Captain Trips: Hello Baby I'm Gone Goodbye

Original art by Todd Goodman, Acrylic Painting on 48"x36" canvas. Prints are available on matted photo paper or framed canvas. Original painting is for sale.

I met Jerry Garcia at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, NY, on Sunday, March 25th, 1990 (See photo). It was exactly one month and a day after making my Bar Mitzvah, and it was my first Grateful Dead show. Somehow, my dad knew a guy that knew a guy and landed backstage passes. We got to sit backstage during the warmup set, and then got to sit with Jerry and Bob (Weir) on stage before the show. As a relative newcomer to the Dead, I was star struck, I knew they were rock stars, but I didn't really understand how important they really were, particularly the impact they would have in my own life. One month before, my Bar Mitzvah party was KISS themed, meaning I had a snarling Gene Simmons cake, and KISS party favors. But after that Sunday night with Jerry and the boys (one of Brent Mydland's last shows), I put away the Heavy Metal albums and posters on my wall, cut my mullet, and embraced my inner hippie. I had the great fortune of seeing the Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band a half dozen or more times before Jerry passed, and I am so thankful and humbled to have had the fortune to not only see him perform live, but to have shared a physical moment on this Earth with him. Jerry was a very flawed man, but that is almost always the case when it comes to geniuses.