He put the mojo on me. "I haven't had another relationship really since then. She never taught me any rules and benched me forever." Not even the Sixties. He could see the musical notes, he told her. Tiffany Eckert 10 of 15 The Kesey Clan surrounds Geneva Jolley Kesey Family 11 of 15 Springfield's Peter DeFazio at his Congressional Headquarters. GarciaLive Volume 19: October 31st, 1992 Oakland Coliseum Arena showcases Garcia's return to the stage with the Jerry Garcia Band following a second major health crisis. And frankly, I'm glad we didn't, because I think if we'd fought it out too much, we would have lost each other. That is really something." He was sad. (There is an apocryphal tale of Mountain Girl throwing Deborah Koons through a sliding glass door at Bob Weir's recording studio, which both women hotly deny both to the press and in private. He never did respond well to pressure of any kind. Occasionally, her voice could be heard floating the sound actually moving through the hall with a loving and humorous commentary on some piece of the action." "I wasn't a hundred percent Ken's girlfriend," she says. "I tried not to ask too many questions, because I know how it is. My moms memoir has become my number-one focus over the past six months. Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, former wife of late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, and her daughter with late author Ken Kesey, Sunshine Kesey, recent. Koons Garcia and Weir took a portion of Garcia's ashes to India two weeks ago and spread them . But as Garcia's addiction worsened, Mountain Girl took their daughters and moved to a farm in Oregon, where some of the other Pranksters had moved. The windows are busted. His pedal steel and a chair the only furniture. The family moved from house to house (Annabelle Garcia says that she went to no less than 13 schools, "just like an Army brat" ). "I was no longer in charge of my own destiny.". Retired Prankster Lee Quanstrom, a Santa Cruz-based journalist, has vivid memories of Mountain Girl. With Sunshine slung to her hip, Mountain Girl fell into communal living again. "Now what will that do?" "It wasn't (about) any one person," she says. I rebelled against the Grateful Dead as a teenager. Jerry was married with a daughter of his own, but they had moved back to Palo Alto without him. "Yes," admits Carolyn Garcia. Im so stoked that we found professionals who were already successful in other markets. And boy, do I run from that stuff. ", The closer she grew to Jerry, the further she drifted from Kesey. He returned to the United States and, just nights after being sentenced to six months in the San Mateo County Jail, he was arrested again, this time with Adams, while smoking marijuana on the rooftop of Stewart Brand's home on Telegraph Hill, San Francisco. Sunshine Kesey is one of renown author and merry maker, Ken Kesey's, children. She had intelligence, joie de vivre and a directness that is really remarkable. "Ken was upset that I hooked up with Jerry," she says. "You have to be a pretty big person to hold your own with Kesey and Garcia and their milieu. She hallucinated "pyramids and parrots and lush jungle vegetation," she says. [9][10], Carolyn Garcia currently sits on the boards of the Rex Foundation and the Furthur Foundation, and is on the advisory board of the Marijuana Policy Project. With Jerry at her side, Mountain Girl was at the center of it all, counting Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin among her growing family of friends. "I'll break you this time. We call them the "bears.' Not even when she and Jerry, after two children and 15 years together, got married on New Year's Eve 1981, between sets at the Dead's traditional New Year's show. ", "I never spoke with her about any of it until after the fact," said Sue Swanson. ", But at La Honda and in other communities around the country, a new movement was taking place. I mean, there were no "scenes.' The concert had been meant to revive the spirit of a generation. "There were always girls coming out of the woodwork," says Mountain Girl. "They're great together. ", Still facing pot charges in San Francisco, she had to hitchhike up and down the coast for her court appearances, five hours each way. We had so much fun on that bus. "I was on the hunt for compatible people," says Garcia now. Billed as the Trips Festival, the immersive, three-day event would draw more than 10,000 people to revel in the city's underground art scene, from light-show artists and experimental theater troupes to bands like the Dead, which gave its first major performance in San Francisco. "It was awful," Mountain Girl says. "She was Jerry's girlfriend. Konser Grateful Dead di Oregon pada tahun 1972 menyelamatkan produk susu keluarga Kesey dan menjadi legenda kontra. She was caught napping each time. Again, it was time to extricate herself and rescue her children. She spent every minute she could out of doors, exploring the local terrain and, she writes, "imagining myself running long distance over the old Mohawk trail or hunting deer or making the clothes and foods of the Indians." "The weight thing wasn't that simple. Obviously, were not huge, but it would be nice to do something like that one day. Written in red paint, the front bumper proclaimed "CAUTION WEIRD LOAD. And I was like: What a bunch of baloney. So too, she thought, were Kesey and the Pranksters. Jerry and I were head over heels in love, and radiant with happiness. The bus is rusted and broken down. Photo: Gene Anthony: 1966 She arrived in California, like many at the time, eager to bloom. And there were dogs and Pranksters, the bus and a whole huge scene all around them. Trixie Garcia, her youngest, has come up from Oakland. Mom escaped. I think its important for people to have an alternative to alcohol, an alternative to opiates. Kesey describes that first meeting with a literary allusion: "Vonnegut's phrase a "karass' comes to mind. "She spoke her mind and was quite tolerant except for anything that approached ignorance. "He was aware of all this extra stuff going on in the music," she says, "which is one of the reasons it had so much power to move people. Despite the free-love ethos of the Sixties, she could feel the tension her affair with Kesey generated in the group. Like any other rock and roller, Jerry Garcia was under tremendous pressure to fool around. Through our Discourse journalism, Insider seeks to explore and illuminate the days most fascinating issues and ideas. She was amazingly beautiful. Occasionally, Mountain Girl would ferry the kids away to Oregon and once, during one long separation, took them all the way back East to be near her parents. Certainly, for my own peace of mind, I cant work with anyone who thinks my dad was a deity or something. "I wasn't quite as daredevil as I had been. As the Dead began putting out records and touring, Mountain Girl, who had a child to raise, began feeling the strain. Why, I take four or five to go to sleep!". He left a third of his estate to his wife of three months, Deborah Koons Garcia, but had a herd of creditors in his wake (including Mountain Girl) and the value of his estate in dispute. "I'm standing there, it's like 6 in the morning," she recalls. I mean, yuck! But there was one glaring problem. "I felt bad when it was taken down into the woods and abandoned. Tidak ada hasil . But Ive gotten more confident as far as using my creative impulses or intuition to help guide the look and feel of some of the brand licenses and products. There was a Free Clinic for those who were sick, and a Free Store for those in need of basic necessities, and there was music everywhere. And that was a faith in the rightness of our relationship. It was a tremendously exhilarating, positive experience about relating to everything around you. Dean Budnick on December 2, 2020 Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, Sunshine Kesey, Trixie Garcia and Annabelle Garcia "I sincerely believe that the more people that we can expose to Jerry's. It was such a special thing," she says. Mountain Girl believes he was still suffering from the trauma of seeing his father, Joe, drown on a fishing trip when he was 6. In exchange for the cash, she gave up claim to the fruits of his talent, his real estate holdings and any future earnings. Mountain Girl, eight months pregnant, hitchhiked to get groceries. The engine had been cannibalized for parts for Furthur II, the "new bus" that Kesey was taking on what fellow Prankster Kenneth Babbs was calling the Grand Furthur Tour to the Rock and Roll Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. Sunshine Kesey and Annabel Garcia live nearby, not far from their mom. Be the first to know about the Grateful Dead's exclusive limited-edition releases, breaking news on the band, community events, and so much more. For Carolyn Adams, it was her second brush with genius. They were a team. Same with Jerry's two daughters too (I suppose Sunshine Kesey for that matter too), I'm so interested in learning what it was like having to essentially share their dad with the rest of the world. It was something we did amongst ourselves. The loss of his father was absolutely devastating for him as a little boy. He was one of these people where the first time you see him, he's kind of personable, and then the next time, he's starting to disintegrate.". I think I did the best I could with a tough situation. But at the same time, he had a family and was "very married, with the cutest three little kids you ever saw in your whole life. After leaving Kesey in Mexico, where he was hiding out to avoid US drug charges, Mountain Girl returned to San Francisco with a newborn and an uncertain future. "Hitchhiked up I-5, pregnant with no money whatsoever, begging cups of coffee off of people." She gave birth in the charity ward of a Mexican hospital in May 1966. It sounds like all of these endeavors require a balance between your free-spirited nature and a need to focus on business matters. Independence. Jerry Garcia exclaimed. "She is the real deal.". She studied journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia and has worked in a variety of media including television and daily print news. When the Summer of Love devolved into a plague of bad drug trips and homeless teenagers, Mountain Girl and Garcia set out to restore new life to the countercultural movement to which they had helped give birth. We also partnered with Tessemaes, which is an eco-conscious salad dressing company. Growing up, all this visionary artist stufflike psychedelic art, comic book artserved as my inspiration. "The band got to be very big and very much the nexus and focus of hundreds and thousands of people. And that level of his dedication really fired everybody. He was a pro. But, says Gordon "Dass" Adams, Carolyn Garcia's oldest brother, "Jerry was a lousy husband.". But after spending a night in jail, she soon had another reason to weep. ", When she broke the news to Kesey, he seemed nervous. ", Today, 60 years since she took that ride with Neal Cassady, Mountain Girl is still forging her own path. As it was, he always knew he could come home and there would always be a place for him, no matter how weird it got out there. Kesey dug how she spoke her mind, made him laugh, and dazzled him with beauty. The riotous paint job was murky and peeling, as if the bus had leprosy. "He seemed to be a dangerous kind of guy, sort of angular, like a trucker. "He was just the guitar player," she says. She had short hair she'd dyed blonde. "I was jealous of the freedom the boys seemed to have and I was always angling for another little slice of freedom. All the Pranksters had nicknames the Chief, Slime Queen, Intrepid Traveler and now Hagen gave one to her. I was floored. She'd hitched a ride out west with her older brother, Don, determined to leave square old Poughkeepsie far in the rearview. "Neal basically dropped me off like fresh meat," she recalls. Garcia had indeed gone to live with a slender, intense and dark New York City film student named Deborah Koons whom he had met at a show in 1973 and who had hitched a ride back to New York City on the Dead's bus. Thats something I learned from my parents. Sunshine Becker (born Sunshine Flower Garcia on July 1, 1972) is an American singer who performed backing vocals for the band Furthur. The group, she realized, "was his version of the nuthouse. She'd also just lost her job, and was going broke. Trixie and her reclusive. "I got comfortable, as much as possible, on the overloaded bus bunk with my very few possessions," she writes. Led by Ken Kesey, the swashbuckling author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," the communal crew of seekers and misfits road-tripped the USA in Furthur, experimenting with the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that would come to define their generation. The whole vibe of the Capitol is amazing and authentic. "There was something that needed to be done and when you got all these people together, it was suddenly possible to do it. The police advised Mountain Girl that there was not much she could do about him because he had established some sort of homestead on her property. "He wanted to do his work and be off in his head. Sunshine was about two or three months old and she was in this little basket. The dealers were out there spreading bad, bad shit, telling them it was LSD, and it would be some nasty tranq from the nuthouse.". "Oh, I came from up on the mountain there," she said. "Crazy," she recalls. They just fell in love. Special Thanks to: Trixie Garcia, Annabelle Garcia, Heather Katz, Sunshine Kesey, Carolyn Adams Garcia, Keelin Garcia, Manasha Garcia, Coran Capshaw, Jonathan Blaufarb and Vivek Sridharan at Counsel, LLP, Elliot Groffman, Paul Gutman, Ira Friedman and David Keady At Carroll, Guido and Groffman, LLP, Mark Pinkus, Jeffrey Norman, David Lemieux, Steve Parish, Bill Orner, AND A VERY SPECIAL THANK . It was warm," she recalls. "His glasses were broken and he had a couple of (bruises) where people might have punched him. One must brace against the turns to avoid sliding into the driver. In 1980, on New Year's Eve, they got married by a Buddhist monk backstage at a Dead concert. [1] Despite her maiden name, Garcia, she is not related to Jerry Garcia, an incorrect assumption made by some because of her involvement with Furthur, a post-Garcia incarnation of the Grateful Dead. Countless companies vied for such a coveted collaboration. The cleanliness of life which people around him discouraged pretty quickly. Like Mountain Girl, he was looking for family. Despite their open relationship, he was jealous. Until then, Mountain Girl had always considered their relationship to be "buddy-buddy." I didn't know how to ask for help. "I could hear his voice and somebody else's voice," she tells me. So Ive gotten much smaller. She craved acceptance but couldn't seem to fit in. While living together over the next decade, they raised Sunshine along with their two daughters. I walked over to look, amazed. ", "If you're involved with somebody with a talent like Jerry's, the richness of his gift to everybody was so powerful, you have to give them a lot of latitude to express that gift," she says in retrospect. It was cozy enough, and I felt perfectly safe. But unbeknownst to the guys, she was taking notes. She tried to get in the door but a tree had grown up and blocked her passage. Complete independence. There were daisies growing up through the floor boards. The first in a series of archive releases celebrating the run of Jerry Garcia shows on Broadway in Oct/Nov 1987. ", Garcia knew that as Jerry's wife and mother of two of his children, she was entitled to half of his estate under California law. Today, vestiges of the slender, heart-stoppingly beautiful girl-woman who caught Kesey's eye in 1964 remain - the fierce intelligence, the take-control bossy stick, the intellectual acuity, the ability to cut through a morass of pretense to the heart of the matter, the boisterousness, the guilelessness, the curiosity, the laughter. Theyre super high-end, creative, productive business people. In 1959, Kesey had been a volunteer in a C.I.A.-sponsored LSD experiment at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park. My relationship with him had to do more with intellectual companionship rather than a physical relationship, which was really brief. Show your support for only $2/month, Carlos Santana Plots 1001 Rainbows North American Tour, Reaching New Heights: SunSquabis Kevin Donohue Talks Arise, New Music and Debuting it Live, Earl Scruggs Music Festival Drops Artist Lineup: Emmylou Harris, Greensky Bluegrass, Infamous Stringdusters and More, Listen: Relix Releases The Relix Sessions with Soule Monde on Digital Platforms, Beale Street Music Festival Delivers Lineup: Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, Gary Clark Jr., The Roots and More, Watch Now: Portugal. "I was very upset," she recalls. "Well," she asked him, "what are we going to do?". In 1980, on New Year's Eve, they got married by a Buddhist monk backstage at a Dead concert. Its very small scale; its just a nod to her range of influence, and how many people idolize her. Mountain Girl believes he was still suffering from the trauma of seeing his father, Joe, drown on a fishing trip when he was 6. "I was sitting on the ground, and all of a sudden the redwood needles started to rearrange themselves. I know he had asked for space, as he put it earlier in the year, and I said, "Sure, whatever you need.' Everyone would drink the LSD-spiked Kool-Aid and dance under the kaleidoscopic lights to their very own house band, the newly anointed Grateful Dead. The week after the Trips Festival, on January 31, 1966, Furthur was found abandoned on a cliffside road, high above the crashing shore of Eureka. "She ended up being responsible (if that concept is even thinkable in this context) for mixing the multiple mutable audio loops connecting every part of the space with every other. Its nice to lose yourself in a piece of art. At the police station, speaking with a reporter, Kesey suggested that he was being persecuted for his role in the counterculture. "Old-time farmers used manure, compost, bird shit, etc. But she turned down their offer to become a member. ", She addressed it head-on. 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