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c o n t i n u e d f r o m p g 9...
out to shoot Wavy at Camp Winnarainbow or at a benefit concert
for SEVA, the foundation he co-founded to restore the sight of poor
people in India. Her determination, Esrick said, was powered by
an almost spiritual force. “This film came out of a true calling from
knowing one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. It wasn’t like I
said, you know, I want to be a documentary filmmaker.”
Wavy found himself impressed by the first-time director. “The years
went by and they just kept doing it. And doing it. And every time I
was doing something, somehow they’d get someone in to catch the
footage. And tenaciously.” When Esrick tapped documentary legend
DA Pennebaker as executive producer of the project, Wavy chucked
any final reservations and became a cheerleader for the project,
encouraging friends like Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Bob Weir,
spiritualist Ram Dass and Dr. Patch Adams to sit for interviews. Even
when more established filmmakers came to him with proposals, Wavy
swatted them away, in favor of Esrick.
By the completion of principal photography, Esrick had an
embarrassment of riches. More than 300 hours of footage was
enhanced by the best of 100 hours of archival footage, a good portion
of it home movies of the 1970 Hog Farm bus odyssey from London
to the Himalayas and Eastern Europe to offer messages of selfempowerment
and peace, as well as crucial
medical care provided by longtime
friend Dr. Larry Brilliant. Wavy
had an epiphany on these caravan
journeys: “We’re all the same
people trying to shake hands with
ourselves. But war is a complicated
way of getting acquainted.”
It would take Esrick and Emmy
Award-winning PBS editor Karen
K. H. Sim two years to shape the
expansive material to a compact
87 minutes. (The DVD release, Esrick
said, will carry as many hours of bonus
material as allowed.) Wavy praises the
final product. “I think that my goosebumps
got goosebumps when I saw it first. I
had to pick my chin up off the floor.”
But the man who describes himself as “a
psychedelic relic” insists that he is simply
a supporting player in the larger story.
“It’s just not about me; it’s about hippiedom
and peace, love and understanding. I am just a
cog in the hog.”
“It’s not just about that era, although that was an amazing era, and a lot
of people have kind of written it off. But if you look at it and examine
it, you’ll see what came out of that era is not only peace and love, but
ecology, the women’s movement, fashion. The beat goes on and on and
on. So many things. It was fertile soil and we actually began to work
toward making a better world.”
Saint Misbehavin’ celebrates, but does not canonize, Wavy Gravy. His
wife Janahara provides the bedrock to his life, firmly but gently reeling
in his excesses, much like Pete Seeger’s wife Toshi has been his guiding
light. But neither does the film harp on Wavy's shortcomings.
10 | rollmagazine.com
“At the end, his wife says,’ Look, he’s human, he has faults, he makes lots
of mistakes,’” Esrick said. “Yeah, I see his humanness but I have to say,
he’s the most selfless, guileless person I’ve ever known.”
Asked whether his Day-Glo optimism and save-the-world energy ever
flags, Wavy said no. He derives hope from seeing the best in others, even
during the darkest days of social unrest during his 74 years on earth.
“It’s much more satisfying to live that kind of life than the paranoid,
don’t-trust-anybody corner that a lot of people have painted themselves
into. And I think, what kind of life is that?” His belief in “kitchen sinkchronicity”
remains undimmed; his mission is to stay on the path to find
the next “cosmic custard pie.”
Esrick’s film is a form of missionary work; it captures the Wavy’s life
force and humanitarian brio—masquerading as his exuberant
irreverence—and shares it with a new generation. Her quest has
succeeded, she said, based on the number of people who approach her
enthusiastically at screenings. After seeing what one balding, squinting,
roly-poly man in a star-spangled clown suit, greasepaint and a red nose
can accomplish, their own flagging self-esteem has been stoked.
The director points to the reaction of a 15-year-old girl who had
watched the film. In a letter to Esrick she explained, “My parents
always show me films about saints and
great people and I always feel like a loser
after watching them. But when I watched
your film, I realized that even though my
dream is to build schools in Africa, that even
if I don’t get to do that, it’s okay if I just
get up every day and help somebody. When
I left your movie I wanted to run and go find an
old lady and help her cross the street with her
groceries.”
The correspondence moved Esrick to tears, she
said, “because everyone struggles with ‘Am
I enough?’ And this little 15-year-old girl
says, I know that I am enough, as long as I’m
helping somebody each day.” With or without
a clown nose.
The Woodstock Film Festival presents Saint
Misbehavin’: The Wavy Gravy Movie by Ripple
Films on Saturday, December 11 at 4PM at
Upstate Films at Tinker Street in Woodstock. A
Q&A with Wavy Gravy and film director
Michelle Esrick follows the screening. Tickets are $15 atUpstate Films
845.679.6608 or online at www.woodstockfilmfestival.com.
More about Wavy Gravy and his charities: www.wavygravy.net | www.seva.org
www.campwinnarainbow.org