Glow

by Rick James

  “Go back to Marvin,” I told her. “Try and work it out. I know he’s the love of your life. I just want you to be happy.”

  “Thank you, Rick,” she said. “You’re a good guy.”

  “If I thought I really had a chance with you, I wouldn’t be all that good.”

  Saying that, I was sure that I had come to the bittersweet end of my brief romance with Jan. In fact, I was sure wrong.

  THE KING IS DEAD! LONG LIVE THE KING!

  The Street Songs tour was my biggest ever. Every twenty-thousand-seater in every city was sold out for a minimum of two nights. Even in a place like Memphis scalpers were making a fortune off our shows. Memphis was a trip in and of itself.

  No one can forget that Memphis is where they got Dr. King. Turned out that Memphis was also where I’d been getting death threats. That’s why when I arrived fifteen plainclothes cops immediately surrounded me. It didn’t help that the newspaper was talking about how my three sold-out shows at the Mid-South Coliseum would break Elvis’s record. Making matters worse were firebombings at a couple of record stores that displayed my poster in the window. Haters didn’t want a pot-smoking, wise-ass nigger coming to town.

  That didn’t stop me from going to Graceland. On the afternoon before my last show I went there with my entourage and police escort in tow. I’m not one of those people who think Elvis is even close to the musical genius of artists like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, or Marvin Gaye, but I have to respect his accomplishment. He took R & B and made it acceptable to white people. Plus I had heard from B. B. King, who knew Elvis personally, that he was quick to acknowledge and respect the black artists who showed him the way. I was curious to see his crib, an international tourist attraction.

  When we got there and I went in the house, which was much smaller than I expected, someone saw me and yelled out, “The King is dead! Long live the King!” It was a Rick James fan. I smiled and didn’t think anything of it when he came over for my autograph. Soon a number of other people lined up for my signature. The Graceland officials didn’t like that. They said to take it outside. Not to disappoint the fans, I took it outside and started autographing in an area behind the house. The officials didn’t like that either.

  “Sorry, fans,” I said, “but I’m here to pay my respects to Elvis. No more autographs.” When I started to go back in to see the rest of the house, the officials blocked the door. They asked me to leave. I started to protest but knew it wasn’t worth it. They didn’t want me there.

  That night onstage I told a little bit of the story. I said, “Today I went to Elvis’s house and guess what I learned?”

  “What?” the crowd roared back at me.

  “That the motherfucker wasn’t home!”

  Then I took a rebel flag and ripped it in half.

  Everyone cheered. Next day the press criticized my ass for disrespecting the King. I never bothered telling the press how the King’s people disrespected me.

  Things got even crazier in Dallas. Because of a sleazeball promoter who tried to book my tour and sued me when I rejected his offer, legal beagles had been on my tail trying to serve me. My main security guy—we called him Big Motherfuckin’ Moe—was super savvy at keeping them away from me. Moe had me ducking and hiding in and out of freight elevators and service doors. In Dallas the servers got to the city cops, who were working with them to bust me. Keep in mind that nearly every hour of the day I was blasted on smoke and coke.

  Before I got onstage, the chief cop told me, “I know you smoke pot during your show—but not here. Do it here and we’ll bust your ass.”

  “Fuck you,” was my only reply.

  “Mary Jane” was the tune where I stood before twenty-foot joints made out of papier-mâché with smoke coming out the tips. I’d always fire up. So did the rest of the crowd. It was our big bonding moment. On this night I told the fans, “The cops say if I light up they’ll haul my ass off to jail.”

  The crowd let out a gigantic “Boooooooooo!”

  “Y’all gonna let them do that?” I asked.

  “Hell, no!” “Fuck, no!” “We’ll tear this place apart!” “We’ll riot all night!”

  The cops got the message loud and clear. I smoked and they didn’t do shit.

  The next night in Dallas that same cop told me that this time he was prepared. He had brought along the SWAT team and there was no way I was getting outta there if I smoked a joint onstage.

  “What do you have to say about that, Mr. James?” he asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  During “Mary Jane” I smoked my joint. At the end of the show, all my roadies came out onstage and surrounded me. In the middle of the circle, I switched clothes with one of the mechanics. I put on these greasy overalls, put my braids inside a Rasta hat, and ran out of the place with Big Moe beside me.

  We jumped in a cab and had dinner at Denny’s.

  Pittsburgh was memorable because it was the first time Teena Marie and I made love. Like the record says, it was wild and peaceful. Don’t know whether Teena was just trying to flatter me, but she claimed I was the first man who made her come. She also claimed that she had feelings for women. My feelings for Teena were always positive—I loved her talent, I loved her openness, I loved her willingness to let me help her. If they’ll admit it, most people have a complicated sexual agenda. Teena simply had the guts to talk about it. Our lovemaking brought us closer together, but we also understood that we could never be boyfriend and girlfriend. We loved each other without being in love. We were so close musically that we had to take that closeness to the limit.

  Fucking changes a relationship. Doesn’t matter if both people say that the fuck was just for fun. Once you’ve had serious sex, the balance of power shifts. That certainly happened with me and Teena. Not long after our encounter, she started demanding more money for her appearances on my tour. It pissed me off that she had recruited my sister Penny, who was extremely close to Teena, and my brother Roy to back her up. Once my docile student, Lady T suddenly turned into an independent woman making demands. Maybe that’s because after we’d made love she secretly wanted to be my exclusive girlfriend. When I refused, she got angry. That’s when she found the strength to take me on. Eventually I saw that she deserved my respect. The Vanilla Child was coming of age. Good for her.

  Bad for me was the discovery of freebasing. That happened in Chicago. I ain’t naming names and giving numbers. Doesn’t matter who turned me on, because if it hadn’t been this “friend” it would have been another. Base was sweeping through the black hoods of America. I’d heard reports it was the highest high of all. No way I wasn’t gonna hit it and see for myself.

  When I hit it that first time, sirens went off. Rockets were launched. I was sent reeling through space. I wanted to run up to the roof of the hotel and scream the good news to all of Chicago.

  The good news, of course, would turn into tragic news. The tragic news would eventually lead me to where I am now—jail. But at the time, the physical exhilaration of smoking coke in pure form overpowered any semblance of sense I had ever once possessed. I wasn’t thinking. I was just feeling. And like millions of fuckin’ fools who came both before and after me, I fell. I submitted. I got on my hands and knees and sucked the devil’s glass dick.

  It’s not lost on me that a great triumph, the Street Songs success, coincided with a great catastrophe: my introduction to base.

  “The way you see it now is one thing,” says Brotha Guru, who’s just heard my long description of what happened during that long tour. “But there was no way you could have seen it with such detachment while it was happening.”

  “Why not? I’m smart.”

  “Very smart. But no one’s smart enough to take on the Me Monster when the Me Monster is fueled not only by balls-out adulation—tens of thousands of people screaming your name—but by an incredibly potent chemical as well. When you’re high on base, it’s nothing but ego.”

  “You’ve done it?” I ask.


  “I couldn’t be talking this way if I hadn’t,” Brotha Guru admits. “I think of myself as a pretty centered person. I like to listen, I like to help other people, I believe in service. But when I was on base it was all about me and my pleasures. There was no consideration—not the least goddamn bit—for any other living thing except me.”

  “You’re singing my song,” I say.

  “And yet even after I sobered up the next day and realized how selfish I’d been, the first thing I did was reach for the phone to get more.”

  “You’ve been there.”

  “And it isn’t just base. It can be weed, it can be booze, it sure as hell can be sex. And God knows it’s control. The main thing the Me Monster is hooked on is more. Whatever it is, just give me more. And then, sadly, more is never enough.”

  I sigh a deep sigh.

  As my story continues, it becomes clear that I wanted more, more, and more.

  I wanted more of a connection with a woman I could call my own. I thought that might have happened on a couple of occasions when Seville showed up without Ty. I got the idea that Seville was interested in reconciliation. We even renewed our sexual relationship, which was even better than I had remembered. In the end, though, I came to the opinion that Seville’s mother was behind the maneuver. It was her way to get money out of me.

  Seville hinted that she also had a son by me. I didn’t know what to make of that. I asked her to show me pictures but she wouldn’t. Was that the truth or just a way of getting more bread? Things got confused and nasty between us. Seville demanded a huge settlement. I told her if she didn’t back off I’d sue her for custody of Ty. That frightened Seville, who took Ty and disappeared. Through private detectives, I tried to find them. But Seville changed her name and couldn’t be located.

  I fooled myself into thinking that I could put together some kind of family. But who I was kidding? No judge in his or her right mind would have awarded me custody of a child. And even if I were awarded custody, I didn’t have the time or—I admit—the inclination to do any full-time or even part-time fathering. The Me Monster doesn’t make for a great dad.

  And yet the idea of a happy, united family didn’t go away. Some of my siblings would travel with me—and that would help. The Stone City Band was a form of family, although personnel changes made it a family under continual change. Motown liked to describe the “family nature” of the label, but that was utter bullshit. Motown was a backbiting dog-eat-dog company that liked to pit artist against artist and producer against producer. I was always convinced that Motown was holding back major royalties. Our relationship had gone from good to bad to worse.

  The one woman who kept coming to mind was Jan Gaye. And even though she was still attached to Marvin emotionally, he was doing everything to push her away while I was doing everything to draw her in.

  I invited her to spend a weekend in Buffalo with me and Mom. Mom was as crazy about Jan as I was. She saw her as a daughter.

  When my driver picked Jan up at the airport and brought her to the house, she was shook up. She looked frightened.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” I asked.

  “The plane was about to take off in L.A. when someone brought me a bouquet of flowers,” she said. “They were from Marvin. His note said, ‘Have a good time.’ ”

  “You told him you were coming here?”

  “No. We haven’t spoken in weeks. But somehow he found out. Holding those flowers in my lap, I got paranoid, Rick. I fantasized he’d planted a bomb on the plane.”

  Just about then, the phone rang. It was Marvin. He wanted to know why his wife was visiting me. I said it was because she and I were friends. He asked if we had been lovers. I lied and said no. Then he said he wanted to talk to Jan. They spoke for a long while. When the conversation was over, she said, “I need to get back to L.A.”

  “You just got here, honey.”

  “I know, Rick. But I don’t want to get Marvin any more upset.”

  I didn’t argue.

  Before she left, though, friends called and told me to turn on WBLK, the soul radio station. Marvin was on the air saying, “I just want to say hello to my friend Rick James, who’s hosting my wife, Janis, this weekend in Buffalo at his home. I want to wish them both the best—now and in the future.”

  He spoke in the sweetest tone you can imagine.

  For many months Jan and I had no contact. She tried her best to work out her marriage with Marvin. I respected that. But Marvin’s world was even more chaotic than mine. Because he hadn’t had a hit in years, he owed massive back taxes. He also owed Motown an album that was way overdue. He decided to flee L.A. and fly to Hawaii without Jan or their two kids. At one point, his family surreptitiously arranged a “kidnapping” of the son he had with Jan and brought him to Hawaii. That broke Jan’s heart. I tried my best to comfort her during that period. It wasn’t sexual then; it was just friendship. Marvin had cut off her money. She needed a job and I gave her one in my office. Mary Jane Productions was a going concern where Jan was supposed to work as a secretary and planner. Because she’s a brilliant woman, I wanted her on staff. But, as painful as it is to admit, I mainly used her to pick up and deliver my drugs. Jan was willing, not only because she was desperate for income but because, like me and Marvin, she was hooked on drugs herself.

  Privately, my life was not a pretty picture. Professionally, my life looked like a masterpiece in the making.

  Street Songs won Dick Clark’s American Music Award for Favorite Album—Soul/R & B. Dick threw an after-party. I took Mom as my date. In these settings, Mom was beautiful. She was impressed with stars and never tried to hide it. In fact, she collected autographs.

  “Guess who I just saw, James?” she said to me.

  “Who?”

  “Prince.”

  “You didn’t ask him for his autograph, did you?”

  “I sure did.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I like his music, son. I think he’s great.”

  “Okay. So now you have Prince’s autograph.”

  “Wish I did. When I asked him, he just turned around and walked away.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No, I guess he don’t like giving out autographs.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. I chased after that little turd. I caught up with him and was about to lay him out when his manager stepped in.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Rick?” asked the manager.

  I told him Prince had dissed Mom and that I was gonna kick his scrawny ass. Prince explained that he didn’t know who Mom was.

  “Well, now you know, motherfucker,” I said.

  “Prince will be happy to apologize to your mother,” said the manager, “and he will be happy to apologize to you.”

  Prince apologized to Mom and apologized to me. I was a little disappointed ’cause I really did wanna kick his ass.

  At that same party I was hanging out with Grace Jones, who’d become a close friend. There’s never been a groovier chick than Grace. She’s a nervy lady who says what she wants when she wants to say it. So when a reporter asked about why her videos weren’t played on MTV, she said MTV was prejudiced against blacks.

  “How do you feel about that, Rick?”

  “I feel the same as Grace. It’s racist bullshit, pure and simple. I spend a fortune on my videos and MTV won’t play them because they’re too black. If they did, I’d sell tens of millions more records. So I say, fuck MTV.”

  That statement caused all sorts of shit. I didn’t care. I welcomed a war on MTV—a war I was not about to lose.

  MAN IN THE MOON

  Street Songs became a pop culture phenomenon. The last stop on the tour was Saturday Night Live, where the producer, Lorne Michaels, kicked a young comic named Eddie Murphy out of his dressing room so I could use it. Dan Aykroyd took me to dinner and afterward showed me an early cut of a new film, Dr. Detroit. He wanted me to do the soundtrack. I appreciated the offer but made up some excuse
’cause I just didn’t think it was funny.

  “How ’bout if we use ‘Super Freak’ for one scene?” he asked.

  “No problem,” I said.

  I got a check for thirty thousand dollars.

  I was getting checks from everywhere and everyone. I took the bread and bought Mom a bigger house in Buffalo that used to be owned by the Albrights, one of the richest and most aristocratic families in the city’s history.

  I flew the Concorde to Europe on a promotional whirlwind tour of Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Milan, and London. It was in London that I scored a mess of pure Peruvian coke at an embassy party, picked up two superfine English chicks, took them back to my suite, and partied all night. I got so high I missed my all-important BBC interview. I didn’t care. BBC tried to reschedule but I said I had no time. I was too busy making the London nightclub scene with these beauties on my arm. Before I left the country an English newspaper ran a list of the world’s most terrible people. I was number three, under Idi Amin.

  With an entourage of thirty-seven, I ran down to Jamaica to headline the World Music Fest, which included the Beach Boys, the Clash, Jimmy Buffett, and Gladys Knight. Jimmy Cliff, Sly & Robbie, and Peter Tosh came to my room with gifts of ganja. Black Uhuru came onstage and presented me with a spliff that I passed around to the band. They said the shit was so potent they started hallucinating. I looked at the full moon and saw my face. I was the man in the moon.

  Back in L.A. I moved into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, the hippest scene in dope-crazed, decadent Hollywood. Rod Stewart became my best friend. Timothy Hutton became my best friend. Robin Williams became my best friend. Elisabeth Shue became my girlfriend. Someone showed me a magazine article where Linda Blair, who had starred in The Exorcist and was now a full-grown voluptuous woman, called me the sexiest man in the world. The next thing I knew we were in touch and about to meet in New York.