Woodstock August 15, 16, & 17, 1969

Last year on this date I wrote about my experience of Woodstock, however I didn’t speak of my first view of communal living and how a commune saved Woodstock.

That commune was the Hog Farm.  I had heard of the Hog Farm through hippie journals like the San Francisco Oracle and the Berkeley Barb.  I knew that they were originally hippies from the Haight in San Francisco.  When I say original I mean original.  Late Beatnik into Hippiedom. 

 

They had become disillusioned with the city scene and the mockery that the Haight had become when hippie went national in 1967. 

They bought a hog farm and departed San Francisco, hense the name, "Hog Farm."

They basically saved Woodstock by opening a "free kitchen & offering minor medical services."  They were also the security for the festival.  They called themselves the "Please Police!"  "Please don’t do that, please do this instead."  Yin-Yang policing.

I got to meet Wavy Gravy (then Hugh Romney) one of the announcers (Chip Monk was the other) for Woodstock.  You know, "We hoped to have breakfast in bed for 500,000 and please don’t eat the brown acid." fame.

I found him to be so animated and amazing that to this day I still marvel and worship him.  You’ll find a link for him in my GD Family Aritists/Photographers module. or just click this sentence. Check it out.

That’s my take on the Hog Farm, here’s Wikepedia’s

Hog

Farm

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The Hog Farm is an organization considered to be America’s longest running hippie commune. With beginnings as an actual collective hog farm in northern California, the group, founded in the 1960s by Wavy Gravy, evolved into a "mobile, hallucination-extended family", active nationwide in both music and politics.

The Hog Farm is perhaps best known for their involvement with the Woodstock Music Festival. While lodging on Manhattan‘s East Side from 1968-69, the Farm was approached by Woodstock Ventures with a proposal — participate in a planned music festival in upstate New York. Although the Farm had just rented land in Llano near Black Mesa, Arizona, and the commune had plans to depart New York City and settle in Llano, they accepted the offer to become involved with Woodstock. Recruited to build fire pits and trails on the festival grounds at Woodstock, the Hog Farm convinced the promoter to let them set up a free kitchen as well.

Just prior to Woodstock, the Hog Farm attended the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. At the convention, the Farm and Abbie Hoffman presented a satirical presidential candidate, a pig named Pigasus, who remained with the Hog Farm after the convention. Upon returning to New York, they were met by the world press at John F. Kennedy International Airport and told for the first time that they had also been assigned the task of providing security at Woodstock.

Gravy called his rather unorthodox security force the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order ("please don’t do that, please do this instead"). When asked by the press what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at the event, his instant response was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles."

Shortly after Woodstock, the Hog Farmers helped keep the peace between the cowboys and the hippies at the Texas Pop Festival, where blues giant B. B. King gave Wavy Gravy his name.

Recruited by San Francisco underground radio pioneer Tom Donahue and Warner Brothers Records to travel around the country and be filmed for a movie called Cruising for Burgers, later renamed Medicine Ball Caravan, the Hog Farmers bused themselves across America, setting up stages for mainstream rock artists. Finally, in 1970 after a concert with Pink Floyd in Bishopsbourne, England, the Farmers pooled their movie salaries (and some funds raised for them from a benefit staged by a London commune) and continued their trek across Europe for some time.

In 1978, the Hog Farm assisted in the founding of the Seva Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to alleviating suffering caused by disease and poverty.

Today, the Hog Farm is still in existence, with various locations including a headquarters in Berkeley, California, and a 200+ acre farm in Laytonville, California, known as Black Oak Ranch — also home to Wavy Gravy’s performing arts camp for children, Camp Winnarainbow. Black Oak plays host to several music festivals each year, most of which operate in support of charitable causes. One such event is the annual Hog Farm Family Pig-Nic, which has featured performances by artists such as Ben Harper, Spearhead, and others.

Over the years I have continued to run into Wavy Gravy at Grateful Dead shows and on the streets of Berkeley and San Francisco.  He always has a kind word and mischievious smile.  He’s one of a kind.

Incidentally if you have ever seen the movie, "Easy Rider" you saw the Hog Farm commune in New Mexico.  It’s where Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper take the two hippie girls they pick up hitchiking.

3 days of Peace and Music!

Wayward Bill

(Don’t forget to do your blogospheric duty and vote over at the Spaces Hall of Fame.  Did I mention that I am running this month for Most Diverse Space)

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		DefCon News Alert
		"This is a victory for public education and sends a message nationwide about the public’s ability to see through efforts by groups… to misrepresent science in the schools." Read the article. Click here. Dear William, Today’s New York Times features a piece written by DefCon advisory board member and noted physicist Lawrence Krauss, highlighting the recent defeat of the religious right in Kansas – and more importantly the scientific illiteracy of those who continue to push creationism in the classroom. Read the article, "How to Make Sure Children Are Scientifically Illiterate" here. In July several pro-intelligent design members of the state’s board of education lost primary elections to pro-science challengers – tipping the once anti-science board back in favor of evolution. Krauss, a professor at Case Western Reserve University, is a leading voice in the movement to defend evolution and the science education of children across the country. See the article here, and stay updated at the DefCon blog. Sincerely, Clark, Jessica, and the rest of the DefCon team