cannabisnews.com: Psych. Services at Woodstock '99 Has Hands Full! Psych. Services at Woodstock '99 Has Hands Full! Posted by FoM on July 22, 1999 at 06:56:01 PT By Joyce Wadler Source: New York Times NEW YORK -- It is easier than you might think to pick out Dr. Paul Michael Ramirez, the director of psychiatric services for the Woodstock festival, among his professorial colleagues at Long Island University in Brooklyn. For one thing, he's got a long ponytail, the male sign of at least a wannabe independent spirit. For another, he is of the proper age, which is to say middle, to possess the wistfulness required for a successful professional to donate his services for what is, after all, a commercial undertaking. Ramirez, 48, also headed the psychiatry team for the last Woodstock anniversary event, five years ago. A story from the front, please, Dr. Ramirez. "I remember a consultation with a young man in his early 20s, who said he had taken LSD," Ramirez begins, somewhat academically, in his offices at LIU's Brooklyn campus. "He couldn't tell me his name. He couldn't tell me what city or what state he was from. Finally I said, 'Can you tell me what planet you are on?' He couldn't, so I put him under 24-hour observation. Later he was fine." That's a very Woodstock question, about the planet. "I figured if he couldn't answer that question he was in really bad shape." One pill makes you larger and one pill makes you small, folks used to sing in the time of the first Woodstock, in '69, and if that should happen at the three-day, 30th anniversary music festival this weekend and you should, as it was said in those ancient times, freak, not to worry: Besides the sports complex, the shopping center and the $150 admission price, Woodstock '99 will have psychiatric services, headed by Ramirez and assisted by a staff of 50. (Like all the medical services, it will be free.) Does he think people are going to be doing that many drugs? "Oh, yeah," Ramirez says cheerfully. "We'll have the population of a fair-sized city. I just got word that Metallica is playing Saturday. People who go to hear Metallica tend to do more drugs than people who go to see Peter, Paul and Mary." Why is the professor, who specializes in neuropsychology, has a private practice near his home in the Riverdale section of the Bronx and at his weekend place in Woodstock, and has a curriculum vitae that could choke a horse, working for free? "A lot of people are going to be in need and be hurting." Uh-huh, as the therapists say. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, people used to sing of the first time around, but Ramirez was not there. "I was 18 and had just gotten my first job, as a clerk at American Express," Ramirez says. "The week before Woodstock my boss called us all in and said, 'If you're not here Friday, don't bother coming in Monday.' There were about 15 of us. I was the only one who showed up for work Friday and nobody was fired." Where did such a work ethic come from in the age of tune in, turn on, drop out? One doesn't wish to make too much of childhood with a neuropsychologist who consults with drug companies, so, most briefly, the making of Ramirez: Both parents immigrated from Puerto Rico. Ramirez's mother was a seamstress in a sweatshop, his father a tool and die maker. Ramirez lived in Manhattan until he was 10 and his parents bought a house in Queens. "Neither of my parents was well educated, but they really pushed education," Ramirez says. It should also be noted that while the young Paul Ramirez did not make it to the Woodstock Festival, he did, at 16 and 17, travel often and surreptitiously to the town of Woodstock, the hippie Hamptons of the '60s. "I'd go up there with my friend Enzo Guido, who I'd known since fifth grade," Ramirez says. "We were both on the debating team and we'd both give our parents the same story: We had an out-of-town trip for the team. Then we'd go up on the bus and hang out. He played guitar. Bass." Time tripping: Is there anything heavier, if you're true to the rock 'n' roll, than looking in the mirror and seeing a guy who's losing his hair? "He just told me the other day he's going to be a grandfather. In February. Imagine." Ramirez -- to time trip back -- put himself through Lehman College by teaching karate and, having no notion of what he wanted to do in life, majored in Renaissance and Reformation history. This prepared him for three years of construction work. Many degrees later (he has three masters and a Ph.D. in psychology) he found himself specializing in psychopharmacology, which appealed to him as a combination of science and psychology. His personal excursions in such matters, he says, were limited. He smoked some marijuana in college, but never took LSD. Some words of wisdom for the Woodstock partyers who may be of a more pharmacological bent, please. "As I said on MTV, keep in mind that the person who made that designer drug you're taking might have failed chemistry." Then, apropos of nothing, as the interview is ending and Ramirez is heading out to his weekend place: "You know what I discovered on a trip to Cancun last year? There are 120 different kinds of tequila." Uh-huh. Cannabis News Woodstock Related Articles:Woodstock Puts Locals' Fears to Rest - 7/20/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2126.shtmlPubdate: July 22, 1999Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #2 posted by FoM on July 22, 1999 at 10:05:34 PT: Woodstock '99 Fest the Same in Name Only! http://www.seattletimes.com/by Letta TaylerNewsday Three decades ago, it was peace, love, groovy music and bad acid on a pastoral farm. This summer, it'll be ATM centers, a cyberclub, head-banging rap-rock and all-night raves at a former military base. The name is about the only thing that has carried over from the original Woodstock to Woodstock '99, the three-day music fest being held tomorrow through Sunday at the former Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, N.Y. But organizers hope the event will be as important to the youth of today as the first Woodstock was to some of their parents. "Every generation deserves its own Woodstock," said Metropolitan Entertainment President John Scher, a promoter of the event, which features about 50 acts, including the Dave Matthews Band, Bush, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Alanis Morissette, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Metallica, Elvis Costello, DMX and Ice Cube. This is the second post-Woodstock Woodstock organized by Scher and Michael Lang, one of the original festival's founders. The pair's Woodstock II, held five years ago in upstate Saugerties, N.Y., on the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock, drew 350,000 people - almost as many as the 400,000 who converged on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, N.Y., in 1969. Though advance ticket sales have been respectable for this year's shindig, with promoters saying they've sold about 120,000 tickets so far (they hope for a turnout of a quarter-million), some observers are weary of the branding of an event that accidentally turned into one of America's most important counterculture milestones. Adding to the potential overkill was last year's A Day in the Garden, held with several original Woodstock performers at the event's original site in Bethel. "Much of the original Woodstock's appeal lay in the illusion it offered of a retreat to simpler values and simpler times, a return to the land and the sturdy agrarian virtues embodied in Max Yasgur and his peaceful cows," said Maurice Isserman, a history professor at Hamilton College who attended the first Woodstock and is co-writing a book titled, "America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s." "What values beyond those recorded on an accountant's spread sheet will Woodstock '99 represent?" Scher labeled that skepticism "sour grapes" from curmudgeonly baby boomers. "This is the first generation in the history of America since Christopher Columbus that doesn't have the expectation of doing as well as, or better than, the generation before it," he said. "These kids are angst-ridden beyond belief." The goal for every Woodstock is to have its own ethos, said Wavy Gravy, the comedian, philanthropist and former member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters who will serve as master of ceremonies at Woodstock '99, as he did both in '69 and '94. "You don't try to repeat anything," he said, "you just try to set up a palette for things to happen." The first Woodstock, Gravy said, was "real magic - we discovered that together, we were a nation, that maybe we could stop the war and do a lot of things. We lifted ourselves up by our collective bootstraps because the universe was asking for that, and we just surrendered to that energy." Whatever Woodstock '99's future significance, one strong likelihood is that it will be a more sanitized and orderly experience than its predecessors. The sprawling, 3,600-acre site in Rome will include 3,600 portable toilets (compared with 1,200 in 1969), a 250-acre camping area (far greater than the camp site at Woodstock '94, which quickly overflowed to chaotic levels), two outdoor stages separated by a lawn several times larger than a football field, a beer garden, a concessions "village," ecology displays, food boths, ATMs, a transmission base for cell phones, and a cyberstation for online services. Other offerings include a park for extreme sports, a wedding-chapel tent, experimental theater performances, an indoor stage for emerging musicians and all-night raves in a converted B-52 hangar. The lone musician on the current lineup who performed at the original Woodstock is former Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, who will play with his band Planet Drum. Scher said organizers ruled out original Woodstockers because those able to come weren't "relevant" to teenagers and twenty-somethings, or "reasonably intact." Official Wood Stock PPV Web Site:http://www.woodstock99ppv.com/consumer/c1.htmlPosted at 06:58 a.m. PDT; Thursday, July 22, 1999 Copyright © 1999 Seattle Times Company Wood Stock's Web Site [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 22, 1999 at 08:10:17 PT: Attention Drivers: Expect Delays! By CHRIS STURGIS, Staff writer First published: Thursday, July 22, 1999 Attention Drivers: Expect Delays!http://www.timesunion.com/ A confluence of events may make Thruway the state's biggest parking lotCapital Region highways will be clogged with traveling music fans, baseball lovers, athletes and prospective attorneys over the next few days. Right off the top, a quarter-million music lovers are headed west to Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, Oneida County, Friday for Woodstock '99, the 30th anniversary of the 1969 festival, which ends on Sunday.In the meantime, the population of Cooperstown is expected to swell from 2,300 to as much as 39,000 as baseball fans make a pilgrimage to the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday in that Otsego County community. Plaques will be unveiled for the greats, including Nolan Ryan, George Brett and Robin Yount.Now, sprinkle in some 6,000 athletes headed downstate for the Empire State Games (which opened Wednesday and continues through Sunday), and add a thousand anxiety-riddled law students coming to Albany for the New York State bar exam.Can you spell traffic congestion?Patricia Cantiello, a spokesperson for the New York state Thruway, said the motoring public should try and time their travel around Woodstock crowds. She said the best bet on the Thruway is to avoid travel today, Sunday night and Monday.Even though the music festival is more than an hour's drive west of Schenectady, Cantiello said a chain reaction is likely to clog traffic in Albany, Schenectady or Rensselaer counties."For non-Woodstock people, the better travel times are Saturday or early Sunday,'' she said.Local travelers should consider alternative routes, leaving extra time, and keep food and water in the car in case of delays, she said. Information will also be available by phone at (800) THRUWAY, or (800) 847-8929.Since the Thruway expects more out-of-the-area drivers to pay tolls in cash instead of using the electronic EZ Pass system, there will be no EZ Pass-only lanes at the toll booths closest to the concert site, Exits 31, 32, 33 and 34.The Thruway Authority will have more maintenance and toll collection people on the road making travel as smooth as possible, she said. Signs along the highway will tell motorists how to avoid delays and which radio frequency to tune to for more information, Cantiello said.For those heading to Cooperstown, traffic should not be a problem, according to Bob Faller, director of sales for the Otesaga in Cooperstown. But getting a place to stay will be tough."Traffic, that's not a problem for Cooperstown, that's a problem for Woodstock. We are prepared. We have alternative parking. We have trolleys. Main Street will be closed to traffic,'' Faller said."The hotels have been sold out, forever. We have rooms in Albany,'' Faller said. Other visitors may approach the problem from a different direction and stay in Syracuse, he added."It's a once in a lifetime induction,'' he noted.He said most of the baseball enthusiasts will be arriving in the quaint Otsego County town aboard chartered buses.On Monday and Tuesday, about 1,200 people will be coming to Albany to take the bar exam, Michele Vennard, president of the Albany County Convention and Visitors Bureau, said.Vennard said she checked the availability of rooms at Albany County hotels and found the problem wasn't getting a room but keeping it for an entire stay."You might have to change from one hotel to another,'' she said. Attention Drivers: Expect Delays! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: