The day before the Dead’s Madison Square Garden run, there was a press conference held at the United Nations for Rainforest Action Network.
The Dead's publicist Dennis McNally called me and asked if I wanted to attend this event. I said "yes" in a New York minute.
Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and representatives from environmental organizations sat on the panel to alert the world to the horror of the vanishing rainforest.
When asked why the Grateful Dead was getting into the act and helping publicize the plight of the rainforest, Garcia answered in his own inimitable style, “It seems pathetic that it has to be us, with all the other citizens of the planet, and all the other resources out there, but since no one else is doing anything about it, we don’t really have any choice.”
— Bob Minkin