JERRY GARCIA: UP FROM THE DEAD
David Gahr is already a half-block ahead of me up the street, bounding past the Navarro's sharpy redcap, shlepping all his cameras, and lights, and wires, brown chewed-up pipe sticking out from his pocket—Gahr looks like a Hal Roach version of what a harried photographer is supposed to look like who's on his way to take a picture or two of an old friend.
David Gahr is already a half-block ahead of me up the street, bounding past the Navarro's sharpy redcap, shlepping all his cameras, and lights, and wires, brown chewed-up pipe sticking out from his pocket—Gahr looks like a Hal Roach version of what a harried photographer is supposed to look like who's on his way to take a picture or two of an old friend. A picture or two. Or three. Or fourteen rolls.
A half-hour before, Gahr, the dean of folk-rock photographers, was making his customary pass through my office, bored, checking me out, "Where ya going?"
"Over to the Navarro, Garcia's in town with the Legion of Mary, Merle Saunders, Martin Fierro, Kahn, Tutt— those guys, ya seen "em?"
"GARCIA!" he wails. ("Jeez, not so loud!") "JERRY GARCIA! I haven't seen his ass since last year—lemme Come, give me a minute to pick up my cameras." ("Nah, I'm late, I'll meet ya there—Jeez, are you a Deadhead or something?") "Are you kidding? I was there! 1965, with the Bus, and the Acid Tests, holy cow, GARCIA! He didn't even call me!"