Rick James...The Man

I'm sure that most of you are aware Rick James is dead.

Rick James had something in common with Hitler, Rasputin, or Ed Gein: every time there was a E True Hollywood Stories, Behind the Music, or anything else on TV - I was transfixed; glued to the screen for the duration. All of the shows on Mr. James are pretty much the same – five minutes covering his music career followed by fifty-five minutes of his decent into oblivion, but hey, great TV is great TV – you can't argue with that.

Just who was Rick James? To me, his was a fucking-up-man's fuck-up-man . . .a fuck-up's fuck-up, if you will. He wasn't a funk legend. You need to replace an “F” with a “P”.

Rick James was a punk legend.

He kidnapped a bitch, raped her, burned her repeatedly with a crack pipe, and while still out on bond pending the trial, he kidnapped a second hooker and did the same thing again! One hooker kidnapping crack pipe soufflé session I can understand. That could happen to anybody, but two?

Fuckin' aye man…that takes balls.

So, he's standing trial for both assaults and you would think that he would be worried about spending the rest of his life in prison or something, but what does he do? He falls asleep in court during the proceedings right in front of the judge because he was just now just coming down from last night's crack binge!

That is burley as fuck.

I don't give a fuck who think you are - nobody has their punk rock credentials in better order than Rick James. RJ is the paradigm of black celebrity. Sure others have followed: OJ, R. Kelly, and Michael Jackson. Obviously "The Man" does not want a Negro to have a delicious slice of Apple Pie, so they continue to make them fight this frame in America! Since when . . .since when, I implore you, was murder, molesting kids, peeing on fifteen year old girls, or toasting someone with a straight shooter a crime?

Well, I seem to have rather lost my point there. . .In such a late hour Rick James, obviously, enjoyed a second wave of popularity via Chappelle's Show. Who can forget the catch phrases that have since invaded the American vernacular?

I'm Rick James Bitch!

Truth be told, I've gotten more than my fair share of use out of these clever simple lines. For Chappelle's Show, Rick James took an already funny program and elevated it to what could be arguably the funniest 18 minutes of American TV humor of all time. By proxy he put Dave Chappelle on par with comedy heavyweights like Trey Parker, Matt Groening, and the Monty Python fellows. In that sense, Rick James has enriched all of our lives. Rick James died in his sleep on August 8th at the age of 56, which is not really that old. Considering the life he's led - he should be happy to have made it that far. I think Rick said it best himself…

Cocaine is a helluva' of a drug!