped clean not once but millions of times and then it's going to be the fire and now it's going to be really all of it, the whole fantasy, *eeeeekkkk*, (*laughter*) and it's like since then it's hard for me to work up a fear. CR: Well, my fear is a whole different thing. My fear is like being alive but not having your freedom. JG: Oh God, I can't imagine not being alive and not having your freedom. CR: Well, my freedom is... let's suppose you were locked in a jail or a closet, that's my fear. JG: Oh. CR: It's all got to do with losing. JG: Then you got that *inside* fear, the *Night of the Living Dead* fear. CR: Well... JG: The one which goes farther and farther in, which recedes to a smaller and smaller point, and it's like claustrophobic in nature. CR: Claustrophobic fear, that is if you said,"You're going to have to stay in this closet," I would be terrified, not of dying... JG: Did you ever see *Night of the Living Dead*? MG: A movie? JG: Movie. CR: No. JG: It's an illustration of the fear that you're talking about. That's so fantastic, man, you won't believe it, you'll love it. Basically, the thing in the movie starts out -- don't worry about the tape; we'll get back to all that stuff. CR: Yeah, I'll change it whenever it seems like it should be changed. JG: Basically, the trip of this movie is that there's this guy and his sister in a graveyard visiting mother's grave up in New England -- this is all in New England -- and they're up there visiting mother's grave and the guy starts playing a trick on the girl, sort of scaring her a little with, "They're coming to get you," that kind of thin 1d25 g, and in the background you see one or two figures moving slowly and this guy comes up just out of nowhere and grabs the guy, immediately murders him and comes after the girl, the girl jumps into a car and the keys aren't in it, and this guy is beating and baying on the window. CR: Woo. JG: She's in the car and releases the handbrake and it goes down the hill and she jumps out and runs for it and this thing is after her and she goes to this house and this whole thing gets into this house and these people who have come are running away from what's happening. These people are in this house and the people are boarding up the house from the inside and it finally descends down to one guy in the cellar, man, with the cellar door jammed shut and they're walking up there, having killed everybody else. It's like the ultimate drawing inward fear, claustrophobic fear. Ahhh! It's incredible, man, it's an amazing movie, truly horrible. CR: My worst fantasy would being locked in a dungeon. JG: Right. CR: And if I were dead I wouldn't have that fear at all. JG: Of course not, right. CR: I would be dead, so that would like *solve* my problem, being dead. Sometimes when I'm afraid I might say, well, jump off the Golden Gate Bridge because that will solve my problem of being afraid. JG: Dig it, right, that's the suicide problem. CR: It's not the same as the people who commit suicide that like are angry at somebody. "I'll commit suicide and then you'll be sorry," you know what I mean. That's a whole different trip. JG: Right. CR: Like I'll solve my own problems. JG: Right, a way out. MG: I always thought that being locked in a dungeon would be kind of attractive because you could turn into a yoga. JG: Yeah, there's time to do all those things that are meditative. Yeah, I thought about that. MG: Right. With nobody bothering you. CR: But you're like, you've got this inner peace, you see, and I've got to *run* around all the time. JG: You haven't an escape hatch somewhere? I'll tell you my escape hatch. My escape hatch is the streets of Bombay, you know. CR: In your head. JG: Yeah, no, well, in the real sense that I've already decided at one time or another in my life that yeah, man I could do it, you know, I could be a beggar on the streets of Bombay. CR: *Oh*, of course. I just didn't know what you... Oh. JG: That's what I mean, the way out of everything that you presently know, you know, if you're looking for the way out. CR: But, Jerry, first think of this cosmic thing that you and I have a secret place in our heads that's alike! I've never discovered another person in my life that had a thing like that; that is, I too have a place, a thing I could do if everything else... JG: Right. CR: But, do you realize what I'm trying to say, that the two of us have constructed a little place in our heads. JG: Sure, sure. CR: Do you think that other people do that? JG: Sure. Well, of course I think that you do, you deal with the machinery you've got. So you create your solutions to your own problems or whatever... you do whatever you do. CR: So I've said I could be... MG: You've got a box for a last resort. CR: So I've said I could be a person in the woods. JG: There you go, right, and I could be a beggar on the streets of Bombay; it's like, sure, it's, to me, that's all the security I need. CR: That's right. JG: If everybody made a similar decision at one time or another in their life, we could all get it on together, because it would mean that everybody had made the choice at one time or another or opting, opting in, say, opting in from being a beggar on the streets of Bombay. Instead I decided to do this other thing which is like extremely forward going, involves a lot of energy, involves a lot of karma, involves a lot of stuff. CR: Well, I've done that too, but I've always said after it has a collision and collapses and that trip is over, there's this place and I'll go to there and so... JG: Right. CR: I'll do this far-out thing only as long as it doesn't crash. JG: Right, right, right, as long as it makes it, as long as it's working. CR: Yeah, and I can't control that, it has to just happen as long as it can happen and then I'll crash, if it does. JG: Right. Well, see, now I've recently made my decision and it has been to go down with the ship, dig. CR: Yeah. JG: That's what my decision was lately; that escape hatch was my escape hatch in essence in the fact that I could easily be nothing as easily as I could be something but I decided the decision was to be... CR: To choose. JG: Right, that was it, that was what that choice thing was about; so like for me what that means is it's kind of like abandoning the streets of Bombay and going ahead with this game, whatever it is, since I've been so obviously drawn into it. CR: Well, you abandon the streets of Bombay until somebody takes the Grateful Dead away from you. JG: Right, say or whatever the calamity is. CR: Yeah, and then you're back and there's still this place you have built. JG: Right. CR: And the thing I'm trying to deal with, like I want to talk about communication between people for a minute, like I never knew anybody besides me-- this may just tell something about how uptight I am. JG: Then you never communicated too well with anybody, that's all I can say. CR: Yes, I'm so uptight. JG: Because like with everybody, like in the Grateful Dead that was our *basis*, in fact, you know, the basis of that understanding, that basic thing, that we're nowhere and you know what I mean, it's just that thing. CR: But you see I thought I was the only person in the world who had that construction in their minds. JG: Fantastic. CR: So I haven't been communicating very well with people. JG: Well, nobody else has been apparently, I mean, you know if that's the first you heard about it. MG: People don't talk about their brains very much. JG: Yeah, people don't talk about their secrets. CR: If I like wrote that, where people could read about this place in my head, a lot of other people would have a sense of recognition. JG: Of course they would. CR: That's the same as what music does. JG: That's communication. CR: That's communication. JG: Right, if you now what's happening in everybody's head, well, I mean if you have a rough idea of what the general outline is, I think you can make a lot of really, I think there are a lot of generalizations you can make about the western mind, especially the English speaking. CR: But what I've been doing is like saying something else, like, "Oh, there's nothing to worry about," or "Oh, it wouldn't matter to me if it all disappeared," and I've been *lying* and nobody can communicate when they lie. JG: That's true. If you lie, well, it won't go anywhere. You can communicate but the thing that will happen... well, see that's the thing that I worry about with things like these interviews when you're taking a piece of energy at a fast, huge, incredible, high speed. It's like physics, you know, the faster you go, the rounder you get, the faster you go in the fourth dimension, you know, the bigger you get. As the thing approaches the speed of light it gains mass. CR: Right. . 0