Wavy Gravy: Saint Misbehavin'

Wavy Gravy, who's reached official geezerhood, is more active and more effective in the world then he was decades ago. Back then, when still known as Hugh Romney, he stood on the stage of the original Woodstock concert and announced...."What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000!" He was at Woodstock as a member of an entertainment/activist commune known as the Hog Farm. Today, the Hog Farm still exists, collectively owning and operating the 700-acre Black Oak Ranch and hosting the annual Pig-Nic. And Wavy lives a third of the year in a Berkeley Hog Farm urban outpost, a big communal house he refers to as "hippie Hyannisport" But Mr. Gravy has expanded his activities over the past two-and-a-half decades to include co-directorship (with his wife, Jahanara) of Camp Winnarainbow, a performing arts program for children which takes over the Hog Farm for 10 weeks every summer, and the organization of all-star rock concerts to raise money for a variety of environmental, progressive, political, and charitable causes, most notably Seva, a foundation he cofounded in 1978, initially to combat preventable and curable blindness in the Third World.  On May 17, Mr. Gravy will host a concert benefitting Seva to coincide with his 79th birthday.

He may be best known to millions as a cosmic cut-up and the inspiration for a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, but it is because of his good work on behalf of the planet and its least fortunate residents that Wavy Gravy has achieved his own brand of sainthood. His friend and satirist, Paul Krassner, has called him "the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa." Wavy says, "Some people tell me I'm a saint, I tell them I'm Saint Misbehavin'."