Wavy Gravy: ‘I’m in it for the buzz’

“Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie,” playing now at the IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave., New York, N.Y.) Info: ifccenter.com, 212.924.7771

Opening Sat., Dec. 11 at Upstate Films Woodstock (132 Tinker St., Woodstock, N.Y.), featuring Q-and-A with Wavy Gravy and filmmakers. Info: upstatefilms.org, 845.679.6608

Movie info: www.rippleeffectfilms.com

by Nikki M. Mascali
Weekender Editor

His is a life made for the movies.

As a young boy in Princeton, N.J., he took walks with his neighbor, Albert Einstein. Bob Dylan, who shared his room above the Gaslight Cafe in Greenwich Village, began writing “A Hard Rain Is Gonna Fall” on his typewriter. While working as a traveling monologist, he was managed by Lenny Bruce and opened shows for John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and the first performance of Peter, Paul & Mary.

He soon moved out West and founded the Hog Farm, a California-based activist commune. He became the emcee of the Woodstock Festival, the “official clown” of the Grateful Dead, and from 1992-2003, he was a popular Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor that consisted of caramel and cashew/brazil nut ice cream with a hazelnut-fudge swirl and roasted almonds.

These facts just scratch the surface of who Wavy Gravy is, which is far more than classifying him just as one of the most famous hippies, or “The Last Hippie,” as Rolling Stone recently dubbed him.

Born Hugh Romney in 1936, the man who officially became Wavy Gravy in 1969 thanks to B.B. King has done a world of good. Now that life of his that seems to have been made for the movies is actually one: “Saint Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie” opened at the IFC Center in New York Wednesday and will open in Woodstock, N.Y., Saturday, Dec. 11, after premiering in the San Francisco area.

Directed by Michelle Esrick, “Saint Misbehavin’” accurately captures the 40-plus-years career Wavy has made out of doing good — and making the people he interacts with want to do good, too.

“It’s amazing,” Wavy said of the movie during a breakfast-time phone call from New York City Tuesday. “It absolutely threw my jaw on the floor. This is an opportunity to show people you can do a lot of good in the world and have a lot of fun doing it.”

Some of the good Wavy’s done over the years has included the work of the Hog Farm, which handled security at Woodstock, as well as founding Camp Winnarainbow, a circus and performing-arts camp in Laytonville, Calif. — sales from Wavy Gravy ice cream drove a scholarship fund for underprivileged kids to attend the camp. He also created the Seva Foundation with spiritual leader Ram Dass and public health expert and best friend Dr. Larry Brilliant, an organization that works to build sustainable health projects in many needy areas of the world. Seva most notably restored the eyesight of nearly 3 million people suffering from cataract blindness in areas like Tibet, Nepal and Africa.

‘A WHOLE LIFE OF SERVICE’

Esrick spent 10 years working on the film and immersed herself in Wavy’s world.

“For the first five years, it was a little creepy, but then it was creepy when she wasn’t there,” Wavy joked.

The two first met in 1992 when Wavy was reading from his book “Something Good For A Change” at a California bookstore.

“His ice cream flavor was pretty new, so Ben & Jerry’s had sent tubs of it (to the reading), so I walked into this bookstore, and I listened to him doing these readings, and I was eating him,” Esrick recalled with a laugh. “It was so delicious, I think I had like six bowls — he was the best flavor.”

Esrick had heard of Wavy, but said that “when you are in his presence, he makes an impression. He’s very funny, he has the fastest hard drive of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s so quick and witty. He’s smart, he looks … interesting, to say the least. He’s a head turner, and once your head is turned, he’s transmitting some beautiful stuff.”

It was when the director began to get to know Wavy that something clicked.

“I’m now calling it my ‘Field of Dreams’ moment,” she shared with a laugh. “I really had this calling, and it was very clear to me that if I put him on the screen, people would be inspired to go help somebody. That’s really how you end up feeling when you’re hanging with Wavy; he lifts your spirits, he makes you laugh, he makes you happy. I just wanted to really share that.”

Esrick shot 250 hours worth of verite footage, a style of documentary filmmaking showing unbiased realism, as well as 100 hours of archival footage from Wavy’s life which was trimmed down to a neat 87-minute film.

“My first cut was eight hours long,” Esrick said. “I put everything in that I wanted, and then I just started sculpting.”

She didn’t want “Saint Misbehavin’” to be a conventional biography film “like, he was born … for me, it’s more like a poem,” she said. “I wanted people to experience what it was like to be with him. I focused on the message, the commitment of making a better world throughout his life, so I picked those stories that really inspired me about his life.”

The film interweaves Wavy’s past and present, starting with him making dinner for the Hog Farm one night, then cuts to when Wavy was living with Dylan over the Gaslight.

“It was an amazing time where everybody would gather at the Gaslight where I first started out reading my poetry,” Wavy said. “I got to know all these great players and became very good friends. … We’d gather at two o’clock in the morning, and we would play for each other just for the joy of it.”

BASIC HUMAN NEEDS

“Wouldn’t it be neat if the people that you meet/ Had shoes upon their feet and something to eat?” goes “Basic Human Needs,” a song Wavy wrote that’s less a song and more a motto.

“I would like to see peace and justice prevail,” he said. “Peace without justice is kind of boring, and if all the prophesies in my song would come to pass, that would be pretty good. Meanwhile, I’ve got something to do.”

When asked what he’d like to be remembered for most, Wavy’s responded quickly with “Seva,” before pausing to take a bite of bacon.

“We’re going toward 3 million eye surgeries … it’s just fantastic,” he said of the foundation.

He cites Dr. Nicole Grasset and the late Dr. G. Venkataswami as “personal heroes.” The former triggered his best friend, Dr. Brilliant, to take on Seva’s blindness work. The latter started an eye hospital that started out as just 12 beds before becoming the 12 hospitals that are now all over India.

“He wanted to see that this blindness care is as prevalent and available as a hamburger at McDonald’s,” Wavy explained. “He was a great saint, and to have brushed lives with him is amazing. It was his vision that this all transpire, so anything I can do to help that happen … I’m working on my 75th birthday party to raise funds for this to continue, one in California, one in New York.” Wavy will turn 75 on May 15.

Wavy has faith that his work and even more will be carried on when he cannot.

“We churn out 700 kids every summer at Camp Winnarainbow, and we’ve been doing it for over 30 years,” he said. “Like it says in the Tao Teh Ching, ‘What is a bad person but a good person’s job?’ I’m just paraphrasing, though, I’m sure the Tao Teh Ching says it much more eloquently than me!”

The statement just captures the essence of who Wavy Gravy is, and what is at the core of “Saint Misbehavin.’”

“People (will) walk away feeling the message, and seeing a whole life,” Esrick said. “Wavy’s whole life is his message. A lot of people want to put him in the ’60s, and he’s not just the guy from the ’60s, even though he’s probably the most famous hippie. He’s a very famous hippie, but he’s lived a whole life of service and he continues to.”

“A lot of people ask me why do I do this, it just gets me high,” Wavy said. “It’s a high that is not available in the pharmaceutical cabinet; I’m in it for the buzz, folks.”

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