It was late 1964 or early 1965 when I went to the Fillmore Auditorium to see and meet the Grateful Dead. I was asked to come as a financier, which is how I spent most of my business life. They needed help to buy equipment.
The person with whom I spoke most that night was Garcia. Talking to him, for reasons I'll cover elsewhere, was very special a great communicator - Jerry was. He intrigued me with a question, "What could you do if there were no such thing as money?" His manner was genuine, in no way was he involved in some form of put down or mind game to make me wrong. Still, I was flabbergasted by the thought; it never occurred to me and I really tried to come up with an answer. I said, after a longish pause, I could be a photographer; I had a flair for it. He said, "What kind … or like who?" I heard myself say, "Reportage … like Henri Cartier Bresson," he said, "Great! You're in the right place." All of a sudden I was at ease. (This is about my photography. My website, ronrakow.com, will periodically delve into random stories about my eleven-year relationship with the GD, and business partnership with Jerry.) Garcia and I separated, and as the evening went on I met others, hung out, smoked some (I inhaled), drank some, and generally got pretty loose.
During the course of the evening someone gave me a soda, a Pepsi I believe, and in about an hour - two very strange things happened: First, the building changed - the left corner of the far wall was about 6 inches high and the opposite corner of the same wall was about 60 feet high. Speaking of high - that was me. The second thing that happened was considerably weirder, not that the first thing wasn't weird enough, even causing me to breath differently - faster, hyperventilate in fact. Every time I started to talk to my girlfriend, FUR GREW IN PATCHES ON HER FACE! It was beyond wild. The fur went up rather than down it was like grey rabbit fur, but it grew the wrong way. Mama get me outta here! I didn't leave, or freak out; I did what some others in the building did; I was confused, so I listened to the music play.
Cutting to the chase. At that time, being aware only of this brand-new strangeness, the music became, my cloak, shield, teacher, handrail, and friend. From then on, and even now, this cognition hasn't changed very much, in fact, its hardly changed at all.
I liked the music so much that I worked my way from backstage to the audience, specifically right in front of Jerry, where, after rolling up my jacket, I lay down my weary (more accurately, unfamiliarly new) head, in front of my dear brother. I didn't know it; I was waiting to be born. This sounds preposterous. Actually, it's simple as will become somewhat clearer.
My vantage point for listening right there on the floor suited me just fine. The band must've played for hours. They then went into the Viola Lee Blues - a simple tune, which in the middle evolved into one the inexplicable jams of impossible complexity and ferocity for which the Grateful Dead became famous. This musical journey then advanced from a jam to a hypersonic cacophony - I could not imagine controlling it. The music took over my chest, it allowed me to breathe; the next. moment it denied me air to live. My operating theory was and is, that life is a dance between order and chaos and if either one wins, the game is over. I was at the end of the game, chaos was winning, and life itself was ending - here and now; not there and then. I was writhing on the dance floor, fighting for every lungful of air. The music got - faster, louder. Everything I knew was going to be over imminently, it was too fast for me to be curious, the synapses of my brain couldn't form anything at this speed, the language with which I communicated internally was overwhelmed by the sheer volume. I'm going to die - goodbye!
With not a single indication that it was coming, as if by the hand of God Almighty, a beat of absolute silence. Music again, the normal stuff, in standard blues time. Relief. Life. Reprieve. I would die some other day.
My eyes had been closed for a while. Now that I was going to remain alive, I opened them just as I became aware of a lyrical refrain "I wrote a letter, I mailed it in the air . . . I got a friend somewhere." In my vision was my new friend, Garcia, standing on the very edge of the stage looking right into my face while playing, laughing that kind of black Irish cackle that became so familiar. Knots in my soul popped, came untied, unglued; the rest of my life had started. The person who walked into that building - an uptight, finance, numbers-is-king guy like Sammy in What Makes Sammy Run - became a different dude - me, a new Ron Rakow.