Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  That evening, Miriam Yasgur presented Max with several additional problems they might encounter along the way, namely property damage and the antagonism of their neighbors. “We don’t want to distress anyone, Max. We’re comfortable in our business, we make our own living. I’m not sure if it’s wise to rock the boat.”

  “I agree with you,” he admitted. “The only thing is, it’s wrong to deny these young people the same right you’d give to older folks. I guess I’m the guy who’s going to have to prove that. And, anyway, it’s an excellent business deal. I’ll tell you what: let’s sleep on it and discuss it again in the morning.”

  Word travels fast in a small town. Thanks to the promotional instincts of Elliot Tieber, it was announced to the Times Herald Record that he would hold a press conference on Monday, July 21, “to reveal information about a White Lake Music Festival.” Bethel residents began to investigate the rumor’s validity, hoping to turn up the culprit before it was too late. By Sunday morning, they had traced its trail to the home of Max Yasgur.

  Max was still in a quandary about his newly acquired role as the housefather to a swarm of bleary-eyed hippies when he left the house early Sunday morning. The points that Miriam had raised the night before began to swell in his mind, and he was now seriously in doubt as to whether he had taken a noble stand or had inadvertently made a grave and costly mistake. “Don’t worry about it,” she had advised him, so that he’d be able to conduct his business at the dairy with a minimal amount of mental stress, but it preoccupied him, nonetheless.

  Whatever indecision Yasgur might have had at that moment was obliterated within minutes. As he backed out of the driveway, he came face-to-face with something that served to reinforce his partnership with Woodstock Ventures. There, nailed to a tree at the end of the lane, was a crudely lettered sign on which was painted: “Buy No Milk. Local People Speak Out. Stop Max’s Hippy Music Festival. No 150,000 Hippies Here.” Max was furious. What person, in his right mind, would waste his time doing something that foolish? Whose business was it, anyway? Stop Max’s Hippy Music Festival—the thought was preposterous! If anything had convinced Max that he was doing the right thing, that sign was the deciding factor.

  Later, opponents of the festival would argue among themselves that anyone who knew Max should have realized that, from the moment that billboard was hoisted into place, the festival was “all systems go.” He’d be damned if he was going to allow a bunch of hard-nosed bigots to eject the kids from his property.

  Max sent two of his farmhands back to the house and had them remove the sign. Later, when he returned for breakfast, he discussed it with his wife.

  “I have a feeling we’re going to go through with this, aren’t we, Max?”

  “Well, if you agree, I think it’s time we spoke out about the injustice being done to these kids. What do you say?”

  Miriam smiled wistfully. What could she say? Her husband was stubborn as a mule. “I’m with you, Max,” she said. “Just tell me one thing. Are you sure that you can handle this?”

  He just shrugged. They had made up their minds thirteen years before, when Max suffered his first heart attack, that they would live one day at a time, without fear. That was it. The time was right, and Max had made up his mind: the Aquarian Exposition had come to White Lake. He’d be there to celebrate their success when it was over.

  4

  Joel Rosenman had been dispatched to White Lake as an emissary from the uptown office whose job it would be to keep an eye on the corporation’s future disbursements. Too many questionable expenditures had come to their attention of late; several thousand dollars a week were being spent for which there were no receipts, and a flurry of checks on which John Roberts’s signature had been forged crossed their bookkeeper’s desk until it became commonplace for her not to recognize either of the co-signers’ endorsements. For the longest time, Penny Stallings had held the on-site checkbook, but even her strict control of company funds was ineffective against the sophisticated methods of scamming. Hardly an afternoon went by when she didn’t find Michael Lang holding a corporate check up to the window so he could trace John Roberts’s signature, or uncover a ploy for someone on the staff to filch a few bucks from petty cash. The only defense left was for Joel to regulate the bank account, and that didn’t sit well with anyone except John Roberts.

  Rosenman arrived in White Lake just a few hours before the Apollo 11 astronauts were scheduled to become the first human beings to set foot on the moon. His plan had been to settle into a production trailer behind the El Monaco (whose parking lot the festival agreed to repave in return for a temporary place to drop anchor), and then head over to the Red Top where the staff was gathering to watch the televised landing. On the way back to his car, Joel was intercepted by Michael Lang and a middle-aged, squat man with large, bulging eyes whom he introduced as Morris Abraham, “a cat with unbelievable connections.” On some prearranged signal, Abraham excused himself so that Lang could have a few words alone with his partner.

  “Look, Joel, there’s a few things goin’ down here that need, uh, special attention. Know what I mean?”

  “Not really, Michael.”

  “You gotta deal with Morris, man. He’s pretty heavy in the town. Like, he got the racetrack into Monticello when the people were against it. Right now, we need him on our side to keep things cool with the locals.”

  “How do you know he’s on the level? Have you checked him out?”

  “Oh sure, man. He’s cool. Look, I had a check made up for him for $2,500. He wants $10,000 for ‘expenses’ for the whole gig; otherwise we’re on the street again. We’re gonna have to play ball, but I don’t want to give him the whole thing in advance.”

  “There’s no other alternative for us?”

  “No way, man. You know what I know.”

  I only wish it were so, Joel thought. “Look, Michael, if you’ve been dealing with him so far, maybe you’d . . .”

  “Don’t sweat it, Joel. I’ll work it out with the dude, and we’ll be good as gold.”

  But before Rosenman could escape unnoticed, Abraham was at his trailer door circumstantiating the steep retainer and demanding the entire $10,000 up front. “I got expenses, Joel, and they can’t wait.” Lang had obviously placed the blame on Rosenman for their having to put Abraham on the installment plan.

  “Sorry, Morris, but we have to see some results before we settle any accounts. I’m sure you understand our position.”

  The realtor pleaded for understanding of his own. He needed an expense fund at his disposal from which he could skim several thousand dollars in small bills to pay for “influence.” Otherwise, it was going to be tough producing “the desired effect.”

  “But I’m sure you’ll find some way to do it. If we’re not here come August, you’re not going to see another penny from us.”

  “You’re the boss, Joel,” Abraham surrendered. “You’ll see, it’ll go smoothly. Just let ’em give me any trouble, Joel. I’ll ram this festival down their fucking throats.”

  There was something about Abraham’s method of operation that did not sit well with Lang, either. That evening, after Neil Armstrong intoned “One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind” from the lunar surface, Michael and Stanley Goldstein paid a visit to Max Yasgur, at his home.

  The boys were shown into their host’s spacious kitchen where they were offered the house drink, chocolate milk, and a few hours of Max’s time. The dairy business required that he be up long before dawn, and therefore he made every attempt to get to bed at a reasonable hour.

  “That’s cool,” Michael acknowledged. “There’s something that we gotta tell you, though. It won’t take long. I just don’t know how you’re gonna take this. But we’ve been straight with each other and I think you oughta know.”

  Max propped his elbows on the kitchen table, folded his hands into a bridge, and balanced his chin
on it for support.

  Goldstein took over, choosing each word carefully. “While we were in Wallkill, we decided that we would not buy our way into the community.” He hesitated when Yasgur’s eyes narrowed, not certain how to proceed. He couldn’t tell whether Max was interested in what he said or if he was growing impatient. “Had we not taken that position—who knows, we might still be there now. But whether we were right or not, we went with our instincts. Now, we’ve been approached by certain parties who have informed us that it’s going to take $10,000 to ‘buy’ the proper authorities, otherwise they’ll make trouble for us.”

  Yasgur raised both hands at once and brought them crashing down on the formica table. “My God!” he cried. “That’s positively disgusting. I can’t believe it. Who’s this ‘certain party’ that you’re referring to?”

  “We can’t tell you, Max,” Michael said.

  “You’ve got to. You said it yourself: we’ve been straight with one another, and I’ll be goddamned if I let this kind of hornswaggling go on in my community. Why, that’s bribery. Now, tell me who it is. Tell me and I’ll go down the line with you.”

  Michael gave him Abraham’s name quite willingly, as he had planned to do all along.

  “That son of a bitch. He can’t get away with that.”

  Lang shared Max’s indignation. “Yeah, it’s extortion, and I’d rather not be a party to it. But I don’t see any other way out.”

  “You’d better find one, young man, or else you won’t hold your festival on my property. Let me tell you something. I’ve never paid a bribe in my life, and I won’t allow something like that to take place with my knowledge.”

  “I’m not gonna bribe him, Max. That’s why Stan and I came to see you, your knowin’ these people and all. I’d rather take that money and give it to the town somehow—in a way that will benefit everybody.”

  “We have the check ready, Max,” Goldstein said. “We were prepared to pay it to these men, but we thought that since we were making so much of a commitment to the Town of Bethel, we’d like to give it to the hospital for their building fund.”

  “I think that’s a damned good idea, boys.”

  “But we still have to deal with these guys who want the bread.”

  “You fellas leave that up to me.”

  Before the evening was out, the three men had worked out a plan whereby Max would make an appointment to see Morris Abraham and extract from him the name of the town official who stood to inherit a substantial sum from the scheme. Abraham, he was convinced, would tell him because the realtor knew that Max was capable of making trouble for him. Once that was done, he would need the four partners to sign a document attesting to the fact that they had, indeed, been threatened with expulsion from Bethel unless payment was made to this individual. Max would then confront that man, and instruct him that unless Woodstock Ventures was given complete assurance that nothing would interfere with their production, he was prepared to personally finance a campaign exposing the blackmailer in every newspaper in upstate New York.

  “You know—I think it’ll work, Max. I think it’s just lethal enough to put the gag on these cats.”

  “It had better,” he said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. The murky summer humidity, combined with the heated conversation, had turned Max’s flimsy white shirt into a soggy towel. “You know, I’ve lived in this community nearly all my life and, even though I’ve heard some pretty scandalous stories, which I happen to know are true, I don’t think that anything’s ever upset me as much as the sinister business you’ve revealed to me here tonight. Why, you’re talking about people whom I’ve entrusted to look after my own interests, people whom I’ve elected to office. I don’t understand what could possibly have driven them to do such things, and, what’s more, it eats me that they presumed they’d get away with it right in front of my eyes. It’s just beyond me. But I’ll tell you one thing, boys, and on this I stake my reputation as a solid, honest citizen”—he rapped his index finger on the table until it turned a bright red—“it’s not going to happen here as long as I have the breath in my body to put a stop to it. I don’t intend to be a party to dirty politics, and you should make it a point now, while you’re both still young, never to participate in it either.”

  Yasgur rose slowly, then ushered Goldstein and Lang out onto his front porch with the finesse of a statesman. It was late. In a few hours he’d be expected in his barn to look after his prize bulls. “Tomorrow morning, before any of us gets carried away with our own affairs, we’ll put this entire matter to rest. I expect you’ll have that paper signed for me so I’ll have some ammunition,” he said, pointing to a folded sheet of paper in Lang’s hand. “Right now, I think I’d better put myself to rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  With that, Max Yasgur slipped behind his screen door, turned off the hall light, and went to sleep.

  • • •

  There is no indication that anyone involved in the attempted “favoritism” payoff made the slightest effort to refute the allegations. No mention of a confrontation was ever made public, nor were the details of such a meeting ever discussed between Max Yasgur and his new business associates. There is, however, a yellowed paper that exists, divulging the name of the town official who employed Morris Abraham as his go-between, attached to a deposition signed by the four principals of Woodstock Ventures that Max kept hidden in a bedroom dresser drawer for several years after the festival. From that, one may deduce that Max discreetly met with this individual, thrust his evidence in the person’s panic-stricken face, and obtained a pledge from the offender to use the powers of his office to see that the promoters were given a fair shake when it came time for them to request permits.

  Whatever promise Max received was kept that very same night. The festival’s production executives were summoned before the Bethel town and zoning boards at 7:30 P.M. and, on the basis of the town attorney’s advice, they were granted, by unanimous vote of council, permission to hold their event on the new, Sullivan County site.

  The examination of Woodstock Ventures’ credentials, including plot plans and insurance guarantees, proved less tormenting than their previous experience in Wallkill, although the Bethel legislative caucus was every bit as thorough. Presided over by Town Supervisor Daniel J. Amatucci, a committee of two town justices, a building inspector, two councilmen, four zoning board representatives and three planning board members listened patiently while Mel Lawrence, Wes Pomeroy, and the festival’s new local attorney, Richard Gross, of the Liberty, New York, firm of Gross, Gross and Gross, presented an accumulation of their plans. Gross had been astute enough in his preparation of the case to have already conferred with Bethel Town Attorney Frederick W. V. Schadt over the weekend, in order to determine whether his clients would be in violation of local zoning ordinances during their tenure on Yasgur’s farm. They were most certainly not, Schadt announced, which cleared the way for the board’s unfettered cooperation.

  Only a handful of residents attended the hearing in the unadorned town hall. Their conduct was courteous, although there was a distinct split of opinion concerning the festival’s settling in White Lake for the rest of the summer. One faction, though restrained, was furious with Yasgur for his harboring of hippies in a resort area. “It will be worse than the grasshoppers in the grain fields,” was how one disgruntled neighbor of Max’s described the situation. However, those in favor of the celebrated addition to their town easily outnumbered the protesters two to one.

  Daniel Amatucci told a reporter from the Times Herald Record, later that evening, that he “would not stand in the way of anything if it is legal.” He had met informally with the promoters, and found everything they said to be in order. “We will welcome anyone to the town if they abide by the law, mind their Ps and Qs, and live within the law,” he proclaimed nobly, and for the moment he was a champion to the residential youth who longed for such a celebration to t
ake place in Bethel. “If they do this, there will be no problem.”

  Earlier, a writer had cornered Max Yasgur as he emerged from the town hall and asked him for a comment. Max was in his glory and played the role of Defender Of The Faith to the hilt. Hands on hips, head tilted ever so slightly upward, scholarly eyes looking off into the distance, he nodded his head a few times before answering: “All they are asking for is [meaningful pause] fair play.” That line, overheard by a festival staff member, was repeated ten and twenty times during the course of the parties held later that night, each time drawing a more exultant response than the last. “All we are asking for is fair play! All we are asking for is fair play!” It was the catch phrase they had been waiting for all along.

  When hours later, perhaps worlds later, word was carried into the celebration that Judge Edward O’Gorman had, earlier that day, handed down a decision from the highest court in the state of New York banning the festival from the Town of Wallkill, shrieks of laughter rang throughout the two camps. The fools have had their day in court, they sang, and we shall have our freedom! They were convinced that Max Yasgur, this messiah from White Lake, had led them into the Promised Land and, that night, the tenacious band of hippies was home at last.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Loose Ends and Long Shots

  Go, sir, gallop, and don’t forget that the world was made in six days. You can ask me for anything you like, except time.

  —Napolean Bonaparte (1803)

  Don’t ask questions, man. We can handle it, we can handle it. Just get it together.

  —Michael Lang (1969)