Eat Drink and be Jerry
Monday, August 14, 1995 by Dave Winer.
Marney remembers Jerry 
Marney Morris, marney@animatrix.com, writes:
"Dave, I'm an old timer too. I remember going to the Dana Morgan's tiny music store in downtown Palo Alto after school to watch Jerry practice with his band. It was early in Dead days, Phil wasn't even the bass player, Dana Morgan Jr was. It was his dad's store. Jerry used to give guitar lessons to some of my high school friends.
"He'd play in the Tangent downtown on University Avenue. Our office right now is across from St. Michael's Alley, another place Jerry used to play. People listen to live music there every night, I didn't hear Dead songs there last night. No memorial, just the scheduled group. The music never stops.
"I remember going to parking lot parties at Stanford to hear the Dead, or being in the city and they'd happen to be at the panhandle. It was never a big deal. It was just part of being out and about.
"The Dead never took themselves seriously and neither did we. It's eery, but I happened to be in Bolinas for the first time in a couple of decades this last weekend. Thought about Jerry a lot and the phenomena that surrounded the Dead. The energy is still there more than anywhere.
"I feel very lucky to have been influenced by Jerry. I know whenever I true up my actions and behavior, Jerry's philosophy is woven into my value structure. He was a perfectionist as a musician, but his music was about freedom and fun and acceptance, wasn't it?
"I hope you get lots of Jerry memories sent to you. Thanks for DaveNet."
Eat, drink and be Jerry
Coooool. Yes, Marney, I did get a bunch of rememberences, and thanks for sharing your story.
Here's what I learned over the last few days...
There was nothing rehearsed about Jerry Garcia, and that was his charm.
The Dead culture was designed to survive Jerry's death. He told us not to worry about his soul. So I won't.
If I had known he was going to die I would have listened to his music more carefully.
Like the big tree that fell last March, the death of a huge human being like Jerry Garcia frees up a huge amount of space. Once there was a tree, now there are seedlings. After the sadness, there will be huge creativity.
Appreciate, respect and celebrate every person you can. Now is the time to have fun! Tomorrow they may be gone.
Eat, drink and be Jerry, says bigdave@marimba.com.
Yes!
Sirens of Titan
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Its premise: the whole purpose of human civilization is to send a message to a Tralfamadorian (an alien!) marooned on one of the moons of Saturn.
The only thing on earth that means anything is the Great Wall of China. When read thru a telescope, it says (in Tralfamadorian, of course): "Don't worry! Help is on the way." Everything else we've done, all the art, all the science, was absolutely necessary, but it all just served the purpose of sending a message to the little alien stranded on a nearby moon.
I asked my buddy, bigdave@marimba.com, who's trying to change the password on his Ascend Pipeline ISDN router box, if he had read Vonnegut's book. His setup sounds like a Great Wall of China.
Dave told me that Jerry Garcia had bought all the rights to the Titans book, he loved it so much.
Ain't life funny?
Biting the Bullet
I had a disk crash last week, and it precipated a move -- I'm now running my main desktop on a PowerPC 8100. And this is forcing me to switch from using Think C to Metrowerks C. It's painful! But it feels right.
My first assignment is to convert all the sample programs in Frontier SDK to Metrowerks. If anyone has already done any of this, please get in touch. For example, John Baxter, jwbaxter@olympus.net, has kept the Menu Sharing Toolkit up to date. I'm using it. Thanks John! Has anyone built a UCMD with Metrowerks? I almost have BarChart running. I'll keep you posted.
Undo in the Finder
I want to create a list of valuble features that are present in Windows 95 that aren't in the Macintosh operating system. So far, one major feature stands out. Windows has an Undo command in its Explorer. Macintosh users need this feature in the Finder.
Now that PCs have achieved near-parity with the Macintosh, every feature that Windows has that the Mac doesn't have can be a blessing for Macintosh users. It's clear that Apple has to match Windows, feature-for-feature. It can only help to shine the spotlight on features we need. If you use a Macintosh and are dying for a feature in the system software, please send it to me. To help my agent out, make the subject "Macintosh Wish List." Make the ideas concise. Two sentences at most. Thanks!
I'd like to immediately add a second item to the list.
I often end up with a pile of windows on my desktop. There's a standard solution for window-happy apps like the Finder: a Windows menu.
PageMill and SiteMill
Ceneca Communications, http://www.ceneca.com, is showing a couple of new web authoring products that look really exciting. I haven't seen a demo yet, but I hope to get a copy of the product to play with before the end of this week.
It's nice to see developers making products for the Macintosh web authoring community. If Ceneca can deliver the product, and support its users, this product will really make a difference.
A SimCity Machine for Jamaica
My uncle Ken who lives in Jamaica is turning 50 on October 1. His birthday present: a SimCity machine. It's got to be super reliable, because servicing it in Jamaica is going to be a big pain in the butt. It has to run SimCity well. Great color, fast CPU.
He and my aunt Marcia have two kids, Miranda and Jake. Marcia wants them to grow up with a larger-than-Jamaica perspective of the world. Geography, different cultures. Any suggestions on great software for teaching kids about the world would be very welcome.
Thanks!
Dave Winer