Nearly every week from the 1970’s through 2020, a singular, grizzled little guy leapt out of a one panel cartoon nestled most often in the editorial pages of the weekly Woodstock Times, filled with wonderment, dispensing odd pronouncements with a gentle wisdom from his perch somewhere in Woodstock, often the Village Green.
“I would call him a befuddled observer of modern life,” says musician, artist, bicycle mechanic Michael Esposito, the creator of our Guru here, Swami Salami. “Through his eyes and adventures, he witnesses small town America with a Woodstock flavor…The main thing about Swami is, he’s perplexed, like we all are. He’s just kind of observing…”
Esposito brings out a smallish Tupperware tub wherein reside perhaps 1500 5×7 slips of paper, each with a line drawing cartoon of the good Swami, some simple, some complex.
“I’d like to concentrate on getting a book out,” he says. “There’s stuff from 1980 here, the unabridged Swami Salami! I really want to do a paperback book…newsprint like the pocket books of the 50’s and 60’s. I can do it cheaply. I have a vision, I don’t want to do anything slick. Swami Salami is not slick, he’s just hanging.”
To that end, Esposito is searching for a friendly publisher…
The 82-year-old Esposito has done his share here in Woodstock. He has had his paintings exhibited in fine galleries; has played a thousand gigs with Marc Black, including hundreds of benefits to help his fellow Woodstockers. He was ordained by the legendary Father William Henry Francis and spent 10 years at the Church on the Mount. And after Ciro Manganaro, who ran the bicycle repair shop on Rock City Road, died, Esposito inherited his tools and now runs the aptly named Old Spokes Home, a place where tired bikes get rejuvenated by hand in an old fashioned way. It’s located behind the Tinker Street clothing shop, Changes. “I moved (the business) to the barn (behind the shop), and have about eight cats living there…there’s never a mouse in here…And a lot of people come by with Blues Magoos albums and want me to sign it.”
Esposito played guitar for the sixties rock band Blues Magoos, who had a big hit record with “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet”. He says he signs their albums, and calls them “Psychedelic Rock nerds.” (A great clip of the Blues Magoos playing “Tobacco Road” that includes Esposito doing a hilarious bit with Jack Benny exists on YouTube).
Esposito tells of Swami’s origins.
“Woodstock was rife with Swamis in the 60’s and 70’s. Guru Muktananda, Krishnamurti…I visited them all, wore the costumes, before I got involved with Father Francis.
“One night, at probably 3 a.m. I pictured a real Indian Guru getting off the bus on the Green, meeting a real diehard Woodstocker, meeting Jogger John or Puppy John, like the street people in India…there were bona fide mystics in our town…Swami fit right in. He recognized a famous town, the artists, the poets. He’s also about American lives…he’s got an obsession with cars. He called the traffic in town ‘Carmageddon.’”
Swami is gentle in his commentary.
“I don’t want to do anything political,” says Esposito. “But it’s about Woodstock stuff that old Woodstockers will identify with, and new Woodstockers will gain some insight into what Woodstock was…”
We reminisce about the once new old Woodstock — the Geezer’s Corner at Duey’s, how guys like Bjarne Sjursen and chief constable Billy Waterous accepted him easily, while sitting in the window at the much lamented long lost breakfast hangout.
He met banjoist Billy Faier and first came to town to rehearse for Happy and Artie Traum’s first album. “That was my first introduction to Woodstock…otherwise I wouldn’t have come….”
Early on, he started playing with the great singer/songwriter Marc Black. “We started at the White Water Depot in 1975, I think, and the Pinecrest…upstairs at Joshua’s, little back rooms…We played at Bearsville later on with Warren (Bernhardt), Betty (MacDonald), and saxophonist Don Davis.”
He laments that since the passing of violinist/vocalist MacDonald and pianist Bernhardt it hasn’t been the same. And he would love to find a place where local musicians could dig in and plan regular musical residencies.
Swami could get quite esoteric.
“He’s having a Wallace Nutting moment…” Swami says, while observing a character’s moment of outdoor bliss, and recalling the landscape photographer, author, lecturer, furniture maker, antiques expert and collector, whose atmospheric photographs helped spur the Colonial Revival style.
“One of my favorites,” Esposito says, “is a winter one, where he’s sitting around on the green with some people and it’s snowing, and he muses about ‘a few more flakes than usual…’
One that is growing on me, has Swami on a Village Green bench, and another bearded old chap tells him “I’ve had some ‘senior moments’ I’ll never forget…”
“So I’ll shop around,” he says. “I want a little fat paperback, that’s the perfect size.” Days later, he says he wants the book to be coil bound so it can lie flat. It could go in any direction…
And it turns out, the philosophy of Swami Salami, applies to his creator, Esposito, too.
“He gets into all the facets of modern life,” says Esposito, “from an ancient perspective.”
Most old bicycle needs you have can be taken care of at The Old Spokes Home, a short stroll behind Changes, 19 Tinker Street, Woodstock, just off the Village Green. Michael Esposito is there on almost any day when the weather is good, from noon to about 4 or 5 p.m. Or call him at 845-679-4012.
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