Posted on 08/22/2005 12:35:46 PM PDT by Cagey
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/Garcia/petition.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.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Maybe they should put LSD on the back of the stamps.
you bad. lol.
Mongolia is on the leading edge.
That's funny.
would they lace the stamps with LSD, too?
He has an ice cream bar named after him. What more could he want? (oh that's right - he's dead, Jim!)
WHY????
Thought Jerry Garcias was some fine guitar work (for its style) but Jerry ain't Elvis.
Well, there was that song.
Sugar Mongolia.
This could be a set-back to Three Stooges fans and the "Honor Curly" movement.
Sometimes all at once.
Got my vote
LOL!
I think that's already been done.
Pa-leeeeeeeeze, a stamp for Garcia? Pa-leeeeeeeeeeze!
I don't think US postal regulations allow dead white males on the post stamp.
Jerry had more talent in his missing finger than Elvis had in his whole body. Elvis just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Just like any other pop icon, Elvis was long on image and short on talent.
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