I need to raise $80,000 so I don't have a camp with just rich, middle-class white kids," Wavy Gravy tells me as we sit in the backyard of his sprawling Berkeley, California house under what he claims is "the only rubber tree in North America."

Wavy, or "W.G." as his wife calls him, is talking about Camp Winnarainbow, where 700 lucky kids spend one or two summer weeks living in tipis, near a beautiful Northern California lake with a large water slide—swimming, having fun, and ostensibly learning circus performing arts. What they are really learning, however, is how to work cooperatively together and how to treat each other with respect—put-downs, bullying, and especially hitting are not allowed.

Scholarships bring in disadvantaged kids from across the country, including inner city kids, homeless kids, and Native America children from South Dakota. This provides the diversity Wavy so values, and it's part of the enriching camp experience parents and kids rave about in dozens of online testimonials.

Now age 71, Wavy can look back at his charmed life. At age 5, living in Princeton, New Jersey where his dad was an architect, he had a famous friend named Albert Einstein. "My mom put me out in the yard for an airing and Albert came by and asked her if he could take me for a stroll around the block." For several months this became part of Wavy's daily routine, and no, he doesn't remember any of the conversations he had with the famous scientist. What he does remember, he tells me, is "his shock of white hair that predated Don King by 50 years, the twinkle in his eyes, and most distinctly, his odor."

"Smell is one thing kids do remember," Wavy continues. "Someday I'll walk up to someone and say, "Hey man, you smell just like Albert Einstein.'"

During the early '60s, still known by his birth name Hugh Romney, Wavy was the "poetry director" at the Gaslight Café in Greenwich Village, where he met many famous or soon-to-be-famous people. He became friends with Bob Dylan, who wrote the first draft of "A Hard Rain is Gonna Fall" on Wavy's typewriter. Marlene Dietrich once gave him a book of Rilke's poems, and he evolved into a "traveling monologist" who opened shows for John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Peter, Paul and Mary. For a time Lenny Bruce was his manager.

As one of the original members of the hippy commune Hog Farm, Wavy found himself at Woodstock where he and his fellow "hog farmers" set up a free kitchen and incredulously were asked to handle security. Wavy recalls, "We were the please police. Please do this, please do that."

Somehow Wavy was made the emcee, and thanks to the subsequent film became known to millions worldwide for some of his announcements. When referring to the rain and resulting mud, Wavy told the crowd, "there's always a little bit of heaven in a disaster area," and when announcing that the Hog Farm kitchen was serving granola, "what we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000."

I ask Wavy if there's anyone he didn't meet in the 1960s whom he wishes he had met, and he promptly answers, "Nixon."

"I was going to assassinate Nixon with a Bic pen," Wavy claims, "but Ram Dass talked me out of it. When Nixon died, a reporter asked me if I was in mourning for him, and I said ‘I'm in mourning for the 100,000 who died because he didn't end the war when he said he would.'"

"So, in your opinion, what is the greatest problem facing the world today: war or the environment?"

"War is not good for the environment," Wavy answers. "I've always said we are the same person trying to shake hands with ourselves, and war is a very complicated way of doing this."

Recalling his famous "nobody for president" campaigns, I ask him, "Are you for somebody in this upcoming presidential elections?"

"I like all three of the Democrats—Hillary, Edwards, and Obama—but don't care for anyone on the other side," Wavy says. "But maybe we don't need a president. Maybe we need a prime minister and an official greeter like Harry Bellefonte."

I want to know a bit about Wavy's domestic life, in particular his 41-year marriage to Jahanara Romney, who is the administrative director of Camp Winnarainbow. "What's the secret of your long marriage?"

"Have a sense of humor and don't get divorced."

"How did you two meet?"

"I've always been searching for the perfect hamburger," he answers, "and Jahanara was grilling burgers at a place called Fred C. Dobbs on Sunset Boulevard. She was a drop-dead beautiful actress who looked like Maximillian Schell's sister Maria, and when she put peanuts in my hamburger, it was all over."

Wavy and Johanara were married in Las Vegas on Thanksgiving, and they had their honeymoon at Disneyland. They have a son, and Wavy also has a daughter from a previous marriage.

While he has a propensity to be on the heavy side, Wavy goes to the YMCA most every day where he does water aerobic exercises. He can't do other types of exercise because he's had several back surgeries resulting from injuries he attributes to "getting beat up a lot by the police and the National Guard." He eats "intelligently" and consumes "lots and lots of veggies and fish." About once a year or so, he visits the Pritikin Longevity Center.

When Wavy isn't soliciting donations for scholarships to Camp Winnarainbow or bringing good cheer to children with cancer at a nearby hospital, he's usually organizing a music festival to raise money for the Seva Foundation, which he co-founded in 1978. Dedicated to ending poverty, Seva, which means "selfless service" in Sanskrit, is best known for providing cataract surgery and restoring sight to more than two million blind adults and children in Southeast Asia and Africa.

Wavy's upcoming 72nd birthday on May 15 coincides with Seva's 30th anniversary, and he's planning to turn this into a major fundraiser involving many of his famous musician friends. He's very much looking forward to this, for, as Wavy says, "There's a high associated with doing good stuff that's not available from pharmaceuticals."

To learn more about Camp Winnarainbow, visit the website at campwinnarainbow.org [1]. Information about the Seva Foundation can be found at seva.org [2].

Editor's note: Wavy Gravy got his name from B. B. King.