(Seashore) Performing Arts Center, Turn Road, Old Orchard Beach, ME

Capacity 15000


Built in 1985 and formerly known as the Ballpark, SEAPAC was booked by Providence's Frank Russo from 1989 to 1991.

The 48.7 acres of land The Ballpark sits on today, and approximately 100 acres that surround The Ballpark lot, was purchased by the town in the 1970’s. The town used some of the land to build the police and fire stations and the schools. After construction of the facilities was completed, lots of open space remained. In 1983, the town decided to sell about 50 acres to Jordan Kobritz so he could build a park for his professional baseball team. In order to secure financing for the project, the town agreed to co-sign the loan with Mr. Kobritz. After three seasons of baseball, Mr. Kobritz sold the team and left town. Old Orchard Beach was required to pay back the 2.2 million dollar loan. The town would reacquire the land after paying off the debt.

In 1989, the town decided to help pay back the money it owed by leasing the ballpark to the Seashore Performing Arts Center (SeaPAC). SeaPAC was run by Dale Blow and Frank Russo. For three years, from 1989 to 1991, Mr. Blow and Mr. Russo mostly used the venue for music shows. An up and down relationship with the town and complaints from citizens about traffic and noise caused the relationship between the town and SeaPAC to end.

In 1993 a new business, Ballpark Productions, owned by Old Orchard Beach native Archie St. Hilaire, entered into an agreement with the town to produce concerts and family-oriented events at The Ballpark. The town leased the venue to Ballpark Productions from April to October in the years 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Mr. St. Hilaire chose not to renew the lease after 1997. Shortly after Ballpark Productions stopped producing events, Ed Anderson leased The Ballpark for three years because he wanted to bring a professional soccer team to town. He never did and the facility has not been used since.(1)

“The Ballpark” which used to be the home of the class AAA Maine Guides (Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians). In recent years, the Ballpark underwent major renovations after sitting idle for nearly a decade. The entirety of the renovations were possible only through the volunteer work, donations, and determination of the local community.(2)



Jerry performed here on
9/13/89 Jerry Garcia Band





1.)^The Old Orchard Beach Ballpark, http://www.oldorchardbeachballpark.com/HistoryUpTo2003.html
2.)^Futures League Adds Old Orchard Beach, ME, http://www.oldorchardbeachballpark.com/index.html

Rehearsal Space, Novato, CA

"We moved to Novato where the Dead had their office and rehearsal space in what was affectionately known as "The Pink behind Pinky's". The building was the color of Pepto-Bismol and was located down a long driveway behind Pinky's Pizza Parlor. We shared a fence with Hamilton Air Force Base."(1) In 2012, Pinky's Pizza Parlour is located at 321 Petaluma Blvd So., Petaluma, CA.


Jerry rehearsed here on
1/13/69 Grateful Dead  Fleetwood Mac
Stuart "Dinky" Dawson's narrative makes it plain that the day of the jam between the Grateful Dead and Fleetwood Mac is Monday, January 13, 1969. Dawson:

Later that same day [Monday], we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito [sic], where we had been invited to hang out at the Grateful Dead's rehearsal space. I finally met Owsley and bonded with the group's sound engineer, Dan Healy, and Ramrod, the stage manager. They had set up all the Dead's equipment and soon the informal session got into full swing.

It's clear to me that Fleetwood Mac went to Novato, where the Dead rehearsed, not Sausalito. Dawson was an Englishman on his first trip to America, so it's no surprise that he wasn't clear about Marin suburbs--I wouldn't know the difference between, say, Staines and Woking, were I south of London, particularly a few decades after the fact. Dawson's most interesting comment follows(3):

Watching Jerry Garcia and Peter [Green] get off on each other and trade bluesy licks amazed me. Ron McKernan, also known as Pigpen, the Dead's fearsome looking but lovable keyboard player, held things together with his fantastic rhythmic piano playing.(2)(3)

1.)^Wickersham, Susan, Alembic History, http://www.alembic.com/family/history.html
2.)^ Dawson, Stuart "Dinky", Life On The Road, pg. 74.
3.)^http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-13-1969-rehearsal-space-novato.html

Mosque, 6 North Laurel Street and Main, Richmond, VA

Capacity 4600

Built in 1926 by the Shriners as their Acca Temple Shrine.
Completed at a cost of $1.65 million, the theater boasts the largest proscenium arch stage on the East Coast. It was designed in 1925, in Moorish Revival style(5), by Marcellus Wright, Sr. in association with Charles M. Robinson and Charles Custer Robinson.  Though it opened in October of 1927 it was officially dedicated on January 9, 1928.

The building is a lavish replica of a Moslem Temple. Twin minarets and a tall arch mark the entrance while corners have small domes. Glazed terra cotta ornament is used throughout. 75,000 square feet of gold leaf went into the dome alone, and another 35,000 square feet of aluminum leaf was used.

The Auditorium decorations include Saracenic decorations and five paintings bordering the proscenium arch of the stage. Ornamental tile used in the interior was imported from Spain, Italy and Tunis, along with lush carpets, silken curtains and paintings.

Ceiling tile

Besides the auditorium, the building contains 24,300 square feet of office space, an 18,000 square foot ballroom and a 20 by 70 foot swimming pool.

Some of America’s greatest entertainers have appeared on its stage.
Through the 1930's the Mosque Theater played host to films, concerts and a plethora of entertainers and theatrical productions which included the Ziegfield Follies, Ethel Barrymore, Maude Adams, George Gershwin and Sergei Rachmaninoff, to name but a few.

In 1935 the Acca Temple was financially strapped and forfeited the mortgage on the Mosque to the New York Life Insurance Co.

In 1940 it was purchased by the city of Richmond for $200,000.00, $375,000 less than New York Life’s asking price in 1939.

In 1941 the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra performed there with a new young vocalist, Frank Sinatra.

Shirley Maclaine and her brother Warren Beatty grew up in Richmond. Shirley Maclaine danced on stage at the Mosque at four years old. Her stories are recounted in "Songlines of Richmond."

June 30, 1956 at The Mosque, photo courtesy of Jerry Osbourne

In late January of 1952, more than three years before Elvis, another Louisiana Hayride alumni had a short run there. Hank Williams, barely a month after his back surgery and assets frozen pending his divorce from his first wife was in Richmond for his first big show of the last year of his life. Horace Logan wrote, it was a total catastrophe. His back was still killing him, and he was so full of pills and booze that he couldn't remember the words to his own songs. The crowd booed and jeered at him, and a writer for the Richmond Times-Dispatch gave him a scorching review. The next night, he stormed to the microphone at Richmond's Mosque Theatre and dedicated his first song-- “Mind Your Own Business”—to a "certain lady writer that you all know." It earned him a laugh and got the crowd off his back. At least Hank still had a sense of humor.(1)

The remainder of the ‘50's saw acts at the Mosque that included Sarah Vaughan, Count Basie, Fats Domino, LaVern Baker, Clyde McPhatter, Frankie Lymon, Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Paul Anka and Eddie Cochran.

Dick Dale played with Lawrence Welk!

In July of 1968 The Who performed and Pete Townshend smashed his custom colored Fender Jazzmaster guitar during the performance.

"First when I took Jimi Hendrix to check in where I had his reservation, the Jefferson Hotel, an old time fine Richmond hotel near the Mosque, they would not admit him. They took one look and said no way, and I had to take him somewhere else. You could still do that in that day. Secondly, when I went back to check on him prior to the first show, it was my impression that he was so stoned that he likely could not go on. I could not have been more mistaken. He was outstanding, both shows, just as good as you have heard he was for all these years."(3)

October 11, 1970, Springsteen's band "Steel Mill"

On March 6, 1994, 43 years after his debut there, Frank Sinatra, at 78, returned and collapsed before a packed house.  Witnesses said he collapsed about two hours after the concert began, was sitting on a stool, singing the last chorus of "My Way," when he suddenly stopped.  "In a real clear voice, he said, 'Get me a chair, ' "then he fell to the floor. When they brought a wheelchair, everybody clapped, because they didn't seem to need a stretcher."  Frank gave his final performance almost a year later, in California.

On July 31, 1994, the city of Richmond closed the building and refurbished it between 1994 and 1995. In 1995 the name was officially changed from The Mosque to Landmark Theater.^[5] It is currently a very popular venue, hosting a number of big-name musical and theatrical performers each year.

Jerry performed here on
5/25/77 Grateful Dead

6/22/82 Jerry Garcia Band




1.)^Logan, Horace and Sloan, Bill, Elvis, Hank, and Me: Making Musical History on the Louisiana Hayride.
2.)^ The Ron Brandon Collection at REEL TOP 40 RADIO REPOSITORY
3.)^ Ron Brandon, http://www.scottymoore.net/mosque.html
4.)^http://scottymoore.net/mosque.html
5.)^Daily Press, 1997-04-14, http://articles.dailypress.com/1997-04-14/features/9704140085_1_mosque-parks-foundation-civic-center

Comedia Repertory Theater, Homer and High Streets (Emerson & Hamilton), Palo Alto, CA

Possibly the Comedia Theater, corner of Homer and High, now, in 2012, it's a Peet's Coffee.

Note the address.

Garcia had a job of sorts doing the lighting at a Palo Alto theater group called Commedia Del Arte, around 1962. Possibly on Emerson Street (possibly on the site of the Aquarius Theater).(1)

In March 1961, per Dennis McNally, "Garcia volunteered as a lighting technician for a production of Damn Yankees." This sounds like it was an informal deal for a friend, and Garcia seems not to have had any involvement in theater afterwards.
Dead.net has a new "Celebrating Jerry" clip that's a little conversation with Jerry from 1974. He talks a little about his pre-Dead days:
"I’d scuffle, I’d hustle, I’d scam. I didn’t want to work, I didn’t want to have a job, didn’t want to live that life, and I didn’t care what I did in order to not have to do it... I never felt pressed by that. I’d sleep in the bus depot, theater lobbies behind the ticket booth. I didn't give a fuck - I got into all those trips, because I didn’t want to make myself into somebody..."
Aside from being quite a statement of Jerry's philosophy in itself, this opens up the possibility that Jerry was volunteering as lighting tech at a theater in 1961 in return for being able to sleep there!
We know that at that point, Jerry was living in his car - so sleeping in a theater lobby would actually have been a step up in comfort. When he met Hunter, the two of them would hang out in his car in a parking lot, eating purloined pineapple from tin cans....
It's not often realized just how down & out Jerry was in that post-Army period, but he often remembered those days with fondness.(2)


Jerry rehearsed here on
03/??/61 Robert Hunter
Jerry meets 19 year old Robert Hunter while working an evening lighting job at the Comedia Theater.(3)







1.)^http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/07/warlocks-resumes-1965-pre-grateful-dead.html
2.)^lightintoashes, 2011-07-24, http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/07/warlocks-resumes-1965-pre-grateful-dead.html
3.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia: An American Life, pg. 34.

Tresidder Memorial Union, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Tresidder Memorial Union is the primary meeting and resource center for Stanford and the surrounding community. Tresidder features a variety of services, ranging from event facilities to a student-run store. The facility is available until 2am each day and is open every day of the year, except University holidays.

There were periodic concerts at Tresidder Deck. The Butterfield Blues Band played there in January of 1966, and the Lovin' Spoonful performed there right before or right after the Grateful Dead.(4)






Jerry performed here on
10/14/66 Grateful Dead
"The Dead, which had its roots in Palo Alto, first played on campus in 1966 on the back deck of Tresidder."(1)
"The Grateful Dead played a show on the "roof" on top of Tressider Bowling alley."(2)

"Their show, held at the Tresidder Memorial Union, had an admission cost of $1.25. The location was identified on the ad as the TMU Deck, which I believe corresponds to the union’s back patio, where classical and jazz concerts are held today."(3)

1.)^ Maisel, Ivan, class of 1981, a place in the sun, http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2011/mayjun/features/frost.html
2.)^ S., Eric, 2008-05-23, http://www.paloaltoonline.com/square/index.php?i=3&t=551#add_comments
3.)^http://cryptdev.blogspot.com/2010/09/airplane-and-dead-at-stanford-66-67.html
4.)^Arnold, Corry, comments, 2012-10-02, http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/10/tresidder-memorial-union-stanford.html

Music Hall (Municipal Auditorium), 301 W. 13th, Kansas City, MO

Municipal Auditorium is a large, multi-purpose facility in Kansas City, Missouri with three halls: The Arena, Music Hall, and Little Theatre.

The Kansas City Music Hall is a large proscenium theatre opened in 1936 and features Streamline Moderne and Art Deco architecture and architectural details.

 The streamline moderne architecture was designed by the lead architectural firm of Gentry, Voskamp & Neville to appeal to new visitors with cool and confident restraint. True to its name, the style promised to envelop the visitor in modernity, assuring him/her that Kansas City was a rising star in the country, a place to recommend to friends and colleagues.

Alonzo H. Gentry, of the lead architectural firm of Gentry, Voskamp & Neville, was to later design the Truman Library. Hoit, Price & Barnes, the associated architects responsible for the HVAC work at the Municipal Auditorium, had recently designed the Art Deco skyscraper, the Kansas City Power and Light Building (completed in 1931).
When the building opened in 1935, it was called by the Architectural Record "one of the 10 best buildings of the world that year". ^[1]

The foyer is a splendid display of marble on both floor and walls. Murals adorn the entire theater, and you’ll have to travel a long way to see crystal chandeliers as gorgeous as those adorning the Music Hall. It evokes a sense of grandeur with its high ceiling, marble flooring, and grand staircase and
eats an audience of 2,400 patrons. The hall presents touring Broadway shows, as well as visiting symphony orchestras, opera and ballet companies, and other events. It was the main hall of the Kansas City Philharmonic for several decades. And when was the last time you saw an actual orchestra pit or had seats in a theater that featured a pipe organ of over 2,000 tubes and constructed with ivory and gold? That's the 1927 Robert-Morton Theatre Pipe Organ that originally was in the Kansas City Midland Theatre. The organ is owned and maintained by Kansas City Theatre Pipe Organ, Inc.^[9]

In 2000, the Princeton Architectural Press called it one of the 500 most important architectural works in the United States.^[1]




Jerry performed here on
3/26/76 Jerry Garcia Band (Music Hall)
8/17/80 Grateful Dead (Arena)
7/7/81 Grateful Dead (Arena)





1.)^Alonzo H. Gentry, Architect, Is Dead, Kansas City Times, February 7, 1967
2.)^Kidder G.E. Smith (2000), Source Book of American Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press
9.)^http://www.kc-theatreorgan.org/

Ron Kurtz's house, Bloomington, IN

Ron Kurtz wrote "Body Centered Psychotherapy: The Hakomi Method".
The Hakomi method combines Western psychology, systems theory, and body-centered techniques with the mindfulness and non-violence principles of Eastern philosophy.^[1][3] Hakomi is grounded in seven principles:

• mindfulness
• nonviolence
• organicity
• unity
• body-mind holism
• truth
• mutability ^[4]

The first five principles are set forth in Kurtz's book, Body Centered Psychotherapy. The other two were added later.^[5]
Practitioners of Hakomi look at people as self-organizing systems, organized psychologically around core memories, beliefs and images; this core material expresses itself through habits and attitudes that make people individuals. Hakomi is a method for helping people transform their way of being in the world through working with core material and changing core beliefs.^[6]
Hakomi relies on mindfulness of body sensations, emotions and memories. It follows this general outline:^[6][7]

1. Create healing relationship: Client and therapist work to build a relationship that maximizes safety and the cooperation of the unconscious.
2. Establish mindfulness: Therapist helps clients study and focus on the ways they organize experience. Hakomi's viewpoint is that most behavior are habits automatically organized by core material; therefore studying the organization of experience is studying the influence of this core material.
3. Evoke experience: Client and therapist make direct contact with core feelings, beliefs and memories.
4. State specific processing: If the client is ready, the therapist helps the client transition to state-specific processing. Hakomi recognizes three such states:
   • mindfulness
   • strong emotions
   • childlike consciousness
5. Transformation: Client realizes that new healing experiences are possible and begins to have these experiences.
6. Integration: Client and therapist work to make connections between the new healing experiences and the rest of the client's experiences.

Ron Kurtz passed away in Ashland, OR in January, 2011.
"Ron was a quiet, under-recognized prophet who somehow brought forth this incredible, magical method of going into a state of such intense, loving presence, embodying a father's love that anyone touched by it was inspired and changed."(4)





Jerry performed here in
1961 Sandy Rothman
"...and on the front porch and early-psychedelic living room of a guy named Ron Kurtz (later to become a well-known bodywork author."(1)








1.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2012-03-18
2.)^http://www.hakomiinstitute.com/
3.)^Cole, J. David; Carol Ladas-Gaskin (2007). Mindfulness Centered Therapies. Silver Birch Press, pg 35, 37.
4.)^Darling, John, Hakomi author Ron Kurtz, 76, dies in Ashland, http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110106/NEWS/101060313/-1/rss01
2011-01-06,
5.)^Cole, J. David; Carol Ladas-Gaskin (2007). Mindfulness Centered Therapies. Silver Birch Press, pg. 36, 37.
6.)^Kurtz, Ron (1990). Body-Centered Psychotherapy. LifeRhythm, pg 2-4..
7.)^Kurtz, Ron (1990). Body-Centered Psychotherapy. LifeRhythm, pg. 72-74.

Funky Jack's Studio, Central Avenue, San Francisco, CA

Funky Features poster

Jack Leahy in center. Notice the poster.

In 1969 John Rewind, from the HooDoo Rythmn Devils, was teaching guitar at Roger Calkins Music on Market St. in San Francisco, CA. One of John's guitar students, Jack Leahy,"Funky Jack" who lived up the street from John in the Haight Ashbury district, had just closed his poster business Funky Features, and was getting into recording and was building a studio. When Jack heard John, he took the lead and started recording the band and making connections for the band to get a recording contract with a major label.(4)
Prior to Funky Features’ offiicial opening in 1969, Jack Leahy had built a workshop/studio in the basement of an old Victorian on Central Avenue, near the panhandle of Golden Gate Park.
Originally designed for personal use only, the small space became a popular place for young bands to rehearse and record new material under Leahy’s guidance. As the engineer continued to invest in his private workshop, he acquired enough gear (and spent enough money) that he opened the studio to outside clients in 1969. Preferring to work fast in order to cater to bands on a budget, Leahy’s comfortable space turned out a healthy number of demos and masters, with many referrals coming from the neighbors across the street, Big Brother & the Holding Company.
Producer David Rubinson reportedly brought some of his Fillmore Records acts, such as Cold Blood, to the studio. Acts such as Steve Miller, HooDoo Rhythm Devils (managed by Leahy), Country
Joe McDonald, Link Wray, Terry Garthwaite, Wah-Wah Watson, Herbie Hancock, and Steamin’ Freeman also spent time in the upper Haight studio.
Th e 20×20–foot studio had a Steinway grand piano at one end. A Hammond B3 organ with a Leslie speaker and an antique Everett upright tack piano could be rolled in as well. Leahy worked on an
equally antique console comprised of Ampex and Shure mixers, recorded to 3M 8-track (he later acquired a 16-track), and listened on a pair of JBL monitors. When the HooDoo Rhythm Devils
signed with Capitol Records in 1971, they reportedly spent part of their advance on a 16-input console for Leahy.(1)

Rock Love 
Capitol 748
Steve Miller – Guitar, vocals
Ross Valory – Bass guitar
Jack King – Drums
Recorded at Funky Features, San Francisco.
Engineered by Jack Leahy
Produced by Steve Miller

In 1979, Leahy moved his recording operation to Russian Hill to open the aptly named Russian Hill Recording. An odd, fan-run museum called The Jimi Hendrix Electric Church took over the lovely Victorian on Central for a few years before it reverted back to a residential space.(2)




Jerry recorded here in
1973 or 1974
In answer to a question about how often Garcia recorded at Heider's, Stephen Barncard recalled that, "We did do a track for Bill Cutler about 1973 or 74 at Funky Jack's Studio in the Haight."(3)










1.)^Johnson, Heather, If These Halls Could Talk
2.)^Leahy, Jack, http://www.wsdg.com/dynamic.asp?id=company/team/sanfrancisco/jackleahy
3.)^Barncard, Steve, 2012-04-18
4.)^Bishop, Pete (1978) "'Kidding' - Rough Urgency", Pittsburg Post-Gazette, March 25, 1978

Underground Hofbrau, 1029 El Camino Real , Menlo Park, CA

The Underground was a coffee house/pizza parlor on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. It was a block north of the original location of Kepler's and two doors north of the old Discount Records. (Michael Parrish)

In April 1969, while on tour in Colorado, Garcia bought a pedal steel guitar. Looking for an opportunity to play the instrument, he discovered that old Los Altos pal John Dawson was performing his own songs at a Hofbrau in Menlo Park called The Underground, somewhere on El Camino Real in Menlo Park. Another old South Bay friend, David Nelson, without a band at the time, joined in playing electric guitar.
Dawson, Nelson and Garcia would go on to found the New Riders of The Purple Sage, although they would not be known by that name until August. The trio played most Wednesday nights at The Underground, however starting May 7 (probably May 14, May 21 and June 4 also, and possibly June 18). Their last gig at The Underground was probably June 25. It is a little-remarked fact that the first gigs of both the future Grateful Dead and the future New Riders took place within walking distance of each other in downtown Menlo Park.
It is currently The Oak City Bar And Grill, but it's unknown whether the buildings have been remodeled or if The Underground was at the same place.(1)




Jerry performed here on
5/7/69 John Dawson
5/14/69 John Dawson
5/21/69 John Dawson
6/4/69 John Dawson
6/11/69 Bobby Ace And The Cards Off The Bottom Of The Deck
6/25/69 New Riders Of The Purple Sage





1.)^Arnold, Corry, The Grateful Dead and Menlo Park, 2010-02-06, Lost Live Dead, http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/02/grateful-dead-and-menlo-park.html
2.)^Dawson, John "Marmaduke", The Early days Of The New Riders, http://www.nrpsmusic.com/band/earlydays.html

St. Michael's Alley, 436 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA

St. Michael's Alley, 2010

"You could shoot a cannon down University Avenue and not hit a thing," said Vernon Gates, who opened the first incarnation of his cafe, St. Michael's Alley, in 1959. (2)


Opening as a kind of European-favored coffehouse in the late 1950s, it just caught the end of the Beats, helped launch Joan Baez when folk took over and became the happening spot in town.  In the mid 60’s it garnered a bad reputation, making police watch lists and drawing the wrath of mainstream Palo Alto. 

Because Palo Alto lacked hot spots in 1959, the crowds at St. Michael's Alley were large when it opened April Fool's Day. So large, in fact, that Gates locked the doors by noon. Before long, he became an impresario, presiding over a host of beat poets, intellects and local musicians like Joan Baez, The Jefferson Airplane, and the Warlocks, a band soon to call itself "The Grateful Dead."
Robert Hunter washed dishes in the back, and Jerry Garcia picked his banjo out front. Certain customers loitered with a 25-cent purchase. "Jerry used to come in, nurse one cup of coffee all day, and pick up all the chicks," said Gates.

Because in its early days St. Michael’s Alley was really just a hipster hole-in-the-wall.  Opening at 436 University Avenue on April 1st, 1959, owner and former political pollster Vernon Gates was looking to capture the spirit of the European cafes that he had known during his studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria (St. Michael’s Alley is actually the London street where many of the first English cafes opened in the 17th Century).  Palo Alto’s Alley was a modest establishment, about 90 x 30 feet with a high ceiling and service bar in the back.  It had a dark, woodsy atmosphere, a piano painted speckled green against a side wall, and no bandstand. The atmosphere was cozy and informal.  As jazz musician Dick Fregulia remembers, “A piano player could literally play with one hand on the keys and the other hand reaching for a coffee cup on one of the adjacent tables.”

There were performances of all types --- folk singers, jazz bands, staged plays, poetry readings.  And while it wasn’t obvious at the time, the place was becoming a proving grounds for many rising stars.   Paly high schooler Joan Baez, members of Jefferson Airplane and Jerry Garcia and the members of the early incarnations of the Grateful Dead all played there.  Bob Hunter even washed dishes in the kitchen for a while.
It was a credit to Gates that such a creative atmosphere could thrive at St. Mike’s --- especially in a town as mainstream as Palo Alto in those days. From the beginning, the amateur watercolor artist and poetry writer pushed his employees to dance, paint and play music.  He saw St. Mike’s as a “bohemian establishment in a sea of Republicans.” And as such, it soon began attracting counterculture types from all over the Peninsula.

Perhaps too many.  When an 18 year-old Woodside girl was arrested for selling marijuana to her high school friends in 1964, the judge spoke from the bench about her entry into “the world of pseudo sophistication, the world of Saint Michael’s Alley.”  The local media ran with those comments and soon St. Mike’s acquired a not-so-wholesome reputation.  After the Palo Alto police department called St. Mike’s a hangout for “narcotics users and homosexuals,” the city attorney’s office tried to strip it of its beer license.  And in June of ‘65, a crackdown by Palo Alto police on what they called “a bunch of local beatniks” led to the arrest of 4 alleged frequenters of St. Michael’s Alley on drug possession charges.  Soon St. Michael’s more affluent clientele began to fade away.  As Gates would later recall, “Most of my paying customers…thought they would lose their security clearances [at work] if they came to the place, so I was virtually put out of business.”

This might help explain the memories that the somewhat cantankerous Gates had of the musical legends he once hosted.   Of Joan Baez he recalled, “She would go on signing all night and everybody would hang around and not buy anything.” Of the early incarnation of the Grateful Dead: “The only thing I credit myself with is kicking them out and telling them to go home and practice.”(1)

He did audition the Warlocks sometime in mid-1965, but he rejected them as being "terrible."(3)

In 1966, Gates closed St. Mikes and spent the next seven years designing silk screenings, writing metaphysical poetry and meditating “4-6 hours a day.”  But although he called this the happiest period of his life, Gates made an entrepreneurial comeback in 1973.  

In 1973, Vernon Gates opened a restaurant in Palo Alto called St. Michael's Alley. This time, the venue was on 800 Emerson Street (at Homer Avenue). This was about six blocks from the old St. Michael's Alley. The second time around, St. Michael's Alley was a relatively upscale restaurant rather than a coffee shop. (3)

It came to pass on Thursday, October 30, 1980 that former St. Michael's Alley dishwasher Robert Hunter came to be performing at the new St. Michael's Alley. The most remarkable thing about the show, however, is hearing a completely relaxed Robert Hunter bantering with the crowd and taking requests, clearly with people he knows.
Certainly it would have surprised owner Vernon Gates in 1965 to think that his dishwasher would be performing in an upscale version of his coffee shop a decade and a half later. Of course, it would have surprised Gates even more to know that the sloppy band of recalcitrants he had rejected would be playing Radio City Music Hall that very same night, singing many songs co-written by the dishwasher in question.(3)

And as Gates told the Palo Alto Times Tribune in 1991 “I made a conscious effort to drive away the people who destroyed St. Michael’s Alley.  They can’t support the business.  They were some of the finest people from Stanford, but they nickel and dimed us to death.”

Then again, perhaps the new clientele was the old counterculture with new affluent identities.  Gates seemed to consider this possibility later in the interview: “They grow up.  All the people who might have contributed to the demise of the first St. Michael’s Alley are middle-aged now… I have clients that have been coming in since we first opened 18 years ago.”

Despite the higher prices, there was still an alternative feel to the place--- Gates and employees hung their paintings in the windows and his dishwasher grew a corn garden out front.   There were weekly poetry and open mike nights in the so-called “Waiting Room” next door ---a kind of homage to the original St. Mikes.

But in 1994, the links to the past were severed when Gates sold St. Mike’s and got out of the restaurant business.  Now the “Waiting Room” is gone and St. Mike’s has taken an even sharper turn toward upscale cuisine and fine dining.  But no matter how much St. Mike’s changes to cater the capitalist Silicon Valley around it, the secret of St. Michael’s Alley remains safe with us --- it was once a pretty happening place. (1)



Jerry performed here in
Summer 1961 David Nelson
Yet another meeting place was one of the local folk music spots, St. Michael's Alley on University Avenue in Palo Alto. It's there that the area's most celebrated singer and activist, Joan Baez, got her start while she was still a student at Palo Alto High School. As Alan Trist puts it, 'Kepler's was the main spot in the daytime and at night everyone would go over to St. Michael's Alley.' Garcia and Phil Lesh met at St. Michael's Alley that year.(4)

Autumn 1961
Garcia and Phil Lesh met at St. Michael's Alley that year.(4)

1965 Warlocks
Vernon Gates did audition the Warlocks sometime in mid-1965, but he rejected them as being "terrible."(4)







1.)^http://www.paloaltohistory.com/st-michaels-alley.php
2.)^Tindall, Blair, Mozart In The Jungle, Psychedelic Palo Alto
3.)^http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2011/07/october-30-1980-st-michaels-alley-palo.html
4.)^ Teddy GoodBear <DeadLists@GoodBear.com>
5.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia: An American Life, pg. 31, 43.

Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's house, Santa Catalina Street, Palo Alto, CA

"Being at Kevin McKernans house when all of the original Grateful Dead were there playing music with PigPen (Ron McKernan)."(1)

Garcia remembered, “I spent a lot of time over at the Pigpen house, but it was mostly in Pigpen’s room, which was like a ghetto! I sat in his room for countless hours listening to his old records. It was funky, man! Stuff thrown everywhere. Pigpen had this habit of wearing just a shirt and his underpants. You’d come into his house and he’d say, ‘Come on in, man,’ and he’d have a bottle of wine under the bed. His mom would come in about once every five hours to see if he was still alive. It was hilarious! But yeah, we’d play records. I’d hack away at his guitar, show him stuff.”

Garcia gave several accounts of Pigpen’s early musical development:
“When I first met Pigpen he was 14 or 15 years old. He was hanging around Palo Alto, and I was the only person around that played any blues on the guitar, so he hung out with me. And he picked up, just by watching and listening to me, the basic Lightnin’ Hopkins stuff. Then he took up the harmonica.”
“Pigpen was mostly into playing Lightnin’ Hopkins stuff and harmonica… He wanted to play the blues, and I was like the guitar player in town who could play the blues, so he used to hang around; that’s how I got to know him. He took up harmonica and got pretty good at it for those days, when nobody could play any of that stuff.”
“Pigpen’s father was the first rhythm & blues guy around here. Pigpen played piano for a long time, just simple C blues runs and stuff like that, and he’d sing… He was hanging around at the various scenes that were going on in Palo Alto. At that time I was sort of a beatnik guitar player. And he’d come around to these parties and I’d be playing blues, and he’d watch very carefully and he’d go home and learn things, all on the sly. And he took up the harmonica as well back in those days… He was deathly afraid to play in front of anybody. He’d been playing harmonica secretly for a long time, and one time he got up on stage at a folk music place and I backed him up on the guitar; he played harmonica and sang. And he could sing like Lightnin’ Hopkins, which just blew everybody’s mind!”

Pigpen kind of had his feet in two worlds when he was in his teens. He liked to hang out at the black bars and blues clubs in East Palo Alto; but he was also part of the bohemian-folkie scene at the Chateau and Kepler’s bookstore.
Peter Albin: “He would be around playing at different places or at a party or something. It was all pretty informal. He’d play guitar mostly, and harmonica, and he played with Garcia once in a while… When he would come over to my parents’ place he would tickle the ivories, and I thought he was pretty good – though I never thought he’d become a keyboard player for a rock & roll band. I thought he was an excellent harp player.”
Robert Hunter: “He was a real scuzzy teenage kid with a terrible complexion. He must’ve been 16 or 17 when he started hanging around the Chateau. He had a scuzzy beard and he drank Thunderbird, and wore a fatigue jacket. He was the sort of guy that one would ordinarily discourage from showing up at one’s parties, except that he played a hell of a harmonica, and that was his passport. There weren’t many people at that time playing the kind of music he was, and I didn’t know any harmonica players at all.”
David Nelson: “It was amazing how this guy could play Robert Johnson and Lightnin’ Hopkins stuff. There just weren’t that many people doing it then… He was so authentic.”(2)

Tom Constanten:
"Pigpen's father was a blues DJ who went by the name 'Cool Breeze'. Pigpen had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the blues artists, and Pigpen was a remarkable blues singer. The world never got to see the full measure of Pigpen. He could do so many things - he was so deep, so broad. I used to room with him on the road and I shared a house with him in Novato. I mean you'd look at him and see this Hell's Angel sort of character who sings this narrow band of music, and he was really into so many more things. Pigpen had a different inner and outer image. While his outer image was kind of like Pirate Pete who would shoot his gun at your feet to make you dance, yet he was also the guy who brought a portable chess game along on the road because he liked to play."

Ned Lagin:
"I was very surprised at who Pigpen actually turned out to be, given what I had seen of him... I thought Pigpen would probably be on the opposite side of the planet from me, blues tough, but he turned out to be a very sweet person. To him, I was one of those whiz-kid rocket scientist genius kids that he always wanted to meet, but was on a different school bus going to a different place... But we could sit together and play piano together and hang out together. I think there was a great sensitivity in Pigpen that was the opposite of his down & dirty Lovelight personality."

Like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, Pigpen was a character and a talent that will always leave everyone wondering what the hell he would have become had he not chosen the hard drinking and partying lifestyle. "If he had survived in good health," grieved Catanese, "he might have helped plot a bluesier direction for the Dead. Or some think he might have gone off and fronted his own blues band."(3)

Dave McQueen, who was one of the East Palo Alto crowd that befriended Pigpen, tells a nice story about the teenage Ron McKernan: "I had an 'in' with the owner of the Choo-Choo Inn, a black honky-tonk on the tracks in San Mateo, through Lester Hellums, who would sit in with the house band. T-Bone Walker was going to play there and Ron heard about it from one of the corner kids. Ron was spending more time in East P.A. than he was at home at that point. Anyway, he came to me like any normal rotten teenager when he really wants something he can't scheme on alone, so I talked to the owner and got him a table right up front. T-Bone stood there and played right in front of him the whole night. Ron was in heaven! At the end he said to T-Bone, 'See you in 20 years, Mr. Walker!' He talked about it for weeks."(5)


Ron's grandparents were Frank McKernan 1891-1949 and Alice McKernan 1894-1973.(4)
His father, Phil, was a DJ known as "Cool Breeze" at KRE Berkeley in 1951 until 1956. He was born on March 26, 1920, died April 4. 1992.
His mother, Esther Elvera McKernan was born January 5, 1917, died October 16, 1989.
Little is known about his family or early life. (4)
Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was born Sept. 8, 1945 and died from alcohol abuse on March 8, 1973.

Jerry rehearsed here in
1961-1962 Ron "Pigpen" McKernan


1.)^ Rice, Bob, 2008-01-01, http://www.paloaltoonline.com/square/index.php?i=3&t=551#add_comments
2.)^http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/04/pigpen-solo.html
3.)^ Singh, Gary, Metro, 2003-03-13 thru 19, http://www.paloalto.net/history/pigpen.shtml
4.)^Dr. Tom, Pigpen was the Heart and Soul of the Grateful Dead, 2011-06-28, http://hiphappy.me/2011/06/28/pigpen/
5.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia: An American Life, pg. 51.
6.)^Pringle, Colin, 2001, http://wild-bohemian.com/pigpen.htm

Country Dance Hall (unknown name), Richmond, CA

a Black Mountain Boys anecdote from Eric Thompson:
"I remember one time [the Black Mountain Boys] went to a real country dance hall in a place like Richmond [California, near Berkeley] and we played some tunes and these guys were very nice to us. They said 'That's a nice bluegrass sound.' They played Ernest Tubbs stuff in those places. You came in and you stamped your hand with a blue fluorescent stamp, and there was a bar in the back and there were fights. It was sawdust on a big wood floor. But we didn't make a lot of contact with that world. That was one of the few times we did. Usually it was more of a folk revival kind of thing and I don't think there were really the venues for it. There was no place like the Ash Grove or the Club 47 in Northern California, so we ended up doing things like playing on Gert Chiarito's program on KPFA and things like that — that was about as public as you could get. And then we'd play at these little tourist places in North Beach."(1)



Jerry performed here in
Late 1963-Spring 1964 Black Mountain Boys


 

 1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia, An American Life, pg 59

David McQueen's (David X) other house, Ramona Street, Palo Alto, CA

One night in St. Michael's Alley in Palo Alto I met Pigpen. He turned a friend and I on to a frequent jam session at the house of a "David X" in East Palo Alto. We'd go and give Pigpen a ride since he didn't have a car. (Andy Z.)

"We had an old house on Ramona Street in downtown Palo Alto — there was a one-block area in that part of Palo Alto where a few blacks lived; one block. Ron used to work at the gas station on the corner between the house we lived in and the mom and pop store where we bought our wine. Ron accosted me one day on one of my frequent wine runs: here was this young white kid with bad skin and he still had his baby fat, but he talked like a 60-year-old black blues man. 'Hey man, you the cat that's been havin' all them parties?' he said. 'I want to come over!' When I asked how old he was, he said, 'Damn that — I play guitar and harmonica,' except he called it a 'harp' just like a young brother." David McQueen(1)


Jerry always had a guitar with him wherever he went", McQueen continues,"One day, after doing a yard job, we were on the way back to my house in east Palo Alto. It was summer, kids were out playing in the streets, and Jerry was playing guitar and we were singing as we walked. I looked behind us at one point and there was a whole group of little black kids following us and dancing....When we stopped they were all over Jerry: Play some more! Play some more! Jerry loved it. (1)



Jerry lived and rehearsed here in
1965





1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia, An American Life, pg 3, 42

Norm "Pogo" Fontaine's house, Palo Alto, CA

Norm "Pogo" Fontaine was an East Palo Alto cat with deep roots in the jazz world, as well as an accomplished painter. Though he was in his mid-40's at the time, he hung comfortably in this mainly youthful party scene. In fact, his house, known as Pogo's Place, was another notorious party spot during this era.(1)

David McQueen, "He (Jerry) was listening to a lot of Reverend Gary Davis at the time. But blues, gospel, jazz -- he'd play it all. He used to jam with the drummers who came to play at Pogo's (Norm Fontaine's house)..."(1)


Jerry performed here in
1961
Spring 1962
"One Saturday night in the Spring of 1962, Lesh and Garcia connected. They'd seen each other around, but at a party at Pogo's, Lesh remarked "Jerry, you sing and play good, I work for KPFA, how'd you like to be on the radio?"'(2) 




Norm "Pogo" Fontaine's house, Palo Alto, CA
1.)^Jackson, Blair, Garcia: An American Life, pg. 31, 42.
2.)^McNally, Dennis, Long Strange Trip, pg. 39.

Neil Rosenberg's house, Bloomington, IN

Neil Rosenberg As a Blue Grass Boy: While a student at the University of Indiana, Neil Rosenberg played in the house band at Bean Blossom for several years starting in 1961; in 1963 he also managed the park. During this time, he filled in on several occasions as a Blue Grass Boy.
Before and After: Neil Rosenberg continues to play bluegrass today; since 1973 he has played with the band Crooked Stovepipe. He is better known in the bluegrass world, however, as the author of the definitive book Bluegrass: A History. His writings also include the 1975 Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys: An Illustrated Discography (now out of print) and Bluegrass Odyssey, a collaboration with photographer Carl Fleischhauer. He created the "30 Years Ago This Month" column for Bluegrass Unlimited and wrote it for 13 years before turning it over to Tom Ewing in 1994.





"In Bloomington, where early Berkeley banjo mentor and later renowned bluegrass historian Neil Rosenberg lived while attending graduate school in Folklore at Indiana University, Jerry and I played often at Neil's house..."(1)



1.)^Rothman, Sandy, 2012-03-18.

Oregon State Penitentiary, 2575 Center St. NE, Salem, Oregon

Oregon State Prison 1880

Capacity 2100

The Oregon State Penitentiary is the oldest prison in Oregon and the only maximum security institution currently operated by the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP), the first state prison in Oregon, United States, was originally located in Portland in 1851.
In 1866 it was moved to a 26-acre (110,000 m2) site in Salem and enclosed by a reinforced concrete wall averaging 25 feet (7.6 m) in height. OSP is operated by the Oregon Department of Corrections as Oregon's only maximum security prison.

This postcard image from the 1920s shows the entrance to the Oregon
State Penitentiary

The penitentiary currently has special housing units for maximum custody inmates; disciplinary segregation; offenders with psychiatric problems; and inmates sentenced to death. Executions, which are performed by lethal injection in Oregon, are conducted at the penitentiary. The 196-bed, self-contained Intensive Management Unit provides housing and control for those death row and male inmates who disrupt or pose a substantial threat to the general population in all department facilities.
Most housing in the penitentiary is in large cell blocks with most inmates housed in single man cells that have been converted to double man cells to increase capacity. The penitentiary also has a full service infirmary and an administrative segregation (protective custody) unit.

Oregon State Penitentiary has a separate minimum security facility located on its grounds.[1] It was first opened in 1964 as Oregon's first women's prison,[2] and was called Oregon Women's Correctional Center.

Holy Roller

Lines formed to get into the Jerry show in 1982.

In 2010, the state closed the minimum security annex.[2][3]




Jerry performed here on
5/5/82  John Kahn (acoustic)





1.)^Oregon State Penitentiary, http://www.oregon.gov/DOC/OPS/PRISON/osp.shtml
2.)^Zaitz, Les. "Oregon to close prison, lay off 63 workers in $2.5 million budget cut." The Oregonian, 2010-09-30.
3.)^ Zaitz, Les, Oregon prison in Salem proposed for closure because of budget cuts, The Oregonian, 2012-02-01.

Oriental Theatre, 2230 N. Farwell Ave., Milwaukee, WI

“Ben Hur” was shown at the Grand Opening of the theater in 1927. (3)

Capacity 2500


When the Oriental opened on July 2, 1927, it featured 2 minaret towers, three marveleous stained glass chandeliers, 6 larger-than-life Buddhas, several hand drawn murals, 8 porcelain lions, dozens of original draperies, and hundreds of elephants.  The motif is not what first comes to mind today as being 'oriental.' Designed by Gustave A. Dick and Alex Bauer, this $1.5 million escape from mundane cares offered the theatergoer an incredible, dreamy pastiche of Moorish, Byzantine and East Indian themes.”(1)

“This crowd lined up on Oct. 16, 1929 to see The Greene Murder Case, a well-reviewed mystery starring William Powell, Jean Arthur and Florence Eldridge

The Oriental Theatre, located a mile north of downtown, a mile south of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and 5 blocks west of Lake Michigan, is at the heart of Milwaukee's alternative Eastside.

The lush sounds of the Kimball Theatre Pipe Organ introduces films, just like the good old days. This pipe organ is the largest of its kind in a theatre in America, and the third largest in the world.

Before a Friday or Saturday night show, there’s a unique sound coming from the main theatre. It’s the sounds of the Kimball Theatre Pipe Organ. An organ that is home to 95-year-old William Gans, better known as Bill.
Bill is a very sweet man who has a passion for music, the organ and films. He’s practically been living in theatres his whole life, learning from his Mother who used to play the organ back when there were silent films.
A lot of Milwaukee-area residents get to a show early just to hear Bill play the organ. They say, "It helps make The Oriental Theatre experience that much better."(2)

Backstage lightboard Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

Photo by Eric Oxendorf

The Oriental Theatre is the world record holder for a current and continuing film engagement. The Rocky Horror Picture Show has played as a midnight film since January, 1978.

Jerry performed here on
4/19/75 Legion Of Mary





1.)^http://wiscohisto.tumblr.com/post/16028207623/oriental-theater-milwaukee-1929-this-crowd
2.)^O'Brien, Brianna, The Oriental Theatre: The Art of The Organ/Make Milwaukee, 2012-01-22, http://www.radiomilwaukee.org/initiatives/make-milwaukee/oriental-theatre-art-organmake-milwaukee-2012-week-2
3.)^Milwaukee Journal, 1927-06-29, pg 10

Big Bertha and Oofty Goofty, San Francisco, CA in the mid 1880's

Big Bertha arrived in San Francisco in the middle eighteen-eighties, posing as a wealthy Jewish widow searching for a good man to take care of her money, which she described as being far more than she could count. She required each suitor to transfer to her a sum of money, to be added to an equal sum of her own, the whole to be risked on an investment of which she alone knew the nature.
In this extraordinary manner she collected she collected several thousand dollars from a score of lovelorn males, not a penny of which was ever seen again by it's rightful owner. She was at length arrested, but none of her victims felt inclined to brave the torrent of publicity that would result from prosecution, she was released on nominal bail, and the cases against her dropped.(2)

 As Big Bertha gained fame, the manager of the Bella Union hired her and put her on display in an empty storefront on Market Street as "Big Bertha, the Queen of the Confidence Women, Admission Ten Cents." Bertha's act consisted of a long "confession" of awful crimes she had never committed, followed by an off-key rendition of "A Flower from My Angel Mother's Grave." This went over so well that she took her act to the Bella Union and turned in into a song-and-dance revue, which soon became the toast of the town.

The Bella Union served for almost 60 years from 1849 to the great fire of 1906, to provide a venue for some of the finest variety, minstrel and burlesque shows in the country, and was built on the site of the old Colonnade Hotel. It was originally used as a gambling saloon as well as for entertainment, in 1856 becoming a melodeon , but from 1893 was a waxworks and penny arcade. It was on the North side of Washington Street, near Kearny. Also in this photo are the Verandah and the El Dorado with Portsmouth Plaza in the foreground and Telegraph Hill in the background. Photo from 1856.

Meanwhile, another star named Oofty Goofty, plastered with tar and horsehair, was wowing them with his Wild Man of Borneo Act, during which he repeatedly snarled out his name while shredding hunks of raw meat with his teeth.

Big Bertha, the Queen of the Confidence Women, played a brief engagement at Bottle Koenig's and then went to the Bella Union, where she achieved considerable renown as a singer who couldn't sing, a dancer who couldn't dance, and an actress who couldn't act. Built as a gambling palace in 1849, the Bella Union quickly began hosting burlesque sideshows, which eventually supplanted gambling as the main attraction. Its biggest star was a 19th-century performance artist named Big Bertha.(2) Her work in the drama, indeed, was so remarkably bad that she attracted audiences from all over San Francisco and brought to the Bella Union and the Barbary Coast hundreds of citizens who had never vsited the quarter before and never did again. (2)

Her greatest triumph was achieved in "Romeo and Juliet", in which she co-starred with Oofty Goofty.
The management at the Bella Union, seeing the natural chemistry between San Francisco's biggest female and male stars, decided to cast Oofty and Bertha as the leads in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Their move was a decade ahead of its time, for it wasn't until 1896 that Alfred Jarry destroyed Macbeth with his outrageous parody Ubu Roi. Though the Bella Union version of Romeo and Juliet pretty much stuck to the original script, a few minor revisions in stage directions were necessary. Big Bertha was so heavy she couldn't possibly be hoisted to the balcony, which wouldn't have supported her in any case. So Oofty Goofy howled out Romeo's lines from the balcony, while Bertha played Juliet from the ground. Oofty Goofy, unable to shed his typecast persona, played Romeo as the wild man of Borneo; Bertha emerged from each performance covered with bruises from head to toe.
This was probably the most popular production that Ned Foster had ever staged, but within a week he was compelled to take it off the boards, for Big Bertha complained that as a lover Oofty Goofty was entirely too rough. She flatly refused to act with him any longer.
Soon thereafter Foster presented here in a condensed version of Mazeppa, in which she made her entrance strapped to the back of a donkey. This was also greeted with great acclaim, until one night the donkey fell over the footlights, carrying Big Bertha with him, and well nigh exterminated the orchestra. During the excitement Big Bertha, scratched and angry, crawled from beneath the braying donkey and, in language which she had doubtless learned during her career as an adventuress, indicated that she would never again play the role of Mazeppa. Thereafter she confined her stage work to singing, with an occassional dance, and appeared at various melodeons until 1895, when she obtained control of the Bella Union.

Big Bertha

In 1895 Big Bertha takes control of the Bella Union on Kearny Street, or was it Pacific Street, where the Holiday Inn is now located. When she can't sell liquor, she shuts the establishment down for good and leaves the Barbary Coast(1)

Oofty Goofty was the stage name of a sideshow performer who lived in San Francisco in the late 19th century.
Leonard Borchardt's first glimpse of America was brief. The fourteen year old stowaway from Berlin was discovered en route to the new world by the Captain of the SS Fresia. He was forced to stay on the ship, join the crew to earn his passage, return to Germany and back again to the United States, before being allowed to disembark in New York. From there Borchardt drifted from state to state before signing up for the U.S. Cavalry in Detroit. After learning he would be fighting Native American Indians who might scalp him - Borchardt deserted, sold his horse and gun to a farmer, and headed for San Francisco. He arrived in 1884 at the age of 22.

Borchardt would try any crazy scheme for money, starting with his impersonation of a "Wild Man of Borneo", the scam that was to give him his infamous moniker. He was painted with glue, stuck with hair, and laid out on a roof to dry for five hours. Then he was shackled in a cage and fed raw meat whilst scaring visitors with grunts and wails of "Oof, Oof". He performed this act in the Dime Museum Show and was a huge success; but his manager skipped town with the proceeds, leaving Borchardt close to death on account of his pores being blocked by whatever it was that had been fused to his skin. Borchardt made the news and was visited by curious medical students as he lay in a Turkish bath for five weeks waiting for the glue to dissolve. This cost the City $300 before he was well again. From then on Borchardt was known throughout California simply as Oofty Goofty.

Instead of shying away from the limelight as some might after such a to-do, Borchardt (now a celebrity of San Francisco's Barbary Coast), embraced his new persona and no dare was considered too much of a challenge. From one day to the next you would not know if you might find Oofty Goofty acting as a human skittle in Woodward's Garden where patrons would win a cigar if they hit him with a baseball, or hear of him heading to New York pushing a shiny red wheelbarrow for a bet, (a challenge that failed after 40 miles when he was knocked over in the darkness, landing head first in a creek).

For $20 he even allowed himself to be shipped in a box to Sacramento as a joke gift for a young lady. That they carted him there with the box updside-down, and left the package unopened in a warehouse over the weekend, did nothing to lessen his bravado, although he later admitted he was "pretty near played out that time".

But Oofty Goofty was made from tough mettle. Not only did he survive a court martial for his earlier desertion, escaping three years of hard labor by throwing himself off a cliff to achieve early dismissal on grounds of disability.
Oofty, after a long and illustrious career, met a different, sadder fate. His big career move came when an irate clubowner, embarrassed at having booked such a loser, had the bouncers pick up Oofty and throw him through the air and into the street. Oofty slammed into the pavement with enough force to crush the spine of an ordinary mortal.
Staggering to his feet and brushing himself off, he made a remarkable discovery: He felt no pain! Just to make sure, he entered the nearest saloon and offered to let its nastiest-looking denizen punch him for a nickel. Still, he felt no pain. Soon Oofty was earning a good living with his expanded repertoire: for a nickel you could slug him, for a dime you could kick his rear end with all your might, and for a quarter you could slam him in the butt with a baseball bat.
Practically every male in San Francisco, from the movers and shakers to the lowest denizens of the Barbary Coast, could brag of having banged on Oofty at least once. But finally, after decades of suffering the painless blows of fate, Oofty suffered the inevitable fatal blow. Heavyweight champ John L. Sullivan busted his spine with a pool cue, and Oofty died broke a couple of years later(1)
While San Francisco would undoubtedly have liked to claim this colorful character forever as its own, Oofty Goofty actually moved to Texas where his antics continued. Sullivan's legendary belting did not stop him from traveling from one oil field to the next, where he would invite drunken workers to thrash him with a baseball bat for cash. Neither did his fertile imagination subside when it came to entertaining the masses with his fanciful schemes for making money. The last we hear of him, Oofty Goofty favored racing to drink beer with a bar spoon and quail-eating contests that became all the rage at the time.(3)

Oofty Goofty's companion, Philomena Faulkner

This is not the same guy.

He was later parodied in popular culture, notably in a 1941 eponymous film and in a 1937 Our Gang short film called "The Kid From Borneo."
He is referred to in a story by Bill Pronzini, "The Bughouse Caper." [Kurland, Michael (editor) "Sherlock Holmes - The Hidden Years" New York, St. Martin's Minotaur 2004]




So is the Grateful Dead's Bertha maybe, actually about Big Bertha? I recall it was supposedly about a large fan in their office but perhaps this is more factual.





1.)^Weirde, Dr., Oofty Goofty Stars in Romeo and Juliet,
http://foundsf.org/index.php?title=Oofty_Goofty_Stars_in_Romeo_and_Juliet
2.)^Asbury, Herbert, The Barbary Coast: An Informal History, pg. 136
3.)^Breach, Sam, Leonard Borchardt's “Oofty Goofty”, http://www.sfcityguides.org/public_guidelines.html?article=1326&submitted=TRUE&srch_text=&submitted2=&topic=San%20Francisco%20Characters