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CLASSIC: Did Richard Nixon Unwittingly Smuggle Drugs for Louis Armstrong? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, Welcome to our classic episode for this week.
0:06
Speaker 1: We like music, We like presidential history dancing.
0:12
Speaker 2: We also like to like dancing. We like it dance. Sure, No,
0:16
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I just music and dancing go hand in hand.
0:20
Speaker 1: Now there's Max Williams. You're Noel Brown. I've been bowler. Yeah, yeah,
0:27
Speaker 1: we're here, are you right? You guys remember Richard Nixon?
0:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, that guy was a bit of a pill. Huh,
0:35
Speaker 2: don't think very finally, not great. Actually, when I think
0:38
Speaker 2: of him, I think of the terrifying Richard Nixon masks
0:41
Speaker 2: that were worn. I believe in the movie Point Break
0:44
Speaker 2: there was a Ronald Reagan mask and a Richard Nixon
0:46
Speaker 2: mass those groovy surfers used when they were like doing crimes.
0:50
Speaker 2: I only think of Futurama. Also fair good, superior Nixon
0:54
Speaker 2: in Futurama to the actual Nixon. But I'll tell you, though,
0:57
Speaker 2: when you mentioned music, one thing that comes to mind
0:59
Speaker 2: immediately is old Louis Armstrong, Old Satchmo blowing that horn
1:03
Speaker 2: with those big old puffy cheeks. Excellent trumpet player and
1:07
Speaker 2: really iconic gravelly singing voice, and apparently quite fond of
1:11
Speaker 2: the weed.
1:12
Speaker 1: Yes, the marijuana, the canna bus right. This episode is
1:20
Speaker 1: about how Richard Nixon may or may not have unwittingly
1:26
Speaker 1: smuggled cannabis on behalf of Louis.
1:29
Speaker 2: Armstrong roll that footage.
1:36
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Oh man, oh man,
2:04
Speaker 1: oh man. It's been a while. We are finally cool
2:08
Speaker 1: enough cats that we can have a little bit of
2:12
Speaker 1: intro music for today's episode, Friends and Neighbors. That was Muggles.
2:29
Speaker 1: That's performed by Louis Armstrong.
2:31
Speaker 2: And co Hi. My name is Ben, my name is Nola.
2:34
Speaker 2: So we're doing a Harry Potter episode today, right, one
2:40
Speaker 2: would think, one would think, but in fact we are
2:44
Speaker 2: doing something that involves what some people would call magic. Yeah,
2:48
Speaker 2: we're talking about the reefer right left, the jazz cigarette,
2:53
Speaker 2: the gauge, the gauge which was mister Armstrong's personal favorite
2:59
Speaker 2: slang for marijuana.
3:02
Speaker 1: And we were we have had so much fun researching
3:07
Speaker 1: this legend that we were worried our you know, our
3:12
Speaker 1: better third and saving Grace. Super producer Casey Pegrim might
3:17
Speaker 1: actually get tired of us. But while we while we
3:21
Speaker 1: have them in the studio still, we are going to
3:24
Speaker 1: take advantage of that precious time.
3:26
Speaker 2: It's really cloudy and it's should we open a door?
3:29
Speaker 1: No, okay, don't don't engage with drugs, kids, don't engage
3:36
Speaker 1: with the gauge. Yes, don't gauge, don't get you got there?
3:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're here, we're here.
3:42
Speaker 3: Oh. Man.
3:43
Speaker 2: But our research was strictly academic for this, absolutely, yeah,
3:46
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. But man, this is a cool story.
3:49
Speaker 2: It's a lot wrapped up and uh, part of it
3:51
Speaker 2: is a bit of kind of an urban legend, apocryphal. Yeah.
3:55
Speaker 1: So we are exploring the life and times of one
3:59
Speaker 1: of the great So someone that I really enjoy and
4:02
Speaker 1: I think you do as well. Knowl that is Louis Armstrong.
4:06
Speaker 2: Pops, Yes, Satchmo.
4:09
Speaker 1: And Louis Armstrong is known and loved the world over.
4:14
Speaker 1: He is one of those people you could rightly call
4:17
Speaker 1: an icon.
4:18
Speaker 2: That's right. Born in nineteen hundred August fourth, to be precise,
4:22
Speaker 2: in New Orleans, Louis as wella.
4:23
Speaker 1: He lied about his age though too. Oh he's he's
4:27
Speaker 1: a very layered man.
4:28
Speaker 2: Very much so cloaked in mystery. But one thing we
4:31
Speaker 2: do know is true. He grew up in a very
4:33
Speaker 2: tough neighborhood in New Orleans called the Battlefield. His father
4:37
Speaker 2: left the family when he was just a little boy,
4:39
Speaker 2: and he kind of had defend for himself taking ant jobs.
4:43
Speaker 2: His mother apparently was only able to pay the bills
4:46
Speaker 2: through sex work, and he had kind of a wild
4:51
Speaker 2: upbringing in the court sort of ceed underbelly of New
4:54
Speaker 2: Orleans included dance clubs and women of the evening, and
4:58
Speaker 2: of course a lot of jazz musicians right right.
5:03
Speaker 1: His first exposure to music in a learning environment was
5:09
Speaker 1: at the Fisk School for Boys when he was about
5:12
Speaker 1: six years old. But he ended up putting in his
5:15
Speaker 1: time when it came to listening to music at brothels
5:19
Speaker 1: and dance halls, because he had a gig selling coal
5:22
Speaker 1: for a nickel per bucket in these you know, in
5:26
Speaker 1: these houses of prostitution in an area called Storyville. And
5:29
Speaker 1: then as he was as he was making his rounds
5:32
Speaker 1: delivering coal, he ran into these house musicians and he
5:37
Speaker 1: ran into something called spasm bands.
5:40
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about spasm bands. Tell me more.
5:42
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you asked.
5:44
Speaker 1: A spasm band is a musical group that plays Dixie Land,
5:48
Speaker 1: traditional jazz, jug band or skiffle music.
5:52
Speaker 2: Skiffle like, that's sort of what the Beatles were considered.
5:54
Speaker 2: They were part of the skiffle scene. Apparently in the
5:57
Speaker 2: UK the skiffle was sort of like a folk pop
6:00
Speaker 2: kind of form of.
6:01
Speaker 1: Music, right, Yeah, nailed it, nailed it, jazz, blues, folk
6:04
Speaker 1: and American folk, known for some improvised instruments. So he,
6:10
Speaker 1: as as you said, began hanging out there, spending serious
6:14
Speaker 1: time in these halls, and it was pretty apparent early
6:19
Speaker 1: on that he had a gift, a calling, a compulsion
6:25
Speaker 1: to play music, to sing, and to play the horn.
6:28
Speaker 2: And he was taken under the wing of a professor,
6:32
Speaker 2: Peter Davis, who taught Armstrong to play the cornet, which
6:36
Speaker 2: I believe is kind of a like a smaller trumpet.
6:38
Speaker 1: A trumpet is a little bit longer and more slender
6:42
Speaker 1: than a cornet, but in reality they both play the
6:45
Speaker 1: same notes and they sound more or less the same.
6:47
Speaker 2: I got so easy one to one transition from the
6:50
Speaker 2: cornet to a trumpet.
6:51
Speaker 1: If you want to get nerdy about it, O course. Idea,
6:53
Speaker 1: the difference is mainly the way the tubing of the
6:57
Speaker 1: instrument flares. A cornet is more cone shaped or conical
7:01
Speaker 1: than a trumpet.
7:02
Speaker 2: So as a cornet kind of considered more bite sized portable.
7:05
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't see the point.
7:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, let us know we are not a cornetician's.
7:10
Speaker 2: No, it's true. But I am fond of some hot jazz.
7:14
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, hot jazz, which in its day would be
7:18
Speaker 1: considered often as controversial.
7:20
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:21
Speaker 1: Perhaps as the use of drugs and Louis Armstrong's jazz
7:27
Speaker 1: career is worthy of not just an episode, but an
7:32
Speaker 1: entire podcast. We just spent exploring this guy and exploring
7:35
Speaker 1: the personal struggles that he endured. I have some great
7:39
Speaker 1: Louis Armstrong facts at the end of this. But before
7:44
Speaker 1: you and I go too far down the fanboy rabbit hole,
7:49
Speaker 1: should we set the scene for today's encounter?
7:52
Speaker 2: I think we should, Ben, I think we should please
7:55
Speaker 2: do the honors. Today's episode centers around an apocryphal tale.
8:01
Speaker 2: I believe you weren't used that word earlier, Ben, A
8:05
Speaker 2: pot full tale. Not good. It's fine, We're keeping it it. Yeah.
8:10
Speaker 2: Where So Louis Armstrong during the Cold War, he was
8:13
Speaker 2: made a US ambassador, a good will ambassador, excuse me.
8:18
Speaker 2: He was sent abroad, as were many African American musicians
8:23
Speaker 2: and actors and writers. I don't know, to preach equality.
8:28
Speaker 2: I guess during the era of integration.
8:31
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, so a good will ambassador isn't just relegated
8:34
Speaker 1: to this period in time, like Angelina Jolie is a
8:37
Speaker 1: good will ambassador, that's right.
8:38
Speaker 2: That's right.
8:39
Speaker 1: They're a person who advocates for They are person who
8:43
Speaker 1: advocates typically for a country or maybe for a specific cause,
8:48
Speaker 1: based on the fact that everyone knows who they are.
8:50
Speaker 2: That's right. So Louis Armstrong had this distinction straight from
8:53
Speaker 2: the US State Department, who actually also paid for or
8:58
Speaker 2: in part financed a tour that he did in Europe
9:02
Speaker 2: and Asia. And while there are a few versions of
9:05
Speaker 2: this story that sort of change where he was coming from, uh,
9:09
Speaker 2: the one common little thread is that Louis Armstrong was
9:13
Speaker 2: at the airport on after getting off a plane from
9:16
Speaker 2: from one of these trips, and he was led out
9:21
Speaker 2: of line into a customs line.
9:23
Speaker 1: Which was unusual for it because, according to the story,
9:27
Speaker 1: as a goodwill ambassador, he was traveling to different areas
9:31
Speaker 1: of the world and never having to enter custom.
9:34
Speaker 2: They waved him on through. Sure, but he was supposedly
9:37
Speaker 2: coming back from Japan. That's that's the most consistent version
9:40
Speaker 2: of the story that I've read. And so, yeah, he's
9:42
Speaker 2: in this line and he starts to sweat. Why is
9:46
Speaker 2: he sweating? He's not. He's not sweating because of the
9:48
Speaker 2: because of the sound of a hot trumpet.
9:50
Speaker 1: Right, He's not sweating because of the heat in the airport.
9:54
Speaker 1: He is sweating because his trumpet case contains more than
9:59
Speaker 1: a beautiful musical instrument. He is, in our parlance today
10:04
Speaker 1: writing dirty riding, dirty packing. Yeah, he has a gauge
10:09
Speaker 1: on him. Yep, he's gauged up. Yeah, he's got his
10:12
Speaker 1: muggles slaying for marijuana at the time. His left hand
10:16
Speaker 1: cigarettes in a pretty substantial amount. Yeah, three pounds. Right,
10:22
Speaker 1: that's what we hear with the story. And there's something
10:24
Speaker 1: important we want you to be aware of. As we're
10:27
Speaker 1: telling this story. You may hear us switching between different
10:31
Speaker 1: versions and different sources.
10:32
Speaker 2: Again, quite apocryphal, bordering on urban legend, very hard to
10:37
Speaker 2: confirm or deny the story. But there are several versions
10:40
Speaker 2: in Louis Armstrong biographies that are floating out there. So
10:44
Speaker 2: we'll give you we'll give you the kind of the
10:46
Speaker 2: Barmones version. So we got off the first class flight.
10:51
Speaker 2: He's going into a customs line, and then who does
10:56
Speaker 2: he see but Richard Nixon, who was on the way
11:00
Speaker 2: to becoming president or serving as a vice president. Tricky
11:03
Speaker 2: Dicky yep.
11:04
Speaker 1: Himself the one of the men who would go on
11:08
Speaker 1: to become a huge advocate of what we call the
11:10
Speaker 1: drug war.
11:11
Speaker 2: Yes, the war on drugs, the.
11:12
Speaker 1: War on drugs, and so in a panic and thinking
11:16
Speaker 1: quickly Louis Armstrong, who is talking with Nixon, who turns
11:21
Speaker 1: out to be a huge.
11:22
Speaker 2: Fan of well the way I've read it too, and
11:24
Speaker 2: there's a couple of versions. But Nixon sees Louis and
11:28
Speaker 2: comes running at him with open arms. I think he's
11:30
Speaker 2: going to get a sweet press photo, y Armstrong Satchmo.
11:34
Speaker 2: He says, he says trash mal doing so.
11:43
Speaker 1: Louis Armstrong thinks this is a sign and Nixon's like, oh,
11:50
Speaker 1: you know, one fan anything, don't help you, And he says, actually, yes,
11:56
Speaker 1: you see, I'm I'm old. And this trumpet is heavy.
12:00
Speaker 1: Do you think he could carry it for me?
12:01
Speaker 2: Give me a hand. That was an amazing Louis Armstrong impression.
12:04
Speaker 1: I feel like it would be racist for either of
12:06
Speaker 1: us to attempt to absolute yes, but next to work
12:10
Speaker 1: on Yeah, we could do we could do our muppet
12:14
Speaker 1: level Nixon's back and forth. Write in and let us
12:17
Speaker 1: know if you want us to do a show where
12:19
Speaker 1: both of us are Richard Nixon. We're ridiculous at HowStuffWorks
12:22
Speaker 1: dot com. Oh man, what if people write in, We'll
12:25
Speaker 1: do it if only if the episode has nothing.
12:28
Speaker 2: To do with Richard Nixon.
12:30
Speaker 1: That's fine, Okay, you're agreed to this, sure, all right.
12:33
Speaker 1: So what happens when Armstrong asked him to give him
12:37
Speaker 1: a hand.
12:37
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, one version one. One difference in
12:41
Speaker 2: various accounts is whether he was carrying one case or
12:45
Speaker 2: two cases. I think he would make the most sense
12:47
Speaker 2: for him to have been carrying two cases, because yeah,
12:49
Speaker 2: three pounds of weed is not going to fit into
12:52
Speaker 2: a single trumpet case.
12:54
Speaker 1: Right, And then also asking someone to carry something for
12:57
Speaker 1: you when you have nothing else to carry.
12:59
Speaker 2: See shady again. Several versions. The one that we're kind
13:02
Speaker 2: of talking about here is Nixon demands that he handed
13:05
Speaker 2: him his cases because he says, a good world ambassador
13:08
Speaker 2: doesn't have to go through customs, and the vice president
13:11
Speaker 2: of the United States will carry your suitcases, sash Ma.
13:16
Speaker 1: And then Again, this story, depending on when you hear it,
13:20
Speaker 1: describes a different point in Richard Nixon's career. But according
13:25
Speaker 1: to the story, according to the legend, what happens is
13:28
Speaker 1: with the maybe not the best of intentions, because he
13:31
Speaker 1: clearly wanted the photo. The man who would later become
13:35
Speaker 1: Richard Nixon, a very anti drug president. Yeah, carries marijuana
13:41
Speaker 1: through customs for Louis Armstrong hands it back to Louis Armstrong,
13:47
Speaker 1: who somehow must have been keeping a straight face through
13:50
Speaker 1: the whole thing. And later Louis and some of his
13:57
Speaker 1: accompanists will swear by this story. But the thing is,
14:00
Speaker 1: depending on who you ask, the story differs in a
14:04
Speaker 1: multitude of ways.
14:06
Speaker 2: Right.
14:08
Speaker 1: First off, Armstrong was only about twelve years older than Nixon.
14:14
Speaker 1: Because he got his he would tell people who was
14:17
Speaker 1: born on August fourth, nineteen hundred, but it was more
14:20
Speaker 1: like nineteen oh one, because it was a thirteen month
14:23
Speaker 1: or so different.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, and that particular account is credited. This is
14:28
Speaker 2: getting in a murky territory here, real someone named Miles
14:32
Speaker 2: So Miles Davis. Oh sure, I don't know. It's hard
14:36
Speaker 2: to say, but yeah, as it turns out, though, that
14:39
Speaker 2: keyboardist that's mentioned in that version of the story never
14:41
Speaker 2: played with Louis Armstrong, right, so yeah, there's shock full of.
14:45
Speaker 1: Holes that there's no record of any session where they
14:48
Speaker 1: played together. And so in that version he Armstrong was
14:55
Speaker 1: not necessarily an ambassador. He was just on a good
14:57
Speaker 1: will tour and he was going to I think they
15:02
Speaker 1: were all on the same planet, and they were headed
15:04
Speaker 1: to Moscow in this thing, So the directions and the locations.
15:09
Speaker 2: Changed, that's right. And this is in what year are
15:11
Speaker 2: we talking here?
15:13
Speaker 1: This particular the Moscow story would date it to nineteen
15:16
Speaker 1: fifty nine, and that has its problems as well.
15:18
Speaker 2: Right, But in general, like if we're looking at a
15:20
Speaker 2: rough estimate for when this meeting was supposed to take place,
15:23
Speaker 2: it would have been late fifties, early sixties, right, Yeah,
15:26
Speaker 2: that's about right, Yeah, exactly. So the goodwill tours, I
15:30
Speaker 2: think the part of it was about integration because a
15:33
Speaker 2: lot of the people they sent on these tours were
15:35
Speaker 2: African American luminaries, and it was meant, I think, to show, hey,
15:40
Speaker 2: we're doing good work.
15:42
Speaker 1: Well because one of the tenets of the Soviet ideology
15:46
Speaker 1: at the time was that communism provides much more equality
15:51
Speaker 1: than capitalism. So this is sort of a foray against.
15:55
Speaker 2: Exactly, and so it's also tied to the Cold War
15:58
Speaker 2: as well, right.
16:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, at least ideologically. And so this
16:07
Speaker 1: story continues through some other iterations.
16:11
Speaker 2: Right.
16:12
Speaker 1: The problem with the idea of the vice president of
16:15
Speaker 1: the US taking a flight on official business to Moscow
16:19
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty nine is that there would be some
16:22
Speaker 1: sort of record of it, right, well, sure, although it
16:25
Speaker 1: is true that apparently in those days the vice president
16:28
Speaker 1: would have taken commercial flights, which I thought was fascinating
16:31
Speaker 1: big time.
16:31
Speaker 4: I had no idea, Well, what a kick in the
16:36
Speaker 4: pants man? Seriously, man, is the president hops on air
16:40
Speaker 4: Force one and what do you just fist bump and
16:43
Speaker 4: then say all right, I gotta go get in line
16:47
Speaker 4: catch my flight. And customs, of course, was a lot
16:51
Speaker 4: easier in those days.
16:52
Speaker 2: Everything, I mean, yeah, yeah, Going to the airport today
16:56
Speaker 2: just stresses me out so much it's not fun.
16:59
Speaker 1: Further, there had only been three trips by jazz musicians
17:03
Speaker 1: to Russia by nineteen seventy one, at least that are documented,
17:09
Speaker 1: and Louis Armstrong was not one of those consitions.
17:12
Speaker 2: So I'm leaning towards this is if this did happen?
17:15
Speaker 2: Probably coming back from his I've seen this version of
17:19
Speaker 2: the story enough times that it seems to stick. Coming
17:22
Speaker 2: back from one of his tours in Asia in Japan. Yes,
17:32
Speaker 2: this is one of those stories though, where it's it's
17:35
Speaker 2: you want to believe it because it's just so funny
17:37
Speaker 2: to think that Satchmo kind of put one over on
17:39
Speaker 2: tricky Dick Nixon before he was even well known as
17:42
Speaker 2: being such a vehement anti drug force. You know. But
17:47
Speaker 2: can we talk a little bit about Satchmo's lifelong love
17:51
Speaker 2: of the Mary Jane. Yeah, let's set it up with
17:53
Speaker 2: a clip. What do you say? Yeah, so this is
17:55
Speaker 2: a clip from Louis Armstrong on some sort of television
18:00
Speaker 2: an appearance looks like an interview show. First I thought
18:01
Speaker 2: it was like Steve Allen or something. But the guy's
18:03
Speaker 2: name place says mister Daily, and I couldn't figure out
18:05
Speaker 2: what show it was. But from nineteen sixty three, that's right. Yes,
18:09
Speaker 2: so let's give that a lesson.
18:12
Speaker 3: Actually, I haven't had a chance to talk to for
18:16
Speaker 3: the show, but we had a great discussion about it.
18:18
Speaker 3: I just asked one of the folks on the show,
18:20
Speaker 3: Bob Beckers, well, what is What is Louis Armstrong going
18:22
Speaker 3: to do? How is he going to disguise as voice
18:24
Speaker 3: as always going way up?
18:28
Speaker 2: That's the way he sings.
18:29
Speaker 3: Is is that the highest you could get? Well, I
18:33
Speaker 3: don't know what I'm saying.
18:39
Speaker 5: Actually, I'm that it was high for you, but it
18:43
Speaker 5: high for the rest of them, just about a lot
18:48
Speaker 5: of Rickons.
18:53
Speaker 1: This is worth looking up on YouTube because without being
18:59
Speaker 1: without being like experts in assessing someone's mental condition or
19:04
Speaker 1: their level of intoxication, Louis Armstrong looks like he is
19:09
Speaker 1: mildly amused by this guy, or maybe smoked some pot
19:14
Speaker 1: before the show.
19:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, the gauge, the gauge what he called it. In fact,
19:18
Speaker 2: this clip is called Pops Loves His Pot because Pops
19:23
Speaker 2: was another nickname, and apparently also Louis Armstrong called everybody
19:26
Speaker 2: else Pops, which is kind of neat. Yeah, I think
19:29
Speaker 2: that's cool. If I started calling everybody by my own nickname,
19:32
Speaker 2: that'd be pretty presumptuous. Also kind of badass.
19:35
Speaker 1: Well, he probably started it before it was his nickname
19:39
Speaker 1: and people gave him that nickname.
19:41
Speaker 2: That's a good point. That's a good point, But.
19:43
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think that's a way to get
19:44
Speaker 1: ahead in life, you gotta be a Louis Armstrong for
19:47
Speaker 1: that to work.
19:47
Speaker 2: Did you get a sense that this very white hosts
19:52
Speaker 2: being a little bit of a dick?
19:54
Speaker 1: You know, as we were watching a lot of these interviews.
19:56
Speaker 1: One thing that bothered me and that we talked a
19:59
Speaker 1: little bit of about off air, is that in this time,
20:03
Speaker 1: many of the interviews that he has, especially with white interviewers,
20:09
Speaker 1: are exercises in condescension, and they're consistently talking over him
20:16
Speaker 1: and talking too much.
20:17
Speaker 2: It's strange. Yeah, it's not cool, it's gross because the
20:20
Speaker 2: thing like, okay, so in the company of Louis Armstrong,
20:23
Speaker 2: as African American artists who had crossover appeal, you know,
20:28
Speaker 2: to a largely white audience, where people like Cab Callaway
20:33
Speaker 2: Sure and Fat Swaller for example, they they all kind
20:37
Speaker 2: of had in common that they came from this kind
20:40
Speaker 2: of underground scene Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, like we
20:44
Speaker 2: talked about the top of the show, but they managed
20:48
Speaker 2: to break through and be very successful with white audiences.
20:52
Speaker 2: But that also they kind of had to like what's
20:55
Speaker 2: the word I'm looking for. I don't know if I
20:57
Speaker 2: felt like they had they had to play by their
21:00
Speaker 2: rules a little bit.
21:01
Speaker 1: They had to sort of bow and scrape a little bit.
21:04
Speaker 1: And while this may have given them success or maybe
21:09
Speaker 1: even to some degree sanitized them or made them less
21:14
Speaker 1: dangerous to the very racist white community, it was contentious
21:19
Speaker 1: and considered offensive in the black community in the States
21:22
Speaker 1: at the time. And this is something we know now
21:26
Speaker 1: deeply troubled many of these artists, Louis Armstrong included, because
21:31
Speaker 1: he would have he would have people in the movement,
21:36
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement accuse him of being and Uncle Tom.
21:41
Speaker 1: The idea be that he was selling out his own
21:44
Speaker 1: identity for some measure of personal profit from people who
21:49
Speaker 1: would never respect him right, which is a shame because
21:53
Speaker 1: once you see his letters and his correspondence, he did
21:58
Speaker 1: have a public persona for sure, that's true. Everybody does. Yeah, no, no, no,
22:01
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. But he was an activist. He
22:05
Speaker 1: came to activism. In his letters, you can see him angry,
22:10
Speaker 1: ferociously angry, and righteously fed up with the state of
22:14
Speaker 1: race relations in America, as well as the policies toward marijuana.
22:20
Speaker 1: His wife actually got arrested one time in nineteen fifty
22:25
Speaker 1: four for carrying marijuana that was allegedly his.
22:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. It was like something in the neighborhood of like
22:31
Speaker 2: fourteen grams. It was like a rolled up marijuana cigarette.
22:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:38
Speaker 2: It was sounded like a grandpa a joint.
22:42
Speaker 1: It was in an eyeglass case and a couple of roaches.
22:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I call them half smoked joint.
22:51
Speaker 1: And we have an excerpt because he wrote a letter
22:53
Speaker 1: about this. He almost got banned from Hawaii for life, yeah, because.
22:58
Speaker 2: That was on Waikiki. Yeah, and this is a letter
23:01
Speaker 2: to his then manager, who also I believe had ties
23:05
Speaker 2: to the al Capone crime syndicate. Yeah.
23:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a very strange part of it. So Joe Glasser,
23:15
Speaker 1: it was his manager at the time. And because he
23:18
Speaker 1: was so incensed about this huge what he called rigamaru regard.
23:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, Matt Rigamarole, mind you rigamaroo riga marou.
23:30
Speaker 1: Because he was so angry about this, he wrote to
23:33
Speaker 1: his manager Joe And we won't read the whole letter,
23:37
Speaker 1: but we have some choice excerpts here, and one of
23:40
Speaker 1: our favorites was when he said, straight out, mister Glasser,
23:44
Speaker 1: you must see to it that I have special permission
23:46
Speaker 1: to smoke all the reefers that I want to when
23:49
Speaker 1: I want, or I will just have to put this
23:51
Speaker 1: horn down.
23:52
Speaker 2: That is all. That is all. He refers to the
23:55
Speaker 2: gauge as more of a medicine than a dope, he says,
23:59
Speaker 2: but he's just fed up with the penalty surrounding it.
24:02
Speaker 2: And this was not his first run in with the law.
24:04
Speaker 2: He's actually kind of credited as the right word but
24:07
Speaker 2: as being I've seen it written, is the first celebrity
24:10
Speaker 2: arrested for marijuana possession, right.
24:13
Speaker 1: And he you know, he did have his addictions. I
24:19
Speaker 1: believe he smoked three cigar sized blunts right a day,
24:24
Speaker 1: eight day. Yeah, and that's that sounds like just a
24:29
Speaker 1: maintenance thing, you know. He never had a drinking problem.
24:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, he says he smoked the reefers instead because he
24:37
Speaker 2: said there was no hangover, and you know, he had
24:39
Speaker 2: he had a lot of reasons. He had a lot
24:40
Speaker 2: of feelings about this stuff, right, and he was very
24:43
Speaker 2: open and about about it in a way that you
24:44
Speaker 2: would not expect one to be. But I guess even
24:47
Speaker 2: in those days, if you get to a level of
24:49
Speaker 2: that kind of sacred status, you know, as an American treasure,
24:53
Speaker 2: you'd probably say what you want.
24:55
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like Snoop Dogg Willie Nelson level
24:57
Speaker 1: big time, and those are those are two very prominent
25:01
Speaker 1: advocates of marijuana today.
25:04
Speaker 2: So that first run in was in nineteen thirty where
25:07
Speaker 2: he was hanging out with his drummer, a guy by
25:09
Speaker 2: the name of Vic Burton, outside the Cotton Club in
25:12
Speaker 2: Culver City, California. And lordy, lordy, Lordie, this quote is
25:17
Speaker 2: a delight. I'm going to read this again, not going
25:20
Speaker 2: to do Louis Armstrong voice. He says, Vic and I
25:24
Speaker 2: were blasting this joint, having lots of laughs and feeling good,
25:27
Speaker 2: enjoying each other's company. Just then two big healthy dicks
25:31
Speaker 2: that means detectives came from behind a car nonchalantly and
25:34
Speaker 2: said to us, well take the roach boyz yep.
25:38
Speaker 1: And that that is a true statement. But as we
25:44
Speaker 1: have seen, it did not discourage him one bit because
25:49
Speaker 1: one thing Louis Armstrong had was dry.
25:51
Speaker 2: That's true. He did get put away for a handful
25:54
Speaker 2: of days. He could have gotten six months. But he
25:57
Speaker 2: and the drummer where I think find a thousand dollars
26:00
Speaker 2: apiece in nineteen thirty, which is insane. Shall we inflation
26:04
Speaker 2: calculator that bad boy.
26:06
Speaker 1: Yes, let's one thousand dollars in nineteen thirty is worth
26:12
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen approximately. May have a drum roll, please, casey, Oh, it's.
26:18
Speaker 2: Gonna be It's gonna be crazy.
26:26
Speaker 1: Fourteen thousand, five hundred and ninety three dollars and eighty
26:30
Speaker 1: sent mm. Whenever I read a fine of that sort,
26:35
Speaker 1: you know what always drinds my gears the most.
26:38
Speaker 2: It's the it's the change. Yeah, come on, insult to injury.
26:41
Speaker 1: Just add twenty cents, right, Why are you doing this?
26:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's ridiculous. But like you said, it
26:47
Speaker 2: did not diminish his love of the herb. He A
26:51
Speaker 2: lot of these quotes are coming from excerpts from a
26:54
Speaker 2: biography that I believe, Correct me if I'm wrong, but
26:58
Speaker 2: I believe there was one biography where he talked very
27:02
Speaker 2: openly about his love of marijuana and you know, his
27:06
Speaker 2: belief in marijuana law reform very openly. But this manager,
27:10
Speaker 2: that manager we talked about with the mob ties had
27:14
Speaker 2: a lot of that stuff redacted pulled out because he
27:18
Speaker 2: thought it would be a bad look, I guess for
27:20
Speaker 2: his client. And Louis Armstrong swore that he would have
27:25
Speaker 2: a sequel released that only contained the stuff about his
27:29
Speaker 2: beloved gauge. But yeah, so he got out. They pulled
27:34
Speaker 2: some strings. Some of the club owners, I guess in
27:36
Speaker 2: California in the Los Angeles area got him out and
27:39
Speaker 2: he returned to the bandstand post haste. And then he
27:43
Speaker 2: said when he was performing on the bandstand as a
27:46
Speaker 2: quote where he says, I laughed real hard when several
27:49
Speaker 2: movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played
27:51
Speaker 2: a dance set and told me when they heard about
27:54
Speaker 2: me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a
27:56
Speaker 2: chick whoo boy. That really fractured me.
28:00
Speaker 1: Yes, this is strange because you'll hear a lot of
28:04
Speaker 1: marijuana advocates today and in more recent years describe Louis
28:09
Speaker 1: Armstrong as one of the first public policy advocates for marijuana,
28:14
Speaker 1: and granted, a lot of these outfits will be a
28:17
Speaker 1: little biased, like you can read an article that takes
28:21
Speaker 1: this stint on a website called guess what nol marijuana
28:24
Speaker 1: dot com.
28:25
Speaker 2: Wow bye, someone had to snap up that url of right.
28:29
Speaker 1: And what we also found in what we would be
28:32
Speaker 1: remiss not to mention, is that later in life Armstrong
28:37
Speaker 1: developed significant lung problems, and he died before he even
28:41
Speaker 1: reached his seventieth birthday. You can find this in Louis Armstrong,
28:45
Speaker 1: Genius and Drugs by Stanton Peel, a PhD, writing for
28:49
Speaker 1: Psychology Today. The marijuana use had to have something to
28:52
Speaker 1: do with.
28:53
Speaker 2: Oh, of course, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no question about it.
28:55
Speaker 2: And I want to be clear, we are certainly not
28:58
Speaker 2: advocating the use of marija wanna. This is just an
29:01
Speaker 2: interesting story and it's it's obviously part of the culture,
29:05
Speaker 2: and especially when it comes to you know, creative types
29:09
Speaker 2: and musicians. And clearly Louis Armstrong was a highly functional,
29:15
Speaker 2: successful creative person and this was something he chose to do.
29:20
Speaker 2: And you can't deny that it may have had an
29:22
Speaker 2: impact on the music that he made.
29:25
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, there was this idea that it opened up
29:31
Speaker 1: people's improvisational chops. And Armstrong, when he writes about it,
29:36
Speaker 1: also mentions that there was a bit of escapism, you know,
29:39
Speaker 1: and it made it.
29:40
Speaker 2: Easier to.
29:43
Speaker 1: Not feel like you lived in a country that was
29:46
Speaker 1: constantly kicking the crap out of you.
29:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we and.
29:51
Speaker 1: We can say one of the reasons we're laughing so
29:53
Speaker 1: much about this is because Louis Armstrong's personality shines through
29:59
Speaker 1: so vibrantly and at times comedically in the interviews, in
30:05
Speaker 1: his written works, And we didn't even mention the cartoonish
30:11
Speaker 1: anti marijuana propaganda that was around in the twenties and thirties, right,
30:16
Speaker 1: a lot of it which was race based, primarily discriminating
30:22
Speaker 1: against people of color. So he's rebelling against an authoritarian effort,
30:28
Speaker 1: which in principle is admirable.
30:31
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I'm just to clarify some of those quotes
30:39
Speaker 2: of Louis Armstrong talking about his experiences with weed were
30:45
Speaker 2: not from that original book which came out in nineteen
30:47
Speaker 2: fifty four called Satchmo My Life in New Orleans, because
30:50
Speaker 2: he did talk about it in those sessions, but his
30:53
Speaker 2: manager did have those pulled out and that you cannot
30:55
Speaker 2: find them. But it was near the end of his
30:59
Speaker 2: life in nineteen seventy one he sat down with two biographers,
31:03
Speaker 2: Max Jones and John Chilton, where he decided he was
31:07
Speaker 2: going to quote tell it like it was. And this
31:10
Speaker 2: comes from a fantastic article by Lisa Ruff from Lefley
31:13
Speaker 2: called Lewis Armstrong and Cannabis, The Jazz Legends Lifelong Love
31:18
Speaker 2: of the gauge, and when he sat down with these biographers,
31:21
Speaker 2: he admitted that he did eventually have to put down
31:26
Speaker 2: the Mary Jane right because the penalties were just too
31:30
Speaker 2: steep for him to deal with. You know, he talks
31:33
Speaker 2: about as it's a young man's game. You know you're
31:35
Speaker 2: going to skirt the law and live life on the edge.
31:37
Speaker 2: But you get older and it just stops being functional.
31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's still. My favorite part about that quote
31:45
Speaker 1: is that he's still found a playful way to refer
31:49
Speaker 1: to the substance. You want to read this quote, it's
31:51
Speaker 1: it's a delight, Sure it be an honor. Well that
31:54
Speaker 1: was my life and I don't feel ashamed at all.
31:57
Speaker 1: Mary Warner, Honey, you sure was good. Enjoyed your heap much,
32:01
Speaker 1: but the price got a little too high to pay.
32:04
Speaker 1: At first, you was a misdemeanor, but as the years
32:06
Speaker 1: rolled on, you lost your misdue and got meaner and meaner.
32:10
Speaker 1: Jail Houselee speaking, so bye bye, I'll have to put
32:14
Speaker 1: you down, dearest, beautiful, beautiful sad.
32:17
Speaker 2: All at once.
32:18
Speaker 1: It's like Kurt Vonnegut is kind of writing, There's there's
32:22
Speaker 1: one other thing I do want to point out. I
32:24
Speaker 1: thought you would enjoy this, nol. It has little to
32:28
Speaker 1: do with it has little to do with Barrijuaa, but
32:31
Speaker 1: a lot to do with Louis Armstrong. He was an
32:36
Speaker 1: amazing trumpet player, right, and he was an amazing singer.
32:41
Speaker 1: He was a forthright advocate for marijuana. He was also
32:50
Speaker 1: a laxative advocate. I'm sorry, a laxative advocate, Okay, yeah,
32:55
Speaker 1: sort of like a like a John Harvey Kellogg kind
32:58
Speaker 1: of guy. Uh, kind of hopefully not that into animals. Yeah,
33:05
Speaker 1: but he was an advocate of losing weight through laxatives,
33:09
Speaker 1: which is tremendously unhealthy. Nobody do it. But he was
33:13
Speaker 1: such a proponent of it. People would ask him how
33:16
Speaker 1: he lost so much weight because his weight would fluctuate. Yeah,
33:19
Speaker 1: and he was very open about it. He was like,
33:21
Speaker 1: I used laxatives. He pooped it all out, and he
33:24
Speaker 1: would name a brand of it. He even wrote a
33:26
Speaker 1: book called Lose Weight The Satchmo Way.
33:29
Speaker 2: Was he sponsored did he have a was was he
33:31
Speaker 2: sponsored by a what's a popular laxative? X lax that's
33:35
Speaker 2: like a legacy brand?
33:37
Speaker 1: Well, his initial favorite laxative was something called Pluto water.
33:42
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was banned in nineteen seventy one
33:46
Speaker 1: because it contained lithium.
33:48
Speaker 2: Oh boy, so not only did it make you poop
33:50
Speaker 2: your brains out, it probably made you feel real mellow.
33:54
Speaker 1: Yes, he was so convinced that laxatives were a great
33:59
Speaker 1: curative thing that he gave bottles of them to his
34:02
Speaker 1: friends his presence, and he also, you know, he produced
34:07
Speaker 1: flyers that depicted him sitting on a toilet smiling.
34:12
Speaker 2: Wow.
34:12
Speaker 1: He told the British family when he met them during
34:15
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifty six Great Britain Tour about how awesome
34:19
Speaker 1: laxatives were.
34:21
Speaker 2: True.
34:21
Speaker 1: Story, that's pretty fascinating. But I just I wanted to
34:27
Speaker 1: end on something a little little upbeat, because it is
34:32
Speaker 1: a shame that he was driven, you know, to say
34:37
Speaker 1: goodbye to things that he loved.
34:39
Speaker 2: It's true. And speaking of saying goodbye, Richard Nixon himself,
34:44
Speaker 2: whether or not he served as Satchmo's drug mule, he
34:47
Speaker 2: did have some very kind words to share. On the
34:49
Speaker 2: day of his passing, that was July sixth, nineteen seventy one.
34:54
Speaker 2: He says, Missus Nixon and I share the sorrow of
34:56
Speaker 2: millions of Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong. One
34:59
Speaker 2: of the art text of an American art form, a
35:01
Speaker 2: free and individual spirit, and an artist of worldwide fame.
35:05
Speaker 2: His great talents and magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure
35:09
Speaker 2: to all our lives. And to steal a line from this,
35:12
Speaker 2: really cool but by far the most off the mark
35:16
Speaker 2: version of the story, but it's animated in this series
35:19
Speaker 2: called Drawn and Recorded Louis Armstrong, Sachimo and Nixon, you
35:22
Speaker 2: can check out on Spotify. At the very end, it
35:25
Speaker 2: quotes this this statement from Nixon as well and ends
35:28
Speaker 2: by saying that Richard Nixon also added richness and pleasure
35:33
Speaker 2: to Louis Armstrong's life by smuggling his gage stash.
35:40
Speaker 1: And this is just touching on a single anecdote from
35:45
Speaker 1: the strange and rich history of drugs and public policy
35:50
Speaker 1: in the United States. You know, we can also recommend,
35:53
Speaker 1: if you'd like to learn more about the history of marijuana,
35:56
Speaker 1: specifically in the United States, that you check out our
35:59
Speaker 1: friends over its stuff. You should know and check out
36:02
Speaker 1: the article from NPR The Mysterious History of Marijuana by
36:06
Speaker 1: Matt Thompson, which comes via code Switch.
36:10
Speaker 2: That's a that's a great show, really really good show.
36:13
Speaker 1: And that's all for today, folks, thank you so much
36:16
Speaker 1: for giving us a listener. As always, thanks to Casey
36:19
Speaker 1: Pegram our super producer, big thanks. Maybe the first time
36:24
Speaker 1: we mentioned on the show to Christopher hasiotis man. He
36:27
Speaker 1: is a mensh This guy is our this This guy
36:31
Speaker 1: is a top notch researcher who's been working with us
36:34
Speaker 1: and we're hoping that one day we can cajole him
36:38
Speaker 1: or you know, sweet talk him into peering on the show.
36:41
Speaker 2: He seemed game. But yeah, we're collaborating with him on
36:44
Speaker 2: research for new episodes from here on out, which is
36:48
Speaker 2: really exciting. So look for some really cool fun topics
36:51
Speaker 2: coming up, one of which is coming up next where
36:54
Speaker 2: we talk about how a James Bond film essentially created
37:00
Speaker 2: Ada de las Muertos tradition parade event festival in a
37:06
Speaker 2: city where that wasn't a thing. So tune in check
37:08
Speaker 2: it out.
37:09
Speaker 1: Yes, and in the meantime, you can find us on Instagram,
37:11
Speaker 1: you can find us on Facebook, you can find us
37:14
Speaker 1: on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Also, drop
37:17
Speaker 1: by Ridiculous Historians. I don't know if it'll be up
37:21
Speaker 1: by the time this this comes out, but based on
37:25
Speaker 1: a previous episode, one of you. Dear listeners started a
37:29
Speaker 1: poll and the people have spoken, so I'm gonna have
37:32
Speaker 1: to post that opuland picture.
37:34
Speaker 2: Oh cool.
37:34
Speaker 1: I hope it's not underwhelming. It's it's from far away then,
37:38
Speaker 1: how could it be? You can mainly see a tiny,
37:40
Speaker 1: a tiny boy, a gigantic cat.
37:43
Speaker 2: But it'll be spoilers. Yeah, I can't wait to see it.
37:45
Speaker 2: That's going to be really exciting. Do we thank Alex
37:48
Speaker 2: Williams who composed our theme?
37:49
Speaker 1: You know what, even if we did, let's thank him again, right,
37:52
Speaker 1: he deserves it.
37:52
Speaker 2: Thanks Alex Williams who composed our theme, and most partly
37:55
Speaker 2: thanks to you for listening to ano episod of Ridiculous History.
37:57
Speaker 2: Can't wait to see you next time. For more podcasts
38:08
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38:12
Speaker 2: you listen to your favorite shows.