Just An Occasional Deadhead?

Deadhead - Someone who loves--and draws meaning from--the music of the Grateful Dead and the experience of Dead shows, and builds community with others who feel the same way. (Skeleton Key:A Dictionary for Deadheads, p. 60)

Tourhead - Heads who go out on tour regularly, driving from venue to venue--often all night--living in "tourbuses", inexpensive motels, or nearby dorm rooms or student co-ops for each run. (Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads, pp. 290-1)

In the days following the murders, the Gioia family tried to counter the media's characterization of Mary as a drifter.  The San Francisco Examiner described Mary and Greg  as "two East Coast Drifters and Grateful Dead fans." (San Francisco Examiner, August 19, 1985). The San Francisco Chronicle referred to them as "two young drifters whose devotion to the Grateful Dead rock group kindled a romance just days before their deaths." (San Francisco Chronicle, August 19, 1985)  A drifter is someone who's continually on the move, without having a fixed home or job.  Add begging to this, and you go from describing a drifter to describing a vagrant.  This is not how Patricia Gioia wanted her murdered daughter to be characterized.  For her, creative, loving, free-spirited, and industrious described Mary best.  She was definitely not a Deadhead.  She didn't go to California to follow the Dead; Mary followed the Dead to California, where she hoped to find a job suited to her interests. 

Was Mary just an occasional Deadhead?  It seems to me that maybe, at some point right before leaving for Alpine Valley or soon after, Mary became a Tourhead.  This is just a rational guess, based on the following:

1. Mary took a commercial bus to see the Dead at Alpine Valley, after which she may have gone to the two shows in Ohio, because after the show at SPAC she had to “get her things from a Dead-on [sic] bus that had broken down in Ohio.” (Berkeley Marina Murders, pp. 91-2)  After attending the show at SPAC, she left in a car "to see some other Dead shows" (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 92) that may have included the Hershey Park, Merriweather Post, and Pittsburgh Civic Center shows.  Given that Mary called her sister from Illinois on July 4, one might rationally guess that if she didn't make it into these shows then it's likely she was outside.  Finally, Mary rode with a friend out to southern California (probably Santa Monica), where she worked at his mother's restaurant, and probably made enough money to see the two shows at Ventura Park.  So she followed the Dead out to California.

2. Mary made her way north and stayed in Santa Cruz for a while.  In her last letter to her mother (post marked Oakland, August 13), she talked about finding work in the Bay area or at a ski resort near Lake Tahoe. (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 15) The Jerry Garcia Band had just played two shows in Palo Alto and San Francisco a few days before she posted the letter, and the Dead were scheduled to play Boreal Ridge--near Lake Tahoe--on August 24.  At some point, Mary told her mother she had plans to travel to Colorado. (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 39) The Dead played Red Rocks in early September.  So, at the time she was murdered, she may still have been following the Dead.

3. Finally, she may have made plans to go to Guatemala. (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 15)  In her letter, Mary wrote:

"We'll either rent a car or take a train through Mexico to Guatemala to learn weaving. We can either stay in hotels for cheap or live w/a family! And we would both rather live w/a family! Weaving is something I've always had a desire to learn!" (Ibid.)

In a piece she wrote for the Washington Post in July 1995 ("The Ungrateful Deadheads"), Carolyn Ruff wrote:

"...unless you're a Trustfund Deadhead, sustained by the family fortune, everyone needs a scheme. Selling veggie sandwiches is one option, as is hawking jewelry or clothing. To make these businesses go, some Deadheads trek to Central America between tours to buy the Guatemalan jewelry and garb so popular among Dead followers. Others make their own products to sell. And with a steady flow of suburban kids who have the cash to spend on a $5 tofu burger and a $20 T-shirt, these entrepreneurs have an ideal location at Dead shows.

But these business ventures take a level of initiative and planning beyond what most Tourheads are willing to expend. More typically, people make just enough money to cover food, lodging, their concert ticket and enough gas to get to the next city. If you are not good at selling or at least scamming, you will not make it on tour. Many Deadheads, while professing distrust and disdain for the government, make it by accepting food stamps and other public hand-outs. A walk down the streets of Berkeley or San Francisco, a popular hub of between-tour activity, is evidence enough that many Tourheads are also adept at panhandling, although this is not a profitable choice for survival."

Mary may have planned to continue following the Dead, and, if this was the case, she was planning to be more than just an occasional Deadhead.

Deadhead or Beatnik?

If Ms. Gioa objected to her daughter being described as a Deadhead, then I'd guess she'd also have objected to her being described as a beatnik.  And yet, reading about Mary's bus trip from New York to Wisconsin, leaving her stuff in the care of friends, the road trip out west, her enthusiasm for improvisational music, the planned trip through Mexico to Guatemala to learn weaving, etc., Kerouac comes to mind.  I thought this after reading, "Mary had driven out to California with a male friend, also a Grateful Dead follower.  His mother owned a restaurant in southern California.  For her ride out west, Mary worked in the restaurant for a few days--payback for the trip." (Berkeley Marina Murders, p. 39)  Tell me that Mary Gioia possessed a beat-up copy of On the Road at one time, and I'd not be surprised.