Famille Du Pentium

Editors comment: This post is by my brother, Kelly.

It is December 31st, 1988, and still I have no ticket for tonight’s New
Year’s Eve Grateful Dead show, the final night of an abbreviated
three-night run.

Having figured that two shows are better than none, I hopped in the
communal Ford van and (after a detour to a hot tub in Eugene, Oregon) came
down from Seattle for the festivities of the 28th and 29th.  One of the
guys who came down with us (RIP, Daniel) had an extra New Year’s Eve
ticket, but he seemed intent on bartering it in exchange for as much money
as possible.  I had since relegated myself to the possibility of a New
Year’s Eve spent dancing outside while cleaning up bottles and cans in a
vast asphalt jungle.

Another of my friends, though, found me in the parking lot of the Oakland
Coliseum on the afternoon of the 31st and told me that not only had she
gotten on the Bill Graham Presents list to work inside the show, and that
she would be getting hourly pay for her services, but she was told they
still needed more volunteer staff.  I went next door to the baseball
stadium to call the BGP offices; the pay phone happened to be located
right next to an intense and very loud drum circle, so I was barely able
to hear that no one who could help me was left in the office — which I
should’ve known, since after all it was just a few hours before showtime
on the last day of the year.

My friend and I decided I might as well go with her to where the staff
checks in, just to see if someone there could, uh … help.  My friend was
able to walk right in when her name was found on “the list,” while I
waited outside to see what sort of talking she could do.  More heads
walked up, gave their name, walked in, while I stood there waiting for
something, I wasn’t sure exactly what.  The wind seemed especially cold —
I felt that I was having my blood put on ice as punishment for even trying
such a dumb stunt.

The woman with the list asked my name again, checked her walkie-talkie —
nothing came through.  Which struck her as odd, since -something- should
have come through on her radio.  She found a co-worker with a radio that
worked, spoke my name into it, listened…walked over to me…and said I
should go in through that door there, find this particular person, make
sure of what task I’d be doing so there would be no misunderstandings.

And I walked into the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena for New Year’s
Eve with the Grateful Dead.

I found the BGP staffer who had allowed me in.  At this point years later,
I must admit I’m immune to the name-dropping bug since I truly and
unfortunately cannot remember her name.  Her hair was decorated with a
crown of Babys Breath, and she seemed to be directing a dozen people in
person and another dozen over the radio while simply standing there.  She
repeated my name to me, I verified it, she looked directly at me and said:
“Listen: your name wasn’t on the list.  But we could use some help
tonight, so we’re going to take the chance.”  The responsibility delegated
from her eyes to mine was inescapable.  I was handed a staff shirt and
seemed to mostly stand still watching the BGP regulars do their thing,
when we were summoned en masse for a pre-show pep talk from Bill Graham.

He was wearing street clothes, just like the band and the thousands of
attendees usually do.  No giveaway of any midnight stunt Father Time had
planned for tonight.  His fondness for this particular evening of all,
however, was obvious.  New Year’s Eve meant that there would be a lot of
people pushing themselves even further than they usually do, he said, and
that meant they would occasionally need a little extra help from us.
Just a nudge to get them going in the right direction is all that’s
needed, he told us.  Just a little nudge is all.

He knew, and we knew, and they knew even in their altered state, that the
way to keep things running smoothly on a night like tonight was to just
gently point the way, no need to make a scene, keep it cool and it’ll be
cool.  He mentioned that tonight of all nights was indeed something
special, requiring a special sort of attention from all of us, and his
fondness became our fondness.  It was quite different from any other
experience I’d had with him, and was exactly what I had long suspected was
under the rough all-business exterior.

I was then plopped down at the rear of the floor to be a perimeter guard
for the volleyball game on the main floor behind the soundboard.  This is
surely what his speech must have been about, for after all this time there
still were people coming to New Year’s Eve shows spaced out of their gourd
and not realizing they were actually walking into the middle of a
volleyball tournament and about to get plonked on the head.  My job was to
prevent them from getting plonked on the head, which I usually did by
rudely interrupting conversations from out of nowhere and reminding people
to look up.  No need to push, just let them know to be aware and they’ll
(usually) take care of the rest for themselves 🙂

Closer to show time, I was moved to a spot dead center on the floor just
to the left of the soundboard, and handed a straight pin for the purpose
of popping stray balloons that might land on the work area at the board.
Between sets, a head in the crowd who was interviewing attendees spotted
my staff shirt and asked me what Bill Graham had planned for the stroke of
midnight.  I could do nothing but smile and truthfully tell him I had
absolutely no idea whatsoever.

As the lights went down for the second set, a BGP staffer came rushing
through the crowd holding bottles of champagne and plastic cups.  He
stopped in front of me, juggled a cup my way, aimed some champagne at it,
and continued on his way to hand a toast to the next volunteer worker he
could find.  Nice touch by the BGPers to just nudge things along.  🙂

As midnight arrived, I toasted Father Time, bearded and dressed in starry
blue, as he floated directly above me, standing atop a giant mirrored
ball, throwing roses down to the crowd.  Never had such a good time…

After the show, I couldn’t resist wandering through the building (I love
me some staff shirt!) to see what could be seen.  I found a small lounge
with an afterparty in full swing, the “house band” not even starting their
set until 3 AM.  I settled in at a table, and noticed that a couple of
tables away was seated Jerome John Garcia, with several lovely women
seated around him and a line of well-wishers streaming toward his table.
Not wanting to babble my way into stupidity, I refrained from hounding him
at his seat.  As he got up to leave the room, however, I decided it
wouldn’t be so bad if I just happened to be at the exit at the same time
he was.

I headed for the door and encountered a group of heads who figured they at
least didn’t have anything to lose.  One of them pulled out a camera as
the others surrounded Jerry and posed for the imminent photo.  I stood off
to the side watching, and saw a goofy “aw, shucks” grin cover Jerry’s
face. He seemed to look my way, as if to ask “Why me?”  I looked back as
if to say, “Because you’re Jerry, that’s why.”  The bunch of them smiled.
The camera flashed.  The heads wandered off to wherever they were going,
and the man in black continued on to wherever he was going, which at that
moment happened to be straight towards me.

Surely I had rehearsed a moment like this in my mind a thousand times
before.

But I could only keep smiling even more and, at 4:30 AM on New Years Day
1989, the only thing I could think of to say to Jerry Garcia, the only
other person around for a hundred feet, was:

“Happy New Year!”

“Same to you!” he shot back, still holding that smile, and he walked on
past me to whatever car or party or loved one awaited him next.

Suddenly unable to think of any pressing reason to stay inside the
building, I went back out to the parking lot, to a portal of the stadium,
where a small barrel fire was keeping happy heads warm and huddled in the
earliest pre-dawn hours of the new year.

It’s one of those classic cases where I’ve come up with a better response
now that I’ve had a few years to think about it.  If I had the chance, I
might say, “Hey, Jer, listen: I really want to thank you not only for what
you do, but for your determination to enjoy doing it.  I’ve loved taking
part in it too, and it’s good to see that you enjoy making it happen as
much as we do.  The fact that you found something you like doing, and made
it into a way of living, helps inspire me and a bunch of other people to
realize that we can find something of our own that we like doing, and to
make a life for ourselves out of it as well.”

I’ll never again have a chance to see him that close in person.  So I
don’t know how he’d respond, although even if it were 4:30 in the morning
I’m pretty sure he’d have more to say than “same to you!”

Happy New Year, Jer.  Miss ya.

And Happy New Year to you, Uncle Bobo, wherever you are.

Happy New Year, everybody.It is December 31st, 1988, and still I have no ticket for tonight’s New
Year’s Eve Grateful Dead show, the final night of an abbreviated
three-night run.

Having figured that two shows are better than none, I hopped in the
communal Ford van and (after a detour to a hot tub in Eugene, Oregon) came
down from Seattle for the festivities of the 28th and 29th.  One of the
guys who came down with us (RIP, Daniel) had an extra New Year’s Eve
ticket, but he seemed intent on bartering it in exchange for as much money
as possible.  I had since relegated myself to the possibility of a New
Year’s Eve spent dancing outside while cleaning up bottles and cans in a
vast asphalt jungle.

Another of my friends, though, found me in the parking lot of the Oakland
Coliseum on the afternoon of the 31st and told me that not only had she
gotten on the Bill Graham Presents list to work inside the show, and that
she would be getting hourly pay for her services, but she was told they
still needed more volunteer staff.  I went next door to the baseball
stadium to call the BGP offices; the pay phone happened to be located
right next to an intense and very loud drum circle, so I was barely able
to hear that no one who could help me was left in the office — which I
should’ve known, since after all it was just a few hours before showtime
on the last day of the year.

My friend and I decided I might as well go with her to where the staff
checks in, just to see if someone there could, uh … help.  My friend was
able to walk right in when her name was found on “the list,” while I
waited outside to see what sort of talking she could do.  More heads
walked up, gave their name, walked in, while I stood there waiting for
something, I wasn’t sure exactly what.  The wind seemed especially cold —
I felt that I was having my blood put on ice as punishment for even trying
such a dumb stunt.

The woman with the list asked my name again, checked her walkie-talkie —
nothing came through.  Which struck her as odd, since -something- should
have come through on her radio.  She found a co-worker with a radio that
worked, spoke my name into it, listened…walked over to me…and said I
should go in through that door there, find this particular person, make
sure of what task I’d be doing so there would be no misunderstandings.

And I walked into the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena for New Year’s
Eve with the Grateful Dead.

I found the BGP staffer who had allowed me in.  At this point years later,
I must admit I’m immune to the name-dropping bug since I truly and
unfortunately cannot remember her name.  Her hair was decorated with a
crown of Babys Breath, and she seemed to be directing a dozen people in
person and another dozen over the radio while simply standing there.  She
repeated my name to me, I verified it, she looked directly at me and said:
“Listen: your name wasn’t on the list.  But we could use some help
tonight, so we’re going to take the chance.”  The responsibility delegated
from her eyes to mine was inescapable.  I was handed a staff shirt and
seemed to mostly stand still watching the BGP regulars do their thing,
when we were summoned en masse for a pre-show pep talk from Bill Graham.

He was wearing street clothes, just like the band and the thousands of
attendees usually do.  No giveaway of any midnight stunt Father Time had
planned for tonight.  His fondness for this particular evening of all,
however, was obvious.  New Year’s Eve meant that there would be a lot of
people pushing themselves even further than they usually do, he said, and
that meant they would occasionally need a little extra help from us.
Just a nudge to get them going in the right direction is all that’s
needed, he told us.  Just a little nudge is all.

He knew, and we knew, and they knew even in their altered state, that the
way to keep things running smoothly on a night like tonight was to just
gently point the way, no need to make a scene, keep it cool and it’ll be
cool.  He mentioned that tonight of all nights was indeed something
special, requiring a special sort of attention from all of us, and his
fondness became our fondness.  It was quite different from any other
experience I’d had with him, and was exactly what I had long suspected was
under the rough all-business exterior.

I was then plopped down at the rear of the floor to be a perimeter guard
for the volleyball game on the main floor behind the soundboard.  This is
surely what his speech must have been about, for after all this time there
still were people coming to New Year’s Eve shows spaced out of their gourd
and not realizing they were actually walking into the middle of a
volleyball tournament and about to get plonked on the head.  My job was to
prevent them from getting plonked on the head, which I usually did by
rudely interrupting conversations from out of nowhere and reminding people
to look up.  No need to push, just let them know to be aware and they’ll
(usually) take care of the rest for themselves 🙂

Closer to show time, I was moved to a spot dead center on the floor just
to the left of the soundboard, and handed a straight pin for the purpose
of popping stray balloons that might land on the work area at the board.
Between sets, a head in the crowd who was interviewing attendees spotted
my staff shirt and asked me what Bill Graham had planned for the stroke of
midnight.  I could do nothing but smile and truthfully tell him I had
absolutely no idea whatsoever.

As the lights went down for the second set, a BGP staffer came rushing
through the crowd holding bottles of champagne and plastic cups.  He
stopped in front of me, juggled a cup my way, aimed some champagne at it,
and continued on his way to hand a toast to the next volunteer worker he
could find.  Nice touch by the BGPers to just nudge things along.  🙂

As midnight arrived, I toasted Father Time, bearded and dressed in starry
blue, as he floated directly above me, standing atop a giant mirrored
ball, throwing roses down to the crowd.  Never had such a good time…

After the show, I couldn’t resist wandering through the building (I love
me some staff shirt!) to see what could be seen.  I found a small lounge
with an afterparty in full swing, the “house band” not even starting their
set until 3 AM.  I settled in at a table, and noticed that a couple of
tables away was seated Jerome John Garcia, with several lovely women
seated around him and a line of well-wishers streaming toward his table.
Not wanting to babble my way into stupidity, I refrained from hounding him
at his seat.  As he got up to leave the room, however, I decided it
wouldn’t be so bad if I just happened to be at the exit at the same time
he was.

I headed for the door and encountered a group of heads who figured they at
least didn’t have anything to lose.  One of them pulled out a camera as
the others surrounded Jerry and posed for the imminent photo.  I stood off
to the side watching, and saw a goofy “aw, shucks” grin cover Jerry’s
face. He seemed to look my way, as if to ask “Why me?”  I looked back as
if to say, “Because you’re Jerry, that’s why.”  The bunch of them smiled.
The camera flashed.  The heads wandered off to wherever they were going,
and the man in black continued on to wherever he was going, which at that
moment happened to be straight towards me.

Surely I had rehearsed a moment like this in my mind a thousand times
before.

But I could only keep smiling even more and, at 4:30 AM on New Years Day
1989, the only thing I could think of to say to Jerry Garcia, the only
other person around for a hundred feet, was:

“Happy New Year!”

“Same to you!” he shot back, still holding that smile, and he walked on
past me to whatever car or party or loved one awaited him next.

Suddenly unable to think of any pressing reason to stay inside the
building, I went back out to the parking lot, to a portal of the stadium,
where a small barrel fire was keeping happy heads warm and huddled in the
earliest pre-dawn hours of the new year.

It’s one of those classic cases where I’ve come up with a better response
now that I’ve had a few years to think about it.  If I had the chance, I
might say, “Hey, Jer, listen: I really want to thank you not only for what
you do, but for your determination to enjoy doing it.  I’ve loved taking
part in it too, and it’s good to see that you enjoy making it happen as
much as we do.  The fact that you found something you like doing, and made
it into a way of living, helps inspire me and a bunch of other people to
realize that we can find something of our own that we like doing, and to
make a life for ourselves out of it as well.”

I’ll never again have a chance to see him that close in person.  So I
don’t know how he’d respond, although even if it were 4:30 in the morning
I’m pretty sure he’d have more to say than “same to you!”

Happy New Year, Jer.  Miss ya.

And Happy New Year to you, Uncle Bobo, wherever you are.

Happy New Year, everybody.