Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elliot Tiber (April 15, 1935–August 3, 2016) was a gay rights pioneer who wrote and produced numerous award-winning plays and musical comedies. As a professor of comedy writing and performance, he taught at the New School and Hunter College in Manhattan. His first novel, Rue Haute, was a bestseller in Europe, and was published in the United States as High Street. The novel was made into a 1976 French-language feature film adapted and directed by coauthor and partner André Ernotte. As a humorist, Mr. Tiber appeared on CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, BBC, and CNBC, as well as on television shows in Franch, England, Tokyo, Moscow, Berlin, Belgium, and elsewhere throughout the world.

Mr. Tiber's memoir Taking Woodstock, which he wrote with Tom Monte, was first published in 2007 and was soon after turned into a feature film by director Ang Lee. He is also the author of another memoir that explored his life before Woodstock called Palm Trees on the Hudson: A True Story of the Mob, Judy Garland, and Interior Decorating. In addition to his work as a writer, Tiber was a highly sought-after lecturer who appeared in many international venues. In his final years, Mr. Tiber lived in the Miami Beach section of Florida, where he continued his work as a writer; a painter; and a humorist.

A national best-selling writer, counselor, and teacher of natural healing methods,Tom Monte is a leading voice in the natural health movement. He has written and co-authored more than thirty books and many hundreds of articles on virtually every area of health. Among his bestsellers are Recalled by Life, Living Well Naturally, and NaturalProzac. Tom has lectured and conducted transformational programs throughout the United States and around the world. His eight-month Healer’s Program, based in New York City and Orval, Belgium, trains practitioners in the useof highly effective natural methods for healing body, mind, and spirit. The Healer’s Program is also an experience in personal transformation. Tom also conducts workshops that focus on healing the heart and personal relationships.He lives with his wife, Toby, in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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Taking Woodstock

Square One Publishers

Contents

Acknowledgments...........................................................vii1. Lost in White Lake.....................................................12. The Teichberg Curse....................................................113. My "Other" Life........................................................274. Digging a Deeper Grave While Laughing Hysterically.....................455. Stonewall and the Seeds of Liberation..................................636. The Golden Goose Lands at the El Monaco................................837. The World Is Made Anew.................................................998. The First Wave.........................................................1139. White Lake Rebels......................................................12510. Everyone Wants a Piece of the Pie.....................................14711. The Day Is Saved......................................................17112. Taking Woodstock......................................................197Epilogue..................................................................209

Chapter One

"Elli!"

There it was again. My momma, like a woman caught in a burning building, was screaming my name at the top of her lungs. She screamed so loud that I could hear her voice over the roar of the mower that I reluctantly pushed around the lawn. Her voice was coming from the office of the motel that we owned in White Lake, New York, a tiny lakeside village in the Catskill Mountains. I turned and looked at the office to see if there were any flames or billowing smoke. Nothing, of course. The crisis was probably no more life-threatening than a leaky faucet.

"Eliyahu!!!" Now she used my full name to tell me how serious things were. "Get over here. Your suffering momma needs you." Her voice was as penetrating as a knife.

I turned off the rusty old mower and walked to the office. My mother was standing behind our counter facing a short man in red shirt, mustard yellow Bermuda shorts, knee socks, and a little hat pushed down on his bald head. He was so angry that the rage radiated from his back.

"What's the problem, Ma?"

"This gentleman with his fancy Cadillac, he wants a refund," she said, her right hand hatcheting the air and then coming to rest on her chest, as if in expectation of an impending heart attack. "I told him, I said, 'No refunds.' I didn't walk here from Minsk in Russia in twenty-foot snow drifts with the cold potatoes in mine pocket and the Czar's soldiers running after me just so I should give a refund on your room, Mr. Fancy Gentleman who complains about mine sheets."

"The sheets are stained," he said, trying to control his rage. "And I found ... pubic hairs on the bed, for Chrissake. The telephone doesn't work and there's no air conditioner-just a plastic box in the window."

It was all true, of course. For years, we didn't have a washing machine so my father, who was the motel's handyman and jack-of-all-trades, took the sheets down into the basement, piled them high, poured on some detergent, and hosed them down. Sometimes he didn't bother with the detergent. Then we hung them out to dry in the swampy lot behind the motel, where hundreds of pine trees were located, to give them that "pine fresh" scent.

When we finally did get a washing machine, Momma often refused to add detergent to the water as a way of saving money. Even now, she usually skipped the job of washing sheets altogether, and instead brushed off the hairs and ironed the sheets while they were still on the bed.

As for the phone and air conditioner, both were cosmetic. One day, a disgruntled employee from the telephone company showed up with a hundred phones and an old switchboard-probably from the 1940s-which he promised to install for us, illegally, for $500. My mother, ever the sharpie when it came to a bargain, made him a counteroffer.

"Darling phone man, you think I walked here from Minsk in 1914 at midnight with the raw potatoes in mine pockets so you could cheat me on phones? All we can pay is twelve dollars cash, plus a dozen beers and a big mother's portion of hot cholent," which was my mother's beef and potato stew. Then she sealed the deal by saying, "For all of that, we take it all!"

The guy shrugged his shoulders, dumped the mess of phones, lines, and switchboard in the office, took the money, and went for a drink. We were helpless without his expertise, of course, which meant that all we got for our twelve bucks was the illusion of having telephones. I had Pop put the phones in the rooms, which he did by installing them with staples and adhesive tape. Then we got some air conditioner covers and fitted them into the windows. Once that was done, I placed signs in the rooms and around the motel that said, "Pardon our appearance as we install telephones and air conditioning for your comfort."

These were some of the reasons we had our customers pay cash up front before they actually saw their rooms, and why I put a rather conspicuous sign on the office counter that said, "Cash only. No refunds." Whenever someone showed up and wanted to pay with a credit card, my mother sprang into action.

"Gentleman, listen on me. I am an old Jewish momma trying to buy some warm milk for her babies," she began. "I'll hold onto this plastic card until you get me cash from your wife."

I couldn't be everywhere at once, which meant that my mother was often left one-on-one with potential paying customers-a nightmare from a business perspective, as well as a personal one, since I had to deal with the mess after she was done. Which brings me back to the man standing before me, who looked like he wanted to strangle both of us.

"There's no towel in the room, either," the man said.

"Oy, now with the towels. You want a towel," my mother said, "you pay extra. You want soap, you pay a dollar more. You think we're giving such things away? What, do I look like a Misses Rockafeller to you?"

"What kind of sham operation is this?" he asked, shaking his head. "I want my money back!"

I wanted to tell him that his money was already gone-that the minute he handed over his cash to my mother it slipped into some kind of cosmic gap in the space-time continuum, a black hole, the opening to which could be found in my mother's brassiere. Where it went from there was anyone's guess, but I tried not to think about such things. Still, no matter how many customers we had during any given month-even during the good months, which were painfully few-we never had the money to pay the mortgage and electric bill. The mysterious loss of money was all part of what I liked to call the Teichberg Curse, a malevolent scourge placed upon our family that ensured our ongoing financial ruin. This was one of the reasons I changed my name from Eliyahu Teichberg to Elliot Tiber, a pathetic and altogether ineffective attempt to distance myself from the family karma. Welcome to motel hell, I wanted to tell this man and anyone else who might be listening. But I spared him all the gory details and told him how things worked at our miserable hotel.

"The sign says, 'No refunds,'" I said flatly. "You pay your money and you get the room as is. That's the agreement here."

He slammed his hand down on the counter and stormed out of the office.

"Well, Mom, another satisfied customer," I said without looking...