| BETHEL 2000 | BETHEL 2001 | CLAP YER HANDS | JESSE MEETS THE ANSWER MAN | ON STAGE THIS TIME | YASGUR'S BARN |
Jesse Okolicko Slokum Goes to Yasgur's Farm
THE WOODSTOCK 69 FESTIVAL
| BETHEL 2000 | BETHEL 2001 | CLAP YER HANDS | JESSE MEETS THE ANSWER MAN | ON STAGE THIS TIME | YASGUR'S BARN |
Please note: The above titles in quotes were to be found on Radio Woodstock's Woodstock Vibe E-zine, on-line. I've changed a few words, and when italics appear within parentheses in the following text, the italized sentences are my post publication interjections. Jesse By
the time I got to Woodstock, I
was 24, had folk-guitared my way around the USA for about two whole years, after
withdrawing from Seton Hall U in NJ. I had been drafted, inspected, and re-jected
for service as "4f", lived in the "Lower East Side" of Manhattan for a few
winters, and camped in the mountains of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Santa
Cruz, California. I'd actually been to the Village of Woodstock a few times,
attending a small festival in 67, called the Woodstock Soundout festival.
Sometimes, I held casual employment, sometimes I was a houseguest here and there.
I'd attended the San Jose Folk Rock fest, Memorial Day weekend in 1968. Even had
paid a visit to the "Hog Farm" in NM, in the fall of 68, so I was aware of what
the Hog Farmers were doing at Yasgur's place.I had
no idea the event would be that huge...(Who did?)I had no tickets,
but something just "told" me to hitch from Colorado in late July, based on
grapevine. Glad I did! In the two years of travel, I'd been in several
near-disaster situations, so when the magnitude of the NEED was presented
so well from the stage the first day, I was more than willing to help, any way I
could...Helped cut carrots (hehehe, eh, wuzzup, duck?) - huge
organic ones - in the free kitchen until I had blisters on both hands. Did
I see much of the music over in the field after the first night? No. I had lost
touch with most of my car-load I'd arrived with by then, so the
free-stage/"bummer"-tent area was much more comfortable for me. (I love what
WAVY
GRAVY said from the
stage at one point - as recorded in the movie - "Word's going around about "bum"
trips...I got good news for you! There are no "bum" trips,only NOW, YOU CAN "play" with WAVY GRAVY in THE CyberEther!!! I did
meet a few people I knew from previous times. One, a woman named Joanie
(who did live in Bloomington at the time - she no longer does...I have lived
in Indiana's City of Blooms most of these last 3O years), ended up on the
cover of Newsweek Magazine, dancing with none other than FANTUZZI, (who,
by the way of Synchronicity Strokes, showed up here in the Spring of 69,
about a week after I had arrived from Tucson, AZ). Fantuzzi is the young
fellow at the end of the Richie Havens
FREEDOM! Medley sequence in the film. The camera cuts to a close-up of Fantuzzi
right after Havens gets on the elevator at the back of the stage. Louie - his
first name, as he was known that spring in Bloomington - sees the camera, leaps
up, crosses his arms in a double peace gesture with his hands over his head as he
"MUGS" for the "TV audience"...(giggle-guffaw, chortle :-) He and I didn't see
each other at the festival, yet when the film was put together, we were in the
same Havens song! I was about 40-50 yards from the stage during the FREEDOM! song.
I had just stood up to see what faces as far as ya could see looked like...It
hadn't rained yet, so the mood was WAY UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then, I heard Havens
sing, As soon as I find out who handled that telephoto camera, I will give all credit due for some fine ZOOM work! - Jesse Thank you Warner Brothers, for distributing the film. The day the
movie opened in town, I went. Sat near the front. When that scene came
along, people around me made me stand up, and take a bow...thunderous
applause...within a year, I was getting introduced as "the star of Woodstock" by
Asher ben Rubi, the lead singer of a local bar band called Pure Funk. Things did
get kinda crazy for a while after that. When people make the comment, "So you had
your fifteen minutes of fame?" I say it was more like fifteen months...In
the years that followed, whenever I did see the movie it was in a group
situation, and people would gas on me being right there with them. I never got to
see the whole song in the movie, until I bought the new l994, 25th
anniversary "director's cut" in 1998. Imagine, gentle reader, my
surprise...Another very weird thing happened when OMEGA MAN, the Ray
Bradbury
dis-topic novel set in the plausibly near future, was made into a movie.
(funny how cities have come to look like they do in the story, and punkish,
new-wavicles dress that way - NOW...) Charleton Heston in the lead role...
At the beginning of the story, the Heston character walks into a post-disaster,
urban location - the town is empty - or, so it seems...He sees a movie theatre
with the Woodstock festival movie featured on the marquee...walks in. Empty, even
though the lights are still on...sees the lights on up in the projection booth,
walks up...Nobody's showing the movie! Ole "Ben Hur" kicks on a projector, and the
film cuts to a segment of the scene with the OH FREEDOM! song - where the camera
scanning the audience has "panned" back, but it's identifiable as the end of that
Clap your Hands sequence I've described. Then, back to Heston in the empty
theatre. Extremely weird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| Elvis is Coming...Back for Christmas | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
Please remove your shoes in the meditation room. You may want to bring a cushion and sit on the carpet. Peanut butter and pickle sandwiches available in the café. |
You'll find Thief in the night Wedding Ball, too! |
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|
I told
ya that I didn't get to hear the whole FREEDOM! medley performance of
Havens' until last July. That's when I finally discovered what he sings, in the
film, when the camera cuts back to the band on stage. He goes, "I got a
telephone in my bosom, I can call him up from my heart whenever I need him!"
The band chimes in on brother, sister, mother, father!" I truly never
recall hearing him sing that the moment it happened. It came as a complete
surprise as I watched the 1994 version of the film. All of a sudden, I was
dumbfounded!Now
I understand (sorta kinda...) why people were matching that "Peace
Guy" that Nobody Special with me just plain ole walking down the street! It'd be
only natural to link what Richie sang at that point with the fellow in the zoom-up
segment, I myself, finally got to make the connection. But Richie writes in the
liner notes for his "Resume" cd, that he was reviving a fragment of an old hymn.
The antecedent of "Him" in the fragment would be the Most Ancient of Days...I was
immediately terrified, then extremely humbled - like never before. (I called a
buddy in Atlanta - whom I call DOO-WOP John - for his, at times, sage
counsel. He listened, and said, "You didn't have to know, you were WINGING it,
it's a gift...I felt a whole lot better then - some of the mystery to me about how
people could put that short segment together with someone they knew not at all had been
solved...) Let me conclude with this note: Thanks for the chance to dance
for y'all. I'd love to meet the artistic people who put the rendering of the
FREEDOM! song together. |
|
FLASH! Latest news!! For some Woodstock Film Veterans, the storied saga of
serendipitous synchronicty continues to
unfold...soon there will be a link right here to a page about this year's re-union
at Yasgur's Barn...The guy sitting behind me with sunglasses on in the zoom-up
part of OUR audience segment in the FREEDOM Medley signed my guest book last
month! I'll give you news of that and a link to fantastic page of A to Z links
he's compiled. Some friends in Texas, that I met by being in the movie, and having this site, are hoping to compose a book about another Festival that happened in Lewisville, Texas, Labor Day weekend in 1969, with several of the same bands, including Janis Joplin and Santana, appearing...if you were there (or, just for a truly "long shot", your parents say they met there), my friends would like to hear from you, what the heck, you could get into a book! |
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This Home Page version: May 26, 1999.
Updated April 10, 2000
