I couldn’t tell if it was a dream or a fleeting repressed memory. For years I’ve talked about it and been met with blank stares. Maybe you should see someone, they’d say. It could really help.
If I was losing my mind I refused to admit it. When it got really bad I’d stand on the street corner in just boots and a trench coat mumbling to passersby in a quest for validation, but to no avail. Yet I couldn’t let it go.
Rick James appeared on Judge Joe Brown many years ago and sued his friend for stealing his guitar and sexually harassing him.
You’ve got to stop this, I finally told myself, and it was laid to rest.
It turns out I wasn’t crazy after all. After years of searching and several lost spouses and abandoned children I finally stumbled upon Rick James’ appearance on Judge Joe Brown, from 1999.
Below is a summary of the events which unfolded on that fateful day.
Judge Joe Brown enters his pretend courtroom full of fugly extras and confirms the case at hand: Rick James is suing his friend, musician Geronne Turner for $4,600 because James let him borrow a guitar and amplifier which was then stolen from Turner’s car.
James explains Turner had borrowed the gear for a gig because his had somehow been misplaced.
James explains the two had an agreement that Turner would pay off the value of the stolen property over time in increments of around $200 – $300.
He then explains that Turner had stopped paying James after James publicly berated a drunken Turner for inappropriately touching his buttocks in a bar. James alludes to Turner being a homosexual by stating “There’s a little sugar in his tank, you know, a little sugar going on.”
Turner, presumably because this entire side story is totally irrelevant to the matter, appears either embarrassed for James, or himself, or both and says, “Don’t say that Rick, don’t say that.”
In case you didn’t get it, James comes at it with less subtlety: “Well he’s basically a homosexual, okay.”
I think we get it, Rick.
James elaborates on the incident: “He put his hand on my butt, and his hand was there for like 40, 60 seconds.”
I’d like to posit that if someone unwontedly has their hand on your ass, the response time is going to be single digits. Otherwise, you’re kind of into it or on drugs or both.
At this point a major bombshell is dropped: It turns out there was more than one hand on James’ ass.
The other hand was not that of Mr. Turner, but of J.T. [It is never explained who J.T. is but he was apparently seated in the audience somewhere. Presumably he is the J.T. we all know around town as J.T. the Ass Grabber.]
As of this point in the story, James clarifies he now had two separate hands from two separate people on “Both buttocks.”
How this could possible be for more than a few seconds without consent is never addressed. Logistically speaking, it would not be hard to break away from two palms from two different people being on your ass, since physical restraint would be logistically difficult given the ergonomics of the situation, especially if you’re a man of impressive stature such as James.
To be clear, none of this has anything to do with the guitar or amp, other than to illustrate that the two stopped communicating about the payment arrangement, and to fill some time in an otherwise uncompelling segment.
Joe Brown orders Turner to pay off the remainder of the balance, for which Turner had always intended to do, rendering this appearance on a show where a judge supposedly solves disputes completely pointless.
During the post show interview James and Turner shake hands, and James says “If I was homosexual he’d be my wife.”
This is a strange comment coming from a self-identified straight male whom it takes over forty seconds to remove gay men’s hands from his ass.
Just count to forty right now.
1999 was a turning point in the life of Rick James. Throughout the early 90’s, James was a prodigious crack head with a $7,000 a week habit, and was no longer touring or producing music. In 1993 he and his future wife were accused of kidnapping a young woman, tying her up, sexually assaulting her, and burning her with a crack pipe over a weeklong period. While out on bail for that offense, James was accused of assaulting a female record executive and kidnapping her for a 20 hour period. I don’t know the whole story but let’s just say drugs were involved. He was convicted in both cases and served two years in Folsom, having been released in 1996. By the time of his Judge Joe Brown taping, James was starting to get his life back together, having even released an album in 1997.
At first I thought James went on Judge Joe Brown for the novelty. He was just looking for attention, I thought. He probably thought it would be funny. He was possibly even trolling Joe Brown because of the absurd nature of these newly popular courtroom reality shows. But looking back, why would a legitimate artist really want to make such an ass of himself in small claims court on national television?
He needed the money. Perhaps that’s why James’ appearance stuck with me all these years. It was a unique moment in television history. Scratch that, in the history of the world. A former pop star, reduced to nothing, attempting to get reimbursed for a stolen guitar and amplifier, and failing miserably at behaving like a human.
I’m often amazed at what our news cycle deems worth of interest versus what’s swept under the rug. Genocide in the Sudan? Not moving the war machine. Gwyneth Paltrow likes cauliflower? Stop the presses.
Even with such warped priorities, there is no reason we should have been robbed of this cultural cataclysm for as long as we’ve been. Take a look around people. Things are happening right in front of you.
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You misunderstood. JT is the defendant. He was the only one grabbing Rick’s ass that night. Watch it again.
Just sayin’