AARP Online Community: jerrysjingles

jerrysjingles

AARP Member

Offline

Background

Gender: Female

Status: Single

Location:
BRONX, New York
United States

School:
LaGuardia School of the Arts
Juilliard School of Music (Dance Major)
NYU Dance-Drama major
UCLA Drama

Work:
Now temporarily unemployed
Editor
writer
professional dancer
professional actress
administrative

Hometown(s):
Born andnow live New York City
San Francisco Haight-Ashbury
Los angeles
London, england

Quote:
If you get confused just listen to the music play...� Jerry Garcia

My Comments (8)

About Me

I'm a long-time peace and civil ights activist! I support left wing, progressive causes with the same intensity now, as I did when I was a kid. I'm still a bona afide Grateful Dead "Deadhead," and though I have an adult son, people seem to thik I'll never grow up,. Frankly, I hope that they're right! I never want to stop being spontaneous. I hope I never ever stop dancing (ballet, modern dance), performing, going to concerts, DRESSING HOWEVER I PLEASE, and speaking my mind. Yes, that's very important

Interests:

Interests: As stated above -- working hard to end inequality at home, and participating actively to end war and to promote a human agenda of world peace. You can imagine I am certainly not voting for McCain. In fact, until this upcoming Presidential election, I never could get behind any of the mainstream candidates. Never saw any real difference between Republicans and Democrats until this year. I support Barack Obama because he reminds me somewhat of myself. If he were able to put into prctice a mere fraction of his stated positions, this world would be such a better place. No more invasions of sovereign nations; meaningful programs (as opposed to talk) to end poverty and inequality at home etc. SPORTS: I coach Little League Baseball (not softball)!. I play lots of sports--not very well perhaps, but with enthusiasm. MUSIC is a passion with me. I studied classical piano for years, and concertised a bit--THAT'S WHY I LOVE THE GRATEFUL DEAD! DANCE I'm a trained dancer (Juilliard School of Music), and still perfrom and study.

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My Photos (5)

Woodstock-before we saw Crosby,Stills,Nash&Young

sexy??? Maybe....jpg

My coolest sister Ellie, Giraffe man brother Chrissie, groovy pal Howard and me

MY BROTHER CHRIS AND HIS SPECIAL FRIEND

A beautiful day in May. the band outside was playing Grateful Dead tunes...And I just had to dance....

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My Journals (1)

WHY I LOVE THE GRATEFUL DEAD

I am a Deadhead who has been part of the scene literally for more than half my life. And I am proud of this! I knew Jerry Garcia before there was such a thing as the Grateful Dead, even before they were known as the Warlocks--when he was a folksinger, playing his banjo at civil rights and Peace demonstrations in San Francisco! (around 1964).
The first time I actually saw the entity--the actual Grateful Dead, was in 1965, when they were the "house band for Ken Kesey's acid tests. I was blown away by the genius, the creativity, the depth of the music. I knew
then that what they were playing was a new musical form--as innovative and as revolutionary as any new musical form had been in the past.

People actually paid attention to the music at a Grateful Dead show. It was incredibly cool to listen and to think...and to dance.

Because of the Grateful Dead's collective knowledge of all forms of music; because their long extended improvizatiopnal jams would ring out in symphonic splendor--incorporating classical music,jazz, blue grass and folk melodies-- rock music could now truthfully be known as a genuine art form--Yes, it was no longer the simplistic 4 chord one-dimensional crap that AM radio had been blaring into my ears since the early 1950s. And so, the Grateful Dead and we Deadheads,(along with other kindred bands and solo musiciansand became representative of the "new" scene of liberation and free thought that bloomed along with the burgeoning movement for civil rights and peace.

(Understand, I'm not putting down Soul music or Motown--which I always respected for its beautiful expressions of the feelings and desires of a people
struggling for freedom); I'm talking about The "Hit Parade stuff, the conformist junk that was so much a part of the culture of McCarthyism-- the"thinking is subversive" America.

   To me, the Grateful Dead have always been a vibrant part of all things progressive. They never caved in to the music industry businessmen whose mantra, "profits first music whenever" had formerly typified the motivations behind all popular music. Indeed,the Grateful Dead never compromised with, nor gave into the music establishment. They never wrote the requisite 3-minute superficial ditties demanded by the Biz. As a result, the establishment tried in vain to ignore the Grateful Dead, who like all true revolutionaries simply would never go away!
     Oh, the stories I could tell!!! Volumes have been (and are still being) written about this band, the culture it helped shape and will always be a part of and on..and on.....,so, I'll just end this with a quote from
a Jerry tune: "Let there be songs to fill the air."  Ilene Richards, jerrysjingles@aol.com

Added: June 3, 2008
Views: 309 | Comments: 0 | Bookmarks: 0

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