Woodstock Forever:  Peace, Love & HOPE

By Paul Sladkus

What does Peace, Love & HOPE Mean to YOU?

To Me It Means Health, Family, Friends, Respect for All, Nonviolent Communications & my belief that humankind is Good, Kind, Giving and Loving and for those who are confused and violent we are here to help them. All we are is what we are for each other. Zeal Om.

Companion Book for: Woodstock Forever: Peace, Love & HOPE Movie/TV/Podcast Series… www.woodstockforever.com

September 21 is the UN International Day of Peace a perfect time for the world to Celebrate People living in Peace, Love & HOPE.  Please join us.

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his/her problem. Love and peace are eternal”- John Lennon

Copyright   © 2019 by Paul Sladkus, Phone:  212-647-1212 paul.sladkus@goodnewsbroadcast.com

Dedication

I dedicate this book to every living thing on our planet Earth who lives nonviolently, especially, to our children who have the right to live in Peace, Love and HOPE.

I dedicate this book to my family; friends and everyone I met who helped me to reach this point in my life and who inspired me to write this book.

I dedicate this book to the many great Peace & Love slogans and songs as they inspire me: War and Violence No More. Visualize Peace, Make Love Not War, Imagine; All We are Saying is Give Peace a Chance, What a Wonderful World, Everyday People. Blowin in the Wind, One Love….

I dedicate this book to everyone who reads the cover and thinks about the title and/or reads a review and/or reads a little of the book or the whole thing or has a conversation about it, and/or those who don’t feel there will ever be peace on earth.

I dedicate this book to all those optimistic people that World Peace will come, that there will be no more wars and that all will be provided for,  you are amongst the billions  who have HOPE, along with Peace & Love, I applaud you. The Good News is that there is a UN International Day of Peace on September 21 and 193 countries agreed to support it and McKinsey research says billions know about it, so let’s support it and make every moment a moment of Peace, Love & HOPE.

I also dedicate this book to media that features the Good in the world, life affirmation with upbeat not beat up content.   Billions of Good News stories are out there, the negative news is important I agree, we need to know about a murderer, rapist, natural disasters …but media please also share all those helping to curtail these unthinkable acts and focus on solutions.  i.e., home fire can be avoided by not overloading an electric outlet, meaning get electric strip that shuts off when needed.

Lastly, I dedicate this book to YOU, as you are my hero, since the title of our book was important to you, means you are a good, caring concerned citizen on mother earth.  Thank you.

All we are is what we are with each other.  Zeal

Wind Beneath My Wings

Bette Midler

Ohhhh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh.
It must have been cold there in my shadow,
To never have sunlight on your face.
You were content to let me shine, that’s your way.
You always walked a step behind.

So I was the one with all the glory,
While you were the one with all the strength.
A beautiful face without a name for so long.
A beautiful smile to hide the pain.

Did you ever know that you’re my hero,
And everything I would like to be?
I can fly higher than an eagle,
For you are the wind beneath my wings.

It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
But I’ve got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you.

This song is one of the dozens of songs that we include in Woodstock Forever: Peace, Love & HOPE. www.woodstockforever.com.  As music and positive media touches us all, I dedicate this book to those who create the music and media that has had such a meaningful effect on me since I was a little boy.  Thank you All. We are all ONE, no one behind, no one in front. We are all in it together…

Contents

Prologue  /  9

Part One – Peaceful Beginnings

My Manifesto   /    18

One

Children Learn What They Live   /   23

Two

Hearts Beat Together   /    25

Three

The World Peace Journey Begins   /    27

Four

Good News Doesn’t Sell   /    29

Five

May Peace Prevail on Earth   /    30

Six

Peace Day Party Invitation to Everyone—Be There or Be Square   /    33

Seven

Peace and Love Conquer All   /    34

Eight

The Giver   /    38

Nine

Living in Trust, Trust in Living   /     39

Ten

All Life is Too Precious to Waste   /     40

Eleven

Children Once Again   /     42

Part Two – Acting Peaceful

Twelve

Politics   /    47

Thirteen

Pete Seeger   /    49

Fourteen

Forgiveness and Compassion   /    50

Fifteen

Strife and Unnecessary Death and Destruction   /    51

Sixteen

People Are Good   /    53

Seventeen

Environment   /    56

Eighteen

Fear   /     59

Nineteen

Killing   /    61

Twenty

Religion   /    63

Twenty-one

Justice   /     66

Twenty-two

Politics Part One   /    67

Twenty-three

Silicon Valley and Hollywood   /    69

Twenty-four

Peace Statements from Respected Leaders   /    71

Part Three – United For Peace

Twenty-five

Concerts for Peace   /    73

Twenty-six

Land   /     75

Twenty-seven

Subway in New York   /     77

Twenty-eight

Israel and Palestine: Peace Today/Tomorrow   /     78

Twenty-nine

Spirit of ‘45   /     79

Thirty

Haiti, China, Sri Lanka   /     81

Thirty-one

Toothbrush Theory by Google’s Larry Page   /    83

Thirty-two

More Politics and Peace   /     84

Part Four –  Inner Peace

Thirty-three

Inner Peace and the Man in the Mirror   /     87

Thirty-four

Physical Illness, Disease, and Broken Body Parts   /     90

Thirty-five

Money and Peace, August 25th   /     92

Thirty-six

Peace Day in Silicon Valley   /     94

Thirty-seven

Plane to Silicon Valley then Back to NYC   /     101

Thirty-eight

Patience /     104

Thirty-nine

Pride in Accomplishment   /     106

Forty

Philanthropy: Helping Foster Children, Orphans, and Others in Need   /     109

Forty-one

Military   /     110

Forty-two

Group Anti-Semitism, Gender Bias, Bigotry, Prejudice and Scapegoats   /    125

Forty-three

Subway and the World Trade Center: Police State   /    120

Forty-four

Friends   /    131

Part Five – Creating Everyday Peace

Forty-five

Volunteers Needed to Help Create Unconditional World Peace   /    135

Forty-six

Next Steps for World Peace   /    137

Forty-seven

Lastly   /    140

Forty-eight

Epilogue /    141

Forty-nine – Addendum

Notes /   144

Prologue

Well, no one ever said it would be easy, and they were right.  I guess the key is to look at everything as an experience from which to learn and grow. Creating our movie/TV series has been a great experience, filled with great happiness and some technical difficulties.  Right now, I am writing under the strain of technical difficulties with an optimistic attitude for a positive outcome. You see, I created, along with others (as life is always along with others) the 20th Anniversary of Woodstock Celebration. Here is the story. In 1985, I started a multicultural marketing and advertising company, following my fourteen-year career at CBS, Channel 13 and WNYC.  We started the business in my home, calling it Good News Broadcast Corporation. One of the people who worked with me at Channel 13, Beverly Hill, left Channel 13 and worked with me at Good News Broadcast. Beverly was friends with Richie Havens, who was the lead performer at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. Beverly brought Richie over to meet me, and
Richie said that he thought we should do an Anniversary Celebration for the upcoming 20th Anniversary of Woodstock. Now, I am a musician and a lover of peace and love, but I didn’t go to Woodstock in 1969. In fact, I didn’t even know that it was happening. Even though I was a musician and a peace and love president of the class type, Woodstock simply hadn’t come to my attention. Not sure why. However, I am not even sure that, had I known about it, I would have gone. I wasn’t too adventuresome, nor was I a protester against the war.  In fact, in high school, I considered enlisting, for I was a loyal believing-in-America type who thought that our Freedom was being sacrificed. The Good News for me is that my sister talked me out of enlisting by saying I would get killed helping someone, as that is my nature. So, I went to  college, and in 1969, during the Woodstock Concert, I attended my buddy’s wedding in Yorktown Heights, right off of I-684, where we all could see car lights going on for miles. Someone said there was a concert happening while all of us in the wedding party were jumping in a pool at a public park in our tuxedoes.

So anyway, Richie came to meet with me (by the way, I am writing this while my staff are trying to fix the computer, so we can finish our movie trailer and the first thirty-minute TV show, I am praying?).  Now, Richie was very cool. He was dressed in lots of jewelry and necklaces. I loved his music, and I did see the Woodstock movie thinking very highly of his performance. He was a man of honor, and his friends said he was a man of principle who worked for the betterment of humankind. He was my type of man, though maybe more radical than me, but, from what I could see, his action was all verbal and not physical, and I was okay with that.  Everyone is entitled to think and act as they want, as long as they keep their hands off each other. So, Beverly, Glen Mark, who also left Channel 13 to come and work with me, and myself sat talking to Richie about his idea for a 20th Anniversary Celebration. Since I live near Central Park on the Upper Westside, I suggested that we do it on the Great Lawn of Central Park.  This is where the well-known concerts of Simon and Garfunkel and Diana Ross occurred—close to nature.  However, with the Diana Ross concert, there were some problems due to rain and there was some turmoil that occurred while people were leaving the park to the point that the NYC Parks authorities decided not to do any more concerts on the Great Lawn.  It is a shame, because Diana Ross as a tribute to the good in humankind, even donated a Children’s Park at the 81st Street entrance of Central Park West. However, as mentioned, no one could do a concert on the Great Lawn.
At our meeting in my house, I said to Richie, that we should try to do the Anniversary Show on the Great Lawn, as for me this would be the highest visibility, as well as a free venue for everyone to attend. I am all about the people being part of events, and Richie and our team felt the same way. Therefore, we agreed that our mission was to feature the Peace Love, and Hope that evolved from the 1969 Concert. It all sounded good to me and I had the energy and expertise to make it happen: I was young and had experience producing shows at CBS, PBS TV/Channel 13 Prime Time Network, and had worked on over 150 network shows. I felt comfortable that I could produce the event. Moreover, I was the General Chairman for the Quinnipiac College Jazz Festival. I had also organized many gigs for my Rock and Roll band. However, most importantly, I had the passion and a team of passionate people ready to do the right thing for humankind.
Feeling hopeful, we went to NYC Parks and Recreation, along with Richie and Beverly, spoke to the Assistant Commissioner, Pinea Michelson, and presented to her what we wanted to do. Pinea liked the idea, believed in the good that came from the 1969 Woodstock Event and set us up to talk to the Commissioner, Henry Stern.  Now, Henry was a showman who liked to excite people about all the good the Parks had to offer. Commissioner Stern told us that he would give us a “yellow light” to try to pull this show together.  Now, that was Good News to us, for a “red light” would have meant it was over (of course, a “green light” would have been the best outcome. At least we had a venue, as they call it, or a location with which to speak to talent about regarding booking them for the event, and now. I then went to PBS Channel 21 to see if they would be interested in broadcasting the show. Because I had been a PBS/Channel 13 employee, along with my background and Richie’s fame, they agreed.  At that point, the tough part began: getting the funding—“money, money, money, money” (to quote the O’Jays “For the Love of Money”)

Money makes the world go round—sadly, this is true. Therefore, we now had to raise money. You see, the Central Park venue is really not free; money is needed for the permits, the stage, the stage production crew, the lights and sets, along with the security, the port-a- johns, and expenses for the performers, even if they have donated their talents, and so on. Additionally, we, the production company, needed to make some money in order to survive as well. This became our biggest problem. We had created a budget, which came up to $700,000.  How could we raise that kind of money? Now, I have been a salesperson my whole life. At Channel 13, I helped oversee General Support Announcements, which was essentially a minor commercialization of a PBS station. In other words, the car could move a few feet as opposed to standing still back in early 80’s! In addition, I grew up working in my father’s shoe business, but was obsessed with Show Business, as I told people I couldn’t spell! I paid for my college selling shoes in New Haven Chapel Mall, and sometimes I made a little money with my high school band, The Iguanas. Of course, with me on the sax, we came in second in the battle of the bands had earned other awards! He, He!  In fact, we recently played at our Sleepy Hollow High School 50th Class Reunion and a classmate said they would pay us what they used to pay the whole band for 4 hours: $60. Big Times!
Anyway, our multicultural marketing company was beginning to get some traction with clients, but after two years trying to raise the $700,000, we simply couldn’t do it.  It appeared, that corporate America and philanthropists only could see the Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and politics aspect of Woodstock, not the Peace, Love and Hope aspect that we represented and were trying to promote.  For example, a major fast foods corporation’s concern was that Woodstock was political: that they used plastic boxes for their products and were afraid that someone in the crowd; would object and the conflict would hurt their reputation. By the way, one month after our August 1989 event, which we did do, only at a different venue, the largest recycling efforts in the history of fast foods was announced. Sometimes in life, it’s all about timing! So what we did after working full time for two years, approaching perhaps over 200 companies and philanthropists, we gave up on the idea of using Central Park’s Great Lawn. Of course, we were disappointed, but then—the show must go on—and so we did. By 1988, I had moved the company out of my house and into my friend Marcelino Miyares’ Times Square Studio, right in the Heart of Times Square at 42^nd and Broadway. Marcelino was a great man and a great humanitarian. The studio had the Montel Williams and Geraldo Rivera Shows and others as well that were being produced there. In fact, the studio used to be the WOR-TV studio.  Marcelino bought it, as he had a successful Hispanic Advertising Agency in Chicago and created one of the first Telemundo Hispanic Stations.  Luckily, Marcelino had a history of embracing what Woodstock stood for: freedom was in his soul, as he was from Cuba and experienced the Bay of Pigs. During the tough times, he told himself, “When I get out of here I’m going to build a studio in Times Square, NY”— and he did—for which I congratulate him. He also respected the work and relationships that I had and suggested that we move into his TV studio under a barter relationship: I would help find shows to produce in his studio, and he would give us the second floor of a brownstone building in NY’s Times Square. In fact, I think it was Joe Franklin’s old office, a particular hero of mine. As it turned out, I did get shows to work at Marcelino’s studio: Comedy Channel, MTV, to mention only a few. In any case, we were in Times Square, though in 1988, it wasn’t what it is today, in 2019. Back then, it was depressed and unsafe.  There might have been only one billboard on the 1 Times Square Building where the New Year’s Eve Ball is regularly dropped—very little else was happening there. What occurred was a miracle, (as I believe almost everything is a miracle, especially when we get up in the morning with a roof over our heads and no gun facing us—this is a miracle of life. Well, our Woodstock miracle was that Times Square, the Crossroads of the World, has always had a World Image as a place for freedom; for people in the U.S. and around the world, it’s a powerful place and, as you see now, just keeps on growing as such a place.
As it turned out, we decided to do the Woodstock 20th Anniversary Event in Times Square at the Father Duffy Park, which is also the responsibility of the NYC Parks and Recreation. I had met Bob Bagar, one of the most recognized Public Relations Guru in N.Y., especially for events that are for the good of the world.  He believed in our project, and introduced us to Vinnie Ramirez who had relationships in the Woodstock/Bethel area.  We all agreed, Richie as well, to do a Celebration in Times Square and in Bethel the home of the 20th Anniversary.  Vinnie had me and Juma Sultan, who was one of Jimmy Hendrix’s drummers at Woodstock and part of a musical group called Woodstock, the Next Generation, create a song for the 20th Anniversary (the group was cool and exuded the essence of Peace, Love, and Hope. They agreed to create an event at the memorial at Bethel, New York and then we’d transport the group down by a rented bus to Times Square, bringing Richie Havens some Holly Branches from the original site for our celebration.  The group consisted of young to older people. Therefore, the GOOD NEWS is: we made it happen—though not in Central Park, without PBS, and with very little money—we showed our respect for Woodstock’s 20th Anniversary.  Maybe the most expensive cost, considering we didn’t make one sale in two years, was the Billboard on the 1 Times Square building we rented for $1,500 on which we put up a message announcing the 20th Anniversary celebration. Coincidently, there was a Lunar Eclipse that night on August 15, 1989.  Another miracle! It’s not that we still didn’t try to get some money to promote the event, but we couldn’t even sell the idea of a guitar coming down in place of the ball on New Year’s Eve for $150, but we pursued.  Marcelino gave us a crew and we videotaped the event in Times Square and at Bethel as well as the group went to the United Nations.  We produced over 2 hours of content and is integral for our Movie/TV/Podcast Series along with current content over the years hat reflects the belief of Peace, Love and Hope. The movie/TV Show we plan to release in 2019 for the 50th Anniversary of Woodstock is REALLY GOOD, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD ARE REALLY GOOD! Along with the animal and plant kingdom, of course?

Woodstock Forever: Peace, Love & HOPE—we are honored to share with you and pray that you feel that we did a good job producing the content and hope to continue to create more movies, TV/Podcast Series with this same theme, for, as far as we are concerned, living in Peace, Love and HOPE is utopia.

Thank you for looking at my/our book.  I have already dedicated it to you.  I hope and pray that you will gain some understanding of the need for Achieving Unconditional World Peace and some ways we can go about making it happen.   World Peace needs a big marketing job, as the title of this book states, “What Does Peace Mean to You?  To Me It Means Health, Family, Friends, Respect for All, Acceptance that most of the World Lives in PEACE & LOVE and for those who don’t we together will help them with HOPE in our hearts.  Om.

World Peace is Here.  We just need more of it.   We all know that this statement is true or we would really be in a big mess—just think of the approximately 8 billion people not living peacefully.  Therefore, the Good News is that most do live peacefully with themselves and with the world around them.  WE need media to present this life affirmation fact, not destruction.

Let us celebrate these wonderful peaceful people. I hope that this book inspires you and gives you hope to be able to look around you, no matter what the “bang bang shoot em up” media portrays and see the good right next to you. Surround yourself with positive people and those who encourage you to be peaceful and forgiving. Love is the answer; the more we have the more the world is peaceful. Let’s all fill our planet with love, maximize the good, minimize the negative and have a good time.  Practice the Art of Positive Thinking. Laugh often and party frequently. Please have a party on September 21, the UN International Day of Peace, which is part of the inspiration for this book. Why, because 193 countries agreed to the Peace Day. Let’s strengthen that message. Tell all your friends to join the party worldwide.  Additionally, the people on our www.goodnewsplanet.TV, and our Movie/TV/Podcast series Woodstock Forever:  Peace, Love & HOPE inspire us. In fact, I AM STRESSED FROM SO MUCH GOOD NEWS!

This prologue introduction is to encourage you to read on. I start with my personal manifesto to give you some background on myself, so you can see where I am coming from. I am as silly as anyone is and not so smart at times, and even have been not peaceful, but I continue to try to do better for myself and the world around me.  Please forgive my foibles. In this book, I have added the lyrics of sensitive composers of music, the words of enlightened authors with incorporated quotes, from a Harvard Professor, a CATO Scholar, to several World Leaders, including observations from average sentient beings like myself.