Team Deadhead To The Rescue
By Jim Walsh
December 21
Just when the world has finally gone to hell and
your fellow man’s distrust of your other fellow man has reached epidemic
proportions, along comes Ben Perrier with one of his life–affirming bear hugs.
Last Friday night, Perrier turned off the news
to partake in the one ritual that has kept him afloat all these years: live
music. He landed at the Cabooze for local jam band God Johnson, and gave hugs
to his hippiecentric tribe like Santa giving out candy canes, as winter’s
darkness descended and the once lighthearted task of picking up our kids from
school and the sacred space that is the carpool lane became a stark if not
permanent reminder to appreciate our painfully poignant lives.
“When something like (the Newtown massacre) happens
I’ve just got to be around music,” said Perrier, a burly, bearded 47-year-old
father of three, owner of Nokomis Concrete, and avowed fan of Jerry Garcia and
The Grateful Dead. “I can close my eyes and I’m in my own little cosmic world.
With a lot of Deadheads, music is where you go, and things make much more sense,
and you find yourself back on solid ground again instead of an earthquake under
your feet wherever you go.”
The night before, Perrier and a bunch of his
Grateful Dead-loving friends who go by the name of Team Deadhead helped cook
and serve dinner for 300 needy folks at Holy Rosary Church in East Phillips. Since
forming in the spring at the behest of Perrier, Team Deadhead has regularly volunteered
its services to Loaves & Fishes, the 30-year-old feed-the-poor organization
that historically has been staffed by volunteers from churches, synagogues, and
corporations.
“The people we get to help us are good people,
but they’re not church-goers. They’re kind of misfits, in a certain way,” said
Perrier, who admits to long-gone brushes with the law and a sometimes violent
past. “They maybe don’t fit in a lot of other places, but with Team Deadhead,
everybody fits in.”
They also respond when Perrier puts out the call
for volunteers – as he did last Thursday when Loaves & Fishes volunteer
organizer Beth Ann Dodds realized the meal at Holy Rosary was in dire need of
cooks and servers. Team Deadhead to the rescue.
“Ben greeted every single person who walked
through that kitchen with a big bear hug, and the women he could twirl, he
twirled them,” said Dodds. “He was fantastic. Music, singing, laughing, joking,
citing poems that he makes up in his head. It is a lovely, lovely experience
serving with him. Ben’s mother was involved in Loaves & Fishes, and I can
tell he’s filled with love and wants to share it.
“It’s a really great thing. I’m so glad I met
them, and that they’re part of this. Our Loaves & Fishes model is changing
a little bit, where our faith-based organizations are getting older, and we’re
looking for new blood. This is one of the newer teams, and I couldn’t have
asked for a better experience in getting younger people in the door.”
Team Deadhead was born when Perrier’s stint as a
volunteer football and baseball coach with Pearl Park, Holy Angels, and
Washburn high schools came to an end this year, but his itch to give back remained. He
convinced his friend, musician Javier Trejo, to plant a community garden that
now provides much of the organic vegetables for the meals Perrier cooks for
Loaves & Fishes.
Not unlike the similarly roots-based food-share
organization Sister Camelot, the 19-25 member-strong Team Deadhead’s philosophy
is based on the 1971 Grateful Dead song “Jack
Straw,” which promises, “We can share what we got of yours ‘cause we done
shared all of mine.” Such barter mentality is sure to become more popular in
America, as more and more people find themselves scrambling for the basics.
“It’s basically, ‘Don’t worry that you’re out,
I’ve got some.’ That’s the Dead way,” explained Perrier. “It’s a giving
mentality, and you don’t worry about getting something back. It’s just an
ever-building mentality, and I try to spread it as much as possible.
“I’m not one of these people who believes that
you hold out your hand and government swoops in and makes everything OK. I’m a
firm believer that communities are what really make the world go around. To me,
there’s a way to take care of people, and people can do it themselves; there’s
a way to pick up the slack, and there’s a lot of it out there.”
For the record, Perrier is always looking for
new Team Deadhead members – and stresses that one needn’t be a fan of the Dead
to be part of the team or experience.
“Just this last time, there were about eight
people who have never volunteered for anything in their life. I tell people all
the time, ‘Just come here. You’ll have a blast. It’s the best energy you’ll get
for the day, and sometimes the best energy you’ll have for a week or a month,
because everybody is cool and negativity is not allowed.’
“I have parties all the time and one of my
stipulations is ‘There is no negativity allowed,’ and if there is, I’m the
biggest bouncer in the room and I’ll come over there and squeeze it out of you.”
