Fairfield Woman Clowned With Wavy Gravy

CT Post ^ | Adam Gittin

[nickcarraway]

Jeanne Harrison shifted uneasily in her seat on the foot of the bed as she watched her clown instructor — none other than peace-loving, activist-icon Wavy Gravy —rummage through a drawer.

Gravy seized up a nondescript brown paper bag and, without speaking, held it out to his pupil. He flashed Harrison a rascally smile from beneath his makeup mask and pantomimed for her to take the bag.

A distinct odor wafted from the bag — she had a pretty good idea what was inside.

After a moment’s hesitation, Harrison, wide-eyed but still in character as a sad, mute clown, shook her head and gesticulated nervously. Finally, she blurted out, “I’ve never done it and I ain’t gonna start now!”

And thus a friendship was born.

Now, more than 30 years and several clowning escapades later, Harrison, a Fairfield resident, is wishing Wavy Gravy good luck as he arrives in Bridgeport to MC once again for the Gathering of the Vibes music festival. This year marks the festival’s 20th anniversary and 10th time being hosted at Seaside Park. Gravy has been a master of ceremonies for the Vibes since 2002, but it was by no means his first gig as an MC.

Back in 1969, when he was known by his birth name Hugh Romney, Woodstock Ventures approached him and his Hog Farm commune, which he had founded four years prior, to participate in a music festival they were planning. Without really knowing what he was getting into, the artist soon to be known as Wavy Gravy agreed.

A few months later, he stood before the crowd at Woodstock and announced, “Good morning, what we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000.”

Later that year at the Texas International Pop Festival, the late B. B. King dubbed Romney “Wavy Gravy” and the name stuck.

Far out, man

Gravy links the Vibes to its roots as a memorial concert, originally called “Deadhead Heaven — A Gathering of the Tribe,” for Grateful Dead guitarist and vocalist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995. Gravy met Garcia in 1965 while the Dead were doing the “Can You Pass the Acid Test?” traveling road show with the Merry Pranksters, a group originally formed around author Ken Kesey that famously toured the country in the psychedelically painted school bus “Further.”

Kesey was in Mexico fleeing a drug charge at the time, but his best friend and chief lieutenant Ken Babbs was still with the Pranksters.

Some time, gallons of LSD-laced Kool-Aid and a smattering of psychotropic drugs later, Gravy was invited by the Dead to join the band and the Pranksters to pose for the cover of Life magazine, which was doing a piece on psychedelics.

During the photo shoot, Babbs stole the bus Further to find Kesey in Mexico, prompting Gravy to bring 40 or so now-homeless hippies back to his one bedroom cabin in a Los Angeles suburb.

Upon finding out, Gravy’s landlord (understandably) went ballistic and evicted him on the spot. After an hour or two of deliberation, a neighbor came by and informed Gravy that a nearby hog farm needed caretakers.

Gravy and the gang did the only logical thing: they started the Hog Farm collective, now one of the longest running communes in America.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Clown prince

In the early 1980s, Jeanne Harrison was teaching an arts and crafts class at the Fairfield YMCA for physically and mentally challenged high school students. She was searching for something different to challenge her students’ imaginations when she stumbled upon a catalogue from the Omega Institute for Holistic Students in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

Omega advertised a host of summer adult programs, and one in particular caught Harrison’s eye: a clowning class taught by Wavy Gravy, called “Will You Wear My Nose?”

And so this 50-year-old, happily married housewife and mother of four went off to learn how to be a clown under the tutelage of the magical court jester of counterculture, Wavy Gravy.

Though Gravy is mostly well known for being a stuck-in-the-Sixties hippie and the inspiration for the eponymous Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor, he’s made waves as a humanitarian activist and politically charged comedian.

It was after the offer to (allegedly) partake in the ignition and inhalation of an illicit substance, which is now legal for certain medical usages in Connecticut, that Harrison learned about Gravy’s work with terminally ill children.

“I had the opportunity to go with him to hospitals,” she said.

“He took me with him one afternoon…and I wasn’t allowed to talk and I had my old clown face on, but I could put the red noses and cheeks on the kids, and I got to see what it was like to work with kids who needed some laughter.”

The children opened up to Gravy and Harrison’s clown personas more than they did to the doctors. He lives by idea of helping those less fortunate, particularly children, Harrison said. She recalled, “[Gravy] thought the whole world could be a utopia of peace, love, and happiness — and that’s not a bad thought.”

In 1978, Gravy co-founded the Seva Foundation, a charity health organization dedicated to restoring eyesight and ending preventable blindness.

Paul Krassner, one of Gravy’s fellow Merry Pranksters, once described him as “the illegitimate son of Harpo Marx and Mother Teresa.”

One of Gravy’s most well-known comedy routines was the parodic “Nobody for President” campaign he started in 1976. He extolled the virtues of the fictional presidential candidate Nobody with lines like, “Nobody keeps all campaign promises,” and “Nobody is in Washington right now working for me.”

For the next four days, the enigmatic MC will come from Camp Winnarainbow, a circus and performing arts camp that Gravy runs with his wife, to the Vibes festival.

He will introduce artists and administer a healthy dose of humor. In a 2014 Reddit post he said he loves the festival and seeks to “Dissolve the line between the stage and the audience.”

[shibumi]

No - it’s a painless and joyful experience.

[BlueDragon]

Whoever that is, they'll more likely slink around and try to make you "pay" later.

Although now that I've said that, it may flush the one (whoever that is) and draw a few towards me (who will likely be the kind that will slink around and try to make me pay, later).

[shibumi]

I just looked at your FReeper page.
Made me smile.
To see why, click on my screenname.

I also did not answer your question fully.

Not only have I never had a migraine, but even simple headaches which most find common are a real rarity for me - on the order on once every couple of years.

Neurologically, I’m in fine shape except for one familial trait. I have an essential tremor in my left hand.
Both of my brothers had the same thing. (I should say “have” as one is still among us.)

I also wanted to add to what Wardaddy said about experiencing the Divine. That has been my reality as well.

On two occasions of great personal crisis I have experienced the “hand of Jesus” as a physical reality accompanied by the overwhelming Spirit of peace and love that let me know - without any reservation whatever - that all was in His hands and all was working toward the ultimate good.

I do not know why some folks have had this experience while others have not, but I have a suspicion that the answer lies more within the person, rather than with The Lord.

I believe He is there for any that will open up to accept Him.

(Even savage Mongol Warlords.)

[SaraJohnson]

To a child, hippies looked like insane people to me. Still do.

[wardaddy]

Swirling dervishes in Golden Gate park with beads and flowers would to me too

Like Eloi ....

I was more this sort of long hair....we used drugs and like the music and the girls and our guns and hunting and outdoor appreciation like mountains or the sea and were generally open to rebelling against the staid conformity establishment of the day.....that was kind of the general impulse......LSD was more a lubricant or catalyst

anyone under 55 doesn't remember the collisions of early 60as thru H2Ogate.....the things happening have morphed pretty much unrecognizably ....even major players and it's all perverted now.....going back to a Leave it to Beaver ain't gonna happen baring a bloody reset and even then it would be different

Freepers tend to push conformity...just look at the blood letting over primaries here with my way or the highway....I'm not like that....I rebelled then and pretty much still am....against the post modern progressive left which in my day would have been laughed at like a Ginsburg howl......longhairs of my ilk best exemplified by this pic

or this.....what I see most striking is that even with girl hair we were much more masculine....and we fought....did we ever

[SaraJohnson]

Interesting.

I did not see them in action in the 60’s, although as an adult, I read about them. I remember the late 70’s a little bit. I was small but saw them and read about the 70’s as an adult. I know my Navy dad was not crazy about them and what they were doing.

In the mid to late 80’s read an article that exposed the fact that Black racists were murdering whites at quite a clip. They killed more whites that all the Americans killing in the Viet Nam war between the 60’s and late 80’s. Some used to kill their own soldiers in Viet Nam.

I think we are back there again now.

[wardaddy]

David Horowitz in Radical Son wrote a lot about the Bay Area panthers killing folks including a white woman who helped them

Ignorant Cornel West scum with guns

Betty Van Patter was her name....bless her heart but it always begged an obvious question

[wardaddy]

My VMI grad fighter pilot dad was not amused either

But he got better...and me too

Our hard time was 15-18 ....then on same plane by my mid 20s

I would literally give a few non consequential fingers for just one day with him now to ask him what to do and of course seek his approval

That is a properly raised boys strongest motivator there is bare none

DC you have been gone so long my auto text on my iPhone forgot you

[SaraJohnson]

DC you have been gone so long my auto text on my iPhone forgot you...

---

Gee, I thought I was the only one with that equipment problem! : )

[SaraJohnson]

Yes, I read Radical Son.

Black racism is as ignorant dangerous and ugly as violent white racism was in the 20’s and 30’s. If white racists murdered at the same rate as black racists, there would be no blacks in America today.

[dixiechick2000]

Ha! Good to get your ping, again! ;-)

You’re right that SW OR/NorCal are full of hippies. However, Portland has their fair share, too, and now weed is legal. Things are more interesting than ever around here.