Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon (25 page)
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Authors: Pamela Des Barres
BOOK: Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon
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Jimi had written a song the night he died, “The Story of Life (Slow).” These are the final two verses:
I wish not to be alone
so I must respect my other heart
Oh, the story
of Jesus is the story
of you and me
No use in feeling lonely
I am you searching to be free
so I must respect my other heart
Oh, the story
of Jesus is the story
of you and me
No use in feeling lonely
I am you searching to be free
The story
of life is quicker
than the wink of an eye
The story of love
is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again
of life is quicker
than the wink of an eye
The story of love
is hello and goodbye
Until we meet again
When interviewed at Jimi’s funeral, Mike Jeffrey said, “Last week I was looking at a film script Jimi was working on, and in the margin he had written, ‘Don’t raise me up; I am but a messenger.’ … He realized the power of the soul, as one of his own songs said … . To my mind his music was the music of the new religion.” On March 5, 1973, Mike Jeffrey was flying to London to find out if he would be inheriting Jimi’s U.K. royalties when the DC-9 crashed, killing all forty-seven passengers. Soon after Jimi’s death, Devon Wilson, who had become addicted to heroin, fell through a plate-glass window and died. When Monika Danneman’s book,
The Inner World
of Jimi
Hendrix
, came out in 1995, Kathy Etchingham took her to court again, claiming that Monika had repeated allegations that Kathy was “an inveterate liar.” (Kathy had previously sued Monika for libel for those allegations and won. Monika had to pay a thousand pounds in damages and costs.) Two days after she was found in “contempt of court,” Monika was found dead in her fume-filled Mercedes, near her lovely little cottage in Seaford. Sad, sad, sad. Said Kathy, “I’m sad that it should all end like this.”
The Inner World
of Jimi
Hendrix
, came out in 1995, Kathy Etchingham took her to court again, claiming that Monika had repeated allegations that Kathy was “an inveterate liar.” (Kathy had previously sued Monika for libel for those allegations and won. Monika had to pay a thousand pounds in damages and costs.) Two days after she was found in “contempt of court,” Monika was found dead in her fume-filled Mercedes, near her lovely little cottage in Seaford. Sad, sad, sad. Said Kathy, “I’m sad that it should all end like this.”
Alan Douglas recalls the time he took Miles Davis to see Hendrix play. “Miles was freaked. He said, ‘What the fuck’s he doing?’ He couldn’t figure him out. I’ll never forget the day I played Jimi for Dizzy Gillespie, and he just didn’t say anything, just got up and walked out of the room. I didn’t see him for a few days and when I did he said, ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it.’ Jimi amazed them so much, they didn’t know where he was coming from, or how to get there. Jimi used to go so far out that you’d think he’d never make it back, but the sucker always found a way back in. He flew without a net.”
Jimi Hendrix often spoke about being a messenger. His hope was that his music might somehow pierce our hearts and heal our souls. He finally did go so far out that he couldn’t find his way back in, but he did us all a huge favor—he left his music with us.
RICK JAMES
I took a chance and sat on Rick’s lap in jail. “Where else,” he asked, “can you learn to make bombs out of toothpaste?” (ADAM W. WOLF)
O
ne hundred degrees and climbing. Another blinding California heat blast. On the long sweaty drive out to the California Rehabilitation Center, I wonder about air-conditioning facilities in jail. Am I wearing the proper attire? What do you wear to prison, anyway? I’ve never visited a locked-up human being before, and I’m one nervous chick. This particular locked-up human being gives me the willies. The heat is making me feel light-headed and wary as I watch anxiously for the freeway exit that will lead me to CRC. It has taken weeks of back-and-forth phone calls to set up this interview with the “Super Freak” king of funky stuff, Rick James, incarcerated in September 1993 following his trial for the assault and false imprisonment of two Los Angeles women.
ne hundred degrees and climbing. Another blinding California heat blast. On the long sweaty drive out to the California Rehabilitation Center, I wonder about air-conditioning facilities in jail. Am I wearing the proper attire? What do you wear to prison, anyway? I’ve never visited a locked-up human being before, and I’m one nervous chick. This particular locked-up human being gives me the willies. The heat is making me feel light-headed and wary as I watch anxiously for the freeway exit that will lead me to CRC. It has taken weeks of back-and-forth phone calls to set up this interview with the “Super Freak” king of funky stuff, Rick James, incarcerated in September 1993 following his trial for the assault and false imprisonment of two Los Angeles women.
In his slay-day Rick James was a brilliant, innovative monster music maker—singer/songwriter/producer—a swaggering, strutting, pompous picture of decadence and dastardly obsessions in spangled skintight jumpsuits and Jheri curls.
When his debut album,
Come Get It,
went double platinum, Rick moved into a mansion once owned by William Randolph Hearst. “I was livin’ large,” he said, “inside a
Citizen Kane
fantasy.” Many smash hits followed, and “Super Freak,” the song most closely associated with James (“She’s a very kinky girl/the kind you don’t bring home to mother”), brought all shapes and sizes of adoring, kinky girls into his life. He once told People magazine he spent a million dollars in one year “on cars, wine, women, and booze.” And cocaine. Lots of it. His partying-down days are a large part of legendary rock lore. Nobody parties like Rick James.
Come Get It,
went double platinum, Rick moved into a mansion once owned by William Randolph Hearst. “I was livin’ large,” he said, “inside a
Citizen Kane
fantasy.” Many smash hits followed, and “Super Freak,” the song most closely associated with James (“She’s a very kinky girl/the kind you don’t bring home to mother”), brought all shapes and sizes of adoring, kinky girls into his life. He once told People magazine he spent a million dollars in one year “on cars, wine, women, and booze.” And cocaine. Lots of it. His partying-down days are a large part of legendary rock lore. Nobody parties like Rick James.
After winding my way into the hills of Nowheresville, I find family clumps of every race, creed, and color congregating in front of formidable high-assed gates, waiting for passes to visit loved ones. I go round and round through the barbed-wire parking lot in search of a space for my T-Bird as steam rises in waves from the baking pavement. I have a one o’clock appointment. It’s 12:58.
After spending over eight months in the CRC drug rehab program while officials decided whether he should be formally admitted, James has just been ruled ineligible to complete the program due to his assault conviction, and may have to do a five-year prison stint instead of being freed in a few months. I bet he’s seriously pissed off. The kind of sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll superfreak freedom Rick James had must have been oh-so-hard to give up. I read in the
L.A. Times
that his attorney, Mark Werksman, was baffled by the court’s decision. “They just looked at the whole package and said, ‘We don’t like this guy.’” As I finally slide into a parking space, I wonder if I will.
L.A. Times
that his attorney, Mark Werksman, was baffled by the court’s decision. “They just looked at the whole package and said, ‘We don’t like this guy.’” As I finally slide into a parking space, I wonder if I will.
Rick James—slam-bam punk-funk sensation. (MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/VENICE, CALIF.)
There were two separate cases against Rick James and his girlfriend, Tania Anne Hijazi. In the first, in July 1991, twenty-six-year-old Frances Alley alleged that James burned her leg and knee area with a crack pipe, applied alcohol, slapped her across the face with a gun, and burned her groin and torso area with a hot knife. In her testimony about the night in question, Alley—a friend of a friend of James who had left a rehab program in Georgia and was working in a massage parlor in Beverly Hills—alleged that James was “going to teach her a lesson” because he “couldn’t find his eight ball.” “He made me take my clothes off and sit in the chair,” Alley testified. “He ordered Tania to go to the kitchen and heat up the knife until it was red hot.” James then sup–posedly tied her to the chair with neckties. “Rick poured alcohol all over my knees. He started smoking crack. Every time he took a hit, he held part of the crack pipe to my knees.”
According to her testimony, James slapped her across the face with a handgun, saying, “No one fucks with Rick James in his house.” She then testified that he burned her with a Bic lighter and kept reheating the knife with the lighter or a candle, burning her inner groin area, and from “the abdomen to the pubic line.” “He burned Hijazi twice on the back for smoking outside. I then went into the bathroom and put cold towels on my burns. We then went into Rick’s room and smoked crack.” Besides the torture and mayhem accusations, Frances Alley testified that James had forced her to perform oral sex on his girlfriend. “He told me to lay back and Tania was going to take care of me,” she said. “Then Tania went down on me. He made me do the same to her. I was laying on my back, she got on top of me and kind of straddled me and starts peeing on me, on my burns and stuff. It hurt real bad.
Q
. Were you still afraid?
. Were you still afraid?
A
. Of course I was afraid. I was grossed out. It was nasty.
. Of course I was afraid. I was grossed out. It was nasty.
Q
. Then what happened?
. Then what happened?
A
. Then he told me to put my fingers in her.
. Then he told me to put my fingers in her.
Q
. Did you do that?
. Did you do that?
A
. No. Every chance she and I got, we faked it. We faked giving each other head.
. No. Every chance she and I got, we faked it. We faked giving each other head.
Rick’s publicist has already told me that he won’t discuss the case and claims Rick is innocent of the charges. I had wanted to ask him about remorse and repentance. Oh well.
I show a weary security guard all of my identification and then wait on a sticky brown Naugahyde couch for Lt. Annette Hissami, the warden, to walk
me down to her office, where we will meet Inmate N63609. It’s way past one o’clock now and the sweat is running down my sides.
me down to her office, where we will meet Inmate N63609. It’s way past one o’clock now and the sweat is running down my sides.
When she finally appears, I’m surprised to see that Hissami is a young, attractive lady in a pretty cool-looking suit. She leads me to her office through the penitentiary grounds, explaining why CRC, with its red-tiled roof and pink walls, looks more like a luxury hotel than a jailhouse. Back in the thirties it had been the Lake Norconian Club, visited by Hollywood celebrities and political bigwigs. “The inmates do the gardening,” she says proudly as we pass through perfectly manicured rosebushes. “This is a
medium-
security prison,” she emphasizes, and we settle into her office and wait for the inmate to be brought down from his cell. Lieutenant Hissami graciously offers Adam (my photographer) and me a Pepsi. We accept. It’s now two o’clock. She tells me I was lucky to get this interview, that James is going back to court next week.
medium-
security prison,” she emphasizes, and we settle into her office and wait for the inmate to be brought down from his cell. Lieutenant Hissami graciously offers Adam (my photographer) and me a Pepsi. We accept. It’s now two o’clock. She tells me I was lucky to get this interview, that James is going back to court next week.
During the
“ménage à trois–
type thing,” Frances Alley alleges, James told her, “I needed to learn how they live in California. He said it was nothing. Everybody in California does that, and I was sexually ignorant and inexperienced.”
“ménage à trois–
type thing,” Frances Alley alleges, James told her, “I needed to learn how they live in California. He said it was nothing. Everybody in California does that, and I was sexually ignorant and inexperienced.”
According to Alley’s testimony, when James realized the extent of her burns, he sent her to a pharmacy. “The lady looked at my leg and said, ‘Honey, honey, we can’t do anything for that.’ Then I went to the L.A. Free Clinic. They said, ‘We can’t do anything. This is way too severe. You need a burn unit.’ Then we went to Cedars [Cedars-Sinai, a hospital in Beverly Hills].” After doctors examined Alley, the police were called. But she didn’t want to press charges at that time. Apparently James wanted to apologize to Alley and she went back to his house. “It must have been the crack,” he said and allegedly gave her a check for $320 made to cash. “Here, take this,” he told her. “Go buy yourself something nice. I will take care of you. I will buy you a ring as big as your head.” She stayed a few more days, getting high, and James didn’t bother her anymore. “When everyone was asleep, I left without making a noise,” she testified. “I came back the same night. Rick started calling me a slut, a whore, and a cheap nasty bitch for telling everybody that he did this to me, and I better backtrack, go back and tell all these people that I had supposedly told, that a pimp did it to me. Not Rick James. A pimp. He said he would rip out my tongue. He then said he’d pay five thousand dollars to have me killed. He also said he’d have acid thrown on my face on the street if I didn’t clear his name. It was his girlfriend that opened her mouth, not me. All right. It was his girlfriend. It pissed me off so bad. The next day I went and pressed charges.”
There’s a power outage in Lieutenant Hissami’s office while we wait for inmate N63609. No air conditioning for a while. She gets on the phone and twenty minutes later it’s blessedly cool again. She keeps looking at her watch, wondering when the prisoner will be brought down for his interview. After making a few calls she finds that the prisoner has been taken to the wrong
place. Oh boy. The prisoner is going to be in a great mood for this interview. It’s pushing three o’clock.
place. Oh boy. The prisoner is going to be in a great mood for this interview. It’s pushing three o’clock.
The second incident supposedly took place in November 1992 at the swankpot St. James Club and Hotel on the Sunset Strip. Mary Sauger, an old friend from the music business, testified at James’s trial that she met him and Tania Hijazi to discuss James’s new record label, and after they all got high on cocaine, Rick and Tania began to argue. Sauger tried to leave and was supposedly slapped by Hijazi and James repeatedly until she lost consciousness. They allegedly brought her back by throwing water on her, but continued to strike her. Then James choked her. She was able to leave after being held for twenty hours. She testified that she received a phone message offering money to “shut up,” but she, too, went to Cedars-Sinai and the police were called. James was arrested two weeks later.
Rick James and Tania Hijazi in court. His prayers didn’t work—Rick was convicted of assault, imprisonment, and furnishing cocaine. (TOM RODRIGUEZ/GLOBE PHOTOS)
Of all the charges brought against him—assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated mayhem, torture, false imprisonment by force, forced oral copulation, assault with a deadly weapon, sale or transportation of a controlled substance, terrorist threats—he was convicted of only three: assault and false imprisonment of Mary Sauger and furnishing cocaine to Frances Alley. The jury deadlocked eleven to one on the other charges, and in September 1993 he was sentenced to five years in prison. Prosecutors declined to retry James on the other charges, and he pleaded no contest to a simple assault charge against Alley. Tania Hijazi pleaded guilty to assault charges against Sauger and was sentenced to four years. (Her sentence was later reduced due to improper contact between an investigator in the district attorney’s office and Frances Alley [a.k.a. Michelle Allen] while Alley was in jail before Hijazi’s trial.)
The phone rings in Lieutenant Hissami’s office. “He’ll be right down.” She
smiles. She seems relieved. Adam turns on his lights and fiddles with his cameras, looking slightly embarrassed in his orange pantaloons. I take several deep breaths. As Rick James finally strides through the door, I can see that he’s not amused and grin way too brightly at him. We shake hands. He’s put on some weight, and of course the long, braided dreads have gone the way of the studded knee-high boots and foot-long spliffs.
smiles. She seems relieved. Adam turns on his lights and fiddles with his cameras, looking slightly embarrassed in his orange pantaloons. I take several deep breaths. As Rick James finally strides through the door, I can see that he’s not amused and grin way too brightly at him. We shake hands. He’s put on some weight, and of course the long, braided dreads have gone the way of the studded knee-high boots and foot-long spliffs.
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