BY THE TIME I GOT TO BETHEL WOODS

This past Saturday evening I saw Bob Dylan perform at Bethel Woods (just over the rise from the original WOODSTOCK SITE). In many ways finding myself on that hillside multiple times in my life defines who I am. Here's the trip:

August 1969- I read in the local paper that a group of promoters called Woodstock Ventures is about to put on the concert to beat all concerts in the Town of Wallkill. The list of bands is a veritable who's who of the musical times. When Wallkill doesn't pan out the promoters move The Aquarian Exposition to Bethel in Sullivan County. I'm 16 years old. My 14 year old brother Bird and I save up our $18 for a three day ticket. There's no way we are going to miss this.
The old man pulls the 1967 Pontiac station wagon over the side of the road and dumps Bird and I in a sea of Hippies making their way to Max Yasgur's Dairy farm. We walk and hitch rides on car hoods piled with kids a few years older than us. We each carried a sleeping bag and 5 dollars. When it gets dark I send Bird for hotdogs. He doesn't return for 2 hours. I've lost my brother amongst 400,000 people. It rains. Bird finally returns, stepping on me by mistake. When the rain gets too much we seek shelter. Birds puffs on his first joint in an old hay loft filled with young heads. The next morning we hitchhike back to Wolf Lake and see that it's history. We have to return. I pick up my girlfriend and we go back Sunday. It rains again. Bird and I walk to Pleasure lake as Jimi takes the stage.

August 1989- The bass player of my band Purple Geezus, Rob Kennedy, calls my Lower East Side apt and tells me that there's a spontaneous gathering haappening at the Woodstock site. I'm on. We pile his amp., bass and a case of beer into my 1970 Cadillac and head north.
When we arrive, after driving through a rainstorm, the clouds part to a gleaming full moon. There's campers and pickups parked all over the hill. A makeshift plywood stage is set up in the natural grassy bowl and local bands are "playing Woodstock" It fucking rocks!
RK and I make our way down the hill and we notice it's getting darker. We look up into the sky to see a full lunar eclipse. We leave the bass and schlep the beer down to the stage. When the moon comes out again we vow to meet at the 40th.

August 1999- In the middle of July I spend the morning trimming tree branches with my then wife Melanie. She holds the ladder as I climb up a a brand new, fully extended, 32 foot extention ladder, with a running chainsaw. My plan is to cut a large Ash branch that's threatening the front of our house.
When i cut the heavily leaved right side of the branch, the side that the ladder is perched on springs up, leaving the ladder to stand, momentarily, defying gravity.
A week later i find myself, in a full molded plastic cast, leaning on a cane, with two broken vertabre.......,., at Woodstock again. Because of my full white beard and cane I get a lot of thumbs up and questions about 1969. I feel like a crippled up geezer. This time I have press credentials from Paper magazine and when I write my column I can't help but be nostalgic for '69 and at the same time my elder hipster status. Woodstock is no longer hip.

August 2004- I drive up to Yasgurs farm just for old time's sake. A couple of Green Party members bought the old farm house and provide an annual alternative to the now Gerry owned, corporate flavored, original field. In the past these gatherings have had a bit of the old chaos so lacking at the future Bethel Woods. But this year they are selling $30 dollar tickets for Country Joe and some other dinosaur bands. Fuck that!
I turn the car around and spy a sign for Hector's Bar- BANDS. FREE! There's stage, a sound system, a whole bunch of hardcore homeless looking heads and their teenage kids and assorted pets. I inquire with the sound man about performing policy? He says to talk to Sally Sunshine. On my way to find Ms. Sunshine a half naked older woman , swigging from a bottle and gyrating to a car radio, on said car's roof, looks at me with menace. When I smile back she screams-"WHAT? WANT IT LOUDER? I CAN MAKE IT LOUDER!" And she does. And goes back to gyrating and swigging. Later that day I take the stage with a drummer and a bass player, who I'm meeting for the first time, strap on my fender, light a joint and blast through three of my songs. I'm playing Woodstock.

July 2007- Slick, Jimmy, Horst, Mary Lou, The Profit, Madonna, Bruce and myself take two cars to Bethel Woods to see Bob Dylan play. This is the first time I've been to the new Gerry venue and also the first time I've seen Dylan. Seems like a perfect match. I'm a little over a month shy of my 55th birthday, balding, starting a pot belly, half crippled up with a neck injury. Everyone else in our group is young and goodlooking. Unlike 1999 I no long feel like a geezer. Just look at my peeps. I'm the crazy, heavily tattooed old head with the pretty youth. Groovy.
Dylan rocked. The beer and wine were cold. I torched one. Then I looked around me and the field was covered with what Horst calls NDs- Non Descripts. It was true. It could've been a high school graduation in Iowa. Everyone looked, young and old, kinda boring and well fed. But that's just my snobbery. Our blanket was cool.
As the sun set we all got a buzz on. I had infiltated security with a half pint of vodka hidden in a bottle of Holy Water. But when I pulled it out Slick looked at me sternly. Jimmy was on the 'shrooms and Madonna and Mary Lou had been downing the white wine pretty good. The rest of us where going with the plastic Budweissers. Without naming names lets just say that some of us like our booze more than others. So when Slick put the kybash on the vodka I played along....for the moment.
For once the rain held off. But as we headed for the car the skies opened up and everyone headed for cover. I had by now retrieved my 1/4 pint of vodka and offered it to the huddled group under the overhang. Slick's disapproval of passing the bottle now escalated. And before I knew it the holy water bottle splashed onto the pavement, knocked from my feeble grasp by of all people- SLICK. I was taken aback- to say the least. Everyone looked at their shoes. I felt like my father had just reamed me out over not cleaning up my room or losing Bird back at The Aquarian Exposition. Hey who's the adult here?