Woody Harrelson sows the seeds of activism in documentary

Woody Harrelson is becoming the Martin Sheen of Whole Earth activism. The Texas-born actor is out there, vocal and loud, pushing an agenda of vegan diets and conservation, occasionally agitating until police come and cuff him. In 1996, he was arrested for planting four hemp seeds in Kentucky. He was acquitted in court.

Known for playing soft-headed Woody on "Cheers" and firecrackers in films like "White Men Can't Jump" and "Natural Born Killers," Harrelson is mixing activist documentaries with his upcoming Hollywood features "Scorched" and "Anger Management."

His new film, "Go Further," was directed by Ron Mann, whose pro-hemp documentary "Grass" Harrelson narrated. Mann and Harrelson will present "Go Further" tonight at the Paramount during the South by Southwest Film Festival.

Born in Midland in 1961, Harrelson will also be inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame tonight. He's flattered, he says, but isn't quite sure what the award means.

The new movie follows Harrelson's Simple Organic Living Tour, a multiperson bike ride from Seattle to Santa Barbara with a psychedelic bus in tow. Along the way, the Whole Earth evangelists tout the profit of living well and healthy. The story is pocked with musical interludes by the likes of Natalie Merchant, Bob Weir and Daveid Matthews. Mann has called the result "the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test on wheatgrass."

"Having a video camera in your every private moment is not my idea of a good time, I gotta tell you," Harrelson says by phone. "But Ron's a great filmmaker and I think he came up with something great."

Woody Harrelson: It started with my two brothers and I wanting to take a long bike ride. We decided to bike from Seattle to Santa Barbara, about 1,300 miles. We invited some friends. Then of course we needed a bus we could sleep in to follow us. I got this old Chicago Transit Authority bus that we call the Mothership. It's a diesel bus and diesel engines were designed to run off of bio-fuel. We put solar panels on the top to run all the electrical. Everything was sustainable by an eco-friendly design.

It's vegetable oil mixed with ethanol or methanol and a pH-balance. It's pretty simple. It's all about alternatives to what people are doing. That was the concept. We were going down the coast to talk to people about simple organic living, so it was called the SOL Tour. Then we booked speaking engagements along the route at different colleges and parks.

It varied as people came in and out, but generally between six and 10. The cool part is how it turned into interesting stories. One guy on the bus, who we called Jedi, we particularly focus on. His real name is Steve Clark and he becomes a convert. We're talking about all sorts of things, not just fuel alternatives, but alternative diets and things. And Steve took the message. He was a pretty hard-core fast-fooder when he joined. But he started shifting and became the ideal model. He's one of the funniest and most charismatic guys I've ever met. Really, really entertaining. So it's not just about the message, it's also really funny.

That's one of the coolest things. We got an invite from him to visit while in Eugene, Ore. It ended up being the last footage of Kesey before he died. You only get a snippet of it in the film, but it was really an incredible time hanging with him. It's not like we're the 21st century Merry Pranksters, but in a way we owe everything to them in terms of the bus concept. I'm a huge fan of Kesey and the Pranksters and everything they were about. It's almost eerie how much the times now mirror the times then in terms of the buildup to war and similarities in the administration and the feeling in the air.

The concept was to ride around and stop and talk to people about, say, diet. The diet thing is to me at the root of so many other issues. You can connect diet to ecological problems. We should all be asking for organic produce. That's just basic. One guy who was along used to be in the military and he could speak from a very personal place about military buildup and so forth. We talk about yoga and do yoga with students.

Part of the impetus was because I wish in college someone had come through and talked to me about these issues. I remember wanting to be vegetarian out of some strange instinct I was having and being talked out of it with worries that I wouldn't be getting enough protein, which is a lie. I don't like to preach, but we try and couch the message in the humor. It's so funny, so it's not like you're getting hit over the head with a lesson.

How do you sustain your passion for all of this, the diet and the activism? It seems like a hard thing to keep going in this country.

That's a good question because I know there's a lot of burnout. I've seen so many people make changes in their life that really turned things around in such a positive way. That is the fuel itself, to see people get turned on to it. I noticed change in people after three days on the bike journey. Even if it was one person it's worth the whole trip.

Do the activist documentaries with Ron Mann, including "Grass," feel more significant than your Hollywood films?

To be honest, there are some films of mine I really like but there are several I feel I wasted my time and passion. So I feel great about doing something meaningful and also very entertaining. I feel better about this movie than anything in a long time.

The elite spending a thousand times what ordinary citizens can afford on their daily activites
to sure us their purity...and lead the way into the future....
Gotta stay pretty stoned to see this as logical
Waistoids as leaders.....well we had one for president...(well he was in that office anyway)

Didn't this pinko a$$hole either marry or plan to marry Whoopi Goldberg at one time? That says a lot about his judgement.

4 posted on 03/13/2003 6:59:31 AM PST by nomorecameljocks

If Woody Harrelson is planting seeds, my guess is they're going to sprout something a bit more smokeable than activism.

Do you realize how long and hard he had to study to do the Cheers Woody character? I think reschooling was necessary to get him up to the IQ level.

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