Wavy Gravy

The Hog Farm collective was established through a chain of events beginning with Ken Babbs hijacking the Merry Pranksters' bus, Furthur, to Mexico, which stranded the Merry Pranksters in Los Angeles. First Romney assembled a collective in North Hollywood, visited by musicians such as Ravi Shankar and Tiny Tim (whom he managed).

After moving to Sunland, a suburb north of Los Angeles, Romney was evicted from his one-bedroom cabin when the landlord found out that a large group of assorted pranksters and musicians were staying there; two hours later, a neighbor informed Romney that a nearby hog farm needed caretakers after the farmer had a stroke, and Romney accepted an offer to work at the farm in exchange for rent.[8][15] Local people, musicians, artists, and folks from other communes began staying at the mountain-top farm. In his book Something Good for a Change, Gravy described this early period as a "bizarre communal experiment" where the "people began to outnumber the pigs".[16]

Throughout this time, both Romney and his wife, Bonnie Beecher, had jobs in Los Angeles—he worked for Columbia Pictures teaching improvisation skills to actors, and Bonnie was a successful television actress, appearing in episodes of The Twilight Zone, Gunsmoke, Star Trek, and The Fugitive.

By 1966, the Hog Farm had coalesced into an entertainment organization providing light shows at the Shrine Exposition Hall in Los Angeles for music artists like the Grateful Dead, Cream, and Jimi Hendrix. Beginning in 1967, the collective began traveling across the country in converted school buses purchased with money earned as extras in Otto Preminger's feature film Skidoo (1968).[8]

The Hog Farm relocated to Black Oak Ranch in Northern California in the early 1990s.[17][18]

At the first Woodstock Festival, Romney and the Hog Farm collective accepted festival executive Stan Goldstein's offer to help with preparations.[19]

Romney called his group the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order, e.g., "Please don't do that, please do this instead". When asked by the press—who were the first to inform him that he and the rest of the Hog Farm were handling security—what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at the event, his response was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles"[19] (both being traditional clown props). In Gravy's words: "They all wrote it down and I thought, 'the power of manipulating the media', ah ha!"[20]

Romney made announcements from the concert stage throughout the festival. He later wrote in his memoir that "the reason that I got to do all those stage announcements was because of my relationship with Chip Monk [sic]. Chip built the stage at Woodstock."[21]

At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum's psychedelic tribute to the 1960s "I Want To Take You Higher",[22] Romney's sleeping bag and tie-dyed false teeth were displayed. He and Paul Krassner appeared there on the last day of the exhibit on February 28, 1998.

Romney, as Wavy Gravy after the first Woodstock, has been the Master of Ceremonies of, and the only person to appear on the bill of all three Woodstock Festivals. On the morning of the 20th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival, he and author Ken Kesey were interviewed on Good Morning America, live from the Bethel concert site, where he discussed his experience as the MC of the event.

At the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival, two weeks after Woodstock, Romney was lying onstage, exhausted after spending hours trying to get festival-goers to put their clothes back on, when it was announced that B.B. King was going to play.[3] Romney began to get up, and felt a hand on his shoulder; it was B.B. King, who asked, "Are you Wavy Gravy?" to which Romney replied "Yes." "It's OK; I can work around you."[23] B.B. King and Johnny Winter then proceeded to jam for hours. Romney said he considered this a mystical event, and assumed Wavy Gravy as his legal name.[24] Romney has said, regarding the name, that "It's worked pretty well through my life... except with telephone operators–I have to say 'Gravy, first initial W.'"

After frequent arrests at demonstrations, Wavy Gravy decided that his arrest would be less likely if he dressed as a clown. Romney therefore co-founded the Phurst Church of Phun, a secret society of comics and clowns dedicated to ending the Vietnam War through the use of political theater. Romney also performs more generally as a clown, including entertaining children, work that includes such traditional clown activities as joke-telling and magic tricks. As Wavy Gravy, he has served as an official clown of the Grateful Dead.[25]

Wavy Gravy has also been recognized for his work as a collage artist, with work presented at a solo exhibition in April 1999 at the Firehouse Gallery in New York under gallery owner Eric Gibbons.[26] He had an exhibition, Wavy Gravy Retrospective (1996) at the Firehouse Gallery of Bordentown, New Jersey.

He began exploring collage in the early '60s, and his first works were created in the period where he lived above the Gaslight in Greenwich Village; he has stated that he was inspired by a Max Ernst collage he saw at the Bitter End, when he opened for Peter, Paul and Mary. His collage work includes larger pieces done for celebrities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Wavy Gravy's first appearance at an event in the Neo-Pagan community was at the WinterStar Symposium in 1998 with Paul Krassner.[27] He appeared there again in 2000 with Phyllis Curott, where he joined Rev. Ivan Stang in a joint ritual of the Church of the SubGenius and his Church of the Cosmic Giggle.

Wavy Gravy co-founded the Seva Foundation in 1978, along with spiritual leader Ram Dass and public health expert Dr. Larry Brilliant.[28][29][30] Based in Berkeley, California, Seva Foundation is an international health organization working to build sustainable sight restoration programs in many of the globe's most under-served communities.[28][31] Gravy is famous for throwing all-star benefit concerts regularly featuring members of the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, David Crosby, Graham Nash, Ani DiFranco, Ben Harper, Elvis Costello, and many other musicians.[28]

Gravy co-founded with his wife, of the circus and performing arts camp Camp Winnarainbow, now located in Laytonville, California near the Hog Farm.[32][31] Until 2003, Ben & Jerry's produced an ice cream named "Wavy Gravy" (caramel-cashew-Brazil nut base with a chocolate hazelnut fudge swirl and roasted almonds) which helped drive a scholarship fund for underprivileged kids to attend Camp Winnarainbow.[33]

In September 1981 there was an anti-nuclear protest, trespass/occupation and civil disobedience action at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, organized by Abalone Alliance. Hundreds of protesters were arrested. Arrested men and women were held separately, and the men were detained at the gymnasium at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo, California, which some nicknamed the "Hotel Diablo". Gravy organized and acted as MC for a variety show there that he called the "Tornado of Talent" which featured, among other performers (and after the guards had allowed an acoustic guitar to be brought in), Jackson Browne. Wavy arrived at the holding facility dressed in a pair of bright green coveralls. After settling into his "bunk" (a thin mattress on the gym floor) he removed the coveralls to reveal a Santa Claus suit.

Wavy Gravy ran a "Nobody for President" campaign that held a rally across from the White House on November 4, 1980, which included Yippies and a few anarchists to promote the option of "none of the above" choice on the ballot—as in, "Nobody's Perfect", "Nobody Keeps All Promises", "Nobody Should Have That Much Power", and "Who's in Washington right now working to make the world a safer place? Nobody!".[34][35] After criticizing Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and John B. Anderson, the committee offered the "perfect" candidate: Nobody. "Nobody makes apple pie better than Mom. And Nobody will love you when you're down and out," Gravy told a crowd of 50 onlookers at the rally.[36][37] The allusion had been used previously, in the 1932 short film Betty Boop for President.

Gravy established the store Nobody's Business across the road from the Hog Farm.[38] reminiscent of his "Nobody for President" campaign.