Woodstock 1969
In 2019, on the 50th Anniversary of the original Woodstock festival, my book, Woodstock: Back To Yasgur’s Farm, was published. Derived from one chapter of an aborted memoir, its publication caused me to have one helluva great year before everything turned to shit for everybody in 2020. I’ll never forget my book tour, doing what amounted to 10 minutes of stand-up at The Friar’s Club, plus hitting bookstores, libraries, a movie theater and radio stations. That said, this essay serves as this month’s “History,” the tale of a teenaged pot-smoking New Jersey hippie venturing into the unknown…
Just prior to leaving for Woodstock, my mom snapped this shot of me, worrying that she’d never see me again.
I had dropped almost every course I took in my freshman year at Newark State in Union, considering “Pre-Renaissance European Literature” and “Pre-Civil War American Literature” total bullshit, opting instead to self-educate with Kerouac, Burroughs, Mailer, Miller, Capote, Hesse and Vonnegut. Needless to say, I flunked out. In September of 1969, I started all over again at Essex County Community College downtown Newark, a two-year school where all you needed to get in was a high school diploma, but all I did was major in Revolution instead of Liberal Arts. Hey, who wants to be an English teacher when you can be Che Guevara?
But first came Woodstock, a five-day adventure, the best and the worst weekend of my life.
We weren’t going to go. Led Zeppelin was playing down the shore in Asbury Park but we kept hearing the commercials on WNEW-FM. “Janis Joplin! Jimi Hendrix! The Band! Johnny Winter! Sly & The Family Stone!” We had to go. I bought two tickets at The Last Straw, a head shop in Bloomfield for $17.50 apiece, packed up the car with food, pot, blankets, a tent, Monopoly, canteens filled with water, extra clothing, soap, toothpaste, toothbrush and transistor radio. I split the tickets with one of my best friends, Neil, who I had played all-night Monopoly with three weeks earlier on July 21 as man first walked on the moon.
PHOTO: Here I am rolling joints, and being caught doing so by my mom who was fond of entering my room unannounced to take pictures of me.
Our first Monopoly game came earlier than expected as the traffic jam on Route 17-B was so long, we turned off the car, set the game up on the roof, and played an entire game before we moved again.
Once there, we were directed to a parking area where we then had to decide what to take with us to the site (wherever that was). We opted to just leave everything in the car figuring once we got our bearings, we’d just come back and get our water, clothing, food, pot as the need arose. (Bad decision.) I rolled a fat one and off we went.
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PHOTO: John Dominis
CREDIT: The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images
COPYRIGHT: Time Life Pictures
It seemed we were on the top of a big hill and all the cars were going down. We hitched a ride down with a car that already had about eight people in it. We were told to stand on the sideboards and hold on from the outside in. We did as we were told and that damn car sped down the mountain so fast, our fingers started slipping and I thought for sure we’d end up on the side of the road with broken bones. Just as my fingers did slip from holding on, we were at the bottom and what seemed like 16 hippie clowns came barreling out of the VW bug slapping us five and laughing hysterically.
We had our tickets. We had a joint. But there didn’t seem to be anywhere to actually get in to the concert. We were in a woodsy area and I nervously looked around not knowing if I should smoke a joint in public or not. “Look,” shouted Neil, “there’s the stage!” It was on the other side of a massive field.
We made our way towards the stage—there was no gate—to get as close as we could, and stake out our spot (a spot that we would ultimately man for the next 72 hours without both of us ever leaving it at the same time). It was then we realized we should have at least brought the blanket. Or the tent. Or more than just one joint. No worries. People were filling in next to us and behind us and they were all joyful, filled with food, water, soda, pot, hash, quaaludes and good vibes. They had no trouble sharing and the OPD flowed (Other People’s Dope). We promised to reciprocate once we got back to the car. “No problem, man,” one of our new friends said as he rolled the fattest joint I’d ever seen, making mine look like a toothpick. Then he pulled out a Monopoly board! Heaven! We wound up eating, drinking, smoking and playing Monopoly by flashlight all night until the sun came up which is when we conked out on the ground.
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“Hour after hour passed with no music. And more and more people kept crowding us in so the plot of land we called our own was reduced to postage-stamp size. We quickly learned how to take up as much space as possible.”
Friday morn. I’ll never forget it. As I groggily got up, yawned, stretched and turned around behind me, the complete vista of humanity in attendance made me think I was dreaming. I meant to rouse Neil but couldn’t speak. I just stood there. One of our new friends noticed my shock and awe, looked up at me and smiled, “far out, man!” “Uh, yeah,” I replied, then shouted “Neil! Get Up! Look At This!” Neil, who would go on to stay straight the whole weekend, had his one big rush right there and then. “Holy fucking shit,” he whispered. “How many people do you think there are?” Didn’t matter. We were in front of all of ‘em, close to the stage, and we weren’t about to lose our spot.
PHOTO: Woodstock: Back to Yasgur's Farm by Mike Greenblatt (Book Cover)
Onstage, roadies were scurrying about and by the looks of things, the concert was getting ready to start. Nobody around us seemed to have any idea of what time it was. The thought of going back to the car for our supplies was finished. We were trapped right where we were, for better or for worse, and with a little help from our friends, we figured we’d be fine. Hell, there was no way we would even find the car right now. And the weather was great. Our shorts and t-shirts were plenty.
But the concert didn’t start. Hour after hour passed with no music. And more and more people kept crowding us in so the plot of land we called our own was reduced to postage-stamp size. We quickly learned how to take up as much space as possible because if we straightened up, humanity would press in on either side and we’d lose precious ground. We weren’t about to argue, though, as our friendly neighbors seemed to have a steady supply of supplies, thus we didn’t get too hungry or thirsty and I even managed to stay stoned. We also realized that our tickets were useless so we threw them away. Our enclave became something of a family unit with strangers to our inner circle frowned upon but still accepted. The concert was supposed to start at 10:00 a.m.
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PHOTO: Richie Havens, Woodstock, New York 1969
PHOTO CREDIT: Morrison Hotel Gallery
When Richie Havens finally strummed his acoustic guitar at 5 p.m., we were so ready, willing and wanting for live music that we thought he was the greatest thing ever. Friday Night was folk night and as the sun set, and the light rain felt good, we got mellow and grooved under the stars to Melanie, Arlo Guthrie and Joan Baez. Joan aroused our righteous political indignation because we knew her husband, David Harris, was wrongfully in jail, for refusing the draft, a political prisoner of the good old U.S.A. This gave her music a profundity that almost brought us to tears. But it was Melanie who won my heart that night, all alone on that big stage, her voice quivering with fear and bravely singing “Beautiful People” as a lone spotlight shone down on her. Neil and I smiled at each other knowing we had a pretty damn good amazing spot. I could see Melanie’s face. There were people for miles behind us who could only imagine how pretty she was. Of course, the seed for what would become her signature song, “Lay Down (Candles In The Rain)” was planted in her brain that night as tens of thousands of little lights dotted the night as the soft rain fell. Some things you just don’t forget.
When Arlo Guthrie held up a newspaper and said, “the New York State Thruway is closed, man,” we knew the whole world was watching. What I could never have anticipated was the spin that the local news stations must’ve been scaring my mother with because unbeknownst to me, she sat in front of the television set aghast, not knowing what would become of her son. As the weekend wore on, she’d suffer through hearing how the site had been declared a disaster area with upwards of a half a million people trapped with no food, shelter or bathroom facilities and no way for her to get in touch. (Woodstock would have been a hell of a lot easier with cell phones and bottled water!)
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We woke up Saturday to a totally different set of people around us and these people weren’t sharing. Neil was in favor of making our way back towards the car. I was in favor of staying put. Thankfully, the music started early but Neil, who was starting to get grumpy and I can’t say I blame him, went off in search of a pay phone. Our new neighbors had one upgrade: a big flag that they planted with a peace sign on it. It made it possible for Neil to find his way back after waiting three hours to make his call home and ask his mom to call mine.
When he finally arrived back, it was my turn for an excursion. So I went swimming. Met a cute naked girl. I stayed with her until nightfall, returning with soda, hot dogs and a hell of a story. I sometimes wonder whatever became of her. She never even told me her name. It didn’t matter. When you meet a beautiful girl, you’re usually not both naked. It’s one of those idyllic ‘60s visions I’ll carry in my heart forever: how her small pert little breasts bobbed atop the water, her nipples pink and glittering in the sunlight. Of course, I invited her back to our spot to get high but she said she had to go back to her boyfriend. She broke my heart. I found Neil—still straight—and of course he didn’t mind as I got down with some good opiated hash from our friends.
Musically, I don’t think I’ll ever forget how thrilling Mountain, Santana, Ten Years After and Johnny Winter were; how absolutely perfecto The Band’s harmonies swirled atop Robbie Robertson’s crystal-clear guitar and Garth Hudson’s carnivalesque organ. I was stunned as I watched how sloppy drunk Janis was; how together Crosby Stills, Nash & Young were (only their third gig) and, worst of all, how truly horrible the Grateful Dead were. The Dead were so bad at Woodstock that we were yelling and screaming for them to get the fuck off the stage, especially when they took 20 minutes to cover “Turn On Your Love Light.” This meandering slop version of a once-great anthem by The Bobby Blue Bland Blues Band totally robbed the song of its inherent majesty and drama. They done sucked the soul right out of it! Ugh! Boy, did they stink! I got madder and madder with each infuriating song, one lousier than the next. It was enough for me never to like them again. (I remember having to put up with their tedium one other time: at an all-day show at RFK Stadium in DC when I thrilled to The Allman Brothers and The Band but absolutely couldn’t stand the stupid Dead. I remember thinking what could people possibly see in them. Maybe you had to be tripping.) I was peeing in an empty soda bottle during Sly & The Family Stone and my friends thought it was the funniest thing as I took a leak on the Sly, as it were. Jefferson Airplane promised a big jam at dawn but I fell asleep and never found out who jammed with whom.
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“I scored some brown acid from a friendly older lady who was also giving out huge hunks of challah bread. I took half a loaf, thanked her profusely, swallowed the acid, the bread, and I even found the last bottle of soda or two that a local farmer on a flatbed truck was giving away. ”
Sunday morn started with blazing sunshine. We were starving. The flag people had left. Our new neighbors not only didn’t share but were downright mean. They were stocked to the gills with water, food and clothing, seemed perfectly dressed as if they had just arrived from the suburbs for an afternoon in the park, and looked down upon us dirty hippies (which we were) with obvious disdain.
I scored some brown acid from a friendly older lady who was also giving out huge hunks of challah bread. I took half a loaf, thanked her profusely, swallowed the acid, the bread, and I even found the last bottle of soda or two that a local farmer on a flatbed truck was giving away. I wondered when the acid was going to kick in as I discovered another local with a truck feeding a long line of hungry hippies from a gigantic industrial-sized cold can of cold Raviolios. I got on line and when he shoved that fork in my mouth, those cold Raviolios tasted like the finest gourmet meal! I ran back to Neil (don’t ask how I even navigated it without the flag, I just did) and told him of the locals who were feeding people and off he went in search of the cold Raviolios. (Funny but I didn’t even know of the existence of The Hog Farm feeding people for free until I saw the movie.)
Soon things started getting really really funny. Totally hilarious. Everything! I just couldn’t stop laughing. It was infectious and the people around me started laughing too. The mean people got nice right quick and kept passing me their joints. Joe Cocker was onstage. The sun was shining. I was having the time of my life. The faces of the people around me, though, seemed to be melting off. And where was Neil? He was gone way too long. Still, it was glorious, the obvious high point of the festival. Joe Cocker was belting out “With A Little Help From My Friends” and he refused to end the song until we all stood up as one and gave him the love he was working so hard for.
PHOTO: Joe Cocker
Joe Cocker proved to be the turning point. Neil wasn’t back yet. But the acid was kicking in good and I just groooved and danced around and laughed. I had taken plenty of acid in my day but this beat all. When Master Of Ceremonies Chip Monck told us “don’t take the brown acid.” I remember shouting, “oh shit! I just took it!” Then the skies darkened dramatically. Everyone looked up at the same time. The winds started whipping into a furious portend of what was to come. Stagehands nervously cleared up the stage for an extended period of time with no music. Monck almost apologetically announced a major storm was on its way and if we could just bear up during it, they’d bring back some bigtime music later. Foolhardy fans, in an effort to touch the sky, kept climbing up the light towers despite stagehands yelling in vain for them to come down because lightning was expected. I wondered why people all around me started taking their clothes off. I just laughed.
Then the rains came.
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PHOTO: In 1968, in high-school, similar to London, with the Mods and Rockers, we had the Athletes, Greasers, and Heads. I was a Head.
I was madly tripping. Doing a little rain dance. Laughing. But I noticed people weren’t laughing with me anymore. They were looking at me funny. And why were so many people naked? And where the fuck was Neil? Things were getting weird. It was coming down in buckets. I started to wish I wasn’t tripping so heavily. My sense of being alone was heightened by loud claps of thunder and jagged streaks of lightning that brought oohs and aahs as if people were watching fireworks. I started to panic. My heart was beating out of my chest. I was soaked. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I had to go to the bathroom. There was no music. I had no idea what happened to Neil. I had no idea where the car was. I was still in the same shorts and t-shirt from last Thursday. It was raining even harder now and everything was gray. I stood stone still looking at the strangers around me, trying to figure out how I could leave but what about Neil? Hell, we had maintained the same spot for days. Right now, though, that spot was a lake. I was standing up, the mud was up past my ankles. No way could I sit back down. So I stood. And stared. It got real cold. I started shaking. Flying movie cameras hovered above us and when one swooped low for a crowd shot, I dropped my wet soaking shorts and mooned it. (It never made the movie.) Someone hit me in the back and I went flying. When I got up to see who it was, I saw Neil’s smiling face and he was holding bread and cans of soda. “Get up you idiot,” he laughed, “you look like a mudpie.” “NEIL! WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU?”
“I tried to find the car but gave up,” he admitted. “Some nice people gave me this bread. Let’s eat.”
With Neil back, a full tummy and the music starting again, I forgot about my drenched clothing and tried to catch the rain in my mouth to drink. Then it was time for another raindance! Neil rolled his eyes, yelled at them to start the music, and we both had a fun time mud-sloshing. I dreamily thought of my female friend in the lake, and gazed fondly at two girls who were rubbing mud on their bare breasts. With the rain letting up a bit, the thought that we were all in this together made me happy. Things would be OK.
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“It got down to the point of basic prehistoric man essentials: fire, food, water. And, of course, the music.”
When the rain dried up and Country Joe & The Fish led the fuck cheer, we relented and became one with the mud. Fuck it. There was nothing we could do about it anyway. So we sat in the wet brown ooze and reveled in it. Neil was a champ. Sober, wet, freezing, hungry and thirsty again, Neil suffered through the rest of the day because he knew I was still tripping, caught up in the moment, and did not want to go. He was miserable and I knew it. And I finally figured out why people got naked during the rain. They were putting their clothes under their tarps to have dry clothing once the storm passed. “Must be nice,” I thought.
Then the cold really set in. It was freezing. We were wet.
People started building fires. Guys who you’d be afraid to meet in a dark alley wound up taking charge and keeping us all warm. I admit to being one of those who just stood around needing help. It got down to the point of basic prehistoric man essentials: fire, food, water. And, of course, the music. I remember feeling, as band after band took the stage, that the music was everything. As long as the music played, I was fine. It was a lesson I’ve kept my whole life. The music, it seemed, was all we had. And it was enough. Soon helicopters hovered. They were dropping something on us. Flowers. Millions of flowers. “Fuck Flowers, Send Food,” I yelled.
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As the sun set on the last day of the festival, Neil was dying to leave. “Oh no, another band,” he’d snarl. I was still tripping. Heavily. That brown acid was a ballbuster. Finally, as Blood, Sweat & Tears took the stage, Neil said, “that’s enough. Let’s go. Now.” (We both hated that stupid “Spinning Wheel” song.)
“But what about Jimi Hendrix,” I meekly countered.
“Fuck Jimi Hendrix,” Neil yelled and he was right. So I quickly acquiesced. “OK, let’s go.”
As we walked and walked and walked, not knowing exactly where we were going but buoyed by an inner calm and plenty of food along the way from townspeople who were now out in force handing out all sorts of goodies, I’ll never forget the feeling of abject safety as we passed others along our way, flashing the peace sign, saying hello, and getting directions back to the parking lot. That, plus I was tripping even heavier now it seemed. That brown acid was still kicking my ass but good.
The finding of the car was like the finding of the holy grail and we tore into the food, the water, the dry clothes and although Neil wanted to leave immediately, he was nice enough to wait while I smoked one last joint.
Once we found the highway and were grooving to music on the radio, I told Neil that maybe we should pull over to the rest stop and get some sleep. The truth was that the radio music was sounding too good. I was too high to drive. Neil didn’t have his license. He rolled his eyes but agreed. We fell asleep in the relative comfort of my car within minutes and awoke Monday morning to a bright sunshine and clear sailing all the way home. I dropped Neil off at his house.
When I put my key in the lock of my front door, my mother pulled the door open from the other side and squished me to her bosom as she cried and cried and cried.
Weeks later, contemplating my future while down the Jersey Shore, I realized what a profound influence that weekend had on what I wanted to do with my life.