Category: Lagniappe

The Grateful Dead was “busted down on Bourbon Street” 50 years ago on this day

(Jerry Garcia’s mugshot. Picture: CC | Flickr)
Friday marked 50 years since members of the Grateful Dead were “busted down on Bourbon Street.”

Jerry Garcia and Bill Kreutzmann—who were each identified as band “associate[s]”—were arrested in a drug raid after a team of federal narcotics agents and New Orleans Police served a search warrant on two rooms at an unspecified French Quarter hotel on Jan. 31, 1970, according to the Times-Picayune in an article dated Feb. 1, 1970.

The band was on tour and had recently played at a venue called The Warehouse located at Felicity and Tchoupitoulas streets, which opened for business on the prior evening.

Assisted by federal agents, the raid was led by New Orleans Police Department Chief Clarence Giarusso, seizing various quantities of drugs including marijuana and LSD and netted 19 total arrests, including Grateful Dead roadie Larry Shirtliff, band manager John M. McIntire, band equipment man John P. Hager and Owsley Stanley, of Alexandria, Va., dubbed the “King of Acid,” according to the newspaper.

The raid was memorialized in the Grateful Dead song, “Truckin’,” which appeared on the band’s album American Beauty. The song was recognized as a “national treasure” by the Library of Congress in 1997.

Lesh, Garcia, Weir, Hager, McIntire, and Shirtliff were each arrested on suspicion of possession of marijuana.

Shirtliff and McIntire were also each suspected of possessing barbiturates, while Weir was also suspected of amphetamine possession and Lesh was also booked on suspicion of possession of LSD.

Several French Quarter residents were arrested in the raid, according to the Times-Picayune. They include:

Stephen T. Helms, 20, of 630 Dauphine St., suspected of possessing marijuana and barbiturates;

Nancy A. Weidenhaft, 23, of 630 Dauphine St., a saleslady at a French Quarter dress shop, suspected of possessing marijuana and dangerous non-narcotics;

Miss Elsie J. Landun, 20, of 630 Dauphine St., suspected of possessing marijauna a barbiturates.

Jeff Goldblum was the grand marshal of Southern Decadence 2019

Actor Jeff Goldblum. Picture by Bryan Crawley via Facebook.

Southern Decadence—New Orleans’s original end of summer Pride celebration occurring on Labor Day this year—was led by none other than actor Jeff Goldblum as the event’s grand marshal on September 1.

Donning a leopard-skinned shirt and zebra pants, Goldblum strolled through the French Quarter greeting fans, along with co-grand marshal, Countess C. Alice (Daryl Dunaway Jr.).

Goldblum is known for his roles in movies such as “Jurassic Park,” “Independence Day,” and “The Fly.” He got his start in 1974 alongside Charles Bronson in the movie “Death Wish.”

New Orleans already has a Pride event that’s celebrated in June of each yea and coincides with similar celebrations across the United States. But Southern Decadence is considered the Big Easy’s largest LGBTQ event. Inspired in part by Tennessee Williams, the jubilee started in 1972 between a group of friends living in Treme who encouraged participants to come dressed as their favorite “Southern decadent.”

Southern Decadence thus became an annual event that attracts tens of thousands of revelers (gay and straight) to the heart of the French Quarter who dress in lavish costumes. The event is often considered the midsummer Mardi Gras and compliments the general drunken tomfoolery that occurs in the Vieux Carré on a daily basis.