“1 Giant Leap II: What About Me?”: A Woodstock Film Festival Hit

No one quite knows what to call this movie – even the co-director, Duncan Bridgeman, who introduced it. “It’s not exactly a documentary…” he mused. “It’s kind of a musical, actually.”

Stewart Copeland, the drummer for The Police (who was standing next to him, on stage at the Woodstock Playhouse) suggested: “A ‘musumentary’?”

Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto traveled the world – visiting 50 locations – collecting the best singers and wisest thinkers they could find. Some of the songs include musicians on four continents collaborating: a singer in Mali, a tabla player in Pakistan, a drummer in Brazil – and a church choir in South Carolina. Watching this film, I wanted to jump out of my chair and dance! I haven’t felt this way since seeing Black Orpheus in 1972!

I thought I disliked Eckhart Tolle, but he is so charming and dwarfish, with his German-accented witticisms about the futile march of the ego, that now I’m his fan.

Once I went to an open mic poetry reading in Haight-Ashbury where a visionary, articulate African-American poet-rapper named Radioactive performed. He’s in 1 Giant Leap!