Bear

by Robert Greenfield

  With the energy level in the atmosphere rising dramatically each year, Bear believed that the trigger point for the next Great Deluge was near. “When this storm happens, which I call an ultra-cyclone, the rains come, the winds blow everything flat, there are waves a thousand feet tall, and the earth appears to be covered in water. Although the storm only lasts for forty days, it removes so much heat from the earth that it takes a hundred thousand years of ice building to replace it.

  “All the northern cities are getting hotter. The weather is getting more intense. Rainstorms are getting huge. There are floods and cyclones and hurricanes like never before. And the polar ice cap is melting at a dramatic rate, raising the sea level to a point where the big storm happens. During the storm, the seas will rise three hundred feet. And when they do, so far as all the people who live in the northern hemisphere are concerned, their days are numbered. I don’t see how anyone there could survive it.”

  Despite how far-fetched Bear’s notions about the coming ice age seemed to many of those who knew him, John Perry Barlow found himself “on an airplane one day with Stephen Schneider, who was then the leading theorist in how to model large-scale global change. After we had established who we were, I said, ‘You aren’t by any chance familiar with the beliefs of my old friend Owsley, are you?’ And he said, ‘Oh my God, I’m much more familiar with those beliefs than I wish I were.’ And I said, ‘Well, what do you think?’ And he said, ‘Well, he’s onto something. But he says it in a way I find so disagreeable.’”

  Possessed by his apocalyptic vision of an ice age storm that would destroy the northern half of the planet, Bear went to Australia for the first time in 1982. Unable to stay there for more than three months because he had entered the country on a tourist visa, Bear would regularly return to Australia during the next two years.

  In 1984, Bear appeared at Phil Lesh’s house with a map of the world showing the mean temperatures at the height of the last ice age and delivered what David Gans described as “a ninety minute lecture on a thermal cataclysm that he said would begin with a six-week rainstorm and leave the entire Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable.” Bear then passed out Australian visa applications to all those who were present.

  By selling off much of what he owned, Bear raised enough money to take others, his daughter Redbird and her mother, Melissa Cargill, among them, along with him to Australia. Like one of the pioneers who had settled the Old West, Bear then began making a brand-new life for himself in the land down under.

  18

  The Land Down Under

  Located about nine miles from the town of Atherton in Queensland in the northeast corner of Australia, the 126 acres of rocky hillside studded with eucalyptus trees on which Bear would live for the rest of his life could only be reached by driving down a five-mile dirt track that often became impassable during the winter rains. Bear claimed the property, which sloped down to the Walsh River at an elevation of three thousand feet, by squatting on it.

  By the time the local authorities discovered him there in 1986, Bear had already built a few sheds and installed “a reticulated water system, a septic system, and a nine-kilowatt generator to provide electricity. I had also planted some gardens where I was growing what I thought was some of the finest-flavored coffee in the world. When they found out I was living here, they said, ‘You don’t have the right to do that.’ And I said, ‘Well, but look what I’ve done.’”

  Not about to give up the land without a fight, Bear then pleaded his case in person before the minister of Queensland. “I told him we had taken very good care of the property and protected the native plants and trees, and then I said, ‘Besides, I understand there is a tradition of squatting in this area.’ They didn’t want to hear about that because every squatter from the time of the first fleet that ever came to Australia has had to fight tooth and nail to get tenure. They still called it Crown property even though there was no lease or freehold or any claims on it. It was just open primeval forest on the river.”

  Bear onstage at Laughter, Love, and Music, the memorial concert for Bill Graham in Golden Gate Park on November 4, 1991. (Ed Perlstein/Getty Images)

  Eventually, Bear was granted a permit to occupy five acres of the property, which he felt was not nearly enough to keep other people from moving in around him. The authorities then offered him twenty-six acres of land. “I said, ‘That’s a fourth of what we had planned. We have two families living here.’ Finally, I gave up arguing with them and hired a crew and fenced the whole thing. About a year later, they came back and said, ‘Gee, you’re not supposed to do that.’ The fence was like nine-tenths of possession because when you get a lease here, you are required to fence the property within a year or the lease will lapse.”

  After having finally secured a ninety-nine-year lease on the land, Bear began constructing a complex of buildings, sheds, modified shipping containers, and caravans that Bob Weir called “a sort of a science fiction version of the way that hippies used to live in America in the seventies.”

  In addition to his original generator, Bear had by then acquired a portable range generator and a diesel generator as well. He had also installed two solar-energy systems as well as a wind generator mounted on a hundred-foot tower that reliably provided him with fifteen hundred watts of power. Bear described the nine-foot-high, two-hundred-square-foot hexagonal tent with a raised wooden floor in which he slept as “looking like something out of The Arabian Nights.”

  Through a gutter and a drainpipe that he had mounted on the roof of an unfinished cottage, rainwater flowed through a strainer into a fifteen-hundred-gallon tank that supplied all of his drinking water. Another three-thousand-gallon tank provided the cooling bath for one of his generators. Bear also installed two more septic systems on the property, thereby enabling him to enjoy a bath, a shower, or a session in his hot tub after one of his regular weight-lifting workouts in his gym. The property also featured three fully rigged kitchens as well as a variety of tents in which his guests stayed.

  In John Perry Barlow’s words, “He was living goddamn close to nowhere. I drove a long ways out there in my rented car before I came upon it, and I didn’t see any other sign of human habitation. Melissa Cargill lived nearby, and I believe everybody on the property had at one time either been married to Bear or heavily affiliated with him.

  “I didn’t stay with him, and I’m kind of sorry I didn’t because it was like something out of Lord Jim. Sheds and pavilions in the jungle, but the main living area was rather Victorian, handsomely carpeted with lots of books and nice furniture and no walls. It was quite plush. He had stuff you hadn’t even thought of, and with Bear, wind was always in ready supply.”

  A reasonable question would be how could Bear afford to purchase all this equipment while residing in a country where he could not earn a living because he was not yet a permanent resident. An eager and enthusiastic consumer who had always bought whatever struck his fancy, Bear’s last stint of regular employment in America had been as an the onstage monitor mixer for the Jefferson Starship in 1979. Even as a self-described “dilettante” growing weed in Marin County, Bear had barely made enough money to survive, much less be able to take others with him when he decamped to Australia for the first time in 1982.

  Although there is no knowing precisely how Bear paid for all the improvements on his property, he had sold just about everything he owned before leaving California for Australia. Along with all the jewelry that he was then making, Bear might also have sold some LSD that he had made years earlier and then stashed away in places known only to him. Royalties from the albums Bear’s Choice and Steal Your Face would also have enabled him to keep his head above water during this period. And as John Perry Barlow would later say, “The way Bear was living in Australia was actually not nearly as luxurious as it might have seemed to someone who never visited him there.”

  Whatever the true nature of his finances might have been, Bear soon began devoting most of his time to creating bronze and s
ilver belt buckles bearing the Steal Your Face logo, which he would then bring with him to sell at Grateful Dead shows on his regular trips back to America.

  “I always came back to America for the Dead tours, and I would usually go to two a year and flog my art. I’d fly to the town, rent a car and a hotel room, go to the show, and carry my stuff around. I made an arrangement with Greenpeace to have some of it displayed out in the audience. The first belt buckles were not handmade but foundry cast. I sold only a few backstage, and the best location for me by far was always in the hallways of the venue. It was a lot of work and very tiring to travel so much, but it was rewarding because I also got to hang out with my friends and hear lots of music.”

  By now, the band was playing massive stadium shows that were attended by a brand-new generation of Deadheads for whom Bear was a certified legend. Realizing he could make far more money by increasing the original price of his belt buckles, Bear began selling them as pieces of collectible art. As always where Bear and the Grateful Dead were concerned, his steadfast refusal to obey what had now become the rules of the road for the band continued to get him into trouble.

  During the Grateful Dead’s 1993 summer tour, Bear pulled his rental car up to the band’s catering truck outside Soldier Field in Chicago and then blithely ordered food as though he were still a member of the crew. In the big-bucks world of the rock business in the 1990s where every dollar mattered, this was a definite no-no. But because this was Bear, whom no one had ever been able to control, he got away with it.

  While Bear was in Chicago, all of his jewelry was stolen by someone who then tried to sell it to a Deadhead shop in the city. After taking it away from the thief, the people at the store tracked Bear down and offered to bring the jewelry to him at a show a week later in Washington, DC. As a Grateful Dead staffer would later say, “He was selling very beautiful necklaces that were insanely overpriced and belt buckles that cost a hundred dollars. These people had just spent hundreds of dollars on plane tickets to get there, and he looked them in the eye and said, ‘Well, I obviously don’t have any money. Here’s a belt buckle. How about we call it square?’ They were delighted and I wanted to throttle him.”

  Before the Dead performed at RFK Stadium in the nation’s capital on June 26, 1993, Chelsea Clinton, who was then thirteen years old, came backstage with two of her friends. While anyone else might have been hesitant to even talk to the daughter of the president of the United States, Bear promptly decided to put the opportunity to good use. Striding right up to her, Bear began showing Chelsea Clinton a tray of his jewelry as though he were about to shove it up her nose.

  In the words of the Grateful Dead staffer, “He had the sales tactics of a Mumbai street peddler.” As the staffer stood there watching in horror, a White House employee who had accompanied Chelsea Clinton to the gig came up and said, “I don’t like that.” Having already learned how to deal with any stranger as a potential voter, Chelsea Clinton was trying to be as polite as possible with Bear. The same could not be said for the Secret Service agents surrounding her, who were by now most definitely alarmed and about to spring into action.

  Hoping to avoid an incident that would receive extensive press coverage, the Grateful Dead staffer walked over and said, “Hey, Bear, can I talk to you for a second? Because you are about to be picked up and walked out of here.” After leading Bear to a quiet corner of the room, the staffer said, “You’re not going to like what I’m going to say, but I’m only trying to protect your ass. You’re really coming on strong here. Would you go a little softer, please?” Without a word, Bear simply turned and walked away.

  Running into a dressing room where Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia were talking to each other, the freaked-out staffer said, “‘Bobby, you have to save Chelsea Clinton from Bear. I want to bring her and her friends in here. Bobby said, ‘Sure, why not? Let’s talk to Chelsea.’ So I brought Chelsea and her friends into the innermost sanctum, where there was no one else but them and Jerry and Bobby.”

  The next day, Bear grabbed the staffer by the arm. Enraged, the staffer said, “Get your fucking hands off me. I’m listening to you.” Bear then said, “You don’t respect my art, do you?” The staffer replied, “I respect your art a lot. I don’t like your manners.” Bear said, “See this laminate? This gives me the right to do what I want.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” the staffer told him. “It doesn’t give you the right to impose on our guests or abuse them. And I don’t know where you got the idea that you could make a living off the fucking Grateful Dead by selling jewelry backstage.” Although Bear then went to Phil Lesh to complain about the way in which he had been treated, his plea fell on deaf ears.

  Having already embraced the Internet as the perfect means by which to communicate with all those who were still fascinated by him without ever having to meet them in person, Bear also began selling his jewelry on www.thebear.org. The Web site also featured essays he had written about the true nature of psychedelics; the real reasons for drug prohibition as well as how the drug laws needed to be rewritten; the coming ice age; his belief that global warming as well as the greenhouse effect were utter nonsense; his assessment of the faults and virtues of analog versus digital recording; the deleterious effect of shows such as Sesame Street on children’s ability to learn how to read; and the role that diet and exercise had played in his life.

  Noting that after his teenage years, his weight had suddenly ballooned from 125 to 168 pounds in just six months, Bear informed the world that he had then gone on a restricted-calorie diet that had enabled him to lose twenty-six pounds. After taking up ballet, Bear had adopted the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that he then followed for the rest of his life.

  Long before anyone had ever heard of the diet of meat, nuts, and berries that hunter-gatherers had consumed during the Paleolithic period, Bear compared his all-meat regimen to what the Eskimos had always eaten without having suffered any deficiencies in their health. Feeling he was losing strength and not at all pleased by the way he looked, Bear noted that he had started lifting weights again in 1990 at the age of fifty-five just as he had done back when he was in prison.

  Getting into it as only he could, Bear had begun working out with heavy weights for an hour, then giving himself two days to recover before his next session. By doing so, he thus added nearly thirty pounds of muscle over the next seven years. An avid reader of bodybuilding magazines, Bear had done his best to emulate the Heavy Duty lifting program espoused by Mike Mentzer, who had been named Mr. Olympia in the heavyweight class in 1979.

  Although Bear was working out as hard as he possibly could to clear his head while also keeping himself in top physical shape, he was quick to dismiss Arnold Schwarzenegger’s well-known comment that getting a pump from lifting weights was much like an orgasm. “I’ve had a lot of heavy pumps,” Bear said. “And none of them was even remotely like an orgasm.”

  Despite his occasional travails on the road with the Grateful Dead, Bear had now set himself up for life in a country where he was not only safe from the coming ice-age storm but also felt very much at home. Comfortably ensconced in the enclave he had created from scratch in an ancient rain forest in Australia, Bear had everything but someone to share it all with him.

  19

  Real Love

  On July 13, 1984, as the Grateful Dead performed “Dark Star” for the first time in three years beneath a full moon at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Bear met the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his life. Then thirty-two years old, Sheilah Manning had been working in the Grateful Dead ticket office for a couple of years while also teaching children’s dance classes in Marin County and helping to run a cooperative secondhand clothing business in Sausalito.

  Born in Wellesley, Massachusetts, she had attended Vermont College before going off to join her boyfriend at Tufts University. By then, they had already taken acid together, and he had turned her on to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. High on LSD, Sheilah Manning saw the Grateful D
ead for the first time in Boston in 1973 and was immediately entranced by Jerry Garcia. “He was very impressive. I was mesmerized by his talent. Having spent time around guitar players, I recognized his immense talent right away. What he played was light, beautifully lyrical, and tasteful, very intricate yet looked effortless. I planted myself in front of Jerry and watched in awe.”

  Dropping out of school, she accompanied her boyfriend to California. After they split up, she lived in Mill Valley for a while and then began seeing Spencer Dryden, a fabled character who while serving as the drummer in the Jefferson Airplane had been Grace Slick’s boyfriend. Along with bassist Jack Casady, who had been Melissa Cargill’s lover, Dryden had helped provide the bottom for the band’s driving, soaring sound.

  “Spencer Dryden came from the LA scene,” Jerry Garcia would later say. “It’s like a whole ’nother trip down there. It’s that thing of, ‘Look out for the sharpies, man.…’ Down there, they’ve got that ultra-paranoia, especially if there’s money involved. Spencer was like a model of one of those guys who go, ‘They’re going to burn you. Those fuckers will burn you every time.’ Which of course they then always do. You know?”

  The nephew of Charlie Chaplin, Dryden had left the Jefferson Airplane after watching Marty Balin get punched out by a Hells Angel at Altamont. When Sheilah Manning met him, Dryden was the drummer in the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a band that he also later managed. Quite a bit older than her at the time, he “seemed very kind and caring. We had a brief relationship when he was on the road, but it quickly dissolved when I realized he was actually living with someone in California.”

  While shopping at the Marin City flea market one day, Sheilah Manning “came upon a woman who was selling a bunch of various things including clothing that looked very familiar to me. I felt like I knew the person who had worn these clothes. The woman explained that she was selling her ex-boyfriend’s belongings to get some money together to move out because their relationship was over. After chatting with her for a while longer, I realized the ex-boyfriend to whom she was referring was Spencer.