Wavy Gravy: What's a Nice Old Hippie Like This Doing in a Clown Suit?
Hugh Romney, a.k.a. Wavy Gravy. A San Francisco newspaper called him "the last, best hippie." Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead says he's "a saint in a clown suit."
Whatever the label Wavy Gravy is one of a handful of hippies who didn't trade in his hookah for a BMW, a dedicated activist who still believes in working for a good cause, a man who still lives at the commune he started way back in 1966.
The son of a prominent New York architect, Romney went into the Army after high school and studied theater at Boston University on the GI Bill. He worked at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and then landed a job as the poetry director at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, where he started doing stand-up comedy, talking about the weird things that happened to him during the day between readings.
Romney moved to the west coast, eventually hooked up with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters for awhile until he and several other former Pranksters started a commune called the Hog Farm. In 1969, he was recruited to be "head of security" at Woodstock, where he told reporters he planned to control the crowd with "seltzer bottles and cream pie."
His recording Old Feathers, New Bird: The '80s are the '60s, Twenty Years Later won the 1988 Best Comedy Album award from the National Association of independent Record Distributors. On Oct. 16, he opens an off-Broadway stand-up comedy tour at Washington Square in New York. He'll put on essentially the same show at the Pump House Regional Arts Center this Friday. What follows are excerpts from my recent phone interview with the always upbeat, ageless hippie clown.
Whatever the label Wavy Gravy is one of a handful of hippies who didn't trade in his hookah for a BMW, a dedicated activist who still believes in working for a good cause, a man who still lives at the commune he started way back in 1966.
The son of a prominent New York architect, Romney went into the Army after high school and studied theater at Boston University on the GI Bill. He worked at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and then landed a job as the poetry director at the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, where he started doing stand-up comedy, talking about the weird things that happened to him during the day between readings.
Romney moved to the west coast, eventually hooked up with Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters for awhile until he and several other former Pranksters started a commune called the Hog Farm. In 1969, he was recruited to be "head of security" at Woodstock, where he told reporters he planned to control the crowd with "seltzer bottles and cream pie."
His recording Old Feathers, New Bird: The '80s are the '60s, Twenty Years Later won the 1988 Best Comedy Album award from the National Association of independent Record Distributors. On Oct. 16, he opens an off-Broadway stand-up comedy tour at Washington Square in New York. He'll put on essentially the same show at the Pump House Regional Arts Center this Friday. What follows are excerpts from my recent phone interview with the always upbeat, ageless hippie clown.
Do you really think the altruistic feelings of Woodstock are coming back?
Absolutely. Except I do tell people that these are the good old days. I mean, we've had everything from Band Aid to Live Aid to Farm Aid – all for good reasons. Woodstock was created for wallets and then the universe took over and did a little dance, see, whereas all these causes were planned from the start. It gives me nostalgia for the future.
How did you develop your clown persona?
I was faced with my third spinal fusion and these doctors came by the house and asked me to go cheer up children in the hospital, and I thought, you know, how bizarre. On the way out the door, someone handed me a red rubber nose and eventually this clown from Ringling Brothers was retiring and gave me his giant shoes because he wanted his feet to go on walking.
One day I went to the People's Park to do a political demonstration and discovered that the police didn't want to hit me anymore. Clowns are safe. You don't see a bunch of rednecks going "I'm bored, let's kill a clown."
Is humor an important ingredient in "the movement"? Do activists sometimes take themselves too seriously?
Absolutely. Laughter is like the valve on the pressure cooker. If you're not laughing you're gonna end up with brains or beans on the ceiling. To paraphrase my friend Abbie Hoffman, God rest his soul: Dare to struggle, dare to grin. So I tell people: Don't mourn, go out there and do something wonderful for the people or the planet and have fun doing it. In that manner you'll win one for the Yipper.
You've said you're not a comedian, that you're just an observer pointing out funny situations. What's funny in 1989?
Well, let's see. The War on Drugs is pretty funny. I've tried to challenge William Bennett to a debate because I think there's a serious difference between smack, crack and smokin' flowers, and if he doesn't see that, he's just giving kids wrong information. It's gonna mess 'em up. Also the fact that we're giving the Columbian army $60 million to fight the War on Drugs while the drug cartel is giving their army $60 million every 10 minutes. You know, I mean, it's funny.
When you were a child, you took walks with Albert Einstein. What was that like?
I was six years old. I remember he smelled funny and he had a twinkle in his eye and not much else.
How has the Hog Farm survived all these years?
Well, I think our sense of humor helped out a lot. And we cut each other a lot of slack. We're not demanding everybody save the world every moment of their life. It's worked 23 years now, and it's getting better for us.
These days your group runs an answering service, a prefabricated house business, a teepee-manufacturing company and several other small businesses. You're also giving a great chunk of time to causes like the SEVA Foundation, homelessness, Native American rights and land reclamation. It seems like you're almost in the mainstream now.
I don't know that we've landed in the mainstream, although God knows I never thought we'd be property owners. In the '60s, we were supported pretty much by magic. I mean, we lived in buses for seven years. Our last trip was from London all the way to the Himalayas with food and medical supplies for Pakistan. It seems like after we came back to the States and regrouped that we realized that we just couldn't float anymore. Vietnam had shut down, it was time to change our movie. We began to pay our way by our various jobs and hustles and it's starting to pay off now.
How influential was the time you spent on Kesey's bus?
Well, that was where we got most of our people. Everybody was posing for a photograph for Life magazine, Ken Babbs stole the bus to join Ken Kesey in Mexico and next thing you know my wife and I had 40 people in Day-Glo clothes livin' in our two-bedroom cabin. I remember the landlord came and told us we couldn't have 42 people living in a two-bedroom cabin and we were evicted. Then as a piece of kitchen synchronicity, we found out they needed somebody to slop the hogs (on a nearby pig farm) and so we were given a mountain-top rent-free.
You've called the '60s the "under-the-counter culture," the '70s the "encounter culture" – what's happening now?
I think people have gotten to the bottom of their second BMW and have found it wanting and are resurfacing in socio-political activities like working for the homeless or for the Vietnam vets or against the possible intervention in Central America. I think on any kind of level if we send troops to Nicaragua, we would see an uprising in the streets today that would make the '60s look like a pajama party.
How would you describe today's political climate?
I think it's interesting, like the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." I think with the Bush-man in there, anything can happen. So we have to stay on our collective toes. I always think that's a lot more exciting.
Absolutely. Except I do tell people that these are the good old days. I mean, we've had everything from Band Aid to Live Aid to Farm Aid – all for good reasons. Woodstock was created for wallets and then the universe took over and did a little dance, see, whereas all these causes were planned from the start. It gives me nostalgia for the future.
How did you develop your clown persona?
I was faced with my third spinal fusion and these doctors came by the house and asked me to go cheer up children in the hospital, and I thought, you know, how bizarre. On the way out the door, someone handed me a red rubber nose and eventually this clown from Ringling Brothers was retiring and gave me his giant shoes because he wanted his feet to go on walking.
One day I went to the People's Park to do a political demonstration and discovered that the police didn't want to hit me anymore. Clowns are safe. You don't see a bunch of rednecks going "I'm bored, let's kill a clown."
Is humor an important ingredient in "the movement"? Do activists sometimes take themselves too seriously?
Absolutely. Laughter is like the valve on the pressure cooker. If you're not laughing you're gonna end up with brains or beans on the ceiling. To paraphrase my friend Abbie Hoffman, God rest his soul: Dare to struggle, dare to grin. So I tell people: Don't mourn, go out there and do something wonderful for the people or the planet and have fun doing it. In that manner you'll win one for the Yipper.
You've said you're not a comedian, that you're just an observer pointing out funny situations. What's funny in 1989?
Well, let's see. The War on Drugs is pretty funny. I've tried to challenge William Bennett to a debate because I think there's a serious difference between smack, crack and smokin' flowers, and if he doesn't see that, he's just giving kids wrong information. It's gonna mess 'em up. Also the fact that we're giving the Columbian army $60 million to fight the War on Drugs while the drug cartel is giving their army $60 million every 10 minutes. You know, I mean, it's funny.
When you were a child, you took walks with Albert Einstein. What was that like?
I was six years old. I remember he smelled funny and he had a twinkle in his eye and not much else.
How has the Hog Farm survived all these years?
Well, I think our sense of humor helped out a lot. And we cut each other a lot of slack. We're not demanding everybody save the world every moment of their life. It's worked 23 years now, and it's getting better for us.
These days your group runs an answering service, a prefabricated house business, a teepee-manufacturing company and several other small businesses. You're also giving a great chunk of time to causes like the SEVA Foundation, homelessness, Native American rights and land reclamation. It seems like you're almost in the mainstream now.
I don't know that we've landed in the mainstream, although God knows I never thought we'd be property owners. In the '60s, we were supported pretty much by magic. I mean, we lived in buses for seven years. Our last trip was from London all the way to the Himalayas with food and medical supplies for Pakistan. It seems like after we came back to the States and regrouped that we realized that we just couldn't float anymore. Vietnam had shut down, it was time to change our movie. We began to pay our way by our various jobs and hustles and it's starting to pay off now.
How influential was the time you spent on Kesey's bus?
Well, that was where we got most of our people. Everybody was posing for a photograph for Life magazine, Ken Babbs stole the bus to join Ken Kesey in Mexico and next thing you know my wife and I had 40 people in Day-Glo clothes livin' in our two-bedroom cabin. I remember the landlord came and told us we couldn't have 42 people living in a two-bedroom cabin and we were evicted. Then as a piece of kitchen synchronicity, we found out they needed somebody to slop the hogs (on a nearby pig farm) and so we were given a mountain-top rent-free.
You've called the '60s the "under-the-counter culture," the '70s the "encounter culture" – what's happening now?
I think people have gotten to the bottom of their second BMW and have found it wanting and are resurfacing in socio-political activities like working for the homeless or for the Vietnam vets or against the possible intervention in Central America. I think on any kind of level if we send troops to Nicaragua, we would see an uprising in the streets today that would make the '60s look like a pajama party.
How would you describe today's political climate?
I think it's interesting, like the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." I think with the Bush-man in there, anything can happen. So we have to stay on our collective toes. I always think that's a lot more exciting.
Mike Starling's original music is heard on numerous recordings and soundtracks, and his stories and photos have been featured in books, films, mags and other media.
starlingarchive.weebly.com is the authorized website for samples of published work by Wisconsin writer Mike Starling. Photo of Starling on assignment in Ireland by J. Winke. Hugh "Wavy Gravy" Romney photo from wavygravy.net. Website developed and managed by Nine Volt Media. ©MMXX-MMXXIV. All rights reserved.