by Rick James
God knows I can’t remember everything during this period. Certain scenes, though, are perceptible through the fog. One of my chicks knew Billy Idol and brought him over to our suite at Le Parker Meridien. I dug Billy. I didn’t know his music but he had a shy, easy-to-be-with vibe. He invited us down to his crib in the Village. When we got there he said he was trying to kick freebase. I told him that I had stopped trying. I was hopelessly hooked. Rather than tempt him, I got out of there. In the culture of drugs, it was one of my rare acts of kindness.
Christmas was coming and Mom called to ask when I was coming home to Buffalo. I wanted to tell her that I was too fucked-up to go anywhere but invented some lame lie about business I was doing in Manhattan. Mom was too sharp to believe me. If I was lying to my mama, I was also lying to myself.
The thought of suicide came back to mind. The more I smoked, the more I wanted to smoke myself to death. One day I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to see if I had the balls to jump in front of a speeding bus. I wanted to put an end to it all. I was drowning in a sea of confusion. With my head spinning, I stuffed my hair under a Rasta cap and hit the streets. I walked and walked and walked. With its lavish decorations, New York City was beautiful at Christmastime, but somehow the thought of the holidays, when everyone was happy, just reinforced my loneliness. Every time a speeding bus passed by, I thought about stepping in its path. I walked down to a subway platform and got close to the edge. As the train roared into the station, I thought how easy it’d be to fall on the tracks. Except it wasn’t easy at all. I was frightened, and I was angry at myself for being frightened, angry at my lack of courage to do what my dark mind was telling me had to be done. I got on the subway and rode to Greenwich Village. Walked back up the stairs to the streets. It started to snow. I stopped in a bar and had a couple of shots. That made me feel worse. I was walking through some park when miraculously I heard two cats call out my name: “Rick! Hey, man, it’s us!” It was Melle Mel and Scorpio from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. I loved those guys but I ignored them. Just pushed my chin into the collar of my coat and walked away. I couldn’t look anyone in the eye, couldn’t speak, couldn’t explain, couldn’t lose what felt like the heaviest fuckin’ blues of my life.
The feeling got heavier. At some point I must have copped some shit, because the rest of the night became a blackout. All I remember is lying on the street with some chick looking down at me. She was a beautiful sista with coal-black skin and dark brown eyes. She was an angel. I guess she knew who I was because she kept asking how I’d fallen so low. The way she asked it, though, wasn’t harsh. It was loving. She took me to her pad and made a pot of coffee. The smell of brewing coffee was stimulating. She helped me drink it and let me sleep in her bed. Nothing sexual happened. She just watched over me. In the morning she fed me breakfast and asked what else she could do. She didn’t want money, she didn’t want credit, she didn’t even want an ongoing relationship with me. She had done this one single deed and that was enough. I kissed her on the cheek and told her that God was good. She was a manifestation of God’s goodness. Inexplicably she had saved me. I still don’t know why.
I took a cab back to my hotel and there, sitting in the lobby, waiting for me, was another angel: my mother. I’d never been so happy to see anyone. We embraced for a long time. That’s when I lost it. I broke down and cried.
“It’s okay, baby,” she said as she wiped away my tears. “I’m here.”
“How did you know to come?”
“Well, tomorrow’s Christmas, James, and I didn’t want you to be alone. When you called me and I heard how lonely you were, I knew I had to be here.”
“What about the family back in Buffalo?”
“The family is fine. And they can have this one Christmas without me.”
In between sobs, I could only say, “Thank you, Mom.”
Mom raised my spirits so that the darkness diminished. In Mom’s eyes I saw the hope of a life lived in love. Chico Ross, Diana’s brother and my good buddy, invited us to Diana’s place in Connecticut for Christmas dinner. Eddie Murphy also told us to stop by his place.
Christmas day was beautiful. I’d gone from hell to heaven in an instant. First Mom and I went to Eddie’s, where we shot pool and listened to records. Then we drove out to Diana’s spread. Diana seemed happier than I had ever seen her. She and Mom loved each other dearly. Because Diana had lost her own mother a few years earlier, I could see how much she related to this small, world-wise, loving woman from Buffalo. They chatted for hours. Diana wouldn’t let Mom out of her sight. At one point, she asked me, “Can I adopt your mother?”
“She’ll probably adopt you first,” I told Diana.
At that same happy Christmas evening I met Catherine Oxenberg, an actress on Dynasty, the nighttime soap opera. I was more interested in Catherine’s mother, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. Turned out Elizabeth was real-life royalty and a fascinating woman. We became fast friends. She was twelve years older than me, but you couldn’t tell that by her firm body and youthful face. Naturally I was flattered that she took a liking to me. She was serious lady involved in all sorts of human rights causes. We fell into a deep discussion about religion and politics. She said I had a supple mind and wanted to get to know me better. We exchanged numbers.
After that evening Elizabeth and I met several times. I never got high in front of her but told her about my struggles with dope. She encouraged me to stop and said she’d gladly hook me up with rehab centers in Europe. She considered them far superior to the ones in America.
At one point Elizabeth was in my hotel suite and expressed interest in seeing Eddie Murphy in concert. He was appearing that night. I said I’d take her, but did she have any idea how nasty Eddie’s comedy could be? I had hesitations about exposing a princess to such vulgarity.
“Let me ease your mind by asking you this, Rick,” she said. “Do you know why a dog licks his own dick?”
“No.”
“Because he can,” said the princess.
“I guess you’re ready for Eddie,” I said.
We went to the concert, where we met up with her son and daughter and had a ball. Our relationship continued to blossom, and as it did, I had to step back and marvel at what had happened to me. A couple of days before Christmas and meeting the princess, I was toying with suicide. I was at the lowest point of my life. The appearance of this black angel lady who scooped me off the street, the appearance of my mother, and the appearance of Elizabeth had completely turned me around. Just like that, I got off the pipe and felt my spirits renewed. The princess made me feel worthwhile, like I had a worthy intellect. She kept telling me that I was a person who had something to give to the world. I wanted to believe her. And for a while I did. Yet—and this is the part that kills me—I eventually stopped taking her calls and cut her out of my life.
“How you getting along with that princess of yours?” Mom asked me one day when I was back home in Buffalo.
“I’m not seeing her anymore.”
“Why is that, son?”
“I don’t wanna hurt her. She’s too good for me. The last thing she needs in her life is a loser like me.”
THE FABLE
It came to me in a dream. In the dead of night a little boy went into a forest, where he got lost. A cloud-covered moon yielded no light. Absolute darkness prevailed. The little boy stumbled over tree trunks. Sharp branches scratched his face. The sound of wild animals frightened him. He didn’t know where to go. There were no paths, no signs, no directions to lead him home. He began to cry out in despair. And then, just as all hope was lost, he saw a faint glimmer through the trees. At first it was a flickering light, but then the light turned steady. It was a glow. The glow seemed to call to him, and when he followed it, the glow got brighter, the glow kept moving before him, leading him through the thick forest until it showed him the path home.
After that dream, I knew that I had to call my new album Glow. That was the glow that had illu
minated my life from the very start, the glow I had lost. But even after the inspiration came to me, even after I knew that my record would have this beautiful theme and title, even after I had actually started writing and working in the studio, I lost the glow. The base pipe snuffed it out.
I wish my story didn’t have to dwell so long on dope and the impact it had on me. I wish I could cut this section short and tell you that I had quit for good. I wish I could report that once I saw the glow, I left the darkness behind. To say so, though, would be a lie. This goddamn pipe continued to kick my ass. I continued to plaster aluminum on my windows to keep out any glow. I continued to light up between the hours of midnight and five A.M. If I couldn’t jump in front of the bus or fall on the subway tracks, at least I could base until there was nothing left of my rotting brain.
Then came the day in Buffalo when I heard a knock on my door. It was Mom.
“You have visitors,” she said.
It was four P.M. and I just was getting up.
“I don’t want any visitors,” I said.
“They’ve come all the way from L.A.”
“Who let ’em in?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re your lawyers and your accountants.”
That got my attention. Why should my lawyers and accountants have flown all the way to Buffalo? I knew I’d been buying base like a fiend, but I wasn’t broke. Royalties were still rolling in. What the fuck could they want?
I put on a robe and went downstairs, where they were seated in my living room. These guys were in black suits, black shoes, white shirts, and black ties. Motherfuckers looked like undertakers. Naturally I knew them—they were my legal and money men—but I wasn’t all that close to them. I employed them to protect my business interests.
“To what do I owe this honor?” I asked.
They got right down to business. They were resigning if I didn’t go to rehab. They could no longer represent me.
Can’t tell you what an impression this made. Other friends—Jim Brown, Debbie Allen, Princess Elizabeth, Teena Marie, my sister Penny, Eddie Murphy—had all told me that I was killing myself. Hearing it from these cold-blooded professionals, though, made a difference. I had to take note, and in the end, I took action.
Went off to McLean Hospital outside Boston, a psychiatric facility that had a celebrated rehab unit. It’s where Brother Ray went to kick smack. The place had beautiful grounds. The doctors were cool. Being a natural born rebel, I still wasn’t happy having people tell me what to do. I was still giving everyone a hard time. But then I got a big boost. I saw my old friend Steven Tyler. He told me he’d been there for a while and dug it completely. He looked happy and healthy and gave me hope that I could get my shit together.
The twelve-step program they preached said you had to admit you were out of control—an easy thing for me to acknowledge—but I also had to surrender to a higher power. A former altar boy, I’d run away from the church a long time ago. I wasn’t sure I was ready for this new twelve-step church.
“It isn’t like a regular church,” said Steven. “You can define God any way you want. You just have to admit that there’s something greater in this world than you. For lead singers and superstars like us, that’s not such an easy admission.”
My first instinct was to leave after a week. Not only was I experiencing extreme physical withdrawals, I got bored with the meetings. I wanted out. I was told, though, that I couldn’t leave until my twenty-eight-day stint was over. That felt like the military. Having no choice, I stuck with it. They said get a sponsor. I got a cat called Chuck, a speaker I heard at a meeting. They called Chuck a Step Nazi, which meant he was strict as hell about making me work those twelve steps. Far as I understood, they represented a method to cleanse your soul of all the bad shit you’d ever done. I don’t have to tell you that I did a whole lot of bad shit. They also gave me a chance to make amends to people I’d hurt. My amends list went on for pages. So did my list of resentments, going back to where the hell was my father and why did he choose to walk out of my life.
Aside from the group, I had individual therapy. I didn’t mind that ’cause I got to talk about myself. But I wasn’t impressed with the lady shrink. She had a homely face but big tits and great legs. I was sure she had the hots for me ’cause she kept asking about my sex life. When I gave her the details, she said I was describing too much. But wasn’t that what she wanted? No, she said she was just trying to get me to understand how I was using sex like drugs—as a way to escape and dull my pain. Maybe, but I still thought she wanted me to dull her pain. If she had asked me, I probably would have boned her. I had fantasies about putting her on her desk and fucking her right there in the office. I even wrote a song about it. “Shrink Freak” never made it on any of my albums, but I still remember the line that said, “She talks psychology but I know she craves sexuality.”
One way or the other I made it through the twenty-eight days clean and sober. I stayed in Boston for a minute because I wanted to be around my sponsor, Chuck T. He took me to a bunch of meetings, where I was able to discuss my nervousness about reentering the world. When I finally went home Mom gave me a welcome party—a sober party—where all my friends showed up with soft drinks and cake. Not even a joint was smoked. Might have been my first party where drugs weren’t part of the action. Mom had the boys take the aluminum off my windows. The sun was out in force. Everyone kept saying how good I looked. The bags under my eyes were gone and I could work during the days and sleep at night—a minor miracle.
I refocused on Glow, a concept that made even more sense since I had relocated the glow, thanks to McLean and my sponsor, who I called every day. I went to meetings in Buffalo and found a strong support group I could trust.
I relocated my groove as a producer. That was helped by the arrival of Steve Ferrone, the black English drummer famous for the funk he put on Average White Band and the great Chaka Khan. Steve has a beautiful smile. When he’s around, the chicks come running and the party’s on. I give Steve mad props for coming up with pocket grooves and nasty moves few percussion men can match.
My sobriety also let me focus on more spiritual feelings. I wrote the song “Moon Child,” for example, for my beloved assistant Linda Hunt, my most loyal friend.
My productions usually start with a bass line of my invention. Because I think in bass, my songs are born from the bottom up. Then I’ll have the rhythm guitarist double what I’ve done on bass. From there I build up the production in my own unique fashion. Yet none of my classic hits—not even “In My House” for the Mary Jane Girls—gained me the reputation as a master producer that I felt I deserved.
“That’s because your sex-and-drug shit overwhelms everything else about you,” said my sponsor, Chuck. “You’re more famous for being a freak than a musician.”
Chuck was right. That’s why I wanted to address that issue once and for all. Glow was the vehicle.
The long-form video for the title cut showed me drunk on booze. When I shot it, I was sober as a nun but had to act drunk. The story had me walking onstage, a liquor bottle in hand, and then stumbling to the floor. Defiantly I kicked the bottle out of my way—an act symbolic of my recovery—and sang the hell outta the song. Without drugs and drink, I was able to find my glow.
I was high on not being high. I had to tell everyone I met how sobriety was giving me back my sanity. When I went down to L.A. I made sure to set up a twelve-step meeting schedule before I arrived. Jan Gaye came by my suite at the Chateau Marmont. I could see she’d been using.
“I wanna tell you something, Jan,” I told her. “With the exception of Mom there’s no woman in the world I love more than you. I’d do anything for you. But if you keep getting fucked-up, I never want to see you again. I never want you to call me. I never want to have any more contact with you.”
Jan looked at me like I was kidding.
“You mean it, don’t you?” she asked.
“I
t’s the only way I can show you love,” I said.
Jan took what I said to heart. She started going to meetings and got sober. Sobriety changed her life. It sure changed mine.
I did the Johnny Carson show when Joan Rivers was hosting. Joan’s a crazy bitch, but a sweet one. She encouraged me to talk about my addiction and recovery in front of the entire country.
I stayed strong for three, then four, then five months. In the sixth month of my sobriety, my friend Carrie Fisher—another crazy bitch I loved—cohosted a party with me for all our Hollywood friends. I’d met Carrie at the meetings and thought she was one groovy chick. Like Joan, she was a comic and used humor to take the sting out of life. Both those ladies cracked me up.
We held the party at Carrie’s beautiful house in the hills. Harrison Ford came. So did Jack Nicholson and Timothy Leary, the “turn on, tune in, drop out” guru. The only turn-on I needed was the recognition by all these famous people that I had done what I’d set out to do—I slayed the dope dragon. I felt proud.
I’d forgotten the proverb that says pride goeth before the fall. I’d forgotten that it wasn’t me who facilitated my sobriety; it was my higher power. I’d surrendered to something besides myself, yet here I was at a fancy Hollywood party showing off my sobriety to all the stars.
Showing off my sobriety! Now ain’t that a bitch!
When I walked outside and smelled weed from some folks smoking in the yard, I turned right away and went back inside.
When I went to the bathroom and saw fools snorting up a pile of blow, I marched right out of there.
Drugs were out. I could resist. I could turn my back on the flakiest, most potent Peruvian shit out there. I was beyond that. I was better than that.
But when, later in the evening, I hooked up with a lady I’d been wanting for months, and when that lady invited me to her crib, and when on the coffee table was a bag of blow, and when she sat across from me on the couch and spread her legs so I could see that under her black leather miniskirt she was wearing no panties, the sight of her pussy and the proximity of the blow was too much. She went down on the blow. I went down on her. She went down on me. And I went down on the blow. Before long, we were going and blowing like two wild animals.