Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  Goldstein was certain the town would capitulate and allow them to tap the water supply in the turquoise towers as an emergency backup. If not, they would be within their rights to appeal to both state and federal agencies to assure they received the same services as any other taxpaying institution. All they had to do was sit back and wait. Water would be flowing as freely as emotions on the Mills property yet if Goldstein had interpreted the law correctly. And, for the moment, it was worth the gamble.

  7

  The Times Herald Record had discreetly supported the festival’s arrival in Wallkill inasmuch as it had refrained from taking a swipe at its character, as everyone else was doing. The paper’s editor, Al Romm, an unpopular individual because of his liberal and fastidious approach to covering local news, was skeptical of the promoters’ claims of pulling it off without a hitch. There were too many inconsistencies, too many variables in the plan as it was presented to the town board, and he knew they would receive minimal assistance from local merchants. Still, he recognized their attempt to bring culture into an artistically lifeless community and wanted to let that attractive proposition breathe for as long a time as possible. Maybe, he speculated, some of its fanciful intention would rub off on the town’s gentry and move them to support the classical arts more than they had before. There was nothing to lose by waiting before he took a stand.

  Romm nevertheless had papers to sell and baited his readers on trumped-up headlines the size of billboards impeaching teen-agers’ susceptibility to drugs. BLOW YOUR MIND: THREE WHO DID was the star caption hoisted above the June 14 Times Herald Record banner. It related, in exaggerated detail, the “painful truth” about a few Orange County youths “hooked” on speed and marijuana. One of the accounts in this particular article involved a teen-age boy who, because of his drug involvement, “giggles a great deal at private jokes . . . and floats off on his own universe. . . . Pride in his appearance is gone and black stains are on his teeth from irregular dental care.” On June 18, another front-page feature blazoned LSD TRIPS UP 3 TEENS, SULLIVAN [county] MAN DIES OF ‘H,’ and was followed the next day by a story calling for community support to “stamp out drug abuse,” which had infested the local school system. While there was some validity for editorial concern, the sensational manner in which the stories were presented created a voyeuristic thirst for more. LSD FELLS THREE TEENS directed attention to three Monticello High School students “who became ill after apparently taking LSD.” HIPPIE GUNMEN ROB ORANGE TOPLESS HAVEN recounted a robbery involving two men of indeterminable age with long hair who, while holding up a bar, wore bell-bottoms and “large hippy-type glasses.” Rampant innuendo was unleashed on the Catskill communities, which adapted and repackaged it as effective ammunition to be hurled against the Aquarian Exposition’s presence in Wallkill.

  Guilt by association was another factor that was stacking up against the festival’s public image. On Sunday, June 23, while the staff nervously awaited the town board’s decision on whether or not they could proceed based upon its inspection of the ground plans, another festival in Northridge, California, a suburban community near the San Fernando Valley Fairgrounds, was erupting in violence. Northridge had attracted 60,000 paid admissions, most of whom were hippies from the Los Angeles and San Diego area. When police attempted to disperse a relatively small group of roughnecks who intended to rush the gate, thousands of sympathizers flocked to their aid, flinging rocks and bottles at anyone in an official blue uniform The police arrested a total of 165 hippies. Forty-five were charged with assaulting a police officer; an additional ninety arrests were made for drug and marijuana-related offenses; there were 402 injuries reported in all. Monday morning’s edition of the Times Herald Record carried an item on the disturbance, describing it as a “battle” and citing (again) alleged charges of “attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.” It was not exactly the sort of publicity the festival had been hoping for.

  Pomeroy called an old friend of his, Joseph P. Kimble, the newly appointed police chief of Beverly Hills, and asked him, if it was at all possible, to drop whatever he was doing and look into what had caused the Northridge chaos. Kimble had worked under Pomeroy in the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Department, and Wes knew he could rely on the younger man’s judgment in gaining a fair, unbiased appraisal of the disturbance.

  Kimble informed Pomeroy that Cliff Reynolds had also contacted the LAPD seeking the same information. Reynolds was champing at the bit to turn the unfortunate incident against his rivals in Wallkill. His intention was to present the unrelated information to a New York State court as precedent and ostensibly convict Woodstock Ventures on slurs and innuendo.

  Kimble’s investigation turned up little to discredit the crowd. He found that those who had gained admittance to the performance area were very well behaved. Internal security, however, was disorganized and disruptive. The men who were hired as a peace-keeping force were inexperienced in crowd control. Many came to work armed, and others became stoned and drunk on site as the day progressed An ancillary force, consisting of thirty-five UCLA football players performed their jobs with more insight into the young audience than was exhibited by experienced security personnel, but even they could not hold back several hundred rebels outside the fences. When it became apparent that the security force was in jeopardy of collapsing, the LAPD area commander, Captain Al Lembke, detailed fifty tactical squad men to the area to contain the assault. By that time it was too late. Lines had been drawn, and war was declared.

  Pomeroy sent a detailed memorandum concerning Northridge to those on the Woodstock staff. It summarized Kimble’s findings and prepared them for a confrontation with Reynolds and his spurious Concerned Citizens group over the matter.

  Kimble affirmed what they already knew: that camping facilities were a must and that “monitor policing should exist around the clock.” In addition to cataloguing what Pomeroy already had in his security plan, Kimble recommended that “first-aid stations should be established in advance and a sufficient number of ambulances [should be] standing by. Pre-event arrangements should be made with local hospitals.” Wes took that last bit of advice to heart and directed Don Ganoung to put out feelers for a staff doctor. He would assume the task of opening relations with local hospitals. Pomeroy was convinced there would be a standard amount of bad trips and drug-related problems that they could attend to with the help of the Hog Farm, but with an expected attendance of well over one hundred thousand, there was no telling what other emergencies might arise. They had to be prepared for everything that might crop up along the way.

  What Pomeroy neglected to mention in the memo was that he had asked his former colleague to join the security team at Woodstock. Pomeroy desperately needed trained individuals who shared his outlook on peaceful crowd control and youth to assist him in all phases of the show’s organization. Kimble would be a treasured asset. He was responsible, well liked by other peace officers, and in control of his emotions enough to deal with both the kids and the more conservative local law enforcement officials whose assistance was eagerly sought. It would mean Kimble’s asking for a leave of absence from a job that he had only recently assumed. Wes hated to put him in that position, but he needed his help.

  It is perhaps a measure of Wes Pomeroy’s stature and the respect afforded him by his peers that Kimble unswervingly accepted the job. If all went according to plan, he would arrive in New York on August 11, in time for the festival.

  • • •

  The festival’s public relations efforts in New York City had fallen off considerably and were in about as unhealthy a state as the smoldering remains of hospitality originally extended them by the zoning board of appeals over three months before. An odious wind blew through the Village streets. Word had come down through the ranks of hippiedom, by way of underground radio and the “scene,” which, at this time, included the Fillmore and the Central Park, be-ins, that all was not well in Wallkill. Things, it was said, we
re coming apart at the seams, and among the “cool,” the “groovy,” and those generally in the know, there was serious doubt that Woodstock would ever see the light of July let alone the glory that was to be August.

  Wartoke, whose very existence was born out of their snaring the Woodstock Ventures account, had relied heavily on the affinity established with the underground press to provide a send-off for festival “hot tips.” Whenever the embers needed a vigorous fanning, a Wartoke representative called one of the more prominant biweekly tabloids—Boston’s Avatar, the Berkeley Barb, New York City’s Rat, Realist, or East Village Other, or any of the remaining 451 underground presses in the country publishing on a regular basis—and “leaked” a story. The information was passed from paper to paper, like a hippie wire service, and established what became the foundation for Woodstock’s publicity. Even a peace-oriented organization like Woodstock, though, soon wore its welcome thin.

  The underground press had amassed its strength from a common bond of radical politics and pop music. Constant foes of big business (capitalist pigs, for the sake of atmosphere), the editors began to smell a colossal “ripoff” in the making. Hype—the word sat in their stomachs like acid indigestion. It had not taken most of the editors long to digest a few of Wartoke’s “hot tips” before they deduced that not only did someone stand to make a substantial fortune promoting “3 Days of Peace and Music” in their papers, but that the press was being primed to help do it. By continuing to print stories about this wonderful Aquarian Exposition, they were aiding an enterprise whose prime interest was separating The People from Their Bread. This was not part of their ethic. Their open door policy in respect to the Woodstock festival, they decided, had to be slammed shut if they intended to peddle their agrarian ideals. Woodstock, all of a sudden, had become bad news.

  Wartoke was right on top of the situation. Catching the scent of rebuff from their peers, they foiled any collective attempt by the underground press to break off relationships with Woodstock by calling for a seminar to discuss exactly what it was that Woodstock should signify. It was a stroke of divine inspiration on Wartoke’s part; in addition to averting an organized boycott of the festival, they would instill in every editor who attended the feeling that his paper had played an integral part in the planning of the event. It would serve to bring the festival that much closer to the media and guarantee them total support from the counterculture’s accredited spokesmen.

  Several drafts of invitations to the seminar were made and passed on to Michael Lang for his approval. After a number of rejections, one met with unanimous acclaim from the executive staff:

  The Music Festival is not a battleground. If we are to seduce the music festival back from the California battleground, we must formulate new and sure methods of preparation to provide for safe and nonviolent amusement. You are urged to participate in a special meeting to develop and set ground rules for outdoor peace and music programs. Thursday, June 26th, 11:00 A.M. Village Gate. Bleecker Street.

  We are all responsible.

  Sixty-six rock media luminaries were invited to attend, including reporters from such aboveground publications as Life, Newsweek, and Time as well as a representative from UPI and camera crews from the three major television networks. It was to be a truly spectacular rally, as flashy a laid-back, hip meeting as one could ever hope to stage. For vanity’s sake, it was not promoted under the auspices of Woodstock Ventures, nor was it touted as a festival arm, although its underlying purpose, as everyone knew, was to mobilize support for the August 15 bonanza. Instead, it was thinly disguised as a forum in which participants would examine the Northridge disaster and attempt to preserve the concept of “festival” as an authorized conclave of the stoned generation.

  Wartoke knowingly, and without hesitation, then took a considerable risk by attempting to cover up their account’s stake in the seminar. After the invitations had gone out, someone at the public relations firm took it upon himself to inform the editors by phone that one of the council’s primary functions was for those in attendance to vote on whether or not Woodstock should become a political arena to encourage antiwar protesters. If they voted affirmatively, then the heads of every movement would be allotted a predetermined period of time on stage to promote their righteous causes; if their decision was negative, then all political fronts would award themselves a three-day holiday and come out for what promised to be an unparalleled rock concert. The response to that proposition was overly enthusiastic; the editors would abide by the wishes of the majority.

  Of course, Lang and his partners had no intention of endangering either their prospective monetary landslide or their reputations by imposing such a damnable blockade on the show; the thought of sponsoring the most expensive political convention since the Continental Congress was utterly insane and beyond question. Wartoke was banking on the various radical groups backing down. They believed that, despite the individual commitments made by the movements to destroy The System, all anybody really wanted to do was to tune in and have a good time. If they were wrong—and they insisted they weren’t—then they were prepared to tell “everyone there to fuck off and to do the festival anyway.” Either way, Wartoke guaranteed the skeptical partners, Woodstock would go down exactly as they envisioned it. Unfortunately, that only seemed like a promising image to half of the corporation.

  • • •

  The turnout at the Village Gate was better than even Wartoke had anticipated. Some two hundred underground editors, radio disc jockies, reporters, rock executives, and street leaders pushed into the pocket-sized club to take part in the great debate, to see who would be brave enough to fire the first shot at the hip imposters’ artful dodge. Many had hitchiked from as far away as Texas to state their case while those with less vocal sentiments hid among the smokey shadows of the austere room. It was enough for most just to be there, to sit among their generation’s most quoted spokesmen, to have a hand in cultural destiny. They had come out of curiosity, and they would return home enlightened by what they had heard. This, they had been told, was history in the making.

  The room had been arranged to suggest some kind of loose structure to provide for those who wished to speak from the floor. A long, cloth-covered conference table was set up on the elevated stage where the Gate’s jazz artists performed nightly. Behind it were six folding chairs, and in front of every speaker’s position was a microphone. Those who came as spectators or secondary participants were shown to seats in the sunken audience gallery. By 10:45, every seat in the house was taken or being shared, and the spillover improvised on radiators and window sills.

  Jim Forad, a local movement leader, had volunteered his services as a moderator. Forad was an articulate, soft-spoken young man who had amassed a great deal of respect among the New York underground community. He knew most of the people in the audience that morning by sight, which, if things got out of hand, would allow him to single people out and settle them down. It was hoped that his participation would be limited to short, impromptu introductions.

  Michael Lang was first on the dais. As he pulled the microphone closer to his chest, the room came alive with excitement. Here he was at last, Lang the enigma, the man-child whose name had been carried across press releases like a dignitary’s thrust into the limelight with the velocity of a buckshot politician with a ten-dollar smile. He had a magical quality about him that touched everyone who slapped palms with him. Even those who had yet to meet him felt an attraction on the basis of a description or a quote attributed to him in the press. Karma, Michael called it. He had the uncanny ability to reach out and touch someone with spiritual telepathy and claimed he could read it in others equally well. One evening in March he tried to convince John Roberts that Karma had prevented his being busted.

  “One time I was going to see a friend. And I couldn’t get in the door.” His friend was on the other side in the process of being arrested for possession. “The door wasn’t locked. It was just
that I couldn’t open it.”

  “Michael,” Roberts scoffed, “You mean that the . . . vibes coming from inside stopped you? Actually prevented you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But that’s impossible. Anybody can open . . .”

  “It’s not impossible, man,” Michael said sotto voce.

  “Michael is the devil,” Ticia had contended when asked about his charisma. In the six weeks since she had been hired, Ticia and Michael had become lovers, and her perception of him had been heightened by their relationship. “He has two little bumps high up on his forehead where his horns used to be.” Now he was working his satanical charm on the small audience below him and he had yet to open his mouth. Lang’s pitch was unchanged. He explained Woodstock in terms of the utopian adventure meant for peace-loving people and emphasized the concept of “togetherness and understanding through music.”

  Indirectly, he pointed out, everyone who bought a ticket to the festival was contributing to a united front against the war in Vietnam. “We’re showing the world how it’s possible for a lot of kids to get along peacefully under the same roof. And we’ll do it, too, as brothers.” He assured the audience that a strong antiwar sentiment would pervade the festival’s nonaggressive atmosphere. It would be equivalent to staging a massive political protest felt round the world without anyone having to utter an objectionable word.