Latest / DISGRACELAND / Marvin Gaye: Father, Father There’s Far Too Many of Us Dying

Transcript

Marvin Gaye: Father, Father There’s Far Too Many of Us Dying · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: The stories about soul singer Marvin Gay aren s. He
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: slept with more women than Chamberlain. He did more cocaine
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: than John Belushi and Richard Pryor combined. He ate acid
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: with Bootsy Collins and George Clinton. He could dunk on
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Jesse Jackson. And he was born into a god fearing
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: home to his sweet, wholesome mother and cross dressing, philandering
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Pentecostal preacher who ruled his children with an iron fist.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: But despite his strict upbringing, Marvin Gay was able to
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: find his calling music and use it as a ticket
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: out of the repressive inner city blues he was raised in.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gay was immensely talented. He was also paranoid, dangerous,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: and borderline suicidal. He barricaded himself in his Hollywood Hills
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: home behind his Ak forty sevens and his attack dogs.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: He took a knife to his wife's throat. He did
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: enough drugs to put a thoroughbread in the ground. But
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: through it all he made great music. That music I
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: played you at the top of the show, and that
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: mellotron called Fox Trot Moving Piano low MK one. I
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: played you that loop because I can't afford the license
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: for Footloose by Kenny Loggins. And why would I play
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: you that specific slice of bacon esque sounds Messina cheese?
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Could I afford it? Because that was the number one
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: song in America on April first, nineteen eighty four, And
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: that was the day that Marvin Gay rose his hand
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: to his father and consequently brought about his own demise.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: On this episode, Fox Trot Moving Pianos, bacon Esque cheese,
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: cross dressing dads, shame and trail, and Marvin Gay, I'm
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Jake Brennan and miss his disgraceland. The sound of his
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: feet in women's pumps putting pressure on the old wooden
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: stairs pumped out the sound of shame the trail. How
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: could his old man do this? His father? For God's sake.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: The rest of the family stood by, pretending not to
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: be bothered by the sight of their patriarch descending from
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: his second floor bedroom in their home in Washington, DC's
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Simple City neighborhood. But how could they not there he
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: was the man of the house, Marvin Gay, wearing a
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: poke dress, fake pearls around his neck, the aforementioned pumps
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: in a crooked wig from Crowns that he had no
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: doubt picked up from one of the church ladies he'd
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: preached to on Sundays. Young Marvin couldn't stand it, but
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: there was nothing he could do about it. His father
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: was going to do whatever the hell he wanted to do,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and if that meant wearing ladies clothes at the breakfast
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: table on a Saturday morning or retreating behind his bedroom
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: door with fat bottomed women from church while his wife,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Marvin's mother busied herself with making their home downstairs, and
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: so be it. There was nothing anyone could do about it.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gay Senior was going to do whatever the hell
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gay Senior wanted to do, because Poka Dot dress
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: or no Poka dot dress, he was still the man
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: of the house. But it was bad, real bad, bad enough.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Marvin's last name was Gay. But now with the rumors
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: spreading around the neighborhood that his preacher dad was some
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: sort of homosexual cross dressing freak, Marvin could barely show
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: his face out of the house without some neighborhood kids
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: starting something. So for young Marvin Gay. This meant one
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: fistfight after another, but Marvin could hold his own, and
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: in some way this helped. It made him feel like
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: he was proving something to himself, to his father, that he,
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: while even just a boy at the time, wasn't betraying
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: his manhood like he believed his father was betrayal. It
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: was a constant, unspoken theme in the Gay household, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: their father, a one time Pentecostal preacher, preached strict adherence
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: to the Lord's Way, and any deviation from that heavenly
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: path was seen as a betrayal. It met with strict,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: oftentimes violent discipline. But somehow, in nineteen fifties America, to
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: Marvin's dad, dressing in women's clothing was not a deviation
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: from the heavenly path progressive nah, more likely extreme hypocrisy.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: And like I said, Marvin Gay Senior did whatever the
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: hell he wanted to do. He was the powerful male
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: head of a family who ruled his household with violence, fear,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: and intimidation. His family was petrified of him and thus
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: powerless to do or say anything about his behavior, however,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: hypocritical and embarrassing. Now, ain't that peculiar, but the contradictions
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: didn't stop there. Despite his own sins, Father as he
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: was called, tried his best to discipline out any secular
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: and therefore sinful interest from his kids. Going to the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: movies on a Saturday to see Disney's Lady in the
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Tramp a betrayal of God, reading Charlotte's Web a betrayal
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: of God, and singing in a street corner dowop band
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: as young Marvin was at the time, definitely a betrayal
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: of God. But Marvin loved music and he was good
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: at it. He knew it. If hearing his voice bounce
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: off the walls of the church on Sundays didn't prove it,
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: then the looks he was starting to get from young
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: and old women alike sealed it. Gay my ass. He
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: thought women loved him. How could he be gay, he wondered,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: And that shit wasn't hereditary? Was it? Besides? Was his
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: dad even gay? Despite the women's clothes and his marriage
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: to Marvin's mom, he was openly sleeping with other women,
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: so young Marvin Gay. To clear up any confusion, added
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: an e to the end of his name, just like
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Sam Cook before him, and followed his golden voice from
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: the Street Corner serenades of Washington, d C. The Hitsville, USA,
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: and the hit factory known as Motown Records. Motown was
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: great for Marvin, and there was much to learn from
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Motown's rich stable of musical talent, The Miracles, Martha and
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: the Vandellas and the Temptations. Plus Barry Gordy, Motown's founder
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: and leader, was a genius, modeling his studio and record
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: label after the neighboring General Motors Auto factory in Detroit. Gordy,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: through Motown, pumped out hit hit after hit with his
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: assembly line approach to record making. House songwriters like the
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Holland Doser Holland Team composed the lyrics, the melodies and
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: the music, and house studio musicians the Funk Brothers laid
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: down the tracks and contracted stars like The Supremes and
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: the Four Tops came in and sang the vocal. Finally,
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: genius producers like Norman Whitfield and the five Tool player
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: Smokey Robinson saw the track through to completion, mixing it
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: and readying it for the pressing plant, airwaves, the record stores,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: and ultimately the record shells of young Americans, both black
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and white everywhere Motown in the early nineteen sixties was
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: the place for black musicians. Motown's success at the time
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: was unrivaled, and its unofficial title of Hitsville, USA was
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: no stretch. Marvin Gay couldn't have found himself in a
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: better place. He broke in as a studio musician, but
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: quickly made his vocal talents known and cracked the charts
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: with the hit single Stubborn Kind of Fellow in nineteen
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: sixty two. He followed it up with subsequent hits Hitchhike,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Pride and Joy, Can I Get a Witness? And more,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and in no time established himself as one of Motown's
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: biggest stars. June twenty first, nineteen sixty three, Chattanooga, Tennessee's
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: Memorial Auditorium, the Motown label's Motortown Review was in town
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to put on a show The Temptations, Little Stevie Wonder,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Mary Wells, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, and at the
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: top of the bill Marvin Gay. It was showtime, but
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: the headliner was nowhere to be found. Martha Reeves knew
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: what was up. Marvin's stage fright had probably gotten the
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: better of him again. She scurried about the backstage looking
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: for Marvin, and found him huddled in a corner near
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: the exit, almost with one foot out of the door. Literally,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: he was shaking, hunched over, smoking a cigarette, sweating on
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the verge of a panic attack. He couldn't do it again.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: He told her he couldn't go on stage. The band
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't ready. Of course they are, Marvin, they always are.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Martha told him he wasn't ready. You're a star, Marvin,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: you were born ready, baby, Martha reassured him. The crowd
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: wasn't right. There was going to be empty seats. Marvin.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: It's a packed house, just like it is every night,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: and everyone in there is dying to see you perform.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Marvin thought to himself that all these things may have
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: been true, but regardless whether the band was in tip
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: top shape, whether the house was packed, and whether or
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: not the crowd was dying to see him, none of
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: that will keep the rumors for being whispered, the rumors
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: that Marvin gay was well gay. Marvin couldn't stand them.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: It was just like the old neighborhood, except it wasn't
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: his dad's cross dressing that was stoking the rumor mill
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: about his sexuality. It was Marvel fan's on stage vibe.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: He was a star and a sex symbol, sure, but
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: he wasn't necessarily manly, not exactly the pro football Jim
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Brown's stud type. He had soft eyes, he was sensitive,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: a touch effeminine, and to those who doubted his masculinity,
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Marvin's last name kind of said at all with or
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: without the E. And of course there was the way
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: he danced on stage at the Motortown Review. It was
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: queer peculiar, to say the least. To think that there
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: was a time when Marvin Gay, the smoothest operator of
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: them all, couldn't dance is almost unthinkable, but it's true.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Go back in YouTube some of the early sixties footage
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: and you'll find a man trying to do the hitchhike
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: but instead doing the Elaine benis no joke. But all
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: of that aside, there was what was inside Marvin. Was
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: he gay? He didn't know for sure. No, of course
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: he wasn't. He was one of the biggest sex symbols
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: in the land. On tour, they practically had to beat
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: the women off of him with a stick. Plus, being
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: gay just wasn't allowed. His dad would never have accepted it,
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: and not to mention the closed mind in machismo culture.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Back at Hitsville in America in the early nineteen sixties.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Never he thought his dad betrayed his own manhood by
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: cross dressing. Marvin never would. He was a man's man.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So Marvin did what he thought he was supposed to do.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: He jumped up on stage and played the part. And
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: when the show was over, he jumped into the beds
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: of beautiful women everywhere and played the part there too.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: Marvin leaned back in his chair and took a hit
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: off the joint and then turned to his friend Smokey Robinson. Smoke,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I'm going to do it, Marvin, you crazy man. No,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: for real, I'm going to do it. Fuck Berry Gordy.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: I don't need Motown. I don't even need music, Marvin.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: You can't play football. You'll get killed out there. Besides,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: the Detroit Lions don't need no stoned soul singer playing
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: wide out. You watch Smoke, I'm gonna do it. Since
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: the days of the Motortown Review, Marvin Gay had done
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: almost as much for motown as motown had done for
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gay. His single I Heard It Through the Grapevine
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: was a smash hit number one on the charts, the
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: R and B charts, and the pop charts. The album
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: he'd fought tooth and nailed to make, What's Going On,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: an album he had complete creative control over, a protest album,
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: was a massive smash commercially and critically. Think about that
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: for a minute. You're Marvin Gay. You're a part of one,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: if not the most successful hit making machines of all time,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: motown records, with a tried and true, can't beat recipe
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: for success. And you decide you want to do it differently.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: You decide you don't want to work with house songwriters,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: you want to write the songs yourself. And you decide
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: you don't want to be limited to house musicians. You
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: want to use whatever musicians you want to use, and
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you want to produce the record yourself. And oh yeah,
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: fuck that bubblegum baby love shit, it's the same old song. No,
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: you're gonna make an album of protest songs, and you do,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: and you nail it. What's Going On was a massive
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: success by any creative or financial measure. But if the
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: true measure of being an artist is taking risks to
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: express yourself, to give voice to others through what you create.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: The Marvin Gaye was the early seventies pop music what
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Pablo Picasso was the twentieth century visual art. And still
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: Barry Gordy wasn't going to give Marvin what he wanted,
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: a new contract in his own recording studio to continue
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: making records. It's his way, so fuck it. Marvin would
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: quit the business altogether. He'd go play football in the
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: National Football League for the Detroit Lions. A tryout was arranged,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: and Marvin wasn't terrible, but the coach had mercy and
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: did Marvin a favor by not inviting him to camp.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: The thought of Dick Budkiss and Deacon Jones teeing off
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: on Marvin gay was too much, so Marvin continued to
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: negotiate with Barry Gordy and ultimately got what he wanted.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: Two years later, Marvin emerged from his new studio with
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the long player Let's Get It On, And it was
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: a stunning creative achievement. Except the subject matter of this
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: album wasn't social unrest, it was sex. Marvin Gaye was
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: a freak, and Let's Get It On brought out something
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: else and him as a writer and performer, something the
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: world hadn't seen in him before. A sea was storming
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: inside of him. He'd been trying to hold back this
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: feeling for so long, but now it was time to
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: let the love come out. If Marvin couldn't improve his
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: manhood on the football field, then he would in America's bedroom.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Let's Get It On was unapologetically horny, sensual, and smooth.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: No one was smoother than Marvin Day. He'd always been
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: capable of gripping listeners with the singing at once intimate, rough, vulnerable,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: dirty and innocent. But when the subject matter was sex
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: and only sex, well, his voice was a Spanish flag trap.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: An off record and out on the town. Marvin's sexual
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: conquests were the stuff of legend. Everyone wanted him, and
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Marvin was down to freak. Despite an irrational jealous streak
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: that was being fueled by increasing cocaine use, Marvin encouraged
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: his girlfriend and later wife, Jan Hunter to have sex
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: with other men, and not just any other men, his
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: young protegee singer Rick James, and his biggest singing rival
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: at the time, Teddy Pendergrass. Rumor was circulating that Marvin
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: and Jan slept with Mick Jagger and his girlfriend Jerry
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: Hall after a night out at Studio fifty four, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: that he was sleeping with actress Margot Kidder as well
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: as with the girlfriend of Love Story actor Ryan O'Neill
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: while O'Neill was doing his best to creep on Marvin's wife, Jan.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Marvin didn't mind these rumors. They burnished his manly image. However,
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: stories about Marvin's bisexuality, sex with Richard pryor sex with
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Marlon Brando would not surface until years later. After Let's
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: get it on. The sex, the drugs. It was all
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: becoming too much for Marvin. He was one of the
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: biggest stars in the Lamb, but despite the fact that
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: the entire world wanted him, Marvin Gaye retreated with his
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: wife into his cabin in the woods, on top of
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: a mountain of cocaine and under a blanket of paranoia.
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: Marvin put the knife down. I loved you too much, Jan, Marvin,
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: take the knife away from my throat. Jan. This love
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: is killing me. I beg you to provoke me. Provoke
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: me right now so I can take us both out
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: of our misery. Marvin Gaye was high as fuck and
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: drunk on paranoia, a mix of psychedelic mushrooms, pharmaceutical gray cocaine,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: and the recent realization that his wife Jan had taken
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: him at his word that she should sleep with singer
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Teddy Pendergrass, and it had driven Marvin into a violent ranch.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: But before things got all Oj and Nicole, Marvin got
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: hip and dropped the knife. Jan split with the kids,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: and Marvin eventually got himself ready for a world tour,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: which was saying something thing because Marvin Gay hated touring,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: he hated performing, and by the late seventies and early
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: eighties he'd managed to at least morph the goofy Olaye
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Venice dance moves into something passing as smooth on stage.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: But Marvin's stage act as of late was now bordering
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: on a parody of himself high to the gills on cocaine,
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: nightly paranoid. It was something to prove I'm not gay, Dad,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I swear Marvin the Ladies Man reduced himself to stripping
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: down to his underwear on stage to close out the show.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: If his natural talent, even in this drugged out Hayes,
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: hadn't been so immense, it would have been pathetic. But
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: somehow the show managed to stay on the rails on stage. Anyway,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: off stage, things were about as far off the fucking
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: rails as they could get. Marvin's drug use would have
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: made Keith Richards blush. His blood type was cocaine, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: his fear had him firmly in its grips. Fear of
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: not being able to perform, fear of his fans turning
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: their back on him, fear of the Lord's wrath. And
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: all these fears weren't unfounded. Marvin's ability to perform was
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: in question. His shows because of his drug use were suffering,
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: and not every show was a sold out smash. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: as for the Lord, well, Marvin, going as far back
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: to his early Motown days, had always felt pangs of guilt,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: shame for going secular and eskewing the Lord's path, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: for disappointing his father, the Preacher. And of course there
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: was always the fear, the voice in his head, the
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: one that questioned his manhood, his sexuality. To allay these
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: fears on the road, Marvin traveled with two men to
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: help him through the darkness, one his coke dealer, the
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: other his priest. Marvin's hotel suites would have one room
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: adjacent for one and another adjacent for the other, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: Marvin before and after his shows would run back and
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: forth between each to get high and then to seek
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the Lord's forgiveness. Literally caught between heaven and hell. Something
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: had to give. Marvin couldn't keep up with the madness.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: He was capsizing. After the sexual Healing Tour ended in
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, Marvin retreated to the home he bought
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: his parents in the West Adams District of Los Angeles.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Now living under the same roof with his domineering, judgmental dad,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Marvin was a shell of himself, reduced to being a high, insecure,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: paranoid little boy and a mama's boy. At that nothing
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: had changed from when he was a little kid. Marvin
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: still sought solace from his father's verbal abuse in his
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: mother's arms. And father, as Marvin's dad was called, was
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: still cross dressing, still constantly on his back about his
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: sinful lifestyle, doing drugs, betraying the Lord through the Devil's music, etc.
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: And Marvin felt the shame of it all well. However,
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: different and no matter the conflict, Marvin Gay and Marvin
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Gay Senior had one thing in common there need to
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: be received as men. What we now call toxic masculinity
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: was a cloud that hung heavy over the Gay household. Marvin,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: eager to impress upon his father his capacity to protect
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: their family, gave father a thirty eight caliber smith and Wesley.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Marvin owned a few firearms himself, purchased because of his
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: increased conduced paranoia, but arming his dad would prove to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: be a disastrous decision. April first, nineteen eighty four, Marvin
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: heard his mother yelling in fear from down the hall.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: He could hear his father's voice shouting her down, and
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: then his mother again crying out in pain. Father was
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: beating his woman, Marvin's mom something fierce. Marvin felt his
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: eyes cross in anger. His throat went dry despite the
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: cocaine dripping from the back of his nose. His hands
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: started to shake, his pulse started rapidly pumping blood to
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: his brain, which was now a black box of shame anger.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: He literally felt something in him snap as he rose
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: out of his bed and just his bathrobe and beanie cap.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: The sound of his feet hurriedly pounding the wooden floorboards
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: of the upstairs hallways sent notice to father that this
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: beating might not go unchallenged. Just then, Marvin burst into
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: his mother's bedroom and did what he'd been wanting to
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: do his whole life. Beat the living hell out of
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: his old man. That hell had it coming. That hell
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: was an impenetrable cage. That stole part of Marvin's childhood,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: stole part of his confidence, stole part of his identity.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: That hell was on the ropes. Marvin, in a blind rage,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: rained blow upon blow on to his father until Marvin
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: finally snapped back into reality. He looked at father, crumpled
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: on the floor. He'd be all right, but Marvin, Marvin
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: had that old feeling again, a mix of shame and betrayal.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: He headed back to his room, sank into bed, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: steeled himself for his coming depression. But he should have
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: steeled himself for the coming storm that was the wrath
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: of his father. For in what seemed like an instant,
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: Marvin Gaye's dad was standing above him in his bedroom,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: looking down on the boy he'd brought into this world
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: and the man he'd take out of it. His eyes
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: were black like a doll's. You could smell the meen
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: on him. At his side. In his hand the thirty
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: eight Smith and Wesson that Marvin gave him. He took
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: aim at his son point blank. Marvin knew what was coming, deliverance.
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: His father pulled the trigger two shots, one in the shoulder,
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: one in the chest. Marvin Gaye died almost instantly, sad
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: and senseless. But Marvin was free, free from the shame,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: free from the betrayal, free from the paranoia and the addiction.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: And there's a theory that Marvin Gay deliberately antagonized his
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: father as part of some paternal suicidal death wish, knowing
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: that his dad, armed with the gun he'd given him,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: would be unable to let it go and would finally
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: do what the cocaine was unable to do. The liver
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Marvin gave from the shame and the pain to set
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: him free, and remarkably, Marvin Gay Senior was also free.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and received what amounted
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: to a slap on the wrist, five years suspended sentence
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: for killing for killing his son. His whole life, Marvin
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: gay struggled with the shame of his father, the cross dresser,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: and the notion repeatedly reinforced by his father that Marvin.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: Despite his success, he was somehow an embarrassment. Somehow he
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: was someone who'd betrayed the Lord and betrayed his family
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: by making a living in the Devil's Workshop as a
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: secular entertainer. But in the end, it was his father
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: who committed the ultimate betrayal, betraying the parental covenant, breaking
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: the one rule every parent should until their dying breath
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: to protect their children. Shameful, some would say a disgrace.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan in this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Credits for this episode can be found on the show
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
• 25:37
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• 25:40
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• 26:03
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• 26:16
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