When the Cops Came Knockin'

The Bug Theater is a mid sized theater in Northwest Denver. It's in a mostly residential neighborhood that was in the midst of a transition. Denver has always been more of a sports town than a theater town,so to see this theater stand where it was..well unusual. It had been dormant for years when a couple artist renovated the space,and began putting shows on there.

One of those artists involved with the Bug was Hugh Graham.Before moving to Denver,Hugh Graham had spent some time as a playwright in Minneapolis. It was that Minnesota connection that created an instant bond when we met. Hugh saw a void in the Denver theater scene and it was his dream to bring more of what he called "cutting edge" theater to Denver. In his eyes,my Reggae Theater piece Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh fit the bill,so it was agreed to bring the piece to the Bug Theater.

The year before I had brought Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh from Minneapolis and the Cedar Cultural Center to Denver and the Mercury Cafe. There it drew packed audiences and Alan Dumas,theater critic of the now defunct Rocky Mountain News called it the "top cultural event of 1994" It also drew its share of controversy. A theater piece with Reggae and Rasta themes,and especially a piece dealing with the life of Peter Tosh was going to have to deal with the topic of marijuana. Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh tackled the subject head on..with spliffs the sizes that Peter Tosh would have smoked. Some loved it and would return with their friends.Others would walk out,and at a performance at Colorado State University in Fort Collins Colorado,the police were called upon reports of "marijuana being smoked onstage" No arrests were made.

The cast for the Bug performances was truly a "One Love" cast. Malcolm X was portrayed by James Crutchfield. James grew up in a household full of reggae music. James was new to theater and had doubts about the process and the cast at times and would express it in rehearsals but would channel that tension in a professional way and thus brought just what that character needed to be onstage

 Scott Kelley played Peter Tosh. At the Mercury and CSU performances Scott portrayed Malcolm X opposite me as Tosh. For the Bug shows,I merely wanted to direct and Scott had now grown dreadlocks,so this was perfect. Scott was from the Virgin Islands and loved reggae music. I first met him at Ken Hamblin's (DJ K-Nee) weekly reggae event,the Yardie Lounge.

The Yardie Lounge is also where I first connected with the "Man on the Couch" character,Thomas Behler. Thomas also became one of those who saw both Mercury and Fort Collins performances. He also became good friends with the original "Couch" character,Mitch Olson.With Mitch deciding to return to Minneapolis shortly after the Fort Collins shows,Thomas seemed like the natural fit for the role.

The Storyteller was Lisa Slicer,a Native American storyteller who came to the piece via the Denver Indian Center and a subsequent pow-wow.
The band for the Bug performances was the 8750 Reggae Band from Telluride Colorado. When I first returned to Colorado for the Mercury shows,someone told me that the 8750 Reggae Band was the best band in Colorado. When I first saw a picture of them,I didn't want to believe it,but when I saw them for the first time,I became a believer,and felt blessed when they said upon hearing about this play,that they wanted to be a part of this. All this made for a wonderful cast.

Seems like in my experience in theater often opening night's performance gets through due to opening night adrenaline,the second night something unexpected happens,and by the third night things click for the rest of the run.
The first night at the Bug blew me and the audience in attendance away. Everyone was amazingly good.

One had the sense something was going to happen the moment one walked into the Bug for the second night. There seemed to be some sort of tension even backstage before the show began.

With Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh, it was a given that a certain degree of tension would be created long before the first words of dialogue were spoken. What some would consider to be pre show music was actually part of the show and the volume of it was more akin to being at a live concert rather than at a theater event. Some of the audience would arrive during the "pre show" music upsetting some of those expecting a show to start" on time".Then there was the excruciatingly slow walk from the audience to the stage by the "Man on the Couch" All tension building from the start.

Leave it to Ken Gorman to push the envelope. There is a scene early in the play where Peter Tosh would hand a joint to an audience member. Often it was then when the marijuana action would begin in earnest,but now,after performances in Minneapolis,Denver and Fort Collins,the audience knew what was coming and while I was introducing the piece,Ken Gorman,the Colorado marijuana activist known for his pot smoking rallies on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol walked up to the stage to hand me a lit joint. Now,with marijuana smoking added to the scripted chaos in the beginning,shouts of "put that out!" and "hand it to me!" was added to the mix.

After the introduction,I took up my seat in the back of The Bug,and pulled up my director's notes.I could hardly write any notes as Thomas,Scott,James and Lisa were all exceptionally good this night..Then as if on cue,but it really wasn't..IT HAPPENED! As Malcolm and Peter were debating the herb's merit onstage,I began to notice flashlights checking the aisles. The flashlights were not courtesy of the Bug Theater which did not employ ushers,but rather that of the Denver Police Department and they weren't helping people to their seats. I heard someone say "Is this part of the play?"
Reggae music has a sense of timing,theater has a sense of timing,and so does life. The police reached the front of the stage in time to get smoke blown on them by The Man on the Couch (Thomas)-the audience cheered. The police then turned around and began to grab people in the front of the audience as Scott begins to go into a Peter Tosh monologue/diatribe on the evils of Babylon. As people are being carried out,the audience shouts "Let them go!" In previous performances,the Man on the Couch would have been one of those hauled off also. The Bug Theater shows were the one time where the spliffs from the stage were not real however.

At this point I'm still sitting in my seat awaiting the joint coming my way wondering if its the real or fake one,and as the writer and director waiting for the police to find and arrest me.
It is now the point in the play where the 8750 Reggae Band does a short set. Some people get out of their seats to dance amongst the wall of cops standing on the side. The spliff gets to me.It's the real one. I take a hit,pass it on,and use the moment to get out of my seat,walk around the theater and in a sense make it easier for them to arrest me if they wish. As I get up,I notice one Denver cop overcome by the One Love vibe and was moving his feet and his club to the reggae beat.

"Is this part of the play?"
In the foyer,cops were getting info from the folks they pulled from the audience. I walk outside. Down the street from the Bug,a fight was in progress. Looked pretty serious to me. Denver cops however felt differently. It was past the roadblock and lineup of cop cars there to deal with reports of pot smoking in the theater. On the side of the theater there were more cops,blocking in the alley the 8750 Reggae Band's tour bus.

8750's set was over and it was time for me to come back inside.

The next day,the Rocky Mountain News theater section began with the headline "Bug's Malcolm X Leaves Audience Members Smokin"

 A sidenote: Hugh Graham tells me that for sometime afterwards,the Bug Theater was noted for what happened that night..I'm not sure that's the way he anticipated putting the Bug on the map,but it worked I guess.

Fast forward a week later. I would begin my days by making a breakfast and follow that with a trip to Alfalfa's, a natural food store nearby in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood. There I'd have coffee and engage with friends who lived in the neighborhood. Shortly after returning this particular time,there was a knock on my door. I thought it was the landlord. I was wrong. It was the Denver Police Department. I closed the door behind me. No way was I going to allow the police just to walk inside my apartment.

I asked the cops what brought them to my place. "Report of quantities of marijuana" Normally,without a warrant,I still would not have allowed them in,but I had to laugh and said "Come on in officers,There it is!"

I pointed to the kitchen table to where a small piece of marijuana lay. After the officers inspected the rest of the apartment and commenting on the interesting collection of books I had, ("Not your typical drugman" one of them remarked) I was asked to "dispose" of that piece after they left. It got disposed of in true Rasta fashion. I didn't realize it when I first put the piece on the table,but as it turns out,that  small piece of marijuana was resting on the Rocky Mountain News article.

written  on 4/20/2013

Memories of April 4,1968

I've always had a problem with the saying "If you can remember the '60s,you weren't there. Maybe that term applies to some a little older than myself. I was born in 1955,and maybe I was gifted with a sense of memory,but I remember in 1962 on a tiny black and white TV watching President Kennedy speak during the Cuban Missile Crisis with my brother Howie asking my mom "Are we going to die now?" In 1962,my watching of John Glenn's orbital flight with my mom was interrupted due to my brother Austin contracting a serious case of Pneumonia,and her having to rush him to the hospital.

If you've seen my solo performances Black Hippie Chronicles and/or Cancer,Peace,Love,and Assorted Realities,you've heard all about Miss Amato's classroom on November 22,1963,and in 1964,my mother,Helen Louise Jones Daniels,an educator,and one active in the Civil Rights Movement through her involvement with the NAACP,Urban League,as well as her sorority took me to the 1964 Democratic Party Platform Committee meetings in Washington D.C.,where because of her,I met Dr. Martin Luther King.Sometime before that,my mom had taken my brothers and myself to a rally Dr.King spoke at in the Washington neighborhood she grew up in,but all I remember from that event was that adults much taller than me blocked my view...So enough about not being there in the 1960's.

April 4,1968,I was a seventh grader attending an all boys school,Kingswood School in West Hartford Connecticut. Kingswood School was considered as one of the most elite prep schools in Connecticut and to graduate from Kingswood meant you were likely on track to attend an Ivy League college. I was at Kingswood on a scholarship, That said.. I hated Kingswood and that school year had to be the worst year I ever experienced in my school days.  At the mostly black elementary school I had attended prior to attending Kingswood,I had been teased for things like being a bookworm,speaking "Proper English" and aspiring to be President as that was considered as "acting white" but now at Kingswood, I was harassed and hassled for being black. I was having kids flashing dollar bills in front of me asking if I had ever seen one before.  It didn't matter that my Dad was one of the most prominent and affluent blacks in the Hartford area,these kids were sons of bank presidents and corporate leaders and I wasn't living in the suburbs like they were.  I was also facing something I had never experienced before..I was struggling academically! On top of it all,a few months earlier,my dog and best friend from early childhood, Gyp had died. In seventh grade at that time,it seemed like the only good things going on for me was the music I was beginning to listen to,and the Saturday afternoon time I was spending stuffing envelopes with the hippies working inside the Eugene McCarthy for President Hartford office.

A typical early evening would consist of having dinner and watching the news,national news first,followed by the local news. Many a night we'd watch the news as a family,but this particular evening I was watching the news alone. I think my brothers were off playing somewhere,and my mom and grandmother were downstairs in the kitchen. Most nights in our Hartford Connecticut home we'd watch the news on the CBS affiliate WTIC Channel 3,however on this night,I was watching the local news on the NBC affiliate Channel 30.

Barry Barrants,the local Channel 30 anchorman first broke the news of the assassination. It wasn't long after that when the local news switched back to the national. It was the first time I recalled the news being interrupted by news.
I paused and took a deep breath.
I knew my next step had to be to go downstairs to be with my mom and grandmother. I thought perhaps my grandmother would have the radio that was in the kitchen on and that they would have heard the news. It only took a few seconds in listening to their conversation to realize they had not heard.

On November 22,1963 when I was in third grade,I thought it was my duty to run home from school to inform my mom of JFK's assassination,all I knew was that she'd be watching As The World Turns. Now I had my chance to be the newscaster I thought I might want to be if I didn't become President when I grew up...and I couldn't do it.As bad as JFK's death was,in our household,this news was going to be so much worse. At this point in life,I hadn't lost anyone close to me,but I knew..in this household,this news was going to be received as if someone in the family had died. I could not bring myself to opening my mouth. I merely fumbled around in the kitchen,turned on the radio on the kitchen table,left,not to return till I realized they had heard the news that Martin Luther King was dead. I had to let CBS Radio News break the story to them.

I would soon get a second chance to be the newscaster,this time when the phone rang. I answered it. It was my Grandfather.

 Now here's one thing you have to know about my maternal grandparents,Annie Louise Jones and Sandy Evander Jones. When my parents divorced,my grandmother decided it was in the best interest of the family for her to move from her Washington DC home to assist my mom in raising me and my brothers..Trust me no easy task. My grandfather,who was still happily married and madly in love with my grandmother would come to Hartford for most of the holidays. We'd spend our summers in Washington,so that they could be together,but in addition to those times,there would be a couple times a year where, without warning,a cab would pull up in our driveway,and out the door would emerge my grandfather! It would be an exciting time for all of us,but especially for my grandmother.

"Granddaddy!" I said after he said hello.
"I'm in Hartford at the Greyhound Bus Station and I cant get a cab"
"Granddaddy did you hear the news? Martin Luther King was killed tonight"

"WHAT??" "No wonder I can't get a cab,I guess I'm going to have your mother pick me up. Put her on the phone"

 No surprise visit this time,but when he said that,I didn't have to hear a local news report to know what was happening. Rioting had broken out. Riots were nothing new to Hartford. A year before riots had broken out in Hartford. Despite the fact that Dr.King was an apostle for non violence,there was no doubt in my mind that once the news of his murder spread,that Hartford was going to go up in flames.
The Greyhound Bus Station was right in the heart of the riot area. Normally from our house it would take a half hour there and back at worst. This night it took my mom nearly two hours after dealing with all the detours and checkpoints,but both my mom and grandfather got back to our house safely.

It was a late night in our household that night with all of us watching the news. On more than one occasion,I can recall my grandmother saying 'What is this world coming to?" in reaction to both the King Assassination and the ensuing riots.

The following days were rather surreal. My grandfather had to cut his visit short upon hearing about Washington DC going up in smoke. He felt he needed to check on his real estate office.

My father,Dr.Evans H. Daniels Jr. had his medical practice not far from the Greyhound Bus Station and in the heart of the riot area. My dad had dedicated his medical career to helping those in need.That work continued during this time as without question and with little concern as to how he was going to be paid for it,he remained at his office,treating victims of the riots..gunshot wounds,cuts due to broken glass etc. On April 4th 1968,and for a few days afterwards,many businesses in the area were either vandalized or torched. My Dad's office was left unscathed.

In 1968,for the most part,if you were black and lived in Hartford,you lived in Hartford's North End. While the exodus of black professionals to the suburbs was beginning,the North End was a mixture of black folks from every economic strata. After Dr King's murder,in the eyes of the police and other government officials,the entire North End was deemed a threat to the well being of Hartford,thus the entire North End was placed under curfew.After 7 pm,no one was allowed on the street. By April,it was warm enough to resume our neighborhood baseball games,but for a couple days,we had to cut our games short. It was rather strange to look out the window in our quiet enclave in the North End to see the occasional police car driving by making sure the curfew was being enforced.

..And that's the way it was April 4th 1968