Chapter 9 Joe Tex Jackie Wilson Richard Pryor 4-7-22
Thinking about these guys is so dreary, I procrastinated writing this. If they weren’t famous I wouldn’t. How can I get through these men as fast as possible? I’m typing a mile a minute, lol.
Joe Tex. I met him, like several other stars, at a place called ‘Mambo Maxie’s’ – a club I stumbled upon on my way from one of the go-go jobs 1967. I used to check in there often while going to & fro my job – it was always entertaining even the ones not famous. There I saw Etta James, Little Richard & this clown Joe Tex.
‘Mambo Maxie’ was a stout Jewish guy who always stood in front collecting a buck from each entrant. Sometimes he didn’t charge me. Don’t know his background, but it must have been in show biz, he seemed ‘the old carny’ type. He reminded me, personality wise, of Elvis’ manager Col. Parker – a fast talker. It wasn’t a big place so how could he afford these stars? Probably gave them a bunch of bullshyt about how much money they’d make ‘at the door’ or by percentage or whatever – the way con artists sometimes fooled me into thinking I’d make bread at the door – which you never do when they give you that offer {except once I did for 3 months & made a fortune, but I got over on this wise-guy Lebanese man & made him sign a contract where I checked the cash register every day}.
So I stumble into the club one day & Joe Tex is performing. I’m seating next to a lovely black lady, thin, elegant & we converse {I never saw another white person in the club, Mambo Maxie & I were the only two.}
Joe Tex has a great band, he’s a good performer, we’re impressed. We both decide to go meet him.
The minute we’re backstage together Joe goes crazy for my breasts. He orders the photo man to take pics of him kissing my chest – dozens of them. They are ridiculous poses, I don’t know how I consented, probably because I was overwhelmed at the moment by his fame & the performance & all that.
He never took one look at the attractive black lady – only babbled on & on about ‘your titties.’ {Yes, I was wearing a low-cut top, custom made, of a brocade velvet material, it was beautiful – Various colors of brown & light grey & brown custom-made bell-bottoms to match.}
The black lady, Rhonda, shakes her head & says
“He’s SIMPLE”,
meaning Simple Simon, known for his stupidity.
After 15 minutes of this ordeal, the photo man has processed a dozen stupid, embarrassing photos & Joe Tex disappears, not paying for a single one. I pay the guy, take them into the bathroom, tear them into hundreds of pieces & flush them down the toilet.
Who he was:
“He went on to have four million-selling hits, “Hold What You’ve Got” (1965), “Skinny Legs and All” (1967), “I Gotcha” (1972), and “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)” (1977).”
From Wikipedia:
Joe Tex was born Joseph Arrington, Jr. in Rogers, Texas, in Bell County to Joseph Arrington and Cherie Sue (Jackson) Arrington.
In early August, 1982, Tex was found at the bottom of a swimming pool at his home in Navasota, after which he was revived in hospital and sent home. Just a few days later, on August 13, 1982, five days after his 47th birthday, he died at GrimesMemorialHospital in Navasota, following a heart attack.
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Next Creep: Jackie Wilson, from Wikipedia:
Jack Leroy Wilson Jr. (June 9, 1934 – January 21, 1984) was an American soul and rock and roll singer and performer. Wilson was a prominent figure in the transition of rhythm and blues into soul. He was considered a master showman and one of the most dynamic singers and performers in pop, R&B, and rock and roll history, earning the nickname “Mr. Excitement”.
“Lonely Teardrops“, which peaked at No. 7 on the pop charts, ranked No. 1 on the R&B charts in the U.S., and established Wilson as an R&B superstar known for his extraordinary, operatic multi-octave vocal range. Wilson’s “Lonely Teardrops” sold over one million copies.
Due to Wilson’s fervor when performing, with his dynamic dance moves, impassioned singing and fashion sense, he was nicknamed “Mr. Excitement”. His stagecraft in his live shows inspired James Brown, Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley, as well as a host of other artists that followed. Presley was so impressed with Wilson that he made it a point to meet him.
Wilson’s powerful, electrifying live performances rarely failed to bring audiences to a state of frenzy. His live performances consisted of knee-drops, splits, spins, back-flips, one-footed across-the-floor slides, removing his tie and jacket and throwing them off the stage, basic boxing steps like advance and retreat shuffling, and one of his favorite routines, getting some of the less attractive women in the audience to come up to the stage and kiss him. Wilson often said “if I get the ugliest girl in the audience to come up and kiss me, they’ll all think they can have me and keep coming back and buying my records.”
Wilson scored hits as he entered the 1960s with the No. 15 “Doggin’ Around”, the No. 4 pop ballad “Night“, another million-seller, and “Baby Workout“, another Top 10 hit (No. 5)
On September 29, 1975, Wilson was one of the featured acts in Dick Clark‘s Good Ol’ Rock and Roll Revue, hosted by the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He was in the middle of singing “Lonely Teardrops” when he suffered a massive heart attack. On the words “My heart is crying” he collapsed on stage; audience members applauded as they initially thought it was part of the act. Clark sensed something was wrong, then ordered the musicians to stop the music. Cornell Gunter of the Coasters, who was backstage, noticed Wilson was not breathing. Gunter was able to resuscitate him and Wilson was then rushed to a nearby hospital.
Medical personnel worked to stabilize Wilson’s vital signs, but the lack of oxygen to his brain caused him to slip into a coma. He briefly recovered in early 1976, and was even able to take a few wobbly steps, but slipped back into a semi-comatose state.
Wilson died on January 21, 1984, at the age of 49 from complications of pneumonia. He was initially buried in an unmarked grave at WestlawnCemetery near Detroit. {Rasa says, later someone raised the bread to put him into a Mausoleum – WTF happened to all his money?
‘Nat Tarnopol had taken advantage of Wilson’s naïveté, mismanaging his money since becoming his manager. Tarnopol also had power of attorney over Wilson’s finances.’ This man was later found guilty of fraud & robbing Jackie Wilson of big money but by this time Wilson was in a coma….Rasa says – too bad the FAMILY didn’t sue this creep Tarnopol.}
Personal Life:
Wilson had a reputation for being short-tempered and promiscuous. In her autobiography, Patti LaBelle accused Wilson of sexually assaulting her backstage at a Brooklyn theater in the early 1960s.
On February 15, 1961, in Manhattan, Wilson was shot and seriously wounded by a woman named Juanita Jones. However, Jones was one of his girlfriends, and she shot him in a jealous rage after he returned to his Manhattan apartment with another woman, fashion model Harlean Harris, an ex-girlfriend of Sam Cooke. Wilson’s management supposedly concocted the story about her being a zealous fan to protect Wilson’s reputation. They claimed that Jones was an obsessed fan who had threatened to shoot herself, and that Wilson’s intervention resulted in his being shot. Wilson was shot in the stomach; the bullet resulted in the loss of a kidney, and lodged too close to his spine to be removed.
In March 1967, Wilson and his drummer, Jimmy Smith, were arrested in South Carolina on “morals charges”; the two were entertaining two 24-year-old white women in their motel room.
My Account:
I go to Vegas with my lady friend Marleena & her boyfriend {she was with me when I met O.C. Smith & also Otis Redding}, we go see Jackie’s show. We sit in the front row. He’s dynamic, great, all that they say he is.
Then, to my surprise, his valet comes over to our table after the show & says Jackie would like to meet me, could I go back stage? He was very polite, I went.
OK so it’s assumed we’re going to spend the night together. We go to the slot machines & he hands me a dollar. I put it in & out pops $56. Because he gave me the dollar, I offer it back to him & he takes it – every last bit. $56 in 1966 is $490 today! Wow – he was NOT a gentleman, he just took nearly $500 from me. The least he could have done, if he was short on money, was keep half & give me half, but no, he had to have every penny.
We walk into a lounge where the band sees him & strikes up “Baby Workout”. Can’t recall what happens there but next, we’re in his large hotel room sitting in bed.
We have done nothing – yet. The phone rings. It’s his WIFE! He didn’t tell me he had a wife, I am mortified! Someone must have called her – she’s probably in another state – & told her he went off with a woman, so she calls. He assures her HE’S ALL ALONE. She says she might just come over – he tells her be his guest. Of course, she doesn’t take a plane to Vegas to check it out.
After that I tell him I don’t feel like doing sex. First he robs me, then he doesn’t take me to dinner – now this – the final straw. He says that’s fine – he DOESN’T CARE. Bullcrap, but good work, I don’t have to put out. He did not appeal to me sex wise. Had he been a decent fellow I would have done it, but he wasn’t.
OK the last time I saw him is so ironic. He was on the stage on the floor, in some obscure club in Watts –I’m the only white person there. It’s his antic of asking women to come up & kiss him, so after a few other girls do it, I go up also – actually not up as the stage is level with the audience – & the bastard just stares at me & says no, he won’t kiss me. It has nothing to do with anything but this: black men, when black women are around, – are scared shitless to show attention to a whitey. It’s all it was. He would suffer their wrath if he kissed me.
The exact same thing happened to me with Muhammad Ali. I was at a show with major stars & he was one of them. A bunch of people stood around him to say hi after the show. I was last in line, began to talk to him. And there, from the surroundings, black women began to razz him,
“Ali, Ali,”
which meant,
“You’re not supposed to get chummy with white women,”
and he walked away.
But as we all know it’s the opposite when black women aren’t around. James Brown once told me,
“When I said bring a girl friend I meant bring a WHITE GIRL.”
And he lied to my black best friend – Ginger. He told her he usually didn’t date white women, but I was different. The truth is every time he was in town he dated only white women – one I saw was a hostess from a restaurant. He offered $3,500 for sex with a movie star –beautiful blonde Diane McBain. {She starred in Spinout with Elvis, 1966 } That hurt me as it made it seem he valued her way more than me. Diane did not even take him up on it. {His valet told me about it.}
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Creepy Richard Pryor
Might as well tell the story of the next creep while I’m on a roll.
I met a few famous people at this club I visited – Maverick’s Flats in LA – quite a place.
One night Richard Pryor, the comedian, is there. I don’t know if he did a show or not but he was off by a wall surrounded by people. I sat there & listened to his repartee & at the close of the night he asked me out. Yes, I was flirting with him but so were a dozen other females {all black.}
At that time I had a lovely house rented at 1860 Heather Ct, Beverly Hills, off Heather Rd off Coldwater Canyon Drive. I was driving my white Corvette & he a new Caddy – so he followed me.
We got into bed, I told him let’s skip the sex for now, I’m tired. He snoozed off without complaint.
In the morning I was going to make him a sumptuous breakfast, & had he been nice to me, I might have done sex.
So I get up, go to the kitchen & start putzing around, & there, I see out the window, he’s gone off without saying goodbye, got into his car & just took off. No class.
Strangely, & to his benefit, years later, he appears to me as a client in Purgatory & I help him ascend into Heaven! Can’t recall the details & dates – it’s all written down somewhere, but where?
Richard Pryor explained on Wikipedia
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. (December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central‘s list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
He grew up in a brothel {Rasa says: adult entertainment/therapy center} run by his grandmother, Marie Carter, where his alcoholic mother, Gertrude L. (née Thomas), was a prostitute. {Rasa says: Let’s call it without insult, adult trade worker or sex therapist} His father, LeRoy “Buck Carter” Pryor (June 7, 1915 – September 27, 1968), was a former boxer, hustler and pimp. After Gertrude abandoned him when he was 10, Pryor was raised primarily by Marie, a tall, violent woman who would beat him for any of his eccentricities. Pryor was one of four children raised in his grandmother’s brothel {Rasa says: Adult entertainment/therapy venue}. He was sexually abused at age seven,and expelled from school at the age of 14.
Rasa remarks re this opening description of Richard Pryor’s life: When they use the words ‘brothel’ – he grew up in a brothel, the writer predicts an assumption from the reader. Ditto ‘prostitute’ – his Mom was one, same thing. I take some pointers from the milestone setter Dale Spender with her thesis ‘Man Made Language.’ She explained how males control/create language & how words describing women have become degraded as women are degraded, for instance, the word ‘Mistress’ once meant ‘Mistress of the house’ & over the years it fell down to a second woman kept by a man. Or today it’s a paid dominant – neither ideas is flattering.
{Then the men who write the dictionaries describe the sexuality of males as ‘virile’ – ‘red blooded’, while women who like sex are called ‘nymphomaniacs’ or if they don’t like sex they are ‘frigid’ – nothing in between. No robust, red blooded, healthy women described. Women who like sex are MANIACS, lol.}
I take issue with these words being used here as the writer ASSUMES the reader will think,
“That explains it. Grew up in a brothel, Mom a prostitute – that’s why he was crazy.”
The thoughts that go with ‘brothel’ & ‘prostitute’ are part of the man-made language which has us believing sexual behavior for women is PROHIBITED & if they engage in sex except where sanctioned they are wicked, evil beings. No such assumption goes to the man – he can frequent adult trade women & remain exempt from the stigma. He’s expected to be ‘virile’ & ‘red blooded.’ And so it’s obvious this double standard is imposed by Patriarchs, not by women or God – we’re at the mercy of their bias, mind control & tyranny.
I insist, first for myself then others, these terms / ideas be rethought. Women in the adult trade are entertainers & therapists & should be given respect as such. They are not wicked evil doers for dancing or posing naked, nor are they immoral because they offer their services on the street or elsewhere {often to the worst of men, the least desirable & sometimes dangerous.}{Think how awful the world would be if no woman did sex for money – increase the numbers of sick & dangerous men when their needs are unmet. Adult therapists should be given MEDALS not malevolence. I have watched men take food out of their child’s mouth so they could use the money for sex.}
And so, remove the notion of ‘bordello’ or ‘prostitute Mother’ caused Pryor to go crazy. There’s violence from a female caregiver, his Dad being a ‘hustler – pimp’, he was sexual abused starting age 7, his Mom abandoned him age 10, *being an alcoholic she might have done him a favor*. Look to these factors for his PTSD. {end Rasa statements}
Pryor served in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960, but spent virtually the entire stint in an army prison. According to a 1999 profile about Pryor in The New Yorker, Pryor was incarcerated for an incident that occurred while he was stationed in West Germany. Angered that a white soldier was overly amused at the racially charged scenes of Douglas Sirk‘s film Imitation of Life, Pryor and several other black soldiers beat and stabbed him, although not fatally.
In 2004, Pryor was voted number one on Comedy Central‘s list of the 100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time. In a 2005 British poll to find “The Comedian’s Comedian,” Pryor was voted the 10th-greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. {End Wikipedia}
Rasa says: My last remarks on him are like so. He was a miserable wretch who needed psychological therapy for his PTSD, instead, like many who become drug addicted, he medicated himself. When I met him he was on a talking streak which was no doubt fueled by Cocaine. By the time morning rolled around, he left without saying good bye because he was a zombie without drugs. Most addicts are zombies when sober – they’re lifeless. I can’t imagine living with him, it would be Hell. People can be talented while still sick. With his brand of comedy, he vented his tortures, perhaps this was his therapy, & could be why he was so good. {End Chapter 9}
