# Jump, Jive, and Jail: the Pot Bust of Gene Krupa

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 10 Jun 2025, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/74e770bb-c673-4822-a23b-b2f701532415/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

At the height of the swing music era, jazz drummer and musical great Gene Krupa was caught up in a federal bust. He was used as a cautionary tale in America's First Drug War. Taken down in order to scare young people away from that serious and dire threat to America... jazz music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: Dude that you Elizabeth Dutton.
[0:05] Speaker 3: Dude, it's me.
[0:06] Speaker 2: I got a question for you, Elizabeth Dutton.
[0:08] Speaker 3: Zaron Burnett lay it on me.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Do you know what's ridiculous?
[0:13] Speaker 3: You know, I know it's ridiculous.
[0:14] Speaker 2: No, you do?
[0:15] Speaker 3: Okay, So you know how furries rubbed me the wrong way?
[0:20] Speaker 2: Yes, it's a fun way of putting it.
[0:21] Speaker 3: And you know it's like that's a meat problem. That's
[0:25] Speaker 3: not them. Sure you know that's a meat problem. But
[0:29] Speaker 3: Marsberry on Instagram sent something that was forwarded to me,
[0:34] Speaker 3: and I feel like it was an active war, active war.
[0:39] Speaker 3: It was an aggressive thing to send.
[0:42] Speaker 2: This on mars Berry's part to pass it.
[0:44] Speaker 3: Along because this is worse than a furry.
[0:47] Speaker 2: Oh wow, it's okay.
[0:49] Speaker 3: Since this story is from twenty twenty three, there's this
[0:52] Speaker 3: Japanese man who had a long haired collie suit made
[0:59] Speaker 3: for himself. Oh, which are there? It's called like a
[1:02] Speaker 3: rough colleiae, like the like lassie. So he spent more
[1:07] Speaker 3: than you know, like ten thousand euros, more than ten thousand.
[1:12] Speaker 2: Dollars lifelike collie.
[1:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, because he wanted to realize his dream of
[1:16] Speaker 3: transforming into a rough collie. His name is Toco.
[1:21] Speaker 2: So he's out there looking like lassie.
[1:23] Speaker 3: Dude, I'm gonna show you these pictures. So Toko, he
[1:26] Speaker 3: like it took him two years. He went to this company,
[1:29] Speaker 3: zeppet zepp E.
[1:31] Speaker 2: T Let me get a pen.
[1:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, I write it down. They create realistic costumes and
[1:36] Speaker 3: models for films, and so he was like, hey, make
[1:39] Speaker 3: me a Collie costume.
[1:41] Speaker 2: You guys made the Predator. Can you get me a dog?
[1:43] Speaker 3: He said, he's always wanted to quote since I was
[1:46] Speaker 3: a kid, I've always wanted to make over. Well, you know, son,
[1:50] Speaker 3: there are other ways. I when I'm wearing my suit,
[1:53] Speaker 3: I feel happy because my dream turns into reality. So
[1:56] Speaker 3: that's that's quote in Toco.
[1:58] Speaker 2: There. I'm sure that sounds like far better.
[2:00] Speaker 3: And every now and then he goes out on the
[2:02] Speaker 3: street in this but he doesn't like to because.
[2:06] Speaker 2: Can gather out on the street, people.
[2:08] Speaker 3: Pull like there's this lady who pulls him around in
[2:11] Speaker 3: a cart, or he stands there like sits. People come
[2:14] Speaker 3: up and like take pictures and hug on him like postures.
[2:18] Speaker 2: He's sitting like on his knees, hands in front of him.
[2:22] Speaker 3: Oh my, I'm showing you the picture right now. I'm
[2:25] Speaker 3: going to have him put this on the Instagram story.
[2:28] Speaker 2: He's dragging him in the wagon.
[2:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, he's lay on his back showing for the belly rubs. Yeah.
[2:35] Speaker 3: So he he's got like a YouTube channel and you know,
[2:39] Speaker 3: the tiktoks and stuff. Everyone you know is fascinated by him. Me,
[2:44] Speaker 3: I'm repulsed. He doesn't tell about his.
[2:48] Speaker 2: Life or like, yeah, putting you in.
[2:52] Speaker 3: It is so looking at these pictures, it's so uncomfortable. Why,
[2:57] Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a me problem.
[2:59] Speaker 2: I didn't I'm I'm not suggesting that you're judging the man,
[3:02] Speaker 2: but I mean, why does it make you uncomfortable?
[3:04] Speaker 3: Also, it's not just that he loves collies. He loves
[3:07] Speaker 3: malamutes and huskies and Golden Retrievers. And he's like, you know,
[3:11] Speaker 3: we're not even going to entertain that Querry. And he
[3:15] Speaker 3: said he's open to getting other suits.
[3:17] Speaker 2: He's so he has other makeovers in mind, I guess.
[3:22] Speaker 2: But it's like, if you were to wear an outfit
[3:26] Speaker 2: that made you look like an animal, is there any
[3:28] Speaker 2: animal that you'd be like? That'd be kind of fun
[3:29] Speaker 2: if the suit was convinced none. So it's not about
[3:32] Speaker 2: the fur or the the scales or the feathers.
[3:35] Speaker 3: I run hot, I would get so sweaty.
[3:38] Speaker 2: We'll say it has absorbency on the inside and the cooling.
[3:40] Speaker 3: System, and I don't like things touching me.
[3:42] Speaker 2: Okay, let's say it also has like a lattice system,
[3:44] Speaker 2: so fairly it's floating.
[3:46] Speaker 3: And I would I would be so irritated with myself.
[3:51] Speaker 3: You look at you, Elizabeth, You're so precious, You're so quirky.
[3:56] Speaker 3: Get out of here. I mean, if I could transform
[3:58] Speaker 3: into an actual animal, Okay, well, you never to return
[4:01] Speaker 3: to human form, that's.
[4:02] Speaker 2: A different question. It's a totally different question.
[4:06] Speaker 3: Well, that's ridiculous.
[4:07] Speaker 2: It is ridiculous. I'm written for Toco. No offense to
[4:12] Speaker 2: those who are only offenses to you. It's a problem, Yeah, exactly.
[4:16] Speaker 2: The only one who should be offended is.
[4:17] Speaker 3: You, and that is what's happened you. That is what
[4:19] Speaker 3: is happening, right, Elizabeth.
[4:22] Speaker 2: Yes, talking about smuggling drugs before we have I mean, naturally,
[4:26] Speaker 2: because some drug buster are just it's just strange fun Yeah,
[4:30] Speaker 2: And Okay, for instance, we've talked about when tough Guy
[4:33] Speaker 2: actor Robert Mitcham got busted because he was a jazz
[4:35] Speaker 2: loving reef for smoking. Havecat right? I remember that we
[4:40] Speaker 2: talked about Lord Buckley, the High Priest of Bebop, with
[4:42] Speaker 2: his free floating church of the High cosmic parties and
[4:45] Speaker 2: his misadventures with the law in LA in the forties
[4:47] Speaker 2: and fifties.
[4:48] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[4:48] Speaker 2: Then there was the Brothers of the Eternal Sunshine, the
[4:50] Speaker 2: former biker gang lost Sir for drug smugglers. Yep, There's
[4:54] Speaker 2: so many others we've covered. But because I know that
[4:57] Speaker 2: we both love a drug smuggling story, I got another
[5:00] Speaker 2: one for you. But today I wanted to pirouette on
[5:03] Speaker 2: this theme, tell you a story about it. Amateur drug
[5:06] Speaker 2: smuggling gone wrong. Oh no, Oh, that's kind of a
[5:09] Speaker 2: reach to call this a story of drug smuggling. Okay,
[5:12] Speaker 2: so but it is. That's exactly what happened. Drugs were smuggled,
[5:16] Speaker 2: busts were made, mistakes were made. What I'm saying is,
[5:18] Speaker 2: today I want to tell you a hep little tale
[5:20] Speaker 2: about some muggles smoking. Daddy Oho got caught flat footed
[5:24] Speaker 2: by the fuzz when the beat suddenly stopped. Yeah. Yeah,
[5:27] Speaker 2: it's a jazz and reefer story.
[5:28] Speaker 3: Baby, hell yeah.
[5:29] Speaker 2: How about the late great jazz drummer Jean Crouper.
[5:34] Speaker 5: No, this is ridiculous, cry my podcast about absurd and
[5:59] Speaker 5: how ragees, capers, heists and cons.
[6:03] Speaker 2: It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred
[6:08] Speaker 2: percent ridiculous.
[6:11] Speaker 3: Jazz hand jazz, listen jazz and over here.
[6:15] Speaker 2: What do you know about Reefer Madness?
[6:18] Speaker 3: Like the film?
[6:19] Speaker 2: Yea? Like the og film? Yeah, like I had to, like,
[6:23] Speaker 2: have you ever seen it?
[6:24] Speaker 3: No? I you know now what I think about it.
[6:25] Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever seen it. I've seen it
[6:27] Speaker 3: as like a novelty, you know, like the posters and
[6:30] Speaker 3: such where people have it like on a T shirt, Like.
[6:35] Speaker 2: Right, so you smoke put.
[6:37] Speaker 3: Huh yeah, I'm quirky.
[6:40] Speaker 2: So well, for purposes of research for this, I started
[6:43] Speaker 2: to watch it. But that film is unwatchable. Yeah, it's
[6:47] Speaker 2: so bad. It sucks. But the trailer is hilarious. So
[6:50] Speaker 2: I watched that a couple of times. Okay, and I
[6:52] Speaker 2: have some highlights from that for you. It opens with
[6:55] Speaker 2: this narrator soberly intoning these high school boys and girls
[6:59] Speaker 2: are having a hop at the local soda fountain. Innocently,
[7:03] Speaker 2: they dance innocent of a new and deadly menace lurking
[7:07] Speaker 2: behind closed doors. Now, then cut to a guy who
[7:11] Speaker 2: looks like he's tried to, like, I don't know, assassinate
[7:13] Speaker 2: frans Ferd Nuns. And this guy's like in the closet.
[7:16] Speaker 2: He looks like he's like Peter Laurie's connect right, and
[7:19] Speaker 2: he lights up a joint and then this gong strikes
[7:21] Speaker 2: that be foreign and then all of a sudden, like
[7:24] Speaker 2: the narrator comes back in marijuana, the burning weed with
[7:28] Speaker 2: its roots in hell right now, in case you're wondering
[7:31] Speaker 2: how bad the real danger might be in nineteen thirty eight,
[7:34] Speaker 2: the narrator warns viewers, in this film, you will see
[7:37] Speaker 2: the ease with which this vicious plant can be grown
[7:40] Speaker 2: in your neighbor's yard, rolled into harmless looking cigarettes hidden
[7:45] Speaker 2: in an innocent shoe or watchcase. Deserve That's not always,
[7:53] Speaker 2: because the music then shifts to violins and strings. Right
[7:56] Speaker 2: that passes like guy like tense? Oh no, not like
[7:59] Speaker 2: a kitchcock, like like he love yeah? Like oh, cut
[8:03] Speaker 2: to the lovers right exactly now, and then the narrator
[8:06] Speaker 2: comes back in with In this startling film, you will
[8:08] Speaker 2: see dopsters lore children to destruction. Now, later in the trailer,
[8:13] Speaker 2: the narrator warns mystery and Missus America and all the
[8:15] Speaker 2: ships at sea that smoking the soul destroying reefer, they
[8:19] Speaker 2: find a moment's pleasure. So he's talking about the couples
[8:22] Speaker 2: with the strings, right, So he cut to this thirties
[8:24] Speaker 2: couple like they're canoodling on the chesterfield and aka the sofa.
[8:28] Speaker 5: Right.
[8:28] Speaker 2: And later as these main dopesters listen to the main dopeter,
[8:33] Speaker 2: I guess basically he's listening to this girl played jazz
[8:35] Speaker 2: piano and he's puffing on the demon weed. Yeah, and
[8:38] Speaker 2: he's taking like real long polls on this like the
[8:40] Speaker 2: jazz cabbage, right, and he has this semi possessed look
[8:43] Speaker 2: on his face, like hey, like like a raving man,
[8:46] Speaker 2: like the way someone pictured madness in the nineteenth century
[8:49] Speaker 2: or I guess the early twentieth century. Right, So anyway
[8:52] Speaker 2: back to the narrator, Oh, he's talking over this raving
[8:55] Speaker 2: guy and the ultimate end of the marijuana addict hopeless insanity.
[9:00] Speaker 2: And then we see the same dopester repeating the stoned
[9:03] Speaker 2: out mantra to himself. Play faster, play faster, play play.
[9:08] Speaker 3: Faster, Yeah, that's exactly what happens when people smoke.
[9:11] Speaker 2: We exactly, they can turn into little Peter Lourie's. Now
[9:14] Speaker 2: what I love is that the woman on the piano
[9:16] Speaker 2: puffing away also on like a giant hooter of her own. Yeah,
[9:19] Speaker 2: she isn't playing boogie woogie or like stride piano like
[9:22] Speaker 2: Fats Waller Jelly Roll Morgan, which would have been more appropriate. No,
[9:25] Speaker 2: she's playing and he's not playing like a Count Basie
[9:27] Speaker 2: or Benny Goodman, which would been really the music of
[9:30] Speaker 2: the time. She's playing like bar talk, like bella bar talk,
[9:33] Speaker 2: classical music, just really fast. She's jamming through this classical piece. Anyway,
[9:39] Speaker 2: this is the attitude around marijuana among the Straits in
[9:42] Speaker 2: nineteen thirties.
[9:44] Speaker 3: They'd be like, now, witness the wine mom exactly, the
[9:47] Speaker 3: gummy after the tennis tournament.
[9:49] Speaker 2: Turn Grandpa onto pop for the first time, look at him,
[9:53] Speaker 2: giggle and smile. Now, let's just say the war did
[9:56] Speaker 2: not change how America's view of the demon marijuana was going. Right,
[10:00] Speaker 2: So as we started turning from isolationist America before World
[10:03] Speaker 2: War Two to like, oh, let's look at the international stage.
[10:06] Speaker 2: It's the country, we were like, oh, we're still afraid
[10:08] Speaker 2: of like all these foreign people. So they started demonizing
[10:12] Speaker 2: pot with all the same aspects. Before it was like,
[10:14] Speaker 2: oh it's blame Asia, let's blame Mexico. So that's the idea. No,
[10:18] Speaker 2: who terrified America of weed? Who was it? Two names, Elizabeth?
[10:22] Speaker 2: Two names names? Very good? Good guess though. No Hurst,
[10:29] Speaker 2: Harry j Anslinger we've talked about. Yeah, we talked about
[10:33] Speaker 2: Harry j Anslinger before. But first William Randolph Hurst.
[10:36] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[10:37] Speaker 2: Doing research for this, I wanted to see what the
[10:38] Speaker 2: contemporary commentary was, Like, what were William Randolph Hurst, like
[10:43] Speaker 2: peers saying about him instead of people looking back? Now,
[10:46] Speaker 2: what were they saying then? So, Elizabeth, I found some
[10:49] Speaker 2: old newspapers because I know you love that. I found
[10:50] Speaker 2: this political cartoon because I love that, and it kind
[10:53] Speaker 2: of said it all right. It's a critique of Hurst
[10:56] Speaker 2: yellow journalism. It's this lampoon of the scare campaigns that
[10:59] Speaker 2: he was like always trying to sell. In this case,
[11:01] Speaker 2: it was about reefer madness. So if you notice there's
[11:04] Speaker 2: his cartoon, there's an illustration of William Randolph first standing
[11:08] Speaker 2: hunched over a sales counter at like a drug store,
[11:10] Speaker 2: like he's the pharmacist, but more like a patent medicine man. Anyway,
[11:14] Speaker 2: So what is he offering? Great question to you. There's
[11:18] Speaker 2: a sign behind him and it reads dope journalism, Escape
[11:21] Speaker 2: truth and reality. Ask for my latest mixtures hypocrisy and
[11:25] Speaker 2: sophistry for every occasion thirty years experience editorials to produce
[11:30] Speaker 2: paralysis of thought. And then there's my favorite line. Right,
[11:34] Speaker 2: they're just hitting them, but below the sales line is
[11:36] Speaker 2: added this little added sign, like you know they'd hook
[11:39] Speaker 2: on signs like back in the day. So it's like
[11:41] Speaker 2: venom and hatred to kill labor unions endorsed by big industries. Right.
[11:47] Speaker 2: The cartoon is called The Man who Opposes the Sale
[11:49] Speaker 2: of Dope and by artist Art Young. Right yeah, right,
[11:53] Speaker 2: I thought so, Elizabeth. Here's what it looks like. Here's
[11:55] Speaker 2: the cartoon. Okay, yeah, yeah, right, So you see it's
[11:58] Speaker 2: like it's very early twentieth century illustration style but effective.
[12:03] Speaker 2: I mean, they did nail them with all the stuff. Well, anyway,
[12:06] Speaker 2: the cartoon was critical of two key threads in Hearst's
[12:10] Speaker 2: attack against cannabis. Right, because first it's the racist fear mongering, right,
[12:14] Speaker 2: the unquenchable capitalist degree. These are his two big right,
[12:17] Speaker 2: He's a fact at Elizabeth in your words, he was
[12:19] Speaker 2: violently wealthy, Yes he was, and he used his wealth
[12:23] Speaker 2: to do violence to the causes that he despised and
[12:25] Speaker 2: personally opposed, for instance, marijuana aka cannabis. Now keep in mind,
[12:30] Speaker 2: William Randolph Hurst is why we call it marijuana. Oh really, Yes,
[12:34] Speaker 2: he was a newspaper publisher, right, so he was able
[12:37] Speaker 2: to shape narratives and craft with the American minds were
[12:40] Speaker 2: like feeding on and so well, let me put it
[12:43] Speaker 2: this way. What does the newspaper publisher require to make
[12:46] Speaker 2: his money ad sales? Well, yes, but at the most
[12:49] Speaker 2: basic level paper, Yeah, like being an industrialist, Hirst owned
[12:54] Speaker 2: paper companies. He was big in the lumber business, which
[12:56] Speaker 2: also meant he saw industrial hemp as a threat. He's
[13:00] Speaker 2: a cheap fiber and if it reached industrial scales, which
[13:02] Speaker 2: it looked like it was about to do, he saw
[13:04] Speaker 2: that as a threat to him as a lumber bearer.
[13:07] Speaker 2: So what does a newspaper man need to make his money? Also? Well,
[13:10] Speaker 2: obviously news and sometimes if there isn't a sort of
[13:14] Speaker 2: news that would sell papers, a cunning newspaperman like him,
[13:17] Speaker 2: he invents it. Yeah, he makes it up. He's like, eh,
[13:20] Speaker 2: this is happening. Maybe I don't know what's happening. So
[13:22] Speaker 2: he pushes it, and he events whole serieses of news
[13:25] Speaker 2: stories see the Spanish American War. But then in this
[13:28] Speaker 2: case he does like the starting nineteen fourteen, he starts
[13:30] Speaker 2: going against pot. Takes about twenty years to get it
[13:33] Speaker 2: to where it's illegal in the country, but he just
[13:35] Speaker 2: keeps beating this drum and creates a moral panic, just
[13:39] Speaker 2: a one man moral panic.
[13:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[13:41] Speaker 2: Now, well, I don't want to like, I don't want
[13:45] Speaker 2: to mislead you. Marijuana was an accurate word that was
[13:47] Speaker 2: used in Mexico. It's in Spanish speaking places in the Southwest,
[13:50] Speaker 2: but most Americans called it cannabis at the time. Yeah,
[13:53] Speaker 2: and then he introduced it as marijuana, so it would
[13:56] Speaker 2: become sound foreign and exotic and scary.
[13:59] Speaker 3: Wells, Peter Talk said, some call it marijuana.
[14:03] Speaker 2: But also he was, I mean, we think of it.
[14:05] Speaker 2: This is like, you know, in reggae terms, right, they
[14:08] Speaker 2: think of Rastafari as he had him where Hurst had
[14:11] Speaker 2: most Americans. Well, here's a quote from one of his
[14:14] Speaker 2: newspapers in nineteen twenty three, in a Hearst newspaper reported, quote,
[14:17] Speaker 2: marijuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke
[14:21] Speaker 2: marijuana cigarettes for a month, and what was once your
[14:23] Speaker 2: brain will be nothing but a storehouse for horrid specters.
[14:27] Speaker 3: That's in the newspaper, right, This is your brain on drugs.
[14:30] Speaker 4: Total.
[14:30] Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So with this level of fear mongering didn't
[14:32] Speaker 2: suffice to scare America. Hearst Newspapers then upped the foreign
[14:36] Speaker 2: exotic angle. So in nineteen twenty eight he comes back
[14:39] Speaker 2: with his papers have another story. Marijuana was known in
[14:42] Speaker 2: India as the murder drug. It was common for a
[14:46] Speaker 2: man to quote, catch up a knife and run through
[14:48] Speaker 2: the streets, hacking and killing everyone he encountered.
[14:52] Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but none of their descriptions match up with
[14:55] Speaker 3: what I know of what people who are high on
[14:57] Speaker 3: we behave, Like.
[15:00] Speaker 2: Anyone saw anyone ever smoked pop. They're like, I'm sorry,
[15:01] Speaker 2: this discussion accord. No. So then we have the second
[15:05] Speaker 2: man on the scene who worked just as hard to
[15:07] Speaker 2: transform cannabis into marijuana and birth a full blown nationwide
[15:11] Speaker 2: moral panic. His name was Harry j Ensling. Yeah right now,
[15:15] Speaker 2: his wife's uncle gets him a job at the Treasury
[15:17] Speaker 2: Department right now. You see, he could do that because
[15:20] Speaker 2: his wife's uncle was Andrew Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury. Okay, yeah,
[15:25] Speaker 2: So anyway, once he hopscotched off some old fashioned nepotism
[15:28] Speaker 2: and landed himself a cushy spot in federal employment, unqualified
[15:32] Speaker 2: as he was, an slinger, eventually was named the first
[15:35] Speaker 2: director of the Federal Bureau of the Narcotics. We got
[15:39] Speaker 2: a new department. We're gonna start.
[15:40] Speaker 3: How about this guy. You know what, it's the more
[15:43] Speaker 3: things change, the more they stay the same.
[15:46] Speaker 2: So at this point he's like, he's the man who
[15:48] Speaker 2: said to himself, you know what, mister Hurst, I don't
[15:51] Speaker 2: think you're racist enough. I'm not kidding. He didn't actually
[15:54] Speaker 2: say that, but he could have. Yeah, So he saw
[15:58] Speaker 2: what Hurst is trying to do, and he decided I
[16:00] Speaker 2: can do that from the federal law enforcement level. So
[16:03] Speaker 2: he pushes to rebrand cannabis as marijuana, and he very
[16:07] Speaker 2: specifically does this to associate cannabis now. But the farmers
[16:10] Speaker 2: in the Pacific Northwest are pushing to make it industrial.
[16:13] Speaker 2: But the Mexican dope smokers at the border that the
[16:15] Speaker 2: police are like writing stories about in the early twenties.
[16:18] Speaker 2: So we know this is the case because Hinsluinger once said,
[16:21] Speaker 2: and I quote, there are one hundred thousand total marijuana
[16:25] Speaker 2: smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos,
[16:30] Speaker 2: and entertainers. Their satanic music, jazz and swing results from
[16:36] Speaker 2: marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual
[16:41] Speaker 2: relations with Negroes, entertainers, and others. Entertainers. I think that's
[16:50] Speaker 2: code for Jewish. I think that's what that is. Oh
[16:52] Speaker 2: you think, yeah, I think that's what that is. I
[16:54] Speaker 2: don't know. But also for actors, you know, just musicians
[16:58] Speaker 2: is generally like oh yeah, like you know, if you're
[16:59] Speaker 2: a Polish saxophone, you get thrown in there. So it's
[17:03] Speaker 2: all right there, So the seeds of a moral panic
[17:05] Speaker 2: are taking root. Right, And then I read through the
[17:08] Speaker 2: transcripts of Harry j Anslinger's congressional testimony when he was
[17:11] Speaker 2: waging his war to make cannabis illegal. And it took
[17:14] Speaker 2: that because it took him a while, took him until
[17:16] Speaker 2: nineteen thirty seven, and then they passed the marijuana taxac boom.
[17:18] Speaker 2: It's illegal. But you'll see that. Well, let's have some
[17:22] Speaker 2: fun with this, Elizabeth, I prepared some selections for us
[17:24] Speaker 2: to ready. You'll be Harry j Annslinger, and I will
[17:27] Speaker 2: be every other Congressman on the House in Ways and
[17:29] Speaker 2: Means to this little Yeah no, Elizabeth, you're down to
[17:33] Speaker 2: do some dramatic recreations. I am producer d if you'd
[17:36] Speaker 2: be so kind.
[17:49] Speaker 3: Mister Chairman. My name is Harry j Ann Slinger. I
[17:54] Speaker 3: am a Commissioner of Narcotics in the Bureau of Narcotics
[17:58] Speaker 3: in the Treasury Department, Mister Chairman, and distinguished members of
[18:02] Speaker 3: the Ways and Means Committee. It is known as cannabis,
[18:06] Speaker 3: cannabis americana, or cannabis sativa. Marijuana is the Mexican term
[18:12] Speaker 3: for cannabis indica. He's good, he knows. We seem to
[18:16] Speaker 3: have adopted the Mexican terminology. We call it marijuana, which
[18:21] Speaker 3: means good feeling. In the underworld, it is referred to
[18:24] Speaker 3: by such colorful colloquial names as reefer, muggles, Indian, hey,
[18:30] Speaker 3: hot hay, and weed.
[18:33] Speaker 2: Sorry, I gotta stop out our drama for a second.
[18:35] Speaker 2: Those who love the names for pot, like there are
[18:37] Speaker 2: so many silly names for pot, but the pot Yeah, hot, Hey,
[18:40] Speaker 2: I have never ever heard.
[18:41] Speaker 3: I heard that, But I'm gonna go down to the
[18:43] Speaker 3: harbor side dispensary and ask for some hot Hey.
[18:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, you guys got the good Indian Hey, I don't
[18:48] Speaker 2: want that Indian head. I mean, like dormay, I'm always
[18:50] Speaker 2: asking for like, you guys got any acapucu gold? How
[18:53] Speaker 2: about the Mawi? They're like starts, not the nineteen seventies.
[18:57] Speaker 2: I'm like, all right, man, you guys got me that.
[19:00] Speaker 3: I'm really really impressed with myself for reading this without
[19:04] Speaker 3: my glasses on.
[19:05] Speaker 2: Doing really well. All right, I got one more for
[19:07] Speaker 2: you here you go.
[19:08] Speaker 3: Okay, mister Anslinger.
[19:10] Speaker 2: I want to be certain what this is. Is this
[19:12] Speaker 2: the same weed that grows wild in some of our
[19:15] Speaker 2: western states, which is sometimes called the loco weed.
[19:20] Speaker 3: No, sir, that is another family.
[19:23] Speaker 2: That is also a harriful drug producing weed.
[19:25] Speaker 3: Is it not? Not? To my knowledge, it is not
[19:29] Speaker 3: used by humans.
[19:30] Speaker 2: In what particular sections? Does this weed grow wild.
[19:35] Speaker 3: In almost every state in the Union today?
[19:38] Speaker 2: Why are you describing as a plant which has is
[19:41] Speaker 2: a rather large flower, No.
[19:43] Speaker 3: Sir, a very small flower.
[19:45] Speaker 2: It is not Indian help.
[19:47] Speaker 3: It is Indian help. We have some specimens here when.
[19:50] Speaker 2: Was this brought to your attention as being a menace among.
[19:54] Speaker 3: Our own people about ten years ago?
[19:58] Speaker 2: Why did you wait until on nineteen thirty seven to
[20:01] Speaker 2: bring in a recommendation of this.
[20:03] Speaker 3: Con Ten years ago, we only heard about it throughout
[20:06] Speaker 3: the Southwest. It's only in the last few years that
[20:09] Speaker 3: it's become a national menace. It has grown like wildfire,
[20:14] Speaker 3: but it has only become a national menace in the
[20:17] Speaker 3: last three years.
[20:18] Speaker 2: So you can kind of hear the tones, right, He's
[20:20] Speaker 2: having to sell it to these guys. They want to
[20:22] Speaker 2: believe them, but they're like, I'm not hearing it.
[20:24] Speaker 3: Sir, I'm just a simple coak.
[20:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, you're talking about flowers in Mexico.
[20:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, Mexican fly And I love that. That one's not
[20:31] Speaker 3: for human like news. But he what the cows are
[20:34] Speaker 3: out there?
[20:34] Speaker 2: Well, there's actually not it. It's interesting you bring that
[20:36] Speaker 2: up because this is about there's a whole thing about
[20:39] Speaker 2: hemp seeds being fed to birds, and Harry j Anslinger
[20:41] Speaker 2: was really doubtful that he was super dubious about feeding
[20:44] Speaker 2: hempseeds to bird because this is what I'm talking about
[20:47] Speaker 2: industrial hemp. There was a bunch of regulatory logistics that
[20:49] Speaker 2: had to be worked out if they were going to
[20:51] Speaker 2: prohibit pot because they had industrial hemp, and all these
[20:54] Speaker 2: farmers in Midwest and Pasific Northwest were like, wait, I
[20:56] Speaker 2: grow that for fibers and for seed oil, and we
[20:58] Speaker 2: send it to China.
[20:59] Speaker 3: Yeah, the Omega three, yes exactly.
[21:02] Speaker 2: So that just getting into that and he's like, no, no,
[21:04] Speaker 2: kill all that right, So then they're like, well, what
[21:06] Speaker 2: about can we still sell it as bird feed? And
[21:08] Speaker 2: they're like well. Here in the Conference on Cannabis Atiba
[21:11] Speaker 2: and the Treasury Building on January fourteenth, nineteen thirty seven,
[21:14] Speaker 2: Harry ja Anslinger gets called in to testify about all
[21:16] Speaker 2: this new marijuana prohibition laws that they're drafting would pass
[21:20] Speaker 2: later in the year. So let's do some more drama.
[21:22] Speaker 2: Elizabe Okay, yeah, you're Harry ja Anslinger again. Great, and
[21:24] Speaker 2: I will be the various commissioners producer d if you will.
[21:28] Speaker 2: But that doesn't satisfy commission Anslinger because potentially every seed
[21:32] Speaker 2: is horrifle.
[21:34] Speaker 3: Our experience has been that in almost every large seizure made,
[21:37] Speaker 3: we've got a large quantity of seed from the defendant
[21:41] Speaker 3: for growing purposes.
[21:42] Speaker 2: What would happen if we proscribed the use of seed
[21:45] Speaker 2: for bird seed.
[21:47] Speaker 3: Doctor Munch told me it would stop the birds from singing.
[21:51] Speaker 2: Is help seed indispensable from birds sea? If Commission Anslinger
[21:55] Speaker 2: would agree to cut out bird seed, it would certainly
[21:57] Speaker 2: up the bill and enforcement.
[21:58] Speaker 3: Uh can they prove the the birds need this food?
[22:02] Speaker 2: I just love that He's like, I don't even.
[22:04] Speaker 3: Want to feed these birds will stop singing they got worms?
[22:07] Speaker 3: But then how why aren't the birds getting jazzy?
[22:10] Speaker 2: Exactly right? He doesn't connect, Elizabeth, And you know this
[22:12] Speaker 2: guy does not care about bird song or anyway enough
[22:15] Speaker 2: about Harry j Anslinger and the irrational hatred of bird
[22:18] Speaker 2: seed and his racist war against pot. Because let's take
[22:20] Speaker 2: a little break. Okay, after this break, we're gonna get
[22:22] Speaker 2: into the crime with the bust of the jazz legend.
[22:25] Speaker 2: My man friend of the show, Jean Crouper. Elizabeth, we're back. Hey,
[22:52] Speaker 2: sorry to have to lay all that drama in your
[22:53] Speaker 2: lap after cold read right, Spontaneous Theater is one of
[22:57] Speaker 2: America's great biggots.
[22:59] Speaker 3: It was really great. I didn't really get a chance
[23:02] Speaker 3: to like workshop a void.
[23:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Well, for the rest of this episode, you
[23:08] Speaker 2: will not have to embody any of America's great bigots.
[23:11] Speaker 3: Oh thank you.
[23:11] Speaker 2: Yeah, next stop the swing era, right, and we get
[23:14] Speaker 2: to know my man, Jean Krupa. What do you know
[23:17] Speaker 2: about Jen Crippy? You know you are you familiar with him?
[23:19] Speaker 2: Great drummer, right, yeah, Bennie Goodman's drummer. He was the
[23:21] Speaker 2: man who played the drums on the big nineteen thirty
[23:24] Speaker 2: seven thirty eight hit, the biggest hit, Benny Goodman's biggest hit,
[23:26] Speaker 2: sing Sing Sing, yeah, right, and that's when it starts
[23:29] Speaker 2: with the drums all going crazy exactly. Krupa was like
[23:31] Speaker 2: the first true celebrity drummers. I mean, there was Chick
[23:34] Speaker 2: Web before him. There were drummers who were known in
[23:37] Speaker 2: jazz and in music, but he was like inter like
[23:39] Speaker 2: nationally and internationally known.
[23:40] Speaker 3: Yeah, that man could swing.
[23:42] Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, yes, Elizabeth. Now, Krupa came right along
[23:45] Speaker 2: right when the culture catches up to jazz, right when
[23:47] Speaker 2: jazz becomes like it's more. You know, it starts in
[23:50] Speaker 2: New Orleans and Storyville, but now by the thirties it's
[23:53] Speaker 2: it's gonna be in Carnegie Hall. Yeah, right, So he
[23:55] Speaker 2: basically invents what we can also think of his modern
[23:58] Speaker 2: rock drumming I mean like Keith Moon from The Who,
[24:01] Speaker 2: John bonifinm led Zeppelin, Dave Grohl from Nirvana. None of
[24:03] Speaker 2: these guys would be who they are without like a
[24:06] Speaker 2: Charlie Watts, the late Charlie Watts, thank you very much. Right.
[24:10] Speaker 2: So like although really hard playing and tight playing drummers,
[24:12] Speaker 2: the jazzy drummers, they all sing his praises right because
[24:15] Speaker 2: the guy looks single handedly his playing on sing sing
[24:18] Speaker 2: sing made the drum solo a serious thing of music,
[24:21] Speaker 2: right right.
[24:22] Speaker 3: There's there's a direct line to John Bonham in all
[24:24] Speaker 3: that way.
[24:26] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly with the drum solo now, but man. Gene
[24:30] Speaker 2: Krupa was born Eugene Bertram Krupa on January fifteenth, nineteen
[24:34] Speaker 2: oh nine. Baby boy and a family of nine kids.
[24:38] Speaker 2: Raised in Chicago, proud Polish family in the classic move
[24:41] Speaker 2: from back in the day. Since he was the youngest
[24:43] Speaker 2: boy in a Catholic family, what did that mean? He
[24:45] Speaker 2: went off to college to become a priest. Yeah, so
[24:48] Speaker 2: after a year he decided he didn't want to be
[24:50] Speaker 2: a priest, he said. He became a professional musician. Sure,
[24:53] Speaker 2: his family loved that. Yeah, So specifically he became a
[24:56] Speaker 2: jazz drummer so that.
[24:57] Speaker 3: You see the battery even.
[24:59] Speaker 2: No one can see. Well, maybe that's good, honey. But
[25:02] Speaker 2: the guy, I mean Krupa, he had the rhythm in
[25:05] Speaker 2: him and he gotta let it out right. So he
[25:07] Speaker 2: gigged around Chicago the nineteen twenties playing for like this
[25:10] Speaker 2: is the al Capone era Chicago gangsters or his audience
[25:14] Speaker 2: as well as it, you know, the hip and the
[25:15] Speaker 2: wealthy of Prohibition and then the working class out to
[25:18] Speaker 2: have a good time. So his early jazz influences were
[25:21] Speaker 2: men like Big Spider Beck. Also, he's like a perfect
[25:24] Speaker 2: example of the Chicago jazz sound at the time. Then
[25:26] Speaker 2: there's also other local guys like Tubby Hall and Zuddy Singleton.
[25:31] Speaker 2: Also not to mention Jimmy Condon and Baby Dots. Like,
[25:34] Speaker 2: what are up with these names?
[25:36] Speaker 3: I will your word for it.
[25:37] Speaker 2: I love jazz names like I love pot names. Right,
[25:41] Speaker 2: they're all the gress like brother Jack McDuff, that's one
[25:43] Speaker 2: of my favorite Groove Hall.
[25:45] Speaker 3: That's a guy name.
[25:46] Speaker 2: Yeah, these are all jazz guys, like Illinois Jack Kat
[25:49] Speaker 2: cannonball Adderly Dizzy Gillespie is my favorite though, was Rossan
[25:55] Speaker 2: Roland Kirk. You know, he had a dream. His name
[25:59] Speaker 2: is Roland Kirk, right, and he has this dream that
[26:01] Speaker 2: he's playing before a crowd a huge stadium and they're
[26:04] Speaker 2: all chanuting Rassan Raissan Raissan. After he is like triumphant
[26:09] Speaker 2: solo and he's like, oh man, this is awesome. I
[26:12] Speaker 2: love this. I love these people. He wakes up. He
[26:14] Speaker 2: calls his manager and he goes, all right, how do
[26:16] Speaker 2: I legally change my name? And he tries to legally
[26:18] Speaker 2: change his name to Raissan and he does. He changes
[26:21] Speaker 2: his name to Rassan.
[26:22] Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't know that that's how he got his name, O.
[26:24] Speaker 2: Totally, he just had a dream decided I got to
[26:25] Speaker 2: change my name. So he does it. But then legally
[26:28] Speaker 2: he can't change his name and get his old royalties
[26:30] Speaker 2: in his name, so he then has to change his
[26:32] Speaker 2: name back, but he doesn't want to change it back,
[26:34] Speaker 2: so he changes his name to Roland Raissan Kirk or
[26:37] Speaker 2: Rassan Roland Kirk.
[26:39] Speaker 3: Interesting.
[26:40] Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that he has a dream, like it's
[26:42] Speaker 2: such a jazz story. So anyway back to the jazz.
[26:45] Speaker 2: Nineteen thirty four, Jean Croupa joins Benny Goodman's band. Right
[26:48] Speaker 2: the next year, in thirty five, he walks into a
[26:50] Speaker 2: recording studio, lays down his first tracks on Wax and
[26:53] Speaker 2: first time with the band. Almost instantly, gen Krupa becomes
[26:56] Speaker 2: a star of the show. Yeah, first time people hear him, like,
[26:59] Speaker 2: who is that? His drums are just that differ.
[27:01] Speaker 3: It's not like anything else. Yeah, exactly that.
[27:04] Speaker 2: You love that. I mean, you're better with music than
[27:06] Speaker 2: I am. The sound of his drums were also something
[27:09] Speaker 2: he did. As you said, nobody like him before he
[27:12] Speaker 2: played melodies on the drum skins.
[27:14] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[27:14] Speaker 2: They actually started making tunable drumskins because of him, right,
[27:17] Speaker 2: so you could make play more melodies. Yeah, that's how
[27:20] Speaker 2: good he was. He turned. Also, he was the guy
[27:22] Speaker 2: who made the standard drum kit after him. Everybody's like, oh,
[27:25] Speaker 2: that's the drum kit I want.
[27:27] Speaker 3: Like you look at like Fred Astaire. He was like
[27:30] Speaker 3: a Fred Astaire, Yes, percussionist, like you could see it
[27:34] Speaker 3: dancing like you think about like the hard driving drumming
[27:38] Speaker 3: of John bonham Er. I always think about Keith Moon
[27:40] Speaker 3: sounds like someone kind of falling tumbling down the stairs,
[27:42] Speaker 3: totally tripping around, but they getting up me I'm okay.
[27:46] Speaker 3: And so it's the the the animation, the life that
[27:50] Speaker 3: he brought into percussion is incredible because.
[27:53] Speaker 2: You're spot on. He was. He was wild. I mean,
[27:55] Speaker 2: that's really the word for it. H New York Times
[27:57] Speaker 2: quoted him in their obituary for him saying quote, I've
[28:00] Speaker 2: succeeded in doing two things. I made the drummer the
[28:02] Speaker 2: high priced guy, and I was able to project enough
[28:05] Speaker 2: so that people were drawn to jazz. He was just loud. Yeah, yeah,
[28:10] Speaker 2: So gene Gruppa wasn't just a phenomenal drummer. He was
[28:12] Speaker 2: also incredible once in a generation showman. I mean, the
[28:14] Speaker 2: guy like as you kind of pointed out, but he
[28:17] Speaker 2: would like sit hunched over his drums. He'd curl around them.
[28:20] Speaker 2: Right then as he starts playing, his hair comes loose,
[28:22] Speaker 2: and he was like a handsome guy, and the girls
[28:24] Speaker 2: would love, how do you have like a lock of
[28:25] Speaker 2: hair dangling over his eye and he's just dancing there, yea,
[28:27] Speaker 2: And more hair gets comes loose of like his like
[28:30] Speaker 2: real cream or whatever he's wearing. And then as he
[28:32] Speaker 2: continues playing his solo, his body would like unfurl like
[28:35] Speaker 2: a blossom. Right then all of a sudden, he's just
[28:37] Speaker 2: like stretching into taking like the sunlight, and he turns
[28:39] Speaker 2: in like kind of like how a flowers like in
[28:41] Speaker 2: this explosion of beauty, that'd be him, but with sound, right,
[28:44] Speaker 2: So then all of a sudden you got these arms
[28:45] Speaker 2: going everywhere and he just it was insane. It's just
[28:47] Speaker 2: like this visually and musically the same thing. They're both
[28:52] Speaker 2: going wild. Yeah, nobody had seen this exactly totally. So
[28:58] Speaker 2: by thineteen thirty eight, Benny Goodman's band is now the
[29:00] Speaker 2: biggest band in jazz. Everybody, they're the coolest. This is
[29:03] Speaker 2: bad the way jazz is the coolest music in America,
[29:06] Speaker 2: which makes it the coolest music going in the world.
[29:08] Speaker 2: So they're now the best band in the coolest music
[29:10] Speaker 2: in the world. That same year, in January nineteen thirty eight,
[29:13] Speaker 2: the band plays this epically famous show at Carnegie Hall. Right,
[29:16] Speaker 2: it's the peak of jazz's climb into the culture. And
[29:20] Speaker 2: like you know, I said, it starts in Storyville, New Orleans,
[29:22] Speaker 2: and then boom, they're in Carnegie Hall. Because the longest
[29:25] Speaker 2: time it was disparaged, it wasn't called real music. All
[29:27] Speaker 2: this stuff. Now it's on Carnegie Hall. Boom. From Noline
[29:30] Speaker 2: to Carnegiall. Now, after this incredible show, their version of
[29:33] Speaker 2: Sing Sing Sing, which if you can go to YouTube
[29:36] Speaker 2: and just watch Sing Sing Sing Live nineteen thirty eight.
[29:39] Speaker 2: Benny Goodman. Yeah, Carnegie Hall. It's incredible. But Benny Goodman
[29:43] Speaker 2: as a bandleader not exactly a warm and friendly guy. No, yeah,
[29:47] Speaker 2: not known to be uh what you call like not chunny? Yes, no,
[29:50] Speaker 2: not at all. So Krupo was like, you know what,
[29:53] Speaker 2: I'm a star, I'm out of here. He got tired
[29:55] Speaker 2: of button heads with him. Yeah, so he starts his
[29:57] Speaker 2: own big band. He gets some good players, he gets
[29:59] Speaker 2: like Roy Eldrie, He gets a talented singer named Anita O'Day.
[30:02] Speaker 2: He starts touring. The people love it. They're like, oh,
[30:05] Speaker 2: this is great. They got rid of that dead way
[30:07] Speaker 2: Benny Goodman. No, not really. But the jazz hebcats and
[30:10] Speaker 2: the swing kids they're still going kookie for his new band, right,
[30:13] Speaker 2: because of course they did. He's Kroupa, right. It's like
[30:16] Speaker 2: so basically now as the thirties giveaway to the forties
[30:18] Speaker 2: and swing is still like the thing. Jane Croupa is
[30:21] Speaker 2: up there at the mountaintop Elizabeth and well you know
[30:24] Speaker 2: what that means. There's nowhere else to.
[30:26] Speaker 3: Go but where down, down, down.
[30:29] Speaker 2: Nineteen forty two, rolls around gravity, grabs hold of Jane Croupa,
[30:33] Speaker 2: gives a good, hard yank. Interestingly, he has a lot happened.
[30:37] Speaker 2: He gets divorced, he gets busted. It's a bad Actually
[30:41] Speaker 2: it's more than one calendar year, yeah, but it's one
[30:43] Speaker 2: year of time anyway. Interestingly, he gets busted in where
[30:47] Speaker 2: San Francisco. Oh you don't see that coming, he len
[30:50] Speaker 2: me brust it. He was like, oh, so in nineteen
[30:53] Speaker 2: forty two, it's the war years. So World War two
[30:55] Speaker 2: is kicking right. That means for a professional band leader
[30:58] Speaker 2: who's nowhere near the front, the war is still touching
[31:01] Speaker 2: him directly. Because for Krupa, he keeps losing musicians when
[31:04] Speaker 2: they get drafted, right, and he's also got it's really
[31:07] Speaker 2: hard to you know, keep people on the road. And
[31:09] Speaker 2: then the people show up and they're like desperate, and
[31:13] Speaker 2: people a little tense. There's fights, it's a lot, and
[31:15] Speaker 2: then like they're having to pay cabaret taxes and cabaret
[31:19] Speaker 2: card fees. It's like a whole deal. So he's constantly
[31:21] Speaker 2: having to replace band members as his primary challenge though,
[31:24] Speaker 2: but he's making it work. Nineteen forty two he's still
[31:27] Speaker 2: king a swing. Everybody is like excited to see him,
[31:30] Speaker 2: and like I'm trying to say, these kids, they would
[31:32] Speaker 2: stand hard for their jazz heroes, Like I just imagine
[31:36] Speaker 2: how they did for the Beatles. They do that for Krupa,
[31:38] Speaker 2: just a little bit less because they're wearing all wool.
[31:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[31:42] Speaker 2: So at this point, well, his manager, lose Zito, he
[31:44] Speaker 2: tells this one story. He says, and I quote, no
[31:48] Speaker 2: one goes near Gene for at least half an hour
[31:51] Speaker 2: after stage show. He's completely exhausted and soaked to the skin.
[31:56] Speaker 2: So you make sure that nobody bothers the star. That's
[32:00] Speaker 2: how hard he plays. I mean, he's like playing like
[32:03] Speaker 2: like a like a hockey player sweats in a game, right,
[32:05] Speaker 2: But as a jazz drummer.
[32:07] Speaker 3: It's like us when it's hot and we don't have
[32:11] Speaker 3: any here in the studio.
[32:13] Speaker 2: And oh yeah because the noise, Yeah.
[32:15] Speaker 3: And then we're just wiped out. We're like, don't talk
[32:17] Speaker 3: to me.
[32:17] Speaker 2: I'm like, give me my towel, my robe.
[32:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, I just roll away down the hill.
[32:20] Speaker 2: Ye're just so so the manager, Louzito. He also had
[32:25] Speaker 2: another little story explaining like what Genekoper would do when
[32:28] Speaker 2: he came off the stage, just dripping exhausted, he said,
[32:31] Speaker 2: and I quote, as he comes off the stage, he's
[32:34] Speaker 2: wrapped in a heavy bathroom. In the dressing room, he undresses,
[32:37] Speaker 2: is wrapped in heavy bath towels, and he rests until
[32:43] Speaker 2: completely dry. Then he showers and gets a rub down,
[32:47] Speaker 2: nice routine everything. Typically, his wife Ethel would have traveled
[32:51] Speaker 2: with him. She liked to be near Gene. He liked
[32:53] Speaker 2: her to be near him, but but she didn't like
[32:55] Speaker 2: how his fans would go so crazy over him and
[32:57] Speaker 2: scream and at Cray Wild and so forth. She was
[32:59] Speaker 2: a more of a demure, quiet lady. And she also
[33:02] Speaker 2: liked to, you know, be there to keep the fans
[33:04] Speaker 2: from slipping into his hotel room. Yeah, right, well that anyway,
[33:09] Speaker 2: on that leg of the West Coast tour, she wasn't
[33:11] Speaker 2: there in San Francisco for the show. The couple was
[33:14] Speaker 2: separated at the time. Technically they had divorced the year earlier,
[33:17] Speaker 2: but they were still in contact and they're trying to
[33:19] Speaker 2: make it work. It was like, does this gotta take
[33:21] Speaker 2: Maybe we could like undo this, like they were like, anyway.
[33:24] Speaker 3: It's like the life of a jazz musician.
[33:27] Speaker 2: Who's blown up. Nobody sees the jazz drummer becoming world
[33:29] Speaker 2: famous stars. She's I married the drummer. I thought I
[33:31] Speaker 2: was good. So it basically also didn't help though, Like
[33:36] Speaker 2: when they were trying to get back together, when the
[33:37] Speaker 2: tabloids and fan magazines would catch him like out with
[33:41] Speaker 2: like the hottest starlet at the time, Lana Turner, snap
[33:45] Speaker 2: a photo put on the magazine. His wife's like, how
[33:47] Speaker 2: hard are you trying? Right?
[33:48] Speaker 3: Exactly?
[33:49] Speaker 2: So also, life on the road is not easy. I mean,
[33:51] Speaker 2: I'm not trying to excuse any infidelities. I'm not talking
[33:53] Speaker 2: about that. That's between the married couple. I just been
[33:55] Speaker 2: life on the road, like eating, are you?
[33:58] Speaker 4: Yeah?
[33:59] Speaker 2: Exactly. Just Kroupa put it that life was so full
[34:02] Speaker 2: of greasy spoons and bad food you yearned for a
[34:05] Speaker 2: night off, and when you got it off, you get
[34:06] Speaker 2: so drunk you wouldn't know what was going on anyway.
[34:09] Speaker 2: I used to look at the lighted windows of the
[34:12] Speaker 2: houses and yearn for that same kind of life.
[34:15] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[34:16] Speaker 2: Right, So this is not a guy who's going He's
[34:18] Speaker 2: crazy on stage but not crazy off stage, right, So
[34:22] Speaker 2: KINDI he drinks hard, but he's like the guy who
[34:24] Speaker 2: contemplated becoming a priest, but he couldn't say no to
[34:27] Speaker 2: the siren calls, the jazz music. Right, So this is
[34:30] Speaker 2: not to say he wasn't living the good life, Elizabeth.
[34:32] Speaker 2: Krupa most certainly was when he rolled into the Saint
[34:35] Speaker 2: Francis Hotel in San Francisco. He brought with him three
[34:39] Speaker 2: full trunks of custom clothing. Oh wow, he had fifteen
[34:43] Speaker 2: different camel hair coats.
[34:46] Speaker 3: God, could you imagine this? I'd love to see them.
[34:49] Speaker 2: He had a vallet, you know, personal valet or vallet
[34:52] Speaker 2: to just to handle his clothing, dressing him and doing
[34:55] Speaker 2: the maintenance of his clothing. More on that personal vallette later,
[34:59] Speaker 2: but anyways, January twenty at nineteen forty three, this headline
[35:02] Speaker 2: breaks out dateline, San Francisco, January twentieth, nineteen forty three.
[35:06] Speaker 2: Jean Krupa is arrested. He denies he sent boy to
[35:10] Speaker 2: get marijuana cigarettes. Oh boy, yeah, so let's back out.
[35:15] Speaker 2: Let's not get ahead of ourselves in order to truly
[35:18] Speaker 2: dive into this scene. Elizabeth, I'd like you to close
[35:20] Speaker 2: your eyes, Lazic, like you to picture it. It's January eighteenth,
[35:24] Speaker 2: nineteen forty three. The world is at war headline scream
[35:28] Speaker 2: about German tank advances in Europe and the bloody trail
[35:31] Speaker 2: of the island topping marines in the Pacific. At the moment,
[35:34] Speaker 2: you don't want to think about all those horrors. Instead,
[35:37] Speaker 2: you just want to hear some hot, hot jazz from
[35:39] Speaker 2: the wildest band leader in the land, mister Jean Crouper.
[35:43] Speaker 2: At the moment, he's in San Francisco, which coincidentally is
[35:46] Speaker 2: where you work as a hat check girl at the
[35:49] Speaker 2: Golden Gate Theater, and you are beside yourself that right now,
[35:53] Speaker 2: Jean Crupa and his swing band are playing a week
[35:56] Speaker 2: of shows at the Golden Gate Theater. You've watched breathlessly
[35:59] Speaker 2: night after night as the crowd rises to thunderous applause
[36:03] Speaker 2: when the show concludes with his climactic drum solo, and
[36:07] Speaker 2: tonight it was no different. As soon as the show
[36:09] Speaker 2: is over, the crowd erupts in tremendous applause, and you
[36:12] Speaker 2: watch the band leaders. He bounds off stage. He's so
[36:16] Speaker 2: wet with sweat, he looks like he just took a
[36:18] Speaker 2: shower in his clothes. He brushes past you where you
[36:21] Speaker 2: lurk backstage, and he wets your shoulder as he passes.
[36:25] Speaker 2: What a show he puts on, you think to yourself.
[36:27] Speaker 2: As Krupa brushes by, he gives you a friendly smile,
[36:31] Speaker 2: even though he looks exhausted. You turn and watch him go,
[36:34] Speaker 2: and that's when you spot the same suspicious men also
[36:38] Speaker 2: lurking around backstage you saw earlier. There's now three of them.
[36:42] Speaker 2: They follow Krupa to his dressing room. The door opens,
[36:45] Speaker 2: he goes in, The three men go in, and his
[36:48] Speaker 2: personal valet follows them. All the door shuts. A moment passes,
[36:52] Speaker 2: then the door opens. You see the personal valet step out.
[36:55] Speaker 2: He looks around. He seems worried, but also a little confused.
[37:00] Speaker 2: He's young, perhaps out of his depth. He sees you
[37:02] Speaker 2: watching him, but you quickly look away, and then you
[37:05] Speaker 2: look back. When the dressing room door opens again, you
[37:08] Speaker 2: spot Gene Krupa. He's now wearing a robe, but he's
[37:11] Speaker 2: passion faced. He looks like someone just told him he
[37:14] Speaker 2: has just days to live. He speaks with his personal
[37:17] Speaker 2: valet in whispered tones. You can't hear what they say,
[37:20] Speaker 2: but you do see the personal valet nod and then
[37:22] Speaker 2: turn to go in a rush. You watch as he
[37:25] Speaker 2: tries to slyly walk off backstage, pass the passers by.
[37:28] Speaker 2: You also spot the third suspicious man as he turns
[37:32] Speaker 2: and follows the kid out the stage door. That's when
[37:36] Speaker 2: you turn back, not wanting any trouble because with the
[37:38] Speaker 2: war on and all the reports of enemy saboteurs, you
[37:41] Speaker 2: decide to mind your own business. These guys seem like Feds.
[37:44] Speaker 2: You go back to the hat check stand. Now the
[37:47] Speaker 2: show's o where people will want their hats and coats.
[37:49] Speaker 2: But you're still super curious what made Gene Crouple look
[37:52] Speaker 2: like his life just ended? Well, Elizabeth, Boom, there you go.
[37:58] Speaker 2: You just witnessed the first act of the bust of
[38:00] Speaker 2: Gene Krupa. After these messages, we will get back to
[38:04] Speaker 2: see how justice plays out for the jazz man. Elizabeth,
[38:27] Speaker 2: how we swinging the jam on this one's sister, Claude?
[38:29] Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I am digging it, daddy O.
[38:33] Speaker 2: Let's get back to it as we covered thanks to
[38:36] Speaker 2: William Randolph Hurst causing a nationwide moral panic about buddy cannabis,
[38:41] Speaker 2: which his paper's renamed marijuana to make it sound foreign
[38:43] Speaker 2: and scary in order for him to make profits selling
[38:46] Speaker 2: papers covering the moral panic while also protecting his profits
[38:49] Speaker 2: as a lumber baron.
[38:50] Speaker 3: In the transcript she had me read, I like, how
[38:52] Speaker 3: it's spelled of.
[38:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, marijuana, so people would say it the j being
[39:00] Speaker 2: that's new to them, so they're like, just spell it
[39:02] Speaker 2: English style. Spell how you want people to say it.
[39:05] Speaker 2: So well, also I forgot that. Obviously there's Harry ja Anslinger.
[39:08] Speaker 2: We cannot forget about him, the nepotism higher who becomes
[39:12] Speaker 2: the first director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, who
[39:14] Speaker 2: then joins hers for the fight against pot and also
[39:16] Speaker 2: adds in his flavor of racism. Right, So back to
[39:19] Speaker 2: the jazz age craziness. Now, obviously most of this is
[39:23] Speaker 2: aimed at the black jazz men, right, that's where they
[39:26] Speaker 2: really would like to bust, and they're having some success.
[39:28] Speaker 2: They've been the harassing. They're about to really drive Billie
[39:31] Speaker 2: Holiday absolutely into a hospital. So there's they're not just
[39:35] Speaker 2: focusing on him. But if they could get a cautionary
[39:38] Speaker 2: tale to show these white kids where the demon weed
[39:41] Speaker 2: will lead you, that would be ideal. Enter gene Krupa.
[39:45] Speaker 2: So the Federal narks basically they wanted to bust the
[39:48] Speaker 2: coolest men in the world. That's who the white jazz
[39:51] Speaker 2: men were, the jazz kids that they were trying to
[39:54] Speaker 2: communicate with through the bust. So they're like, well, who's
[39:57] Speaker 2: the coolest him. So this author, David Solomon, he framed
[40:01] Speaker 2: in his book The Marijuana Papers, that the Bureau of Narcotics,
[40:05] Speaker 2: the director Harry Janslinger, he used his position in government
[40:08] Speaker 2: and his authority as an expert in the field to
[40:10] Speaker 2: spread all sorts of wildly incorrect propaganda. But the American
[40:14] Speaker 2: press were like, well, he's an expert, so they would
[40:16] Speaker 2: just eagerly and uncritically report his quotes, and so it
[40:19] Speaker 2: becomes the record. Then when you go to Congress, you
[40:21] Speaker 2: can then quote yourself in the paper. Right, it's a cycle,
[40:25] Speaker 2: it's ridiculous. So they're reasonably repeating whatever he says about
[40:28] Speaker 2: satanically destructive drug right that I put that in the
[40:31] Speaker 2: paper should be capitalized satan. So anyway, basically the press
[40:35] Speaker 2: functioned at his megaphone. So that's how jazz music and
[40:38] Speaker 2: the craze, swing kids and musicians, they all get a
[40:40] Speaker 2: target on their backs because especially the man they revere
[40:43] Speaker 2: Gene Krupa, it's the antipop paranoia. Right, So as Solomon
[40:47] Speaker 2: puts it in his book, and I quote the American public,
[40:50] Speaker 2: fed by this steady stream of anti marijuana propaganda, had
[40:53] Speaker 2: reason to believe much of what it read. The evidence
[40:56] Speaker 2: was right before them. Swing music and its culture appeared
[40:59] Speaker 2: to embody all of the dangers of the drug published
[41:02] Speaker 2: in the press. One only had to listen to the
[41:05] Speaker 2: hot tom tom rhythms of Benny Goodman's sing, sing, sing,
[41:09] Speaker 2: or watch the uncontrolled antics of a jitterbug trucking on
[41:12] Speaker 2: the dance floor as proof that something had taken hold
[41:16] Speaker 2: of American youth. It was easy to blame the marijuana menace.
[41:20] Speaker 2: So there you go, that's the tone the marijuana menas.
[41:23] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:24] Speaker 2: Now, comically, the jazz guys are putting out songs that
[41:26] Speaker 2: they are like the Chant of the Weed, or there's
[41:29] Speaker 2: Texas Tea Party. There's another song called reefer Man. I mean,
[41:33] Speaker 2: so they're able to quote from these songs in the
[41:35] Speaker 2: newspaper and then use that to scare people with like
[41:38] Speaker 2: jazz is clearly the devil's own music.
[41:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[41:40] Speaker 2: So, Elizabeth, the whispers were in the wind right those
[41:43] Speaker 2: who were listening, they knew the FEDS would eventually find
[41:46] Speaker 2: the perfect person to frame as their cautionary tale. In fact,
[41:49] Speaker 2: Downbeat magazine tried to warn the community in nineteen thirty eight.
[41:53] Speaker 2: The magazine wrote, and I quote one of these days,
[41:57] Speaker 2: say those close to the situation, the Federal Bureau of
[41:59] Speaker 2: Investigation will investigate the claim that the marijuana weed is
[42:03] Speaker 2: promiscuously used and smoked by players of swing music. The
[42:06] Speaker 2: idea that weed, which is supposed to have first been
[42:09] Speaker 2: taken hold of by low down musicians and Harlem dives,
[42:13] Speaker 2: is now spreading to the bigger bands, where instrumentalists now
[42:17] Speaker 2: use it to emit the wild abandoned rhythms which comprise
[42:21] Speaker 2: swing music, is said to be arousing interest at Ja
[42:24] Speaker 2: Eggar Hoover's headquarters. Whether it is true or not, the
[42:27] Speaker 2: FBI is convinced that there is a good deal to
[42:30] Speaker 2: the rumors which they have heard, and they are planning
[42:32] Speaker 2: an investigation allegedly which may one day treat the US
[42:37] Speaker 2: to an expose which will rock the music world. It's
[42:41] Speaker 2: all over the place, all right, but it was kind
[42:44] Speaker 2: of a war, you do hear, though subtly always like
[42:46] Speaker 2: the Harlem Dives. Yeah, the abandoned rhythms of like jungle
[42:51] Speaker 2: rhythms from the dark part of Africa, you know, right. Anyway,
[42:54] Speaker 2: finally they can get their target. The Fateful Day comes
[42:57] Speaker 2: five years later, nineteen forty three, in the Golden Gate
[43:00] Speaker 2: Theater in San Francisco. What's interesting to me is how
[43:02] Speaker 2: when Jan Croupa gets popped for pot possession, he's arrested
[43:06] Speaker 2: by federal agents. Yeah, and then he's not brought up
[43:10] Speaker 2: on federal charges. Instead, he's handed over to the San
[43:12] Speaker 2: Francisco police like they're here. Really, you make a show
[43:15] Speaker 2: of him. We know, you guys rough people up. Yeah.
[43:18] Speaker 2: San Franisco police at the time were known for being
[43:20] Speaker 2: head beaters.
[43:21] Speaker 3: That's at the same time that they were busting a
[43:24] Speaker 3: little bit later where they busted William Biwalda for shaking
[43:27] Speaker 3: the Big Gold's hand exactly.
[43:29] Speaker 2: The San Francisco police were known as like some tough
[43:31] Speaker 2: Irish cops at this point. Yeah, so they didn't go
[43:34] Speaker 2: for this nonsense. Well you're smoking the pot, hey, you
[43:36] Speaker 2: know so.
[43:36] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[43:36] Speaker 2: The San Francisco press was only also happy to help so,
[43:39] Speaker 2: because make no mistake, Jean Crupa getting busted for pot
[43:42] Speaker 2: was big news in nineteen forty three.
[43:44] Speaker 3: He got a Hurst paper up in there.
[43:45] Speaker 2: Yes you do, thank you very much. San Francisco Examiner
[43:48] Speaker 2: reported on the arrival of Jean Croupa in town on
[43:51] Speaker 2: January fourteenth. There's plenty of excitement going on at the
[43:55] Speaker 2: Golden Gate. Jean Crupa's band is hitting the deck and
[43:58] Speaker 2: it hits like lightning. That's nineteen forty three, January fourteenth.
[44:03] Speaker 2: They also wanted to like hype this rare showman, so
[44:06] Speaker 2: the Hearst newspaper puts in glowing terms, telsol headed drummer Krupa,
[44:10] Speaker 2: who sits like an affable spider in his web of drums,
[44:13] Speaker 2: making his two arms act like six, is an authentic
[44:16] Speaker 2: jazz artist, which is a rare thing for a white musician.
[44:20] Speaker 2: Oh it's little tail in that one. Now. The smash
[44:23] Speaker 2: cut to one week later, January twenty first, the same
[44:26] Speaker 2: Hurst newspaper, San Franciso Examiner gleefully reports on the front
[44:31] Speaker 2: page with a quote Gene Krupa linked to dope case.
[44:35] Speaker 2: So they're making the profits on the way up and
[44:37] Speaker 2: the way it. Don't really care exactly. The opening sentence
[44:41] Speaker 2: gets right to it quote idol of countless young jitterbugs
[44:45] Speaker 2: throughout the nation. Gene Krupa noted swing drummer and bandleader
[44:49] Speaker 2: was arrested here last night by federal narcotics agents on
[44:52] Speaker 2: charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor by
[44:56] Speaker 2: permitting a seventeen year old boy to transport narcotic Yeah,
[45:01] Speaker 2: so they really have. They got a story that's going
[45:04] Speaker 2: to sell some papers at this point. Right. So the
[45:06] Speaker 2: other new paper of this city, the major paper of
[45:08] Speaker 2: the city, San Francisco Chronicle, the one you like, I
[45:11] Speaker 2: went with a slightly more prosaic headline. They went with
[45:14] Speaker 2: Gene Kruppa arrested here in juvenile dope case. You don't
[45:17] Speaker 2: even quite know what's going on in that headline is
[45:22] Speaker 2: the dope case? Young? Are we waiting for the dope
[45:24] Speaker 2: case to mature? So, Elizabeth, back then there was no
[45:28] Speaker 2: different than today. The ugly allegations of drugs and kids
[45:31] Speaker 2: and the devil's own music made this small time bust
[45:34] Speaker 2: into a big time national news story. Everyone got to
[45:36] Speaker 2: speculate what's Gene Grupa doing with kids in San Francisco
[45:39] Speaker 2: and drugs? So most of the stories are like dope
[45:42] Speaker 2: and delinquency, right, That's what they really pushed. So what
[45:45] Speaker 2: doesn't get widely reported is that there are no charges
[45:48] Speaker 2: against gen Krupa, for possession of narcotics or for drug use,
[45:51] Speaker 2: any of that. It's just delinquency of a minor, which
[45:54] Speaker 2: is a much uglier term in the press. So rather
[45:58] Speaker 2: than read some more moral panic news stories, Elizabeth, let's
[46:01] Speaker 2: hear Gene Croupa's version of It's much better than the
[46:04] Speaker 2: other nonsense. Here's a Croupa tells the story of his
[46:07] Speaker 2: potbust and how his young valete got him pinched. And
[46:10] Speaker 2: I quote, by then, I was a glamour boy, fifteen
[46:14] Speaker 2: camel hair coats, three trunks around me all the time.
[46:17] Speaker 2: He couldn't think what to get me. Finally he thought, gee,
[46:20] Speaker 2: I'll get Jean some grass. At that time, California was
[46:23] Speaker 2: hot as a pistol. You could park your car for
[46:25] Speaker 2: a bottle of beerry get arrested. So we had a
[46:28] Speaker 2: rough time getting the stuff. He probably shot his mouth
[46:30] Speaker 2: off a little. I'm getting this for the greatest guy
[46:32] Speaker 2: in the world, Gene Croupa. So the kid was going
[46:35] Speaker 2: around La the city they were, and before they went
[46:37] Speaker 2: to San Francisco, and he was trying to get pot
[46:39] Speaker 2: for Jean Crupa, because that's where the kid got hired,
[46:42] Speaker 2: was in La just before they came to San Francisco
[46:45] Speaker 2: because it is like basically his first day on the job.
[46:47] Speaker 2: So I'll tell you more about him in a second.
[46:50] Speaker 2: The rest of the story from Croupa we will get
[46:53] Speaker 2: from his lawyer. And this is how the lawyer wrote
[46:56] Speaker 2: in his memoir years later. He says, this is Krupa's talk,
[47:00] Speaker 2: and I quote, I wouldn't call you master. I don't
[47:03] Speaker 2: know a damn thing about this caper. First time I
[47:05] Speaker 2: pick up on the fact it's marijuana that's got them
[47:08] Speaker 2: bugged is when the fuzz laid the story on me
[47:10] Speaker 2: after they dropped the net on Johnny. They tell me
[47:13] Speaker 2: he picked up the muggles in my suite, and I
[47:15] Speaker 2: come all un zipped. That's a scene. I don't dig.
[47:18] Speaker 2: Jake te goofballs, Benny all that kind of funny quick energy.
[47:22] Speaker 2: I don't need it. I got me. That's plenty. If
[47:25] Speaker 2: the kid had muggles, I sure don't know where he
[47:27] Speaker 2: got it.
[47:28] Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's like, excuse me, Stewardess, I speak jazz, right,
[47:33] Speaker 3: So goofballs.
[47:35] Speaker 2: What's the real story here? Like, just who was his
[47:37] Speaker 2: personal valet? Was he legit? Was he a fed plant
[47:40] Speaker 2: there to get.
[47:41] Speaker 3: Crippa stitched out a hapless intern.
[47:43] Speaker 2: Was he a hapless intern? Good read kid? So Kripa,
[47:47] Speaker 2: as I said, barely knew him. His name was John Patiochos.
[47:50] Speaker 2: He was twenty years old. He was one of those
[47:52] Speaker 2: jitterbug kids. He lived for swing music. Yeah, he played
[47:55] Speaker 2: drums himself. He idolized Krupa. Wait, he was twenty twenty
[47:58] Speaker 2: years old, sad at the seventeen. Yes, so he was
[48:01] Speaker 2: not a minor. There was no delinquency of a minor.
[48:04] Speaker 2: So he graduated high school back in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
[48:07] Speaker 2: And then he like he was all about that jazz, right,
[48:09] Speaker 2: So he jitterbugged his way over to New York. And
[48:11] Speaker 2: then he was like, oh, I gotta go high tail
[48:13] Speaker 2: on my way over to Chicago. And then he kept,
[48:15] Speaker 2: you know, like swing bop dancing over to La working
[48:19] Speaker 2: as an usher at the Palladium Theater in La. This
[48:22] Speaker 2: excitable kid strikes up a friendship with Krupa's personal valet,
[48:25] Speaker 2: who's also a young man. And while the band is
[48:28] Speaker 2: playing a series of shows there like two weeks of shows, right,
[48:31] Speaker 2: So at this point World War two is kicking right,
[48:33] Speaker 2: It's in full bloody flourished.
[48:35] Speaker 3: The whole show in LA at this time at.
[48:38] Speaker 2: The Palladium Theater. It's a crazy right be amazing swing.
[48:42] Speaker 2: So Krupa's personal vallet. He also said, young man, he
[48:45] Speaker 2: gets drafted, and he gets his drafted, he's like oh,
[48:47] Speaker 2: so he's like hits. He's buddied up with this kid,
[48:49] Speaker 2: John patiocause he's like, hey, kid, you want to be
[48:51] Speaker 2: the valet. So the kid gets hired in LA and
[48:54] Speaker 2: he takes the trip north with them to San Francisco.
[48:56] Speaker 2: After his first thing is trying to get this pot
[48:58] Speaker 2: for and then he gets it in an envelope and
[49:01] Speaker 2: he like shoves it in his jacket and then when
[49:04] Speaker 2: the bus happens, he's like, oh, by the way, remember
[49:05] Speaker 2: that pot I put in your jacket. And that's what
[49:07] Speaker 2: they were whispering about when you saw them. He was
[49:10] Speaker 2: giving them. They like, hey, there's pot in your sad
[49:12] Speaker 2: the Feds should probably not see that. He gets really
[49:17] Speaker 2: stitched up by so yeah. Anyway, so what's this kid's
[49:20] Speaker 2: story in all this?
[49:21] Speaker 4: Right?
[49:21] Speaker 2: As the personal like the gopher for the band leader,
[49:24] Speaker 2: he's just hanging around waiting for Krupa to have some
[49:27] Speaker 2: need for him. That's his job, so doing that he's
[49:30] Speaker 2: hanging around. He sees these suspicious men also there at
[49:33] Speaker 2: the Golden Gate Theater, and it turns out they are
[49:36] Speaker 2: Federal narks and they're the ones who ended up busting
[49:38] Speaker 2: him because they're also watching this kid, so he's watching
[49:41] Speaker 2: them there watching him. The way the kid tells it,
[49:43] Speaker 2: the story goes as Jane came off the stage soaking
[49:46] Speaker 2: wet as usual, these three men walked over to him
[49:48] Speaker 2: and they said they wanted to talk to him. They
[49:50] Speaker 2: walked Gene into his dressing room and I walked right
[49:53] Speaker 2: after them. I felt something was wrong. They told me
[49:55] Speaker 2: to leave the room. I looked at Gene, who nodded approval,
[49:58] Speaker 2: but he had a very particular expression on his face.
[50:01] Speaker 2: I felt then that something was gonna happen. I waited
[50:04] Speaker 2: outside the dressing room for quite a while. Jane finally
[50:07] Speaker 2: came out, pale as a ghost and still soaking wet,
[50:10] Speaker 2: although he still had his robe on. He was all
[50:12] Speaker 2: shaken up and excited. He motioned to me to go
[50:14] Speaker 2: with him, and now I was all excited myself. So
[50:17] Speaker 2: we started to walk toward the washroom, and Jeane seemed
[50:21] Speaker 2: unable to talk at first, but finally he said to me, Johnny,
[50:24] Speaker 2: I want you to do something for me, and before
[50:26] Speaker 2: he could say another word, they broke up the conversation.
[50:30] Speaker 2: And then they walked Jane back to his dressing room
[50:32] Speaker 2: and they left me standing there alone. So what does
[50:35] Speaker 2: the kid do. He knows he needs to do something
[50:38] Speaker 2: for his drum hero, right, and may remember he's an excitable,
[50:41] Speaker 2: jitterbug kid he is. So he's got these g men
[50:43] Speaker 2: threatening his heroes. He's gonna save his hero. So he decides,
[50:46] Speaker 2: I'm gonna go save him from the FED. So back
[50:48] Speaker 2: to Patioko's right then and there, I thought, I know
[50:51] Speaker 2: what Gene wanted me to do. He was a nice
[50:54] Speaker 2: guy and I wanted to help him. So I ran
[50:56] Speaker 2: as fast as I could back to the hotel, and
[50:58] Speaker 2: I tried to get Frank Vinier, groups manager on the phone,
[51:02] Speaker 2: but it was busy. I finally got a bell hop
[51:04] Speaker 2: to let me in, and I took an envelope of
[51:06] Speaker 2: cigarettes out of the pocket of his coat in the
[51:08] Speaker 2: closet and left the room. Then I remembered that there
[51:10] Speaker 2: were also a few cigarettes in a drawer on the
[51:12] Speaker 2: writing desk, so I returned to the room and I
[51:15] Speaker 2: took those cigarettes out of the drawer and I put
[51:16] Speaker 2: them in the envelope and I left the room. And
[51:19] Speaker 2: then that's where he walked out of Jean Croupa's hotel
[51:21] Speaker 2: room and right into the arms of the waiting FED
[51:24] Speaker 2: who had followed him out of the Golden Gate theater.
[51:27] Speaker 2: Because this kid was so jitter batic excitable, he didn't
[51:29] Speaker 2: even think that the FED might fight out.
[51:31] Speaker 3: Yeah, just watch him. It's a little suspicious that, like
[51:34] Speaker 3: they whisper to each other, and then he runs off exactly, so.
[51:37] Speaker 2: One of the Feds. They take him back now and
[51:39] Speaker 2: to the other FEDS, and this kid, the kid will cooperate,
[51:42] Speaker 2: He will not talk to them, right, So back to Patioko's.
[51:45] Speaker 2: After quite a while trying to make me say something,
[51:47] Speaker 2: the agents took me over to their office alone. There
[51:50] Speaker 2: they really gave me the works. They pushed me around
[51:53] Speaker 2: and threatened to hit me with a blackjack and beat
[51:55] Speaker 2: me up if I still refused to talk, and furthermore,
[51:58] Speaker 2: would put me in jail for prize of the cigarettes.
[52:01] Speaker 2: So when the kid won't betray as jazz Man hero,
[52:03] Speaker 2: the Caps then trick him by saying it wouldn't make
[52:06] Speaker 2: any difference to Jane because he would be in exactly
[52:09] Speaker 2: the same trouble anyway if I didn't say anything. So
[52:11] Speaker 2: the kid signs a confession that Jeane Crupa asked him
[52:14] Speaker 2: to go to his hotel room and grab his pot
[52:16] Speaker 2: and bring it back to him, and that's that that
[52:19] Speaker 2: the Krupa then had made the kid his drug mule. Yeah,
[52:22] Speaker 2: the charges are flimsy as hell, right, but they sound
[52:25] Speaker 2: terrible in the press. So the trial start. San Francisco
[52:29] Speaker 2: DA decides to make it a show trial and get
[52:31] Speaker 2: a little fame for himself. He throws the law book
[52:34] Speaker 2: at Krupa, right, but he has one problem. Star witness
[52:36] Speaker 2: is missing. Pattiocos disappears. He does he won't testify against Crupa.
[52:41] Speaker 3: We ran the ran the risk.
[52:44] Speaker 2: Of snitch and signing a confession. So is what they do?
[52:47] Speaker 2: They go in and just read the confession. Yeah, exactly
[52:49] Speaker 2: so anyway, So both sides, though alleged that the other
[52:52] Speaker 2: side is hiding him and have bribed him to leave town.
[52:54] Speaker 2: Everyone's like, you you got rid of him. So because
[52:58] Speaker 2: they both I don't know things, somehow he's gonna help
[53:00] Speaker 2: them make their case. So you know what, Elizabeth, I
[53:03] Speaker 2: got a little more fun for you because here, I
[53:05] Speaker 2: would like you to be a federal agent on the
[53:07] Speaker 2: witness stand. I'll be Leslie Gillen, the assistant DA who's
[53:11] Speaker 2: prosecuting Gene Krupa. Okay, so are you ready? Is it
[53:17] Speaker 2: common knowledge that marijuana is frequently used because of its
[53:20] Speaker 2: definite propensity for distorting time by so called hot musicians
[53:24] Speaker 2: Jazz musicians is, and that is so they can beat
[53:29] Speaker 2: the drums or play a cornett or trombone without feeling
[53:32] Speaker 2: the effect of doing it right. I'm sorry, but I
[53:37] Speaker 2: just love asking a narc who's barely knowledgeable at the
[53:41] Speaker 2: interiority of jazz drummers and coronet players, Like when Big
[53:45] Speaker 2: Spiderbeck is on the jazz stand, what does he think?
[53:47] Speaker 2: I mean?
[53:48] Speaker 4: Like?
[53:48] Speaker 5: What is this kind?
[53:50] Speaker 2: So Krupa takes the witness stand and the ADA grills
[53:53] Speaker 2: the pot fueled drummer right and asking him how he
[53:55] Speaker 2: makes his rhythms hit and sing and Crupa then says
[53:58] Speaker 2: from the witness stand, a man's ab to beat his
[54:00] Speaker 2: drums faster than someone else's because he has developed his
[54:03] Speaker 2: technique to a higher point, and it is easier to
[54:06] Speaker 2: play fast than it is for someone to play slow.
[54:09] Speaker 2: If I'm able to play faster than someone else. It
[54:11] Speaker 2: is because I have studied it and developed my technique.
[54:14] Speaker 2: I mean, it's very very obvious. Right, That's the same
[54:16] Speaker 2: way I can paint houses faster. But then he added,
[54:19] Speaker 2: in his opinion, the only whack drummers are the ones
[54:21] Speaker 2: who did rely on drugs and to get loose. As
[54:25] Speaker 2: Croup would put it, it might be true of hot
[54:27] Speaker 2: bands playing in dives, but that would be impossible for
[54:30] Speaker 2: members of a prominent band to habitually use marijuana in
[54:33] Speaker 2: view of the split second timing on radio and the
[54:37] Speaker 2: need for self possession on the stage. Yeah. So he's
[54:40] Speaker 2: basically saying like, I gotta be too cool for school
[54:42] Speaker 2: for that kind of Yeah.
[54:43] Speaker 3: I gotta have my wits about me.
[54:45] Speaker 2: Yeah. So Croup also emphasized that, in his opinion, only
[54:48] Speaker 2: drummers in small numbers the failures, all of them used
[54:52] Speaker 2: the weed. Right, But then he admitted that he was
[54:55] Speaker 2: somebody who used the later in its test, somebody's like that,
[54:59] Speaker 2: I also who was the weed? I did smoke the pot,
[55:02] Speaker 2: and so they got him, the trial concludes, despite the
[55:05] Speaker 2: star witness never appearing in court. Elizabeth, what do you
[55:07] Speaker 2: think the trial verdict was guilty? Yes. On June thirtieth,
[55:10] Speaker 2: nineteen forty three, a jury of his peers find Krupa
[55:13] Speaker 2: guilty of the delinquency of a minor. He's sentenced to
[55:16] Speaker 2: one to six years in San Quentin State Prison. What yes,
[55:20] Speaker 2: I told you morel panic, you're gonna You're not gonna,
[55:23] Speaker 2: You're not gonna scare people with the one to six.
[55:26] Speaker 3: Years twenty year old miner.
[55:28] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So because the kid's gone, they can't confirm
[55:31] Speaker 2: the age. So at this point he thought, man, my
[55:33] Speaker 2: career is over, Dunzo daddy.
[55:35] Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
[55:35] Speaker 2: But his lawyer is like, I can feel the sentence.
[55:38] Speaker 2: So headlines are a meanwhile announcing that there's been a
[55:40] Speaker 2: development in the case. Like a month later, the missing
[55:43] Speaker 2: star witness the Jitterbug Kid, the personal valet John Patiokos
[55:47] Speaker 2: is found alive and well. Oh in Los Angeles. FBI
[55:50] Speaker 2: found the kid because why he was on the lamb
[55:53] Speaker 2: from selective service. He'd gotten his draft car and cut.
[55:57] Speaker 2: That's what he didn't want to get drafted off to war.
[56:00] Speaker 2: So it seemed like this would help Crooper's appeal because
[56:03] Speaker 2: now they can confirm he is not a minor, because
[56:05] Speaker 2: if he's old enough to go to war. He's not
[56:07] Speaker 2: a miner. So in the meantime, Cruper works with his lawyer,
[56:09] Speaker 2: who he thinks he's in good hands because it's Howard
[56:12] Speaker 2: Hughes's lawyer, it's Errol Flynn's lawyer. He's like, I want
[56:15] Speaker 2: to Flynn right, So Nope, doesn't happen. He appeals his case.
[56:19] Speaker 2: All in all, Kroupa spends eighty four days in San
[56:22] Speaker 2: Francisco County jail. What but he never gets sent to
[56:25] Speaker 2: San Quentin because after enough time passes, people feel like, Okay,
[56:28] Speaker 2: we got what we wanted. We scared everybody. He doesn't
[56:31] Speaker 2: really matter. We got the headlines we got. So as
[56:35] Speaker 2: he waited to hear his fate on the state charges,
[56:37] Speaker 2: his fellow jazz men all rallied around Krupa. In fact,
[56:41] Speaker 2: even though he'd split from Benny Goodman and because of
[56:43] Speaker 2: all the personal tensions, Goodman reaches out to Krupa while
[56:46] Speaker 2: he's down and the two get back together and they
[56:48] Speaker 2: play their first show together in six years. Yeah. So,
[56:51] Speaker 2: in the end, the pot Buss was a good thing
[56:53] Speaker 2: for jazz music. It brought Crouper and Benny go back together,
[56:56] Speaker 2: and it eventually helped Crooper rebuild his career, and then
[56:59] Speaker 2: the FEDS they couldn't stop the jazz bab. So now
[57:02] Speaker 2: if you're wondering the unlucky jitterbug personal valet John Patios,
[57:06] Speaker 2: he wasn't able to continue dodging the draft. Once the
[57:09] Speaker 2: FBI caught him, they threw him in the service, They
[57:11] Speaker 2: sent him off to war, and he survived as a
[57:15] Speaker 2: medical coreman. He was basically like a like a CEO.
[57:19] Speaker 2: I was like, I'll heal people. I ain't shooting now,
[57:22] Speaker 2: So what's a ridiculous rug? Take away?
[57:26] Speaker 3: My takeaway is every time we talk about like the
[57:30] Speaker 3: how villainized marijuana is, it's so frustrating, you know, because
[57:34] Speaker 3: it's like, I know, nothing is completely harmless, but when
[57:38] Speaker 3: I look at like the damage that like alcohol does
[57:43] Speaker 3: versus which is just you know, go for it according
[57:46] Speaker 3: to everybody, versus weed. And this this misnomber of how
[57:50] Speaker 3: people are, you know that they act like it's this stimulant,
[57:54] Speaker 3: like it's a PCP.
[57:55] Speaker 2: Or like you don't know what it is. It's whatever
[57:57] Speaker 2: they imagine people what they imagine. They have no experience
[58:01] Speaker 2: of the reality, so they're like, oh, it turns people
[58:03] Speaker 2: into these sex crazed lunatics who want to sleep all
[58:06] Speaker 2: the time, Like, which is it, which is you're doing everything?
[58:08] Speaker 2: You have them doing everything.
[58:10] Speaker 3: And then I don't know. I just kind of feel
[58:12] Speaker 3: like if you can't really overdose on something and like,
[58:15] Speaker 3: you know, just let people do what they want.
[58:17] Speaker 2: Everything's a poison. The dose makes the poison exactly thing.
[58:21] Speaker 2: You can kill someone with water, So there's no such
[58:22] Speaker 2: thing as a real true poison. It's how you use something,
[58:26] Speaker 2: how much you use. So with this I have the
[58:29] Speaker 2: same thing, which is I don't like to legislate morality.
[58:31] Speaker 2: I'm like, if a person wants to smoke pot, let
[58:33] Speaker 2: them and then if it doesn't work out for them,
[58:34] Speaker 2: we can figure that part out. But like, if it's
[58:37] Speaker 2: not impairing their decisions where they're out there like slaughtering
[58:39] Speaker 2: people because they're on the drugs, then I don't have
[58:42] Speaker 2: a problem with it. Then I wish people could be
[58:44] Speaker 2: more grown up. And we still see the need the
[58:46] Speaker 2: desire to do prohibition, like, no, stop it, I'm gonna
[58:49] Speaker 2: tell you what to do because that ever worked. No,
[58:52] Speaker 2: it hasn't. So we have tons of centuries of history,
[58:54] Speaker 2: yet we still go this time it's gonna work well
[58:57] Speaker 2: and we.
[58:57] Speaker 3: Think about like the dangers of stuff is like you know,
[59:00] Speaker 3: under the influence of things. But if we had like
[59:03] Speaker 3: walkable cities with lots of third places, it would be
[59:08] Speaker 3: a non issue totally.
[59:09] Speaker 2: But also, how about this, it's the responsibility of the driver. Yeah,
[59:12] Speaker 2: it's just saying like if they took too much cold
[59:13] Speaker 2: medicine and tell you it's the dose. So it's not
[59:15] Speaker 2: the pot that's the problem. It's the person making bad
[59:17] Speaker 2: choices and then driving, because they can make a bad
[59:19] Speaker 2: choice with anything. The pot isn't the problem. It's the
[59:22] Speaker 2: person making the.
[59:23] Speaker 3: Choice about the choices, the choices exactly.
[59:26] Speaker 2: Anyway I'm doing that. I'm getting off this damn soap
[59:28] Speaker 2: box because it's not ridiculous. Elizabe, are you the mood
[59:32] Speaker 2: for a talk back?
[59:32] Speaker 3: I am always in the mood for a talkback?
[59:35] Speaker 2: Can you favor us one? Oh my god, I went.
[59:45] Speaker 4: Jee Elizabeth and Zaren. I want you to close your
[59:53] Speaker 4: eyes and picture it. You are eighteen years old. You
[59:56] Speaker 4: were raised in a conservative Christian household. You weren't shel
[1:00:00] Speaker 4: third from the media or anything, but you've certainly not
[1:00:02] Speaker 4: had a lot of personal, tangible life experiences, and you
[1:00:05] Speaker 4: are traveling abroad for the first time with your mom
[1:00:09] Speaker 4: in Paris, and you're looking for the SoC de Cour
[1:00:12] Speaker 4: and you get off at the wrong metro station, which
[1:00:14] Speaker 4: is fine. You're in a little bit of a sketchy neighborhood,
[1:00:16] Speaker 4: actually a very sketchy neighborhood, but you just figure.
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: I'll just walk up the hill.
[1:00:20] Speaker 4: Fine eventually, and you leave the station and you run
[1:00:24] Speaker 4: into a very handsome man right outside of the fence
[1:00:28] Speaker 4: who is talking at you, yelling kind of but smiling friendly,
[1:00:31] Speaker 4: yelling rapid French, and you have no idea what he's
[1:00:34] Speaker 4: saying because you're a product of the American education system
[1:00:37] Speaker 4: and you know a little Spanish and basically just the
[1:00:39] Speaker 4: numbers and no French at all. So you say I'm sorry,
[1:00:44] Speaker 4: I'm sorry, and he says, oh English. You say yes,
[1:00:46] Speaker 4: and he says, uh, officer, police officers, a police officer,
[1:00:50] Speaker 4: and he points to the train and you say what, no,
[1:00:51] Speaker 4: I don't think so, and he says, thank you, messi,
[1:00:55] Speaker 4: and then he scales the fence behind you, jumps off
[1:00:58] Speaker 4: the turnstile, and jumps onto the train and you are
[1:01:02] Speaker 4: completely bewildered while your mom stands next to you, laughing hysterically.
[1:01:07] Speaker 4: Saying that you've just ate it and about someone running
[1:01:10] Speaker 4: from the police.
[1:01:10] Speaker 3: But hey, you were very helpful.
[1:01:14] Speaker 2: Of your little I don't think so.
[1:01:17] Speaker 4: And then you proceed to get roasted about that for
[1:01:20] Speaker 4: the next decade of your life. That's it, Hope, that
[1:01:24] Speaker 4: was a vivid for you.
[1:01:26] Speaker 3: I was there that eating in a bedding. That's like
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: the best kind of vacation activity.
[1:01:33] Speaker 2: Totally. You're in Paris and you can get in a
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: little area to come on.
[1:01:36] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's people pay a lot of money to be
[1:01:38] Speaker 3: able to do that.
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: Yeah, forget an escape room, help someone escape. Well. As always,
[1:01:43] Speaker 2: you can find us online a Ridiculous Crime on social media.
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: Got a look around and we have the account Ridiculous
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: Crime Pod on YouTube. Go check it out. They're awesome,
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: and we have our website, ridiculous Crime dot com. I
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: believe we just won What was it? E Magazine's most
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: excited What was it? I forget the wording, the new
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: the book they were most excited to read this summer.
[1:02:09] Speaker 3: E Entertainment Television's Hey, have you read this book? It's amazing,
[1:02:12] Speaker 3: you should read it.
[1:02:13] Speaker 2: Thank you. It was such a long award going to
[1:02:17] Speaker 2: be people are never going to remember this yeah, well, anyway,
[1:02:20] Speaker 2: check out the website and if emails if you like
[1:02:23] Speaker 2: a Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. As always, we
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: will catch you next crime. Thanks for listening. Ridiculous Crime
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton That's her and Zarah Burnette
[1:02:39] Speaker 2: that's him. That's produced and edited by Mose Allison's piano teacher,
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: Dave Cusi and starring Annaly's Rucker As who did research
[1:02:47] Speaker 2: is by Betty Carter fan club president Marissa Brown. Our
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: theme song is by Jack t Garden's main man, Thomas
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: Lee and Travis They called him Jango Dutton. The host
[1:03:00] Speaker 2: wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred, guest tarn maker by
[1:03:03] Speaker 2: Sparkleshow and We Stood on Videos. Executive producers are Ben
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: One Day, Sunra woke up and went hold In and
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: Nol Please don't call me Downtown, Julie grow.
[1:03:20] Speaker 1: We g.
[1:03:21] Speaker 4: Cry, say it one more time We cry.
[1:03:26] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
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