Respecting the Dead
Petition pushes for postage stamp honoring rock group's Jerry Garcia
- Edward Epstein, Chronicle Washington Bureau

Washington -- As Grateful Dead fans everywhere know, the music never stopped when Jerry Garcia died 10 years ago, and now a grassroots campaign wants to memorialize the Dead's driving force with a U.S. Postal Service stamp.

The centerpiece of the effort, so far conducted in the mellow fashion one would expect from Deadheads, is an online petition, first posted on Aug. 9, the 10th anniversary of Garcia's death at age 53.

Everyone involved recognizes that a Garcia stamp would be a leap for the post office by honoring a rock-era figure associated with hippies, casual drug use and a way-laidback lifestyle. But they proudly point out that Garcia was a great musician whose work blended many styles, a father figure to millions of Americans and others around the world and a philanthropist.

Besides, they say, in 1993, the Postal Service honored Elvis Presley -- who died of a heart attack after years of abusing prescription drugs -- and ended up with a best-seller. About 517 million of the 29-cent Elvis stamps were sold, and the Postal Service ended up with a $36 million profit. About 95 percent of those stamps are still in collectors' hands.

So far, the Garcia petition to the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee has garnered more than 6,000 signatures without any publicity to speak of other than word of mouth or by fans finding the effort at www.petitiononline.com/Ga...tion.html. Many of the signatures are accompanied by heartfelt messages, part of a response that has overwhelmed the petition's organizer, Steve Castonguay, a 40-year-old machinist who lives outside Rochester, N.Y.

"I'm really surprised by the support, and a lot of the messages put a tear in my eye,'' said Castonguay, a loyal Deadhead who has been to 87 Dead shows, 85 of them before Garcia's death from heart failure at a Marin County drug rehab center. Castonguay's music of choice is his collection of more than 1,000 hours of bootleg Dead tapes, and his home office's walls are decorated with some of his dozens of Dead T-shirts.

Deadheads speak

The messages on the petition are short and sweet.

"Jerry is God,'' wrote signer Annie Dahlkemper.

"He did more for this country than any U.S. president ever did,'' added Tim Lynch.

"Will this encourage people to lick stamps?'' wisecracked Daniel Lange.

"In Jerry we remember,'' wrote Drew Greenspan, signer No. 3,221.

Petitioner Haydon Compton Jr. summed up the Dead ethos. "Peaceful people deserve to be recognized. A stamp would be a wonderful way to do so,'' he wrote on the petition.

Getting someone honored on a U.S. stamp isn't easy. The 15-member Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee wades through about 50,000 ideas a year to recommend choices for new stamps to the postmaster general. Except for presidents, the committee won't consider stamp nominees until they've been dead 10 years.

The panel's members include actor Karl Malden, Harvard black studies Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., former UC Berkeley Chancellor Ira "Mike" Heyman, former University of Notre Dame basketball coach Digger Phelps and Joan Mondale, wife of former Vice President Walter Mondale. The members narrow the field to about 100 and forward their choices to the postmaster general. He trims the field further in making the final choices.

The stamps eventually chosen appear about three years after first getting into the selection process.

As word of Castonguay's effort spreads, so does the support. He's heard from Dead members Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart and from Jerry Garcia LLC, the San Francisco firm that represents Garcia's estate and its marketing efforts.

Garcia's face, Dead T-shirts and other memorabilia and ties carrying Garcia's abstract art remain big sellers.

Talk show host Al Franken has mentioned the idea of a Garcia stamp on his Air America radio program, and a new Web site, www.garciastamp.org, has just sprung up.

"We think it's a great petition. And as usual, it was the Deadheads themselves who started it. It wasn't us,'' said Dennis McNally, Garcia's longtime publicist and author of "A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead.'' McNally pointed out that Garcia was already gathering honors. Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream, one of the company's top sellers, is named for him. In San Francisco's Excelsior neighborhood, where Garcia grew up, an amphitheater in McLaren Park has just been named in his honor. And he's included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and on the Walk of Fame outside San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.

Foreign stamps

Several "postal stamp republics,'' countries that print stamps expressly to sell them to collectors, have honored Garcia. These include Mongolia, Tanzania and Niger.

Asked whether the United States is ready for a Garcia stamp, McNally said, "Time focuses a perspective on his commitment to music and puts aside everything else. Elvis was not exactly a conventional figure.''

Jonathan Marks, who founded the San Francisco-based company Grateful Graphics 20 years ago to design and sell all things Dead, said he had contacted the state Department of Motor Vehicles long ago about a Grateful Dead license plate. "They finished laughing about 15 minutes ago,'' he said.

Garcia was a central figure for Marks.

"When Jerry Garcia died, a part of me died," said Marks, who has attended more than 330 Dead shows as fan and entrepreneur. "I don't pay enough attention to other music anymore.''

A Garcia stamp could prove a boon for the financially challenged Postal Service, hit by the rise of e-mail, delivery company competitors and the decline of stamp collecting as a hobby.

"For the 'postage stamp republics,' Garcia's a best-seller. They love him, '' said Rob Haeseler of the American Philatelic Society.

He pointed out that at the same time as the Elvis stamp, the post office issued a rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues series that also honored Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, Ritchie Valens, Dinah Washington and Otis Redding, among others.

"I think a Garcia stamp is a good idea," Haeseler added. "It celebrates a part of America's rich cultural traditions, and it'll make Deadheads everywhere happy.''

As for Castonguay, he plans to gather signatures for a few weeks. He has secured time off from work for late September, when he plans to travel to Washington to turn in his petitions.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin...=printable

is it gonna be laced with LSD?

lilgish said:

I can't believe you beat me to that.

Hah. I left that joke for you guys!

damosuzuki said:

Great minds.....

I think a stamp is a step down for a man who had his own ice cream flavor.