[4 articles]
Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie (2008)
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/movies/08saint.html
The Hippie Serving Peace and Breakfast
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: December 7, 2010
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. A portly, bearded, 74-year-old
hippie clown, born Hugh Nanton Romney but better known as Wavy Gravy,
he has been sending ripples of good will that have gently lapped
around the fringes of American culture for more than 50 years. The
subject of Michelle Esrick's doting documentary portrait, "Saint
Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie," he is first seen practicing his
morning prayers at his home in the Berkeley branch of the rural
California commune known as the Hog Farm.
"May all beings have shelter; may all beings have food," he intones
before an altar crowded with iconography, both holy and comical.
"Bless this day as it transpires and help me be the best Wavy Gravy I
can muster."
Given his nickname by B. B. King at the Texas International Pop
Festival in 1969, Wavy Gravy, who physically resembles an older,
shaggier Robin Williams, is the real thing: an authentic
unreconstructed hippie idealist living the communal life, doing good
works and advocating peace, love, and laughter, in the guise of a
clown. The movie looks back to his roots as a Greenwich Village poet,
traveling monologuist and, among numerous projects, organizer of the
Phantom Cabaret with Tiny Tim and Moondog.
Along the way he forged connections with everyone who was anyone in
the 1960s counterculture, including Lenny Bruce, Bob Dylan, Ken Kesey
and the Grateful Dead. He is lauded by Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie,
Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt.
In 1965 Mr. Romney married Bonnie Jean Beecher, who later became
Jahanara Romney and has been his wife for 45 years. The film's most
voluble commentator, Ms. Romney exudes an earthy warmth and
steadiness. She calls her husband a hero, and "Saint Misbehavin' "
offers nothing to dispute her words. Its only dark side is its
mention of the painful spinal fusions he has undergone as a result of
beatings by the police at antiwar demonstrations. He belatedly
discovered that a clown costume served as protection, because the
police didn't want to be photographed harassing a clown.
The person who emerges is a man who has long transcended rancorous
political debate by embodying a holy fool. Since the mid-'70s he has
run a Nobody for President campaign on the Birthday Party ticket.
Traveling with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, he wore a jester's cap.
The Hog Farm became a touring hippie caravan invited to provide
security at the first Woodstock festival, where the group ran a free
kitchen that provided breakfast for thousands.
We meet his cheerful son, Howdy Do-Good Gravy Tomahawk Truckstop
Romney, later changed to Jordan, who was born on the seat of a Greyhound bus.
We also visit Camp Winnarainbow, a place teaching circus arts to
children, which he founded with his wife. The movie follows him and
his close friend Dr. Larry Brilliant on a trip to Asia, where, under
the auspices of the Seva Foundation, a charitable organization
supported partly by benefit rock concerts, the poor of Nepal receive
medical treatment with an emphasis on sight-restorative cataract surgery.
As you watch Mr. Romney delight Asian children by playing a kazoo and
blowing bubbles, you see exactly the person described by the satirist
Paul Krassner as "the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother
Teresa." Make of it what you will: like its subject, "Saint
Misbehavin' " is an unabashed love letter to the world that defies
the cynicism of our age.
--
SAINT MISBEHAVIN'
The Wavy Gravy Movie
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Directed by Michelle Esrick; director of photography, Daniel B. Gold;
edited by Karen K. H. Sim; music by Emory Joseph; produced by Ms.
Esrick and David Becker; released by Ripple Effect Films and Argot
Pictures. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third
Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. This film
is not rated.
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"Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie" at Upstate Films
http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2010/12/Arts+%26+Culture/Saint-Misbehavin-The-Wavy-Gravy-Movie-at-Upstate-Films
Amber Waves of Gravy
by Sparrow,
November 29, 2010
Best known as a flavor of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Wavy Gravy is
immediately recognizable as the voice saying, "What we have in mind
is breakfast in bed for 500,000!" in the Woodstock film (and
innumerable `60s montages). Actually, at the Woodstock Festival he
was still known as Hugh Romney, a member of the Hog Farm, one of the
earliest hippie communes. (He was given his current name by B. B.
King in 1969.) Born in East Greenbush, New York (near Albany), Romney
was a poet in Greenwich Village in the late `50s, managed by Lenny
Bruce. After moving to California in 1962, Romney became one of Ken
Kesey's Merry Pranksters.
The Hog Farm traveled in school buses for seven years, eventually
settling in Northern California. Wavy Gravy co-founded Seva, a
medical relief organization, in 1978. He has organized dozens of
benefit concerts for Seva featuring members of the Grateful Dead,
Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Ani Difranco, and Elvis Costello. Wavy
and his wife started Camp Winnarainbow, a multicultural children's
camp, near the Hog Farm in Laytonville, California. Wavy Gravy also
spearheaded numerous Nobody for President campaigns. The renowned
74-year-old hippie spoke to me by phone from his bedroom in Berkeley.
His greeting was: "Gravy in your ear!"
Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie will screen at Upstate Films
in Woodstock on December 11 at 4pm, a co-production with the
Woodstock Film Festival. Mr. Gravy himself will appear, along with
director Michelle Esrick, for a question-and-answer session after the
film. www.upstatefilms.org; www.woodstockfilmfestival.com.
--
I saw your film, Saint Misbehavin'.
Fuck a chicken! Did you go on the back end for the little treats?
There should be something on Seva [Foundation].
You mean DVD extras? I didn't see them on my copy.
Seva is the charity I founded 33 years agosomething like that.
"Seva" is a Sanskrit word that means "service to humankind." We
mostly work in curable and preventable blindness. You know, 80
percent of the people in the world that are blind don't need to be?
You can get their sight back for about 30 bucks. It's pretty amazing.
We've done about two million sight-saving operations. It's a good thing.
Are you listening to jazz right now?
Actually, this is the new Jimi Hendrix album! It's really a great album, too.
What's it called?
Oh, Something on Venus? You can Google it. [It's actually Valleys of Neptune.]
Did you really invent the slogan "US Out of North America"?
I suspect I did.
You don't know yourself?
I don't. What's the one we're really not sure of? "If you remember
the 60s, you probably weren't there." I suggested that Robin Williams
made that up, and he says that I made it upso who the fuck knows?
It's fitting that the person who invented that maxim wouldn't remember
it.
There's a line that I got from [Ken] Kesey: "Always put your good
where it will do the most." And there's a line of Steven Ben Israel:
"I have a nostalgia for the future." A lot of these things are blamed
on me, and things that I said, other people take credit for. I guess
we're all interchangeable, to a certain extent.
Or maybe hippies are more interchangeable than other people.
I hope so.
How accurate was The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test?
In that book, [Tom Wolfe] accuses me of being the one who put the
acid in the Kool-Aid in Watts! The truth of the matter was, I was on
the microphone explaining to peopleand this was on the evening LSD
became illegal"Listen, folks, the Kool-Aid on the right is the
electric Kool-Aid!" (I did make that up.) "And the Kool-Aid on the
left is for the children! Now let's go over that again...." We had
these huge galvanized garbage cans, just fresh out of the hardware
store, smack full of Kool-Aid. And people'd be dancing for three
hours to the Grateful Dead, and they were looking for something wet.
If they took the wrong ashcan, there was maybe 200 micrograms a sip!
And people started melting down. Twenty-eight people were committed
to mental wardssome of them only overnight, of course.
And in the middle of everybody's meltdown, this one sister started
screaming, "Who cares?! LSD! Who cares?" And somehow Ken Babbs got
the best of Owsley's microphones jammed down her throat, and into
everybody's DNA goes: "Who cares?!" I stumbled to a microphone; I
said, "This sister is unglued, and we've got to glue her together
again. If you feel the same way I do, meet me where she is, and we'll
do our best!" Then I started crawling around, and after about 15
minutes I found her in this little side room. There were maybe 14, 15
people around her, and we all joined hands and turned into jewels in
light, and she turned into jewels in light, and smiled. The
microphone slipped to the floorand that's when I actually passed the
acid test.
I maintain that if you get to the very bottom of the human soul, and
you're slipping, but you see somebody slipping much worse than you
are, and you reach down to give them a handthat's when everybody
gets high. And you don't even need acid to do that.
You have a natural talent for handling bad trips.
Yeah, I guess. Just hippie do-it-yourself Vipassana. "Breathing in, I
calm my body; breathing out, I smile." I do that with the little
children at camp. I got it from Thich Nhat Hanh, who is my hero of the moment.
Have you gone on his incredibly slow mindful walks?
Usually when he comes out here, I do child care. He loves talking to
the kids, and even I can understand that stuff. Then, when the
difficult philosophy comes, I get up with all the kids and we go
somewhere and draw Buddhas and rainbows.
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Saint Misbehavin' (Documentary)
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117944128/
By Dennis Harvey
Nov. 29, 2010
A Ripple Effect Films presentation. Produced by Michelle Esrick,
David Becker. Executive producers, D.A. Pennebaker, John Pritzker.
Directed by Michelle Esrick.
With: Wavy Gravy, Jahanara Romney, Steven Ben Israel, Buffy
Sainte-Marie, Odetta, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Denise Kaufman, Evan
Engber, Calico, Dr. Larry Brilliant, Michael Lang, Tom Law, Jordan
Romney, Dr. Patch Adams, Ram Dass, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt.
"Saint Misbehavin'" chronicles the life of one '60s survivor still
flying his freak flag high. Now, as then, a colorful footnote to the
era, Wavy Gravy was present and accounted for at a number of the
decade's major moments; purportedly, Bob Dylan even used his
typewriter to write the lyrics for "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall."
Opening Dec. 3 on single screens in San Francisco and Berkeley, then
the following week at Gotham's IFC Center, self-distribbed docu will
primarily appeal to those who still remember (however hazily) the
personalities and events on display, with tube sales possible after
theatrical play.
Subject was born in 1936 as Hugh Romney, keeping that humble given
name as he began attracting notice as a poet and standup comic in
Manhattan's more bohemian quarters in the late '50s. Dawning
countercultural vibes drew him to sunny California in 1962, where he
promptly hooked up with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and started
making performance less a profession than a full-time lifestyle,
eventually changing his moniker to fit. Calling him "a consummate
idealist," his wife of 40 years, Jahanara Romney, says, "That persona
you know as Wavy -- that's who he is." He calls himself "not a
classical clown (but) an intuitive clown," one whose mission is
described by pal Ram Dass as encouraging progressive change by
"infusing politics with humor."
As the hippie scene's preeminent jester, Wavy helped defuse tension
at anti-Vietnam War protests (not without incurring some police
beatings); orchestrated "altruistic ministrations" to the hungry,
tripping and muddy masses at Woodstock; ran satirical "Nobody for
President" campaigns; put together myriad all-star music benefits for
worthy causes (an ongoing pursuit); and so forth.
These days, he still lives in the same Berkeley commune he has for
decades, working primarily on the kids' circus-skills retreat Camp
Winnarainbow and international health advocacy org Seva Foundation,
both of which he co-founded. Musician Bonnie Raitt labels him her
generation's "Pied Piper."
Notably, there are few interviewees from any other generation here,
and those not kindly disposed toward clowns in general may find that
a little of this one's ever-cheerful, ever-punning New Age funny
business goes a long way. But nostalgists will discover plenty to
enjoy in director Michelle Esrick's well-crafted package, which makes
good use of period songs and archival footage.
Camera (color, HD), Daniel B. Gold; editor, Karen K.H. Sim; music,
Emory Joseph; music supervisors, Jill Meyers, Joseph; sound (Dolby),
Dan Gleich; sound designers, Dog Bark Sound, Margaret Crimmins, Greg
Smith; re-recording mixer, Tony Volante. Reviewed on DVD, San
Francisco, Nov. 26, 2010. Running time: 87 MIN.
--------
Wavy Gravy's spirit, service to others goes on
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20101211/ENT/12110336/Wavy-Gravy-s-spirit--service-to-others-goes-on
John W. Barry
December 11, 2010
A 1960s counterculture personality with strong ties to Woodstock
the town and the festival will be in the Hudson Valley today to
watch his more than 70 years unfold on the silver screen.
He was known as Hugh Romney when he shared a Greenwich Village
apartment with a young Bob Dylan in the early 1960s. And he was still
known as Hugh Romney when he worked with fellow Hog Farm commune
members to feed hot food to hundreds of thousands at the Woodstock
Music and Art Fair and talk them down from LSD trips gone bad.
But not long after his famous stage announcements at Woodstock "We
must be in heaven, man!" he was known as Wavy Gravy.
Most baby boomers have photo albums to chronicle their decades. Wavy,
who is 74, will be at Upstate Films at Tinker Street in Woodstock
today to watch his life as captured in a new documentary, "Saint
Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie."
This film is being presented by Rhinebeck-based Upstate Films and the
Woodstock Film Festival and runs through Thursday.
Asked during a recent telephone interview what he thought about
seeing his life captured in an 87-minute film, Wavy said, "I think
that we've all collectively come a long way and it showed a
continuum. It's not just the '60s or the '70s or the '80s, but the
beat goes on."
Joining Wavy at today's screening and a question-and-answer session
set to follow will be director Michelle Esrick, whose mother, the
late folk singer Odetta, was a close friend of Wavy's.
"He's known as the Woodstock guy that's a comment you'll hear,"
said Esrick, who first met Wavy in 1992 and later spent a decade
making the film. "Even though, it's not literally the Town of
Woodstock, it's all tied up just what Woodstock represents."
Of the hundreds of thousands of people who were at Woodstock, Wavy
Gravy for many has come to symbolize the spirit of cooperation among
members of the counterculture that turned Woodstock into the crowning
achievement of the baby boomer generation. The 40th anniversary of
that famous festival was celebrated last year.
"He was definitely one of the lynchpins of its success," said
Woodstock promoter Michael Lang, a Town of Woodstock resident who is
scheduled to attend today's screening.
That achievement came despite colossal logistical nightmares.
"Wavy is the Johnny Appleseed of the Woodstock spirit," said Duke
Devlin, 68, who traveled from a commune in Texas for the festival in
1969, and has lived in Sullivan County ever since. "Wherever he goes,
he casts his good will and humor for peace and love."
Wavy applied many of the ideals that made Woodstock a success using
the arts for empowerment and working together for the good of the
group, among them to endeavors he undertook in the years that
followed the festival.
He co-founded Camp Winnarainbow, a performing arts camp for children
in northern California; co-founded Seva Foundation, an organization
that supports the blind and helps Native Americans with health
issues; and years ago traveled to remote villages in Asia with
medical supplies.
But he was also heavily involved in the anti-war and environmental
movements, all cornerstones of the counter-culture of decades ago
that remain relevant in 2010. Wavy's twist on things, though, was to
show up and protest wearing a jester suit or a costume of a clown,
Santa Claus or the Easter bunny.
"He plays that role of the fool and the jester and the clown, that
every society has its own form of, and Wavy became that for our
society, and especially the counterculture," said David Becker of
Saugerties, the film's producer. "He's the lovable fool who presided
over the party, but drops in valuable bits of wisdom along the way."
This touching, funny film, which offers plenty of historical context
and analysis, opens with Wavy using his "free ice cream for life"
card to secure $58.80 worth of ice cream at a Ben & Jerry's shop in
Berkeley, Calif. In addition to all his philanthropical pursuits,
career entertaining as a clown and years as a poet in Greenwich
Village, Ben & Jerry's named a flavor after Wavy, that has been
discontinued, but remains a distinction that continues to earn him
free ice cream.
A short while later in the film, Woodstock takes center stage.
"We knew the whole world was watching us," Wavy said of Woodstock.
"We picked ourselves up by our collective bootstraps, and we were
amazing together."
According to a state Department of Health memo dated September 1969
that assessed the impact of Woodstock, Thomas MacFarland, owner of
the Sullivan County Ambulance Service, a private company, "gave a lot
of credit to the so-called 'Hog Farmers.' He said they performed
first-aid, handled communications, counseled those in trouble
(particularly those high on drugs), cleaned up and made themselves
generally available for any help they could be."
Daniel Carlson, 66, of Irving, Texas, was a Dutchess County sheriff's
deputy in August 1969, assigned to work at Woodstock. A former City
of Poughkeepsie police officer and future state trooper, Carlson and
his colleagues drove a communications van, Chevrolet wagon and old
school bus for prisoner transport to Woodstock.
Carlson several days ago, coincidentally, stumbled across a
documentary about Woodstock on television that featured Wavy.
"I don't recall much about Wavy Gravy at the festival, but I noticed
that when I saw him the other night he looked like he had gotten a
good deal older," Carlson wrote in an e-mail. "Despite his age, he
struck me as being the same sort of guy as he was back in 1969.
Although I don't recall him at Woodstock, his work, and that of the
Hog Farm, typified, in my mind, the level of cooperation that I
remember best. Everybody pitched in to make the whole thing work, and
Wavy Gravy was certainly on the front end of that effort."
Today's event is one of many links Wavy maintains with the Hudson Valley:
• Dan Gold, the film's director of photography, is a Poughkeepsie native.
• Decades ago, Wavy performed at the Tinker Street venue where the
film will be screened.
• Wavy several times visited Timothy Leary, a Harvard professor who
became an LSD research advocate, when he lived in Millbrook years ago.
• Wavy and Esrick attended the 2006 Woodstock Film Festival, where a
scaled-back, "work-in-progress" version of "Saint Misbehavin'" was screened.
"One of my motivations for making the film was," Esrick said, "I
wanted people to know that he is more than the guy from Woodstock."
--
Reach John W. Barry at [email protected] or 845-437-4822.
.
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