After quietly battling Cancer for 18 months, rock and style icon David Bowie died last week. He was 69 years old.
The consummate “Space Oddity,” Bowie trespassed the boundaries of societal norms and pushed culture, identity, and sexuality forward. He will be dearly missed by loving fans around the world, who feel the Star Man left us too soon.
The artist’s death has fans and friends reeling the globe over, recounting their favorite Bowie stories — his uncanny way of putting things into perspective and his undeniable, unflinching commitment to his own spectacularly unique singularity.
One example (of thousands) involves Bowie’s stylish and even classy Class C felony arrest for marijuana possession in 1976 — a night in jail that resulted in the single-coolest mugshot ever. And here is that story…
Half a pound of marijuana = a night in jail
After a performance at the War Memorial Arena in Rochester, New York, Bowie and his crew were relaxing in a three-room suite at the Americana Rochester Hotel when they received a rude awakening from the local vice squad. The detectives confiscated over six ounces of cannabis and charged the entire group, including the Duke himself, with a class C felony.
Police at the time said they confiscated “about half a pound of marijuana” from the group. The arrests of Bowie, Osterberg and two others took place at 2:25 a.m. in Bowie’s three-room suite; Four vice squad detectives and a State Police investigator carried out the arrest, police said at the time.
Bowie, then 28, paid all four bonds and then hit the road before his arraignment — for gigs in Springfield, Mass., and New Haven, Conn. — returning a few days later to plead innocent in Rochester City Court. “A crowd of about 200 police, fans and reporters looked on” as Bowie and his entourage were guided into the Public Safety Building, according to original reports in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
The rock star ignored most of the reporters and fans — “except for one teenager who got his autograph as he stepped off the escalator,” the Democrat and Chronicle wrote, adding that Bowie’s “biggest greeting was the screams of about a half-dozen suspected prostitutes awaiting arraignment in the rear of the corridor outside the courtroom.”
420
And guess what date City Court Judge Alphonse Cassetti set for the preliminary hearing for Bowie and the three others facing cannabis charges? April 20, a.k.a. weed holiday 4/20.
In a short interview in his lawyer’s office, Bowie complimented the city’s law enforcement: “They (city police) were very courteous and very gentle,” Bowie said. “They’ve been just super.”
What happened with the charges?
As the Democrat and Chronicle later wrote, “Bowie faces a minimum of 15 years’ imprisonment on the drug charge but could get as little as five years’ probation if convicted.” But in May 1976, as the paper wrote, “the charges were effectively dismissed after a grand jury declined to indict the legendary artist. Bowie never performed in Rochester again.”
And remember that James Osterberg, Jr. guy, the one who was with Bowie that Rochester night and was also arrested? He’s better known as Stooges frontman Iggy Pop.
