I suppose for this tale, a little bit of context is in order. For a period of time in the late eighties early nineties, I worked for the Grateful Dead in several capacities. Their mail order ticketing program was handled by a group of people named the Hog Farm, who run Camp Winnarainbow in Laytonville CA. After a particularly nasty beat down of deadheads by the police in Los Angeles, the Hog Farm approached my friend and pot source Bobbo (again, all names have been changed) to start a new program for West Coast shows to help grease the wheel so to speak. This involved two phases. One show up to the lot where the show would be the day before and as fans arrived pass out garbage bags, talk about the rules camping or no camping for example, and just sort of be emissaries to promote good will and safety. For this Bobbo and crew would receive free tickets to the shows, and sometimes backstage passes if there were extras. The second aspect was to scoop up folks that had had a little too much of their vice of choice before the police did, and find a place to make them safe. For this we were exquistly suited, as Bobbo drove a 35 foot International Harvester school bus named Laughing Jack. Read the rest of this entry »