[3 articles] For Wavy Gravy, Vibes is His Groove
http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/133373133 July 25, 2009 By Sean Spillane, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport Jul. 25--BRIDGEPORT -- In this, the 40th anniversary season of Woodstock, this weekend's Gathering of the Vibes has many connections to the famed festival. Bob Weir of Ratdog was there with The Grateful Dead. Crosby, Stills and Nash were there with sometime partner Neil Young. And there are a few other artists who played the "three days of peace and music." Then there's Wavy Gravy, a Hall High School of West Hartford grad who came to national prominence with his "cosmic clown" antics at Woodstock. He is a frequent visitor to the Vibes, always sitting to the right of the stage, when he's not on the stage introducing bands and making announcements. "I'm beyond happy to be here," Wavy Gravy said before walking over -- with a fish on a leash -- to take his usual perch. "This is the one festival of the year that I do. Music festival, that is." He had to add that last sentence because he has spent a lot of time recently going to film festivals that screen the documentary about his life, "Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie." "After this, I go to Cape Cod [Mass.] and then to Traverse City, Mich., to do [director] Michael Moore's festival," Wavy Gravy said of his film's agenda. "We premiered it at South By Southwest, down in Austin, Texas, and it was also at the Rochester [N.Y.] Film Festival. "We won the audience award at Maui, which was cool because I also got to see Ram Dass while I was there." Ram Dass was a spiritual leader of the 1960s and '70s, who now lives on the Hawaiian island. "He's never coming back to the mainland, " Wavy Gravy said of his longtime friend. "But he's had a couple of strokes, so he doesn't travel at all." As for his own health, Wavy Gravy said he's OK, except for the cellulitis in his legs that recently had him in the hospital for four days. "Hey, I'm 73, you know," he said. "What can you do?" And with that he turned to greet another fan, who offered up a new copy of "The Woodstock Story Book" for him to autograph. "Hey, I wrote the forward to that," he said with pride, as he flipped through the pages and relived that storied festival with a big grin on his lips to go with his red clown nose. -------- Soaking up the sun and the scene at the Vibes http://www.connpost.com/ci_12916250 By Ken Dixon 07/26/2009 BRIDGEPORT -- Amid screaming guitars, thumping basses and cascading drums, the Vibes Gatherers finally enjoyed a rain-free day of the festival Saturday. Gone were the sudden showers of Thursday and Friday, as thousands swam in Long Island Sound, sunned or shaded themselves and communed like the tribe they call themselves. 10:30 a.m. Tom Crowley of Bridgeport's Black Rock section is waiting for friends at the VIP check-in. He and his band, the Speakers, will be on the smaller Green Vibes stage at 12:45. He's planning a couple of cover tunes, including a tune by Jerry Garcia, the late, great force behind the Grateful Dead, whose image is everywhere, from T-shirts to photographs in the merchandise tents. 11:21 and Moonalice is on the Main Stage, playing for about 400 dancers in the mud created during Friday's late-night thunderstorm. They launch into a ska version of the '60s classic "A Whiter Shade of Pale," by Procol Harum. Barn swallows swoop around the mostly empty field, joining the Vibes' recycling effort by feeding on insects. 11:30 and the portable toilets near the concession appear used but clean, a crucial factor in a family festival. And it is a multi-generational party, with age ranges from babes in arms to septuagenarians. Everywhere there's a garbage can there's another to recycle cans and plastic. In some spots there are three cans labeled "compost," "recycling," and "landfill." There are also teams of young people wearing "Clean Vibes" T-shirts, picking up last night's solid-waste vestiges. Unfortunately, the single-most funky spot is the entrance to the main stage, where there's not quite enough hay to soak up the storm water. Noon and the solar panels at the Solar Smoothies Cafe and Juice Joint are gathering energy for the lunch crowd. At the mid-field mixing board, where the digital screening is showing the stage activities, sit the traditional tapers, preserving the sounds for posterity. Moonalice then starts a 20-minute rendition of the classic Grateful Dead tune about art and mortality: "Stella Blue." The crowd is all singing along, "In the end it's just a song, come crying like the wind, through all the broken dreams and vanished years..." As Moonalice finishes its set, a stage crew is setting up on an adjacent platform for the Ryan Montbleau Band. Along the seawall, it's a promenade of tie-dye and bare feet. "One-dollar grilled garlic cheese, guys," a young woman offers to the hundreds who walk by each minute. 12:20 and the large statue of a seated P.T. Barnum now sports a baby-blue flag and a festive red clown nose. There are dozens of boats anchored off the seawall offering a free taste of the Vibes. 1:20 and Tom Crowley and the Speakers are blowing the roof off the Green Vibes tent. A Police cover has dozens dancing among the 100 or so there. It's 1:55 and Crowley, playing a white Fender Stratocaster, slips into a memorable version of the Beatles "Dear Prudence," with the lyric "The sun is up, the sky is blue. It's beautiful and so are you..." Along the seawall, a 20-something woman in a cowboy hat scoots by on a skateboard, drinking a beer. "Thank you very much," Crowley, 31, tells the crowd before the organ riff that kicks off his original "Crown of Gold." He's giving away the band's CD up by the stage. 2:20 As the Ryan Montbleau band finishes on the Main Stage, word in the VIP tent indicates that psylocibin mushrooms are being sold for $90 a half ounce. 3 p.m. and A Royal Flush, the portable toilet cleaners, makes a needed visit behind the main concessions. Campers say the toilets are in better shape in the music areas than the tenting grounds. 3:30 and a slice of cheese pizza at the Two Boots outpost is $4. Inside the VIP tent, Wavy Gravy, cultural icon, veteran of Woodstock, is napping on a couch before his stage appearance as a guest MC. 5 p.m. and the band Assembly of Dust, is finishing its set with a cover from "Tommy," by The Who. 6 p.m. As Max Creek is playing the Dead's "Bertha," and hundreds dance in front of the stage, Ron Celella, 45, a Bantam veterinarian, compared this year's festival to last's. "There's less rain, more lightning and more bare-breasted women," he says. -------- Wavy Gravy to appear at Woods Hole Film Festival http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090725/LIFE/907250302/-1/NEWSMAP By CAITLIN RUSSELL CONTRIBUTING WRITER July 25, 2009 Have you ever wondered what Albert Einstein smelled like? Wavy Gravy hasn't. At least, not since age 5, when he and Einstein were neighbors in Princeton, N.J., and took walks together. "He had a peculiar smell," Gravy says over the phone. "I can't wait for the day when I can tell someone, 'Hey, you smell like Albert Einstein.' " Gravy, perhaps best known for his appearance at Woodstock in 1969, is the subject of the documentary "Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie," which will be shown twice next week at the Woods Hole Film Festival. He is scheduled to appear at the Monday screening at 7 p.m. at Redfield Auditorium. The documentary was directed by Michelle Esrick, who says she's put 10 years into its making. Esrick met Wavy in 1992 when a friend of hers was interviewing him for a book. "I thought he was pretty amazing," says Esrick. The film has already won the Audience Award for Spirit in Cinema for a documentary feature at the Maui Film Festival. If you've seen the Woodstock documentary (or you were there), you might know Wavy Gravy as the gap-toothed clown with the raspy voice. Gravy, who has a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor named after him, is now in his early 70s, but far from being a relic of a bygone era of free love, cataclysmic social change and boundless idealism, Gravy continues to be an active participant in a number of charitable and activist organizations. "These ideals were with him before the '60s," says Esrick. Still, Gravy freely admits he is no saint. He is a clown. He is the fool, the jester. He never breaks character. Part of that character is a façade of silliness behind which is a lifetime of incredible experiences, and a voice full of love, sadness and hard-won wisdom. He's not interested in promoting himself; he's interested in promoting causes such as Seva (Sanskrit for "service to humankind"), an organization that performs cataract surgeries in Nepal. If people learn anything from the film, Gravy hopes it will be "that they can make a difference. And hopefully they'll go to the Seva Web site and become donors." Hustler or humanitarian? If he's a hustler, he's a hustler for a good cause. "There's something about him that really affects people to want to help the world," says Esrick. Being hilarious doesn't hurt either. "For many, many years I used humor in politics," says Gravy. In addition to the original festival, Gravy also participated in the '94 and '99 Woodstock revivals. "The first one made me famous, the last two got me paid," he says. Gravy was in charge of security at Woodstock, which came as a surprise to him. "I was the chief of, 'Please "¦ we thought we were doing a free kitchen.' " He was less than impressed with the presence of so many famous musicians "I knew most of them and I was too busy doing what I was doing." One of the first times he realized the joy of aiding others was at Woodstock when he would help to calm people who weren't quite ready to trip as hard as LSD made them trip. Gravy says that "John Sebastian (one-time lead singer of the Lovin' Spoonful) came over and sang to the kids who were having a bad time with the psychedelics," as well. Known as Hugh Romney until B.B. King gave him the nickname Wavy Gravy, he would read poetry under his own name at the Gaslight in New York City. Above the Gaslight was a room he shared with Bob Dylan. "He was a lot of fun back then," says Gravy. "He was a great guy to hang out with." It was in that room on Gravy's typewriter that Dylan wrote the first draft of his melancholy classic "Hard Rain's Gonna Fall." Gravy has been active in Camp Winnarainbow, a circus and performing arts camp that's a three-hour drive north of San Francisco. Kids can learn circus skills such as juggling, walking on stilts and trapeze. "In school, kids learn numbers and letters. We teach timing and balance. ... What we're creating are universal human beings who can handle anything," says Gravy. He hopes that people will remember the camp as his greatest legacy. Thanks to the Grace and Joy Scholarship fund, kids who are economically disadvantaged can attend the camp. There's even an adult session of camp where, according to Gravy, "the only difference is we get to stay up later." Gravy lives in a commune called the Hog Farm with his wife and many others. "We have been together for over 45 years," he says. 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