At least three of our customers were stoned. They reeked of grass…reefer…Mary Jane. According to a 1943 article in TIME magazine it makes sense: “The association of marijuana with hot jazz is no accident… (the) drug seems to heighten the hearing—so that, for instance, strange chord formations seem easier to analyze under marijuana.” One reefer-mad customer was a tall, skinny Truman Capote look-alike with circle glasses, gray hair in a tight pony tail under a beige page-boy cap, wearing a multi-color, multi-pattern Mexican shirt with a flower-enshrined Madonna on the back. His Capote-esque whiny voice made him irritating. He geometrically compounded it with his stoner in-your-face excessive talkativeness. The Doorman Code calls for restraint and professionalism, even though fists were forming at the ends of my French-cuff arms. The innate was denied. I turned my attention to the accomplished guest jazz guitarist who laid down smooth rhythms accented by the trumpet and sax. My night ended with a Black Russian, expertly and generously made by the owner, while I made a note to reread In Cold Blood.
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