Garcia's Creative Accounting, late March 1975

In late March 1975, Peter Simon interviewed Garcia at the "film house"  (230 Eldridge Avenue, Mill Valley, CA, 94941), for publication in New Age Journal (Simon 1975).

NAJ:

You’re also doing a solo album and touring with Merl Saunders. In that you have so many projects at once, how do you channel your energy so productively? 

Jerry Garcia:

Well, things tend to work and overlap, generally speaking. I wouldn’t really be able to concentrate on sitting in front of a movie editing device for eight hours a day; I can do it pretty easily for six, though. I feel my attention is on it and I can do a good job keeping up with it. I like to play music in a studio situation – that can also hold attention for six or eight hours. If I’m on the road, I’m not doing anything during the day; I’m playing evenings. So during the day is a time which is convenient to compose. I might sit around an hour a day just playing the guitar and practicing and maybe learn something and maybe some ideas would come out that are like songs. That represents maybe two or three hours a day on the road where nothing else is happening but television and a gig that night. Usually a gig will take maybe four or five hours, total time actually playing maybe two of those or two-and-a-half. It may look like more, but it isn’t really that much. (Simon 1975, 54).

Note to self: I want to juxtapose this creative accounting with other kinds -- Rakow's, for example --  and with other, perhaps less creative accountings (see "Accounting the JGB: October 8, 1975").