April 24, 2018 • 36 mins
It's become one of the strangest anecdotes in modern American history -- numerous sources will swear to you that, in a last-minute panic before reaching customs, legendary musician Louis Armstrong had Richard Nixon's unwitting assistance smuggling a hefty amount of marijuana through US customs. It's bizarre (and pretty hilarious) if true... but how true is it? Tune in as the guys get to the bottom of this bizarre American fable.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Oh man, oh man, oh man. It's been a while.
We are finally cool enough cats that we can have
a little bit of intro music for today's episode, Friends
(00:46):
and Neighbors. That was Muggles. That's performed by Louis Armstrong
and co Hi. My name is Ben, my name is no.
So we're doing a Harry Potter episode today, right one
one would think, one would think, but in fact, we
are doing something that involves what some people would call magic. Yeah,
(01:08):
we're talking about the reefer left, the jazz cigarette, the gauge,
the gauge which was Mr Armstrong's personal favorite slang for marijuana.
And we were we have had so much fun researching
this legend that we were worried our you know, our
(01:32):
better third and saving grace. Superproducer Casey Pegram might actually
get tired of us. But while we while we have
them in the studios still, we are going to take
advantage of that precious time. It's really cloudy and it's like,
should we open a door. Kiddy, don't don't engage with drugs. Kids,
(01:56):
don't engage with the gauge. Yes, don't gauge, don't get
you got there, Yeah, we got it. We're here. Oh, man,
but our research was strictly academic for this absolutely. Um.
But man, this is a cool story. There's a lot
wrapped up in a and uh, part of it is
a bit of a kind of an urban legend, apocryphal. Yeah.
(02:16):
So we are exploring the life and times of one
of the jazz greats, someone that I really enjoy and
I think you do as well. Know that is Louis Armstrong.
Pops Yes, sat Statch Mountain and Louis Armstrong is known
and loved the world over. He is one of those
people you could rightly call an icon. That's right. Born
(02:39):
in nineteen hundred August four, to be precise, in New Orleans.
He lied about his age though too. He's a He's
a very layered man, very much so cloaked in mystery.
But one thing we do know is true. He grew
up in a very tough neighborhood in New Orleans called
the Battlefield. His father left the family when he was
just a little boy, and he kind of had defend
(03:01):
for himself, taking on jobs. His mother apparently was only
able to pay the bills through sex work. Um. And
he had kind of a wild upbringing in the course
sort of seed underbelly of New Orleans included dance clubs
and Women of the Evening, and of course a lot
of jazz musicians right right. His first exposure to music
(03:27):
in a learning environment was at the Fisc School for
Boys when he was about six years old. But he
ended up putting in his time when it came to
listening to music at brothels and dance halls, because he
had a gig selling coal for a nickel per bucket
in these you know, in these houses of prostitution in
(03:47):
an area called Storyville. And then as he was as
he was making his rounds delivering coal, he ran into
these house musicians and he ran into something called spasm band. Well,
I don't know about spasm bands. Tell me more. I'm
so glad you asked. A spasm band is a musical
group that plays dixieland traditional jazz, jug band or skiffle music.
(04:12):
Skiffle like that's sort of what the Beatles were considered.
They were part of the skiffle scene. Apparently in the
UK the skiffle was sort of like a folk pop
kind of form of music. Right, nailed it, nailed it. Jazz, blues,
folk and uh American folk known for some improvised instruments.
So he, as as you said, began hanging out there,
(04:33):
spending serious time in these halls. And it was pretty
apparent early on that he had a gift, a calling,
a compulsion to play music, to sing, and to play
the horn. And he was taken under the wing of
a professor Peter Davis, who taught Armstrong to play the cornet,
(04:56):
which I believe is kind of a like a smaller trumpet.
A trumpet is a a little bit longer and more
slender than a cornet, but in reality they both played
the same notes and they sound more or less the same,
So easy one to one transition from the cornet to
a trumpet if you want to get nerdy about it.
The difference is, uh, mainly the way the tubing of
(05:17):
the instrument flares. A cornet is more cone shaped or
conical than a trumpet, so as a cornett kind of
considered more bite sized portable. I don't know, I don't
see the point. Yeah, let us know we are not
cornetitiansu um. But I am fond of some hot jazz. Ah, yes,
hot jazz, which in its day would be considered often
(05:39):
as controversial perhaps as the use of drugs and Louis
Armstrong's jazz career is worthy of not just an episode,
but an entire podcast. We could spend exploring this guy
and exploring the personal struggles that he endured. I have
some great Louis Armstrong facts at the end of this
(06:03):
But before you and I go too far down the
fam boy rabbit hole, should we set the scene for
today's encounter? I think we should, Ben, I think we
should please do the honors. Today's episode centers around an
apocryphal tale. I believe you weren't used that word earlier.
(06:23):
Been um, a pot crow full tale. Not not good.
It's fine, We're keeping it. Yeah. Where so Louis Armstrong
during the Cold War he was made a US ambassador,
a goodwill ambassador. Excuse me, he was sent abroad, as
were many African American musicians and actors and writers. Um,
(06:46):
I don't know, to preach equality. I guess during the
era of integration. Well, yes, so a good will ambassador
isn't just relegated to this period in time, like Angelina
Jolie is a good will ambassador. That's right, that's right.
They're a person who advocates for their person who advocates,
typically for a country or maybe for a specific cause,
(07:08):
based on the fact that everyone knows who they are.
That's right. So Louis Armstrong had this distinction straight from
the U. S. State Department, who actually also paid for
or or in part financed a tour that he did
in Europe and Asia. And while there are a few
versions of this story that sort of change where he
was coming from, uh, the one common little thread is
(07:31):
that Louis Armstrong was at the airport on after getting
off a plane from from one of these trips um
and he was led um out of line into a
customs line, which was unusual for him because, according to
the story, as a good will ambassador, he was traveling
to different areas of the world and never having to
(07:54):
enter custom They waved him on through. Sure, but he
was supposedly coming back from Japan. Um. That's that's the
most consistent version of the story that I've read. And so, yeah,
he's in this line and he starts to sweat. Why
is he sweating? He's not. He's not sweating because of
the because of the sound of a hot trumpet, right,
He's not sweating because of the heat in the airport.
(08:14):
He is sweating because his trumpet case contains more than
a beautiful musical instrument. He is, in our parlance today,
riding dirty, riding dirty. Packing. Yeah, he has gauge on him. Yep,
he's gauged up. He's got he's got his muggles, uh
slang for marijuana. At the time, his left hand cigarettes
(08:38):
in a pretty substantial amount three pounds. Right, that's what
we hear with the story. And there's something important we
want want you to be aware of. As we're telling
this story. You may hear us switching between different versions
and different sources. Again, quite apocryphal, bordering on urban legend,
very hard to confirm or deny the story, but there
(08:59):
are several versions in Louis armstrong biographies that are floating
out there. So we'll we'll give you, we'll give you
the kind of the bare bones version. So we got
off the first class flight, he's going into a customs line,
and then who does he see but Richard Nixon, who
(09:20):
was either on the way to becoming president or serving
as a vice president. Tricky dicky yep, himself uh, the
one of the men who would go on to become
a huge advocate of what we call the drug war. Yes,
the war on drugs, the war on drugs, and so
in a panic and thinking quickly Louis Armstrong, who is
(09:40):
talking with Nixon, who turns out to be a huge
fan of well the way I've read it too, and
there's a couple of versions. But Nixon sees Louis and
comes running at him with open arms. Think he's gonna
get a sweet press photo, right Armstrong statch Molly says.
He says, sharts shrosh mall, mall are you doing so?
(10:03):
Louis Armstrong thinks this is a sign, and Nixon's like, oh,
you know, one more help you? And he says, actually, yes,
you see, I'm I'm old and this trumpet is heavy.
Do you think you could carry it for me? Give
me a hand. That was an amazing Louis Armstrong impression.
(10:24):
I feel like it would be racist for either of
us to attempt. Yes, but next yeah, we could do
we could do our muppet level. Nixon's back and forth
right in and let us know if you want us
to do a show where both of us are Richard Nixon.
We're ridiculous at how stuff works. Dot com, oh Man,
what if people write in we'll do it if only
(10:46):
if the episode has nothing to do with Richard Dixon.
That's fine, Okay, you're you're agreed to this, sure, all right,
So what what happens when Armstrong asked him to give
him a hand Well, first of all, one version one
one difference in various accounts is whether he was carrying
one case or two cases. That he would make the
(11:07):
most sense for him to have been carrying two cases,
because three pounds of weed is not going to fit
into a single trumpet case, right, And then also asking
someone to carry something for you when you have nothing
else to carry seems shady. Again, several versions. The one
that we're kind of talking about here is Nixon demands
that he hand him his cases because he says, a
(11:27):
good world ambassador doesn't have to go through customs, and
the vice president of the United States will carry your suitcases.
Satch mall and then again, this story, depending on when
you hear it, describes a different point in Richard Nixon's career.
But according to the story, according to the legendent, what
(11:47):
happens is with the maybe not the best of intentions,
because he clearly wanted the photo the man who would
later become Richard Nixon, a very anti drug president, carries
marijuana through customs for Louis Armstrong, hands hands it back
to Louis Armstrong, who somehow must have been keeping a
(12:09):
straight face through the whole thing. Uh. And later Louis
and some of his accompanists will swear by this story.
But the thing is, depending on who you ask, the
story differs in a multitude of ways. Right. First off,
Armstrong was only about twelve years older than Nixon. Because
(12:34):
he got his he would tell people he was born
on August four, nine hundred, but it was more like
nineteen o one because it was a thirteen month or
so difference. Yeah, man, and that particular account is credited. Uh,
this is getting in a murky territory. Here's someone named Miles,
So Miles Davis. I don't know, it's hard to say,
(12:57):
but yeah. As it turns out, though, that keyboardist that's
mentioned in that version of the story never played with
Louis Armstrong. So yeah, there's shock full of holes that
there's no record of any session where they played together.
And so in that version, he Armstrong was not necessarily
an ambassador. He was just on a good Will tour
(13:19):
and he was going to I think they were all
on the same plane and they were headed to Moscow
in this thing, So the the directions and the locations change,
that's right. And this is in what what year are
we talking here? Uh? This particular, the Moscow story would
date it to nineteen fifty nine, and that has its
problems as well, right, but in general, like, if we're
(13:40):
looking at a rough estimate for when this meeting was
supposed to take place, it would have been late fifties,
early sixties, right, yeah, that's about right, yeah, exactly. So
the good will tours, I think that part of it
was about integration because a lot of the people they
sent on these tours were African American luminaries, um. And
it was meant, I think, to show, hey, we're we're
(14:01):
doing good work. Well, because one of the tenants of
the Soviet ideology at the time was that communism provides
much more equality than capitalism. So this is sort of
a foray against exactly. And so it's also tied to
the Cold War as well, right yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(14:22):
at least ideologically. And so this this story continues through
some other iterations, right that the problem with the idea
of the vice President of the US taking a flight
on official business to Moscow in nine is that there
would be some sort of record of it. Right. Well,
(14:44):
although it is true that apparently in those days the
vice president would have taken commercial flights, which I thought
was fascinating big time. I had no idea. Well, what
a kick in the pants man. Seriously, man, it's the
president hops on air Force one and what what do
you just fist bump and then say all right, I
gotta go get in line catch my flight. And customs,
(15:09):
of course, was a lot easier in those days. Everything
I mean, yeah, yeah, guys, it's going to the airport
today just stresses me out so much it's not fun. Furthermore,
there had only been three trips by jazz musicians to
Russia by nine at least that are documented, and Louis
(15:30):
Armstrong was not one of those constitutions. So I'm leaning
towards if this is if this did happen, probably coming
back from his uh I've seen this version of the
story enough times that it seems to stick. Coming back
from one of his tours in Asia in Japan. Yes,
(15:52):
this is one of those stories though, where it's it's
you want to believe it because it's just so so
funny to think that Sachemo kind of put one over
on tricky Dick Nixon before he was even well known
as being such a vehement uh anti drug force. You know. Um,
but can we talk a little bit about satch Mo's
lifelong love of of of the Mary Jane. Yeah, let's
(16:13):
set it up with a clip. What do you say? Yea?
So this is a clip from Louis Armstrong on um
some sort of television appearance. Looks like an interview show.
At first, I thought it was like Steve Allen or something,
but the guy's name play says Mr Daley, and I
couldn't figure out what show it was. But from that's right, Yes,
so let's give that a listen. Actually, I haven't had
a chance to talk to for the show, but we
(16:37):
had a great discussion about it, and I just asked
one of the folks on the show, Bob Backers, well,
what is it? What is Louis Armstrong going to do?
How is he going to discuss farce? It's always going
way up the way he sings? Is that the highest good? Well,
I don't know what I'm saying it was high for you.
(17:02):
But oh uh, this is worth looking up on YouTube
because without being um, without being like experts in assessing
someone's mental condition or their level of intoxication, Louis Armstrong
(17:28):
looks like he is mildly amused by this guy, or
maybe smoked some pot before the show. Yeah, the gauge,
the gauge what he called it. In fact, this clip
is called Pops Loves His Pot because Pops was another nickname,
and apparently also Louis Armstrong called everybody else Pops, which
is kind of neat. Yeah, I think that's cool. If
(17:50):
I started calling everybody by my own nickname, that'd be
pretty presumptuous. Also kind of badass. Well, he probably started
it before it was his nickname and people gave him
that nickname. That's a good point. That's a good point.
But you know, I don't think that's a way to
get ahead in life. You've gotta be a Louis Armstrong
for that to work. Did you get a sense that
this uh, very white host being a little bit of
(18:13):
a dick? You know, as we were watching a lot
of these interviews. One thing that bothered me and that
we talked a little bit about off air is that
in this time, many of the interviews that he has,
especially with white interviewers, are exercises in condescension, and they're
(18:33):
consistently talking over him and talking too much. It's strange,
it's not cool, it's gross because the thing like, Okay,
so in the company of Louis Armstrong, as African American
artists who had crossover appeal, you know, to a largely
white audience, where people like Cab Callaway and Fats Waller,
(18:55):
for example, they all kind of had in common that
they came him from this kind of underground scene, Um,
Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, like we talked about the
top of the show, but they managed to break through
and be very successful with white audiences. But that also
they kind of had to like that's the word I'm
(19:16):
looking for. I don't know that I felt like they
had They had to play by their rules a little bit.
They had to sort of bow and scrape a little bit.
And while this may have given them um success or
maybe even to some degree sanitized them or made them
less dangerous to the very racist white community, it was
(19:38):
contentious and considered offensive in the black community in the States.
At the time, and this is something we know now
deeply troubled many of these artists, Louis Armstrong included, because
he would have he would have people in the movement,
the civil rights movement accused him of being and Uncle Tom.
(20:01):
The idea be that he was selling out his own
identity for some measure of personal profit from people who
would never respect him, which which is which is a
shame because once you see his his letters and his correspondence,
he did have a public persona for sure, that's true.
Everybody does, no no, no, no doubt about him. But
(20:23):
he was an activist. Uh, he came to activism. In
his letters, you can see him angry, ferociously angry and
righteously fed up with the state of race relations in America,
as well as the policies towards marijuana. His wife actually
got arrested one time in nineteen fifty four for carrying
(20:48):
marijuana that was allegedly his. Yeah, it was like something
in the neighborhood of like fourteen Grahams. It was like
a rolled up marijuana cigarette. Yeah it was. It sounds
like a pot, a joint it. It was in an
eyeglass case and a couple of roaches. Yeah, the half
(21:09):
smoked joint. And we have an excerpt because he wrote
a letter about this. He almost got banned from Hawaii
for life. Yeah, because that was just on Waikiki. Yeah,
and this is a letter to his then manager, who
also I believe had uh ties to the al Capone
crime syndicate. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very strange part of it.
(21:31):
Uh So Joe glass Or it was his manager at
the time. And because he was so incensed about about
this huge what he called Rigga maru regard. I love
that rigamarole, mind you Riga maru rigor maru. Because he
was so angry about this, he wrote to his manager
(21:54):
Joe And we won't read the whole letter, but we
have some choice excerpts here, and one of our favorites
was when he said, straight out, Mr Glasser, you must
see to it that I have special permission to smoke
all the reefers that I want to when I want,
or I will just have to put this horn down.
That is all. That is all. He refers to the
(22:15):
gauge um as more of a medicine than a dope,
he says, but he's just fed up with the penalty
surrounding it, and this was not his first run in
with the law. He's actually kind of credited as the
right word, but as being I've seen it written as
the first celebrity arrested for marijuana possession, right, and he
you know, he did have his addictions. I believe he
(22:40):
smoked three cigar sized blunts a day day and that's
that sounds like just a maintenance thing. You know, he
never had a drinking problem. Yeah, he says he smoked
the reefers um instead because he said there was no hangover,
and you know he had he had a lot of reasons.
He had a lot of feelings about this stuff, right,
(23:02):
and he was very open and about about it in
a way that you would not expect one to be.
But I guess even in those days, if you get
to a level of that kind of sacred status, you know,
as an American treasure, you can probably say what you want.
I mean, this is like Snoop Dogg Willie Nelson level,
and those are those are two very prominent advocates of
(23:23):
marijuana today. So that first running was in nineteen thirty
where he was hanging out with his drummer, a guy
by the name of Vic Burton outside the Cotton Club
in Culver City, California. And Lordie, Lordie, Lordie, this quote
is a delight. I'm gonna read this again. Not not
gonna do uh. Louis Armstrong boys, he says, Vic and
(23:44):
I were blasting this joint, having lots of laughs and
feeling good, enjoying each other's company. Just then two big
healthy dicks that means detectives came from behind a car,
nonchalantley and said to us, we'll take the roach boys. Yep,
and that is that is a true statement. But as
(24:04):
we have seen, it did not discourage him what one bit.
Because one thing Louis Armstrong had was dry. That's true. Um.
He did get put away for a handful of days.
He could have gotten six months. Um. He and the drummer,
Where I think find a thousand dollars a piece in
nineteen thirty which is insane? Shall we inflation calculator that
(24:25):
bad boy? Yes, let's one thousand dollars in nineteen thirty
is worth in twenty eighteen approximately. May have a drum roll, please, Casey,
it's gonna be It's gonna be crazy. Fourteen thousand, five
(24:47):
hundred ninety three dollars, and whenever I read a fine
of that sort. You know what always drives my gears
the most. It's the it's the change. Come on, insult
to injury, just add twenty cents, right, Why are you doing?
It's it's it's it's it's ridiculous. But like you said,
it did not diminish his love of the herb Um.
(25:11):
He A lot of these quotes are coming from excerpts
from a biography that I believe, Correct me if I'm wrong,
but I believe there was one biography where he talked
very openly about his his love of marijuana and you know,
his belief in marijuana law reform very openly. But this manager,
that manager we talked about with with the mob ties,
(25:34):
UM had a lot of that stuff redacted pulled out
UM because he thought it would be a bad book,
I guess for his client. UM and Louis arms Armstrong
swore that he would have a sequel released that only
contained the stuff about his beloved gauge UM. But yeah,
so he got out. UM. They pulled some strings. Some
(25:55):
of the club owners I guess in in California in
the Los Angeles area got him out. He returned to
the bandstand post haste, and then he said when he
was performing on the bandstand as a quote where he says,
I laughed real hard when several movie stars came up
to the bandstand while we played a dance set and
told me when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana,
(26:15):
they thought marijuana was a chick. Well boy, that really
fractured me. Yes. Uh, this is strange because you will
hear a lot of marijuana advocates today and in more
recent years describe Louis Armstrong as one of the first
public policy advocates for marijuana, and granted, a lot of
(26:37):
these outfits will be a little biased, like you can
read an article that takes this stent on a website
called Guess what Noel Marijuana dot com by someone had
to snap up that you r o right. And what
we also found in what we would be remiss not
to mention is that later in life Armstrong developed significant
(26:59):
lung problem plums and he died before he even reached
his seventieth birthday. You can find this in uh, Louis
Armstrong Genius and Drugs by Stanton Peel, a PhD. Writing
for Psychology Today. The marijuana used had to have something
to do it, of course. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
no question about it. And I want to be clear,
we are certainly not advocating the use of marijuana. Uh.
(27:21):
This is is such an interesting story and it's it's
obviously part of the culture and especially when it comes
to you know, creative types and musicians. And clearly Louis
Armstrong was a highly functional, successful creative person. Uh. And
this was something he chose to do. And you can't
deny that it may have had an impact on um
(27:44):
the music that he made. Absolutely, Yeah, there was this
idea that uh, it opened up people's improvisational chops. And Armstrong,
when he writes about it, also mentions that there was
a bit of escapism, you know, and it made it
easier to um not feel like you lived in a
(28:06):
country that was constantly kicking the crap out of you.
And we and we can say one of the reasons
we're laughing so much about this is because Louis Armstrong's
personality shines through so vibrantly and at times comedically in
the interviews, in the in his written works. And we
(28:28):
didn't even mention the cartoonish anti marijuana propaganda that was
around in the twenties and thirties, right well, a lot
of it which was race based, primarily discriminating against people
of color. So is rebelling against an authoritarian effort, which
(28:50):
in principle is admirable. And I'm just to clarify that
some of those quotes of of Louis Armstrong talking about
his experiences with uh with weed Um, we're not from
that original book which came out in nineteen fifty four
called Satchmo My Life in New Orleans, because he did
(29:11):
talk about it in those sessions, but his manager did
have those pulled out and that you cannot find them.
But it was near the end of his life. In
nineteen seventy one he sat down with two biographers, Max
Jones and John Chilton Um where he decided he was
going to quote tell it like it was. And this
comes from a fantastic article by Lisa Ruff from Leafley
(29:33):
called Louis Armstrong and Cannabis the Jazz Legends lifelong love
of the gauge. And when he sat down with these biographers,
he admitted that he did eventually have to put down
the Mary Jane right because the penalties were just too
steep for him to deal with. You know, he talks
about as it's a young man's game. You know you're
(29:55):
gonna skirt the law and live life on the edge.
But you get older and it's just just stops being functional. Yeah,
and he's still. My favorite part about that quote is
that he's still found a playful way to refer to
the substance. Do you want to read this system? It's
a delight, Sure would be an honor. Well that was
my life and I don't feel ashamed at all. Mary Warner, Honey,
(30:19):
you're sure it was good and I enjoyed you heap much,
but the price got a little too high to pay.
At first, you was a misdemeanor, but as the years
rolled on, you lost your misdo and got meaner and meaner.
Jail house Lee speaking, So bye bye, I'll have to
put you down, dearest beautiful. Do you feel sad all
at once? It's like Kurt Vonnegut kind of writing. Uh,
(30:41):
There's there's one other thing I do want to point out.
I thought you would enjoy this snoll. It has little
to do with It has little to do with Barre Watta,
but a lot to do with Louis Armstrong. He was
an amazing trumpet player, right, and he was an amazing singer.
(31:02):
He was uh, forthright advocate for marijuana. He was also
a laxative advocate. I'm sorry, a laxative advocate. Okay, yeah,
sort of like a like a John Harvey Kellogg kind
of guy. Uh, kind of hopefully not not that into
(31:24):
uh animals. But he was an advocate of losing weight
through laxatives, which is tremendously unhealthy. Nobody do it, but
he was such a proponent of it. People would ask
him how he lost so much weight because his weight
would fluctuate, and he was very open about it. He
was like, I use laxatives, and he would name a
(31:45):
brand of it. Uh. He even wrote a book called
Lose Weight the Satchmo Way, was he sponsored? Did he have? Was?
Was he sponsored by what's the popular laxative x lax
that's like a legacy brand? Well, his initial favorite laxative
was something called Pluto water God, and it was banned
(32:05):
in nineteen seventy one because it contained lithium. Boy, so
not only did it make you poop your brains out,
it probably made you feel real mellow. Yes, he was
so convinced that laxatives were a great curative thing that
he gave bottles of them to his friends his presence,
and he also, you know, he produced flyers that depicted
(32:29):
him sitting on a toilet smiling. He told the British
family when he met them during the nine Great Britain
Tour about how awesome laxatives were. True story. That's uh,
that's pretty fascinating. But I, I just I wanted to
end on something a little little upbeat, because it is
(32:53):
a shame that he was driven, you know, to to
say goodbye to things that he loved. It's true. Um.
And speaking of saying goodbye, uh, Richard Nixon himself, whether
or not he served as Sachem's drug mule, he did
have some very kind words to share on the day
of his passing, that was July sixe UM. He says,
(33:15):
Mrs Nixon and I share the sorrow of millions of
Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong, one of the
architects of an American art form, a free and individual spirit,
and an artist of worldwide fame. His great talents and
magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure to all our lives
and and to steal a line from this really cool
um but but by far the most off the mark
(33:37):
version of the story. But it's animated in this series
called Drawn and Recorded, Uh Louis Armstrong, SACHEMO and Nixon
you can check out on Spotify. At the very end,
it quotes this um this statement from Nixon as well
and ends by saying that Richard Nixon also added richness
and pleasure to Louis Armstrong's life by smuggle and his
his gage stash. And and this is just touching on
(34:03):
a single anecdote from the strange and rich history of
drugs and public policy in the United States. Uh. You know,
we can also recommend, if you'd like to learn more
about the history of marijuana, specifically in the United States,
that you check out our friends over at Stuff you
Should Know and check out the article from NPR The
(34:24):
Mysterious History of Marijuana by Matt Thompson, which comes via
code Switch. That's a that's a great show, and that's
all for today, folks. Thank you so much for giving
us a listen. As always, thanks to Casey Pegram, our
super producer. Big thanks. Maybe the first time we mentioned
(34:45):
on the show to Christopher hascy otis this guy is
our this. This guy is a top notch researcher has
been working with us and we're hoping that one day
we can cajole him or you know, sweet talk him
into peering on the show. He seemed game, but yeah,
we're collaborating with him um on research for new episodes
(35:07):
from here on out, which is really exciting. So look
for some really cool fun topics coming up, one of
which is coming up next where we talk about how
a James Bond film essentially created a Da Della s
Muertos tradition um parade event festival in a city where
that wasn't a thing. So tune in and check it out. Yes,
(35:29):
and in the meantime, you can find us on Instagram,
you can find us on Facebook, you can find us
on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Also dropped
by ridiculous Historians. I don't know if it'll be up
by the time this this comes out, but based on
a previous episode, uh, one of you dear listeners started
(35:49):
a poll and the people have spoken, so I'm gonna
have to post that opuland picture. Oh cool. I hope
it's not underwhelming. It's it's from far away then how
could it be? You may we see a tiny a
tiny boy, a gigantic cat, but it'll be spoilers. Yeah,
I can't wait to see it that. That's gonna be
really exciting. Um, did we thank Alex Williams who composed
our theme? You know what, even if we did, let's
(36:11):
thank and again, right he deserves it. Thanks Alex Williams
who composed our theme, and most poorly, thanks to you
for listening to another episode of Ridiculous History. I can't
wait to see you next time.
Oh man, oh man, oh man. It's been a while.
We are finally cool enough cats that we can have
a little bit of intro music for today's episode, Friends
(00:46):
and Neighbors. That was Muggles. That's performed by Louis Armstrong
and co Hi. My name is Ben, my name is no.
So we're doing a Harry Potter episode today, right one
one would think, one would think, but in fact, we
are doing something that involves what some people would call magic. Yeah,
(01:08):
we're talking about the reefer left, the jazz cigarette, the gauge,
the gauge which was Mr Armstrong's personal favorite slang for marijuana.
And we were we have had so much fun researching
this legend that we were worried our you know, our
(01:32):
better third and saving grace. Superproducer Casey Pegram might actually
get tired of us. But while we while we have
them in the studios still, we are going to take
advantage of that precious time. It's really cloudy and it's like,
should we open a door. Kiddy, don't don't engage with drugs. Kids,
(01:56):
don't engage with the gauge. Yes, don't gauge, don't get
you got there, Yeah, we got it. We're here. Oh, man,
but our research was strictly academic for this absolutely. Um.
But man, this is a cool story. There's a lot
wrapped up in a and uh, part of it is
a bit of a kind of an urban legend, apocryphal. Yeah.
(02:16):
So we are exploring the life and times of one
of the jazz greats, someone that I really enjoy and
I think you do as well. Know that is Louis Armstrong.
Pops Yes, sat Statch Mountain and Louis Armstrong is known
and loved the world over. He is one of those
people you could rightly call an icon. That's right. Born
(02:39):
in nineteen hundred August four, to be precise, in New Orleans.
He lied about his age though too. He's a He's
a very layered man, very much so cloaked in mystery.
But one thing we do know is true. He grew
up in a very tough neighborhood in New Orleans called
the Battlefield. His father left the family when he was
just a little boy, and he kind of had defend
(03:01):
for himself, taking on jobs. His mother apparently was only
able to pay the bills through sex work. Um. And
he had kind of a wild upbringing in the course
sort of seed underbelly of New Orleans included dance clubs
and Women of the Evening, and of course a lot
of jazz musicians right right. His first exposure to music
(03:27):
in a learning environment was at the Fisc School for
Boys when he was about six years old. But he
ended up putting in his time when it came to
listening to music at brothels and dance halls, because he
had a gig selling coal for a nickel per bucket
in these you know, in these houses of prostitution in
(03:47):
an area called Storyville. And then as he was as
he was making his rounds delivering coal, he ran into
these house musicians and he ran into something called spasm band. Well,
I don't know about spasm bands. Tell me more. I'm
so glad you asked. A spasm band is a musical
group that plays dixieland traditional jazz, jug band or skiffle music.
(04:12):
Skiffle like that's sort of what the Beatles were considered.
They were part of the skiffle scene. Apparently in the
UK the skiffle was sort of like a folk pop
kind of form of music. Right, nailed it, nailed it. Jazz, blues,
folk and uh American folk known for some improvised instruments.
So he, as as you said, began hanging out there,
(04:33):
spending serious time in these halls. And it was pretty
apparent early on that he had a gift, a calling,
a compulsion to play music, to sing, and to play
the horn. And he was taken under the wing of
a professor Peter Davis, who taught Armstrong to play the cornet,
(04:56):
which I believe is kind of a like a smaller trumpet.
A trumpet is a a little bit longer and more
slender than a cornet, but in reality they both played
the same notes and they sound more or less the same,
So easy one to one transition from the cornet to
a trumpet if you want to get nerdy about it.
The difference is, uh, mainly the way the tubing of
(05:17):
the instrument flares. A cornet is more cone shaped or
conical than a trumpet, so as a cornett kind of
considered more bite sized portable. I don't know, I don't
see the point. Yeah, let us know we are not
cornetitiansu um. But I am fond of some hot jazz. Ah, yes,
hot jazz, which in its day would be considered often
(05:39):
as controversial perhaps as the use of drugs and Louis
Armstrong's jazz career is worthy of not just an episode,
but an entire podcast. We could spend exploring this guy
and exploring the personal struggles that he endured. I have
some great Louis Armstrong facts at the end of this
(06:03):
But before you and I go too far down the
fam boy rabbit hole, should we set the scene for
today's encounter? I think we should, Ben, I think we
should please do the honors. Today's episode centers around an
apocryphal tale. I believe you weren't used that word earlier.
(06:23):
Been um, a pot crow full tale. Not not good.
It's fine, We're keeping it. Yeah. Where so Louis Armstrong
during the Cold War he was made a US ambassador,
a goodwill ambassador. Excuse me, he was sent abroad, as
were many African American musicians and actors and writers. Um,
(06:46):
I don't know, to preach equality. I guess during the
era of integration. Well, yes, so a good will ambassador
isn't just relegated to this period in time, like Angelina
Jolie is a good will ambassador. That's right, that's right.
They're a person who advocates for their person who advocates,
typically for a country or maybe for a specific cause,
(07:08):
based on the fact that everyone knows who they are.
That's right. So Louis Armstrong had this distinction straight from
the U. S. State Department, who actually also paid for
or or in part financed a tour that he did
in Europe and Asia. And while there are a few
versions of this story that sort of change where he
was coming from, uh, the one common little thread is
(07:31):
that Louis Armstrong was at the airport on after getting
off a plane from from one of these trips um
and he was led um out of line into a
customs line, which was unusual for him because, according to
the story, as a good will ambassador, he was traveling
to different areas of the world and never having to
(07:54):
enter custom They waved him on through. Sure, but he
was supposedly coming back from Japan. Um. That's that's the
most consistent version of the story that I've read. And so, yeah,
he's in this line and he starts to sweat. Why
is he sweating? He's not. He's not sweating because of
the because of the sound of a hot trumpet, right,
He's not sweating because of the heat in the airport.
(08:14):
He is sweating because his trumpet case contains more than
a beautiful musical instrument. He is, in our parlance today,
riding dirty, riding dirty. Packing. Yeah, he has gauge on him. Yep,
he's gauged up. He's got he's got his muggles, uh
slang for marijuana. At the time, his left hand cigarettes
(08:38):
in a pretty substantial amount three pounds. Right, that's what
we hear with the story. And there's something important we
want want you to be aware of. As we're telling
this story. You may hear us switching between different versions
and different sources. Again, quite apocryphal, bordering on urban legend,
very hard to confirm or deny the story, but there
(08:59):
are several versions in Louis armstrong biographies that are floating
out there. So we'll we'll give you, we'll give you
the kind of the bare bones version. So we got
off the first class flight, he's going into a customs line,
and then who does he see but Richard Nixon, who
(09:20):
was either on the way to becoming president or serving
as a vice president. Tricky dicky yep, himself uh, the
one of the men who would go on to become
a huge advocate of what we call the drug war. Yes,
the war on drugs, the war on drugs, and so
in a panic and thinking quickly Louis Armstrong, who is
(09:40):
talking with Nixon, who turns out to be a huge
fan of well the way I've read it too, and
there's a couple of versions. But Nixon sees Louis and
comes running at him with open arms. Think he's gonna
get a sweet press photo, right Armstrong statch Molly says.
He says, sharts shrosh mall, mall are you doing so?
(10:03):
Louis Armstrong thinks this is a sign, and Nixon's like, oh,
you know, one more help you? And he says, actually, yes,
you see, I'm I'm old and this trumpet is heavy.
Do you think you could carry it for me? Give
me a hand. That was an amazing Louis Armstrong impression.
(10:24):
I feel like it would be racist for either of
us to attempt. Yes, but next yeah, we could do
we could do our muppet level. Nixon's back and forth
right in and let us know if you want us
to do a show where both of us are Richard Nixon.
We're ridiculous at how stuff works. Dot com, oh Man,
what if people write in we'll do it if only
(10:46):
if the episode has nothing to do with Richard Dixon.
That's fine, Okay, you're you're agreed to this, sure, all right,
So what what happens when Armstrong asked him to give
him a hand Well, first of all, one version one
one difference in various accounts is whether he was carrying
one case or two cases. That he would make the
(11:07):
most sense for him to have been carrying two cases,
because three pounds of weed is not going to fit
into a single trumpet case, right, And then also asking
someone to carry something for you when you have nothing
else to carry seems shady. Again, several versions. The one
that we're kind of talking about here is Nixon demands
that he hand him his cases because he says, a
(11:27):
good world ambassador doesn't have to go through customs, and
the vice president of the United States will carry your suitcases.
Satch mall and then again, this story, depending on when
you hear it, describes a different point in Richard Nixon's career.
But according to the story, according to the legendent, what
(11:47):
happens is with the maybe not the best of intentions,
because he clearly wanted the photo the man who would
later become Richard Nixon, a very anti drug president, carries
marijuana through customs for Louis Armstrong, hands hands it back
to Louis Armstrong, who somehow must have been keeping a
(12:09):
straight face through the whole thing. Uh. And later Louis
and some of his accompanists will swear by this story.
But the thing is, depending on who you ask, the
story differs in a multitude of ways. Right. First off,
Armstrong was only about twelve years older than Nixon. Because
(12:34):
he got his he would tell people he was born
on August four, nine hundred, but it was more like
nineteen o one because it was a thirteen month or
so difference. Yeah, man, and that particular account is credited. Uh,
this is getting in a murky territory. Here's someone named Miles,
So Miles Davis. I don't know, it's hard to say,
(12:57):
but yeah. As it turns out, though, that keyboardist that's
mentioned in that version of the story never played with
Louis Armstrong. So yeah, there's shock full of holes that
there's no record of any session where they played together.
And so in that version, he Armstrong was not necessarily
an ambassador. He was just on a good Will tour
(13:19):
and he was going to I think they were all
on the same plane and they were headed to Moscow
in this thing, So the the directions and the locations change,
that's right. And this is in what what year are
we talking here? Uh? This particular, the Moscow story would
date it to nineteen fifty nine, and that has its
problems as well, right, but in general, like, if we're
(13:40):
looking at a rough estimate for when this meeting was
supposed to take place, it would have been late fifties,
early sixties, right, yeah, that's about right, yeah, exactly. So
the good will tours, I think that part of it
was about integration because a lot of the people they
sent on these tours were African American luminaries, um. And
it was meant, I think, to show, hey, we're we're
(14:01):
doing good work. Well, because one of the tenants of
the Soviet ideology at the time was that communism provides
much more equality than capitalism. So this is sort of
a foray against exactly. And so it's also tied to
the Cold War as well, right yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(14:22):
at least ideologically. And so this this story continues through
some other iterations, right that the problem with the idea
of the vice President of the US taking a flight
on official business to Moscow in nine is that there
would be some sort of record of it. Right. Well,
(14:44):
although it is true that apparently in those days the
vice president would have taken commercial flights, which I thought
was fascinating big time. I had no idea. Well, what
a kick in the pants man. Seriously, man, it's the
president hops on air Force one and what what do
you just fist bump and then say all right, I
gotta go get in line catch my flight. And customs,
(15:09):
of course, was a lot easier in those days. Everything
I mean, yeah, yeah, guys, it's going to the airport
today just stresses me out so much it's not fun. Furthermore,
there had only been three trips by jazz musicians to
Russia by nine at least that are documented, and Louis
(15:30):
Armstrong was not one of those constitutions. So I'm leaning
towards if this is if this did happen, probably coming
back from his uh I've seen this version of the
story enough times that it seems to stick. Coming back
from one of his tours in Asia in Japan. Yes,
(15:52):
this is one of those stories though, where it's it's
you want to believe it because it's just so so
funny to think that Sachemo kind of put one over
on tricky Dick Nixon before he was even well known
as being such a vehement uh anti drug force. You know. Um,
but can we talk a little bit about satch Mo's
lifelong love of of of the Mary Jane. Yeah, let's
(16:13):
set it up with a clip. What do you say? Yea?
So this is a clip from Louis Armstrong on um
some sort of television appearance. Looks like an interview show.
At first, I thought it was like Steve Allen or something,
but the guy's name play says Mr Daley, and I
couldn't figure out what show it was. But from that's right, Yes,
so let's give that a listen. Actually, I haven't had
a chance to talk to for the show, but we
(16:37):
had a great discussion about it, and I just asked
one of the folks on the show, Bob Backers, well,
what is it? What is Louis Armstrong going to do?
How is he going to discuss farce? It's always going
way up the way he sings? Is that the highest good? Well,
I don't know what I'm saying it was high for you.
(17:02):
But oh uh, this is worth looking up on YouTube
because without being um, without being like experts in assessing
someone's mental condition or their level of intoxication, Louis Armstrong
(17:28):
looks like he is mildly amused by this guy, or
maybe smoked some pot before the show. Yeah, the gauge,
the gauge what he called it. In fact, this clip
is called Pops Loves His Pot because Pops was another nickname,
and apparently also Louis Armstrong called everybody else Pops, which
is kind of neat. Yeah, I think that's cool. If
(17:50):
I started calling everybody by my own nickname, that'd be
pretty presumptuous. Also kind of badass. Well, he probably started
it before it was his nickname and people gave him
that nickname. That's a good point. That's a good point.
But you know, I don't think that's a way to
get ahead in life. You've gotta be a Louis Armstrong
for that to work. Did you get a sense that
this uh, very white host being a little bit of
(18:13):
a dick? You know, as we were watching a lot
of these interviews. One thing that bothered me and that
we talked a little bit about off air is that
in this time, many of the interviews that he has,
especially with white interviewers, are exercises in condescension, and they're
(18:33):
consistently talking over him and talking too much. It's strange,
it's not cool, it's gross because the thing like, Okay,
so in the company of Louis Armstrong, as African American
artists who had crossover appeal, you know, to a largely
white audience, where people like Cab Callaway and Fats Waller,
(18:55):
for example, they all kind of had in common that
they came him from this kind of underground scene, Um,
Louis Armstrong in New Orleans, like we talked about the
top of the show, but they managed to break through
and be very successful with white audiences. But that also
they kind of had to like that's the word I'm
(19:16):
looking for. I don't know that I felt like they
had They had to play by their rules a little bit.
They had to sort of bow and scrape a little bit.
And while this may have given them um success or
maybe even to some degree sanitized them or made them
less dangerous to the very racist white community, it was
(19:38):
contentious and considered offensive in the black community in the States.
At the time, and this is something we know now
deeply troubled many of these artists, Louis Armstrong included, because
he would have he would have people in the movement,
the civil rights movement accused him of being and Uncle Tom.
(20:01):
The idea be that he was selling out his own
identity for some measure of personal profit from people who
would never respect him, which which is which is a
shame because once you see his his letters and his correspondence,
he did have a public persona for sure, that's true.
Everybody does, no no, no, no doubt about him. But
(20:23):
he was an activist. Uh, he came to activism. In
his letters, you can see him angry, ferociously angry and
righteously fed up with the state of race relations in America,
as well as the policies towards marijuana. His wife actually
got arrested one time in nineteen fifty four for carrying
(20:48):
marijuana that was allegedly his. Yeah, it was like something
in the neighborhood of like fourteen Grahams. It was like
a rolled up marijuana cigarette. Yeah it was. It sounds
like a pot, a joint it. It was in an
eyeglass case and a couple of roaches. Yeah, the half
(21:09):
smoked joint. And we have an excerpt because he wrote
a letter about this. He almost got banned from Hawaii
for life. Yeah, because that was just on Waikiki. Yeah,
and this is a letter to his then manager, who
also I believe had uh ties to the al Capone
crime syndicate. Yeah. Yeah, that's a very strange part of it.
(21:31):
Uh So Joe glass Or it was his manager at
the time. And because he was so incensed about about
this huge what he called Rigga maru regard. I love
that rigamarole, mind you Riga maru rigor maru. Because he
was so angry about this, he wrote to his manager
(21:54):
Joe And we won't read the whole letter, but we
have some choice excerpts here, and one of our favorites
was when he said, straight out, Mr Glasser, you must
see to it that I have special permission to smoke
all the reefers that I want to when I want,
or I will just have to put this horn down.
That is all. That is all. He refers to the
(22:15):
gauge um as more of a medicine than a dope,
he says, but he's just fed up with the penalty
surrounding it, and this was not his first run in
with the law. He's actually kind of credited as the
right word, but as being I've seen it written as
the first celebrity arrested for marijuana possession, right, and he
you know, he did have his addictions. I believe he
(22:40):
smoked three cigar sized blunts a day day and that's
that sounds like just a maintenance thing. You know, he
never had a drinking problem. Yeah, he says he smoked
the reefers um instead because he said there was no hangover,
and you know he had he had a lot of reasons.
He had a lot of feelings about this stuff, right,
(23:02):
and he was very open and about about it in
a way that you would not expect one to be.
But I guess even in those days, if you get
to a level of that kind of sacred status, you know,
as an American treasure, you can probably say what you want.
I mean, this is like Snoop Dogg Willie Nelson level,
and those are those are two very prominent advocates of
(23:23):
marijuana today. So that first running was in nineteen thirty
where he was hanging out with his drummer, a guy
by the name of Vic Burton outside the Cotton Club
in Culver City, California. And Lordie, Lordie, Lordie, this quote
is a delight. I'm gonna read this again. Not not
gonna do uh. Louis Armstrong boys, he says, Vic and
(23:44):
I were blasting this joint, having lots of laughs and
feeling good, enjoying each other's company. Just then two big
healthy dicks that means detectives came from behind a car,
nonchalantley and said to us, we'll take the roach boys. Yep,
and that is that is a true statement. But as
(24:04):
we have seen, it did not discourage him what one bit.
Because one thing Louis Armstrong had was dry. That's true. Um.
He did get put away for a handful of days.
He could have gotten six months. Um. He and the drummer,
Where I think find a thousand dollars a piece in
nineteen thirty which is insane? Shall we inflation calculator that
(24:25):
bad boy? Yes, let's one thousand dollars in nineteen thirty
is worth in twenty eighteen approximately. May have a drum roll, please, Casey,
it's gonna be It's gonna be crazy. Fourteen thousand, five
(24:47):
hundred ninety three dollars, and whenever I read a fine
of that sort. You know what always drives my gears
the most. It's the it's the change. Come on, insult
to injury, just add twenty cents, right, Why are you doing?
It's it's it's it's it's ridiculous. But like you said,
it did not diminish his love of the herb Um.
(25:11):
He A lot of these quotes are coming from excerpts
from a biography that I believe, Correct me if I'm wrong,
but I believe there was one biography where he talked
very openly about his his love of marijuana and you know,
his belief in marijuana law reform very openly. But this manager,
that manager we talked about with with the mob ties,
(25:34):
UM had a lot of that stuff redacted pulled out
UM because he thought it would be a bad book,
I guess for his client. UM and Louis arms Armstrong
swore that he would have a sequel released that only
contained the stuff about his beloved gauge UM. But yeah,
so he got out. UM. They pulled some strings. Some
(25:55):
of the club owners I guess in in California in
the Los Angeles area got him out. He returned to
the bandstand post haste, and then he said when he
was performing on the bandstand as a quote where he says,
I laughed real hard when several movie stars came up
to the bandstand while we played a dance set and
told me when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana,
(26:15):
they thought marijuana was a chick. Well boy, that really
fractured me. Yes. Uh, this is strange because you will
hear a lot of marijuana advocates today and in more
recent years describe Louis Armstrong as one of the first
public policy advocates for marijuana, and granted, a lot of
(26:37):
these outfits will be a little biased, like you can
read an article that takes this stent on a website
called Guess what Noel Marijuana dot com by someone had
to snap up that you r o right. And what
we also found in what we would be remiss not
to mention is that later in life Armstrong developed significant
(26:59):
lung problem plums and he died before he even reached
his seventieth birthday. You can find this in uh, Louis
Armstrong Genius and Drugs by Stanton Peel, a PhD. Writing
for Psychology Today. The marijuana used had to have something
to do it, of course. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no,
no question about it. And I want to be clear,
we are certainly not advocating the use of marijuana. Uh.
(27:21):
This is is such an interesting story and it's it's
obviously part of the culture and especially when it comes
to you know, creative types and musicians. And clearly Louis
Armstrong was a highly functional, successful creative person. Uh. And
this was something he chose to do. And you can't
deny that it may have had an impact on um
(27:44):
the music that he made. Absolutely, Yeah, there was this
idea that uh, it opened up people's improvisational chops. And Armstrong,
when he writes about it, also mentions that there was
a bit of escapism, you know, and it made it
easier to um not feel like you lived in a
(28:06):
country that was constantly kicking the crap out of you.
And we and we can say one of the reasons
we're laughing so much about this is because Louis Armstrong's
personality shines through so vibrantly and at times comedically in
the interviews, in the in his written works. And we
(28:28):
didn't even mention the cartoonish anti marijuana propaganda that was
around in the twenties and thirties, right well, a lot
of it which was race based, primarily discriminating against people
of color. So is rebelling against an authoritarian effort, which
(28:50):
in principle is admirable. And I'm just to clarify that
some of those quotes of of Louis Armstrong talking about
his experiences with uh with weed Um, we're not from
that original book which came out in nineteen fifty four
called Satchmo My Life in New Orleans, because he did
(29:11):
talk about it in those sessions, but his manager did
have those pulled out and that you cannot find them.
But it was near the end of his life. In
nineteen seventy one he sat down with two biographers, Max
Jones and John Chilton Um where he decided he was
going to quote tell it like it was. And this
comes from a fantastic article by Lisa Ruff from Leafley
(29:33):
called Louis Armstrong and Cannabis the Jazz Legends lifelong love
of the gauge. And when he sat down with these biographers,
he admitted that he did eventually have to put down
the Mary Jane right because the penalties were just too
steep for him to deal with. You know, he talks
about as it's a young man's game. You know you're
(29:55):
gonna skirt the law and live life on the edge.
But you get older and it's just just stops being functional. Yeah,
and he's still. My favorite part about that quote is
that he's still found a playful way to refer to
the substance. Do you want to read this system? It's
a delight, Sure would be an honor. Well that was
my life and I don't feel ashamed at all. Mary Warner, Honey,
(30:19):
you're sure it was good and I enjoyed you heap much,
but the price got a little too high to pay.
At first, you was a misdemeanor, but as the years
rolled on, you lost your misdo and got meaner and meaner.
Jail house Lee speaking, So bye bye, I'll have to
put you down, dearest beautiful. Do you feel sad all
at once? It's like Kurt Vonnegut kind of writing. Uh,
(30:41):
There's there's one other thing I do want to point out.
I thought you would enjoy this snoll. It has little
to do with It has little to do with Barre Watta,
but a lot to do with Louis Armstrong. He was
an amazing trumpet player, right, and he was an amazing singer.
(31:02):
He was uh, forthright advocate for marijuana. He was also
a laxative advocate. I'm sorry, a laxative advocate. Okay, yeah,
sort of like a like a John Harvey Kellogg kind
of guy. Uh, kind of hopefully not not that into
(31:24):
uh animals. But he was an advocate of losing weight
through laxatives, which is tremendously unhealthy. Nobody do it, but
he was such a proponent of it. People would ask
him how he lost so much weight because his weight
would fluctuate, and he was very open about it. He
was like, I use laxatives, and he would name a
(31:45):
brand of it. Uh. He even wrote a book called
Lose Weight the Satchmo Way, was he sponsored? Did he have? Was?
Was he sponsored by what's the popular laxative x lax
that's like a legacy brand? Well, his initial favorite laxative
was something called Pluto water God, and it was banned
(32:05):
in nineteen seventy one because it contained lithium. Boy, so
not only did it make you poop your brains out,
it probably made you feel real mellow. Yes, he was
so convinced that laxatives were a great curative thing that
he gave bottles of them to his friends his presence,
and he also, you know, he produced flyers that depicted
(32:29):
him sitting on a toilet smiling. He told the British
family when he met them during the nine Great Britain
Tour about how awesome laxatives were. True story. That's uh,
that's pretty fascinating. But I, I just I wanted to
end on something a little little upbeat, because it is
(32:53):
a shame that he was driven, you know, to to
say goodbye to things that he loved. It's true. Um.
And speaking of saying goodbye, uh, Richard Nixon himself, whether
or not he served as Sachem's drug mule, he did
have some very kind words to share on the day
of his passing, that was July sixe UM. He says,
(33:15):
Mrs Nixon and I share the sorrow of millions of
Americans at the death of Louis Armstrong, one of the
architects of an American art form, a free and individual spirit,
and an artist of worldwide fame. His great talents and
magnificent spirit added richness and pleasure to all our lives
and and to steal a line from this really cool
um but but by far the most off the mark
(33:37):
version of the story. But it's animated in this series
called Drawn and Recorded, Uh Louis Armstrong, SACHEMO and Nixon
you can check out on Spotify. At the very end,
it quotes this um this statement from Nixon as well
and ends by saying that Richard Nixon also added richness
and pleasure to Louis Armstrong's life by smuggle and his
his gage stash. And and this is just touching on
(34:03):
a single anecdote from the strange and rich history of
drugs and public policy in the United States. Uh. You know,
we can also recommend, if you'd like to learn more
about the history of marijuana, specifically in the United States,
that you check out our friends over at Stuff you
Should Know and check out the article from NPR The
(34:24):
Mysterious History of Marijuana by Matt Thompson, which comes via
code Switch. That's a that's a great show, and that's
all for today, folks. Thank you so much for giving
us a listen. As always, thanks to Casey Pegram, our
super producer. Big thanks. Maybe the first time we mentioned
(34:45):
on the show to Christopher hascy otis this guy is
our this. This guy is a top notch researcher has
been working with us and we're hoping that one day
we can cajole him or you know, sweet talk him
into peering on the show. He seemed game, but yeah,
we're collaborating with him um on research for new episodes
(35:07):
from here on out, which is really exciting. So look
for some really cool fun topics coming up, one of
which is coming up next where we talk about how
a James Bond film essentially created a Da Della s
Muertos tradition um parade event festival in a city where
that wasn't a thing. So tune in and check it out. Yes,
(35:29):
and in the meantime, you can find us on Instagram,
you can find us on Facebook, you can find us
on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you. Also dropped
by ridiculous Historians. I don't know if it'll be up
by the time this this comes out, but based on
a previous episode, uh, one of you dear listeners started
(35:49):
a poll and the people have spoken, so I'm gonna
have to post that opuland picture. Oh cool. I hope
it's not underwhelming. It's it's from far away then how
could it be? You may we see a tiny a
tiny boy, a gigantic cat, but it'll be spoilers. Yeah,
I can't wait to see it that. That's gonna be
really exciting. Um, did we thank Alex Williams who composed
our theme? You know what, even if we did, let's
(36:11):
thank and again, right he deserves it. Thanks Alex Williams
who composed our theme, and most poorly, thanks to you
for listening to another episode of Ridiculous History. I can't
wait to see you next time.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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