The “Jerry Area”
​We introduced Hippies to granola at Woodstock. They had never seen it before, and we brought it to them in little Dixie cups. It was unheard of. Some people had heard of Muesli, but barely. We made the granola in our free kitchen
​Tom Donahue, the father of FM radio, was putting together this sequel to Woodstock, Medicine Ball Caravan. Warner Brothers was desperate to do a sequel to Woodstock. The idea was to have a caravan of buses driving across the free world and stopping hither and yon to do concerts. Warner Brothers would fly in their stars to do that. That’s how I ran into Larry Brilliant and was hired to be one of the doctors on the trip. He jumped on the bus with his wife Girija, and he was Dr. America.
​Seva is such a beautiful cause. To be able to go to the other side of the world and enable people that are blind to not bump into sh*t anymore. You get psyched! What a gift. It was so easy to pitch artists for this particular cause, because it is so self-evident, and we have helped five million people on the other side of the world. I make calls to artists, and they find it very difficult to say no to me.
​My first task when Seva was first put together: We were given a small grant from Steve Jobs to gather in Heartlands, MI—Larry and a lot of docs and health workers and Danny Rifkin from The Grateful Dead—to do something. I went to Detroit to get on an aircraft, and who should be on that plane but the Grateful Dead and they didn’t have parachutes. I went to the drummers first and Jerry always says, ‘Might as well.”
​Bill Graham didn’t know we were putting on the show and it was a benefit. He was screaming, “Why am I the last one to find this stuff out?!”
​I was backstage in the “Jerry Area” with Steve Parrish and we were exploring some vegetation. Bill came back and handed me this note. I opened it up and it was a check for $10,000. I said, “My God, Bill, why are you doing this?” He said, “Because you did not hit on me, my friend.”