I got a cold, creepy chill the other day when I read that the organizers of Woodstock were thinking about pulling the once-venerable hippie love-fest out of mothballs again to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original show.
You see, as much as I love Demetri Martin (if you haven't seen his Comedy Central show, something is wrong with you), and as much as I’m looking forward to his leading-man debut in Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock," resurrecting Woodstock for a fourth time is the absolute worst idea ... ever.
Back in 1999, the last time organizer Michael Lang had the bright idea to give the once-in-a-lifetime event a makeover, I had the misfortune of being on site at a decommissioned airbase in Rome, New York, where, frankly, I'm lucky I didn't die.
Imagine the worst show you've ever been to. Now, multiply it by 10,000, crank up the temperature to 110 degrees, picture yourself driving to a remote town for three days and then having to dump out all your water, beer, food and other party supplies before entering the squalid campground and spending $4 for each small bottle of water, add in the creepy factor of celebrating the nadir of the peaceful hippie movement in a place that was a government superfund site and Air Force base, and then throw the whole thing on the bonfire, because that's what happened last time.
Women got assaulted and groped in plain view, thousands of fans bum-rushed the show by tearing down huge sections of the laughable 12-foot-high, peace-sign-emblazoned "security" fences. I watched in horror as boozed-up goons started bonfires while the Red Hot Chili Peppers played a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire," then torched food-vendor tents and tried to shake down a sound tower.
Maybe it was the folly of youth or just plain stupidity, but while my colleagues ran for cover, I grabbed my walkie talkie, rudimentary cell phone, video camera and old-school 35mm camera and ran toward the fires. For eight horrifying nighttime hours, I interviewed shirtless morons as they danced in drum circles around the semi trucks they'd just torched, watched as the riot police closed in and tear-gassed them, took photos of looting and destroyed gear and tried not to get clubbed by the ominous line of storm-trooper cops coming at me with shields and batons drawn. Each time I asked one of these kids why they were wreaking such havoc, they either whooped with joy or gave an "everyone's doing it, man!" excuse.
Then, as the sun came up, I saw one of the most surreal things I've ever witnessed. With the smoke from dozens of fires still burning and the heat beginning to radiate once again off the unforgiving concrete tarmac/ concert venue, now littered with more than a mile of clothing, trashed vendor carts and vandalized stages, I found the most bizarre oasis.
There, in the middle of the subduing chaos, was a group of about a dozen hippie kids sitting in a big circle around a 30-foot-wide peace sign made out of discarded pizza boxes. They were giving each other back rubs, teaching one another prayers, burning incense and painting flowers on their cheeks. After a brutal weekend of thuggish sets from Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Buckcherry, Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and Megadeth, it was like some weird time warp back to the original concert.
And even though I left Rome trying to keep that fleeting moment of peace in my head, the anger and destruction I witnessed kept creeping back.
As a kid and teenager, I watched the original "Woodstock" movie dozens of times and listened to the album thousands more. But after witnessing the greed and lack of respect the promoters displayed for their patrons at Woodstock '99, I can't imagine why anyone would want to go back to the garden again.