The ‘drug bridge’ at The Gathering of the Juggalos
Drug Bridge? You must be clowning me…
So nobody ever told you baby…
How it was gonna be.
~Estranged, Guns N’ Roses
Well, it might be time to admit that “I’m getting too old for this sh!t…”
In the late 80s and early 90s my musical tastes were juvenile and underexposed. When I graduated from high school in 1992 I spent much of my summer continuing to absorb Guns N’ Roses’ highly anticipated double-album follow-up to Appetite for Destruction… an album which defined my entire high school experience. I really didn’t listen to anything else.
When I left for college in the fall I was toting all of my Gn’R t-shirts, CDs, mix-tapes, and posters… positive that Use Your Illusion I & II would provide for me all of the same musical inspiration and comradery during the next four years of my educational experience as Appetite had during the previous four years.
So what’ll happen to you baby?
Guess we’ll have to wait and see…
~Estranged, Guns N’ Roses
I’ll tell you what happened…
As 1992 turned into 1993 I was turned on to The Grateful Dead by some of the dorm-mates who I partied with on the weekends. I didn’t understand the hype at first, but I certainly loved the attitudes… and the girls.
Sigh…
Sooner than later the melodies started to stick… and then I started to understand ‘the jam’… and then I started to feel it. By the end of my freshman year I was trading bootlegs with my buddies and my Gn’R stuff was collecting dust. Before we had all parted ways for the summer at the end of semester in May of 1993 we all made plans to see each other at Soldiers Field in Chicago in June. I had already purchased my tickets for two shows. These would be my first Dead Show experiences.
June came and I found myself in Chicago… several hours before show time. I had only been to a couple of concerts before this, so nothing could prepare me for the experience of an entire subculture setting up shop in the parking lot of a football stadium.
Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart…
You just gotta poke around.
~Shakedown Street, Grateful Dead
After we had found a parking spot we all tumbled out of my friend’s car and into the parking lot. My friends were all far more experienced than I was, and they immediately made a bee-line for something they were calling “Shakedown Street.” I followed them to what appeared to be the central hub of activity… a colorful parade of tents, tables, and hippies selling food, beverages, handmade clothing and jewelry, trinkets, and some other interesting hippie paraphernalia.
I was overwhelmed to say the least.
I’m not going to ‘glaze over’ the fact that I could smell grass burning just about everywhere… because I could.
I’m not going to tell you that I didn’t smoke a bunch of grass… because I did.
But this ‘Shakedown Street’ wasn’t openly displaying drugs…
Pipes and paraphernalia? Sure… but there’s really no law against that.
If you wanted to find some grass… or LSD… you had to be paying close attention. Periodically you would hear somebody walking by and talking to nobody in particular. You’d hear them say, “Kind buds” or “Nuggets” or “Trips,” or something to that effect and keep walking. I remember very specifically seeing an unfortunate hippie getting busted with a stack of acid sheets and a wad of cash just on the outskirts of Shakedown Street that afternoon by a couple of poorly disguised undercover cops… so there was nothing blatant about the sale of this shit. It was all relatively covert.
Nothin’ shakin’ on Shakedown Street
~Shakedown Street, Grateful Dead
A scene from Shakedown Street outside a Grateful Dead show.
For the most part, the hippies on Shakedown Street were selling tie-dyed shirts and hand-made jewelry… or veggie burritos & grilled cheese… or really cold microbrews from wherever they drove from. They sold this stuff to get them to the next show. It was the Grateful Dead Subculture’s method of self-sustainment. For a couple of bucks some hippie chick could buy a bag of beads and a ball of hemp twine from the local craft store and spend time between shows braiding jewelry to sell. Some of it was pretty durable… I still have one of the first hemp and bead necklaces I ever bought from a Dead show. I paid five bucks for it… and wore it for most of my college career. When I was admiring the necklace at the girl’s table on Shakedown Street, she told me if I bought it for five bucks it would help her get to the next show and she could pack up for the day and get herself ready to get down. How could I say no? At the time, that five bucks probably put three or four gallons of gas in that girl’s vehicle.
MMFWCL from the Drug Bridge?
No thanks…
Today I woke up and read something about the devolution of my beloved Shakedown Street into a crummy, albeit celebrated, Drug Bridge on some crappy campground in Southern Illinois. This Drug Bridge is where a small number of nefarious ne’er-do-well’s congregate on a culvert and exploit the horrorcore subculture, while thumbing their noses at the authorities.
I’m left scratching my head and wondering… What’s more important to horrorcore fans, the music or the scene?
I have a feeling that a lot of young Juggalos and Juggalettes are attracted to the subculture for a lot of the same reasons that Deadheads were attracted to their subculture… there’s an often misunderstood and frequently misplaced feeling of community or belonging to ‘something’ bigger than themselves that they might not be getting in other areas of their lives.
I’ve heard a lot of Juggalo and Juggalette backlash this week, especially since Juggalo ODs started turning up at the campsites and being reported by Disclosure; backlash about how misunderstood the subculture is… and how it’s just a few bad apples spoiling the bunch.
I get that… I really do.
But what the hell are you all doing about it?
I wish this kind of blatant exploitation of the horrorcore subculture would be handled internally… as it should. I’ve seen more than one ticket scalper or ne’er-do-well run off of the parking lots at Dead Shows because scalpers and ne’er-do-wells aren’t there for any other reason but to exploit the scene… which is an ABSOLUTE SIN to true Deadheads. If horrorcore enthusiasts truly care about their peers and the experience they are privy too in Southern Illinois, then they need to start monitoring and regulating themselves internally… or dead ‘lo’s and ‘lettes will become far more commonplace than we have already seen this weekend.
Maybe you’ve had too much too fast…
Or just over played your part.
~Shakedown Street, Grateful Dead
Towards the end of the Grateful Dead’s career ‘the scene’ started to overplay the music. The last summer tour in ’95 saw multiple tragedies and scene-stealing events like the gate crashing in Noblesville… which was the direct result of so many ‘fans’ turning up in Indiana without tickets and an overreaction by tear-gas wielding police responders. A great many of those gate-crashers were in Noblesville without tickets; for no other reason but to exploit a scene created by those who loved the Grateful Dead. Those same gate-crashers were on hand five nights later when a deck collapsed at a campground in Missouri. Nearly all of the hundreds of ‘fans’ who were injured in the collapse were following the band from state to state without tickets… and no viable means to see the band.
It was the end… shows got cancelled. A month later Jerry Garcia died.
Juggalos and Juggalettes… the history of rock n’ roll is just like any other aspect of human history.
“Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”
~George Santayana
If the music is what you indeed love so much… then you need to protect yourselves from those who mean to exploit you. ‘Tolerance’ doesn’t mean you have to accept those who mean you harm… and believe me… most of those assholes offering you MMFWCL from the Drug Bridge, mean to do nothing but exploit what you consider a good thing.
Do something about it.
Your Humble Narrator… many, many years ago.