Latest / DISGRACELAND / River Phoenix: Religious Cults, Deadly Speedballs, and a Disappearing Act

Transcript

River Phoenix: Religious Cults, Deadly Speedballs, and a Disappearing Act · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
0:03
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information.
0:07
Speaker 2: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is the
0:19
Speaker 2: story of River Phoenix, but once in a generation actor,
0:24
Speaker 2: big talent and big heart. It's also the story of
0:27
Speaker 2: a religious cult, a disappearing guitar player, hustlers out on
0:32
Speaker 2: Vasilene Alley, and a deadly speedball and a death outside
0:37
Speaker 2: the viper room. It's the story of not only a
0:40
Speaker 2: great actor, but of that actor's friends who made great music.
0:46
Speaker 2: Unlike that music I played for you at the top
0:48
Speaker 2: of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a
0:51
Speaker 2: preset loop for my mellotron called Oki Dokie Smokey Bear
0:56
Speaker 2: MK two. I played you that loop because I can't
1:00
Speaker 2: afford the rights to dream Lover by Mariah Carey. Hey,
1:05
Speaker 2: why would I play you that specific slice of emotions
1:08
Speaker 2: sampling cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the
1:13
Speaker 2: number one song in America on October thirty first, nineteen
1:16
Speaker 2: ninety three, and that was the day that River Phoenix
1:20
Speaker 2: died suddenly on the Sunset Boulevard sidewalk. On this episode,
1:26
Speaker 2: religious cults, disappearing guitar players back Ally, Hustlers in the
1:31
Speaker 2: Late Great River, Phoenix, Tom Jake Brennan, and This This
1:38
Speaker 2: Disgrace Land.
2:03
Speaker 1: Although some hadn't seen him in.
2:05
Speaker 2: A few years, they all knew they would miss him forever.
2:08
Speaker 2: Filmmakers like Gus van Zandt and Neil Jordan dedicated their
2:12
Speaker 2: latest movies to his memory. Arim dedicated their new album
2:16
Speaker 2: Monster to him, and later a song Ebo The Letter
2:19
Speaker 2: bore an inscription with his name on the sleeve of
2:22
Speaker 2: its single, The Cult, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Natalie Merchant,
2:26
Speaker 2: Belinda Carlyle, Rufus Wainwright, the Stereophonics, not a Serf. They
2:30
Speaker 2: all wrote songs that were directly about his legacy or
2:33
Speaker 2: about the tragedy of his untimely death. And every person
2:38
Speaker 2: behind every song, every movie, and every other piece of
2:40
Speaker 2: art that strived to quantify the sense of loss all
2:44
Speaker 2: acknowledged one truism. The most important thing is the hardest
2:48
Speaker 2: thing to say, to paraphrase Stephen King. Anyway, he was
2:53
Speaker 2: only twenty three and the most talented actor of his generation.
2:56
Speaker 2: His greatest roles lay ahead of him, and he was gone.
3:00
Speaker 2: It was too soon. He was too young. How do
3:03
Speaker 2: you say that, how do you convey exactly what that
3:06
Speaker 2: all means? It was near the end of nineteen ninety
3:09
Speaker 2: three when River Phoenix walked into the Viper Room on
3:11
Speaker 2: Sunset Boulevard.
3:13
Speaker 1: The room was dark.
3:14
Speaker 2: It was always dark inside the Viper Room that Hollywood
3:17
Speaker 2: club way, so dark that the stars could disappear.
3:21
Speaker 1: It had been that way since nineteen.
3:23
Speaker 2: Oh three, eight eight two five Sunset Boulevard for over
3:27
Speaker 2: one hundred years. The La Hideaway on the corner of
3:30
Speaker 2: Sunset and Larrabie was known by many names, The Cotton Club,
3:34
Speaker 2: Rue Angel, the Last Call, the Melody Room, Filthy mcnasty's,
3:37
Speaker 2: the Central. In the nineteen forties, it was a hangout
3:40
Speaker 2: for wise Guy Mickey Cohen, who ran dirty money through
3:43
Speaker 2: the basement. In the nineteen fifties, it was a strip
3:46
Speaker 2: joint again with Mobcash and Bob Mussel, until it was
3:49
Speaker 2: shut down for violating obscenity laws. In the nineteen eighties,
3:53
Speaker 2: it was a dive bar where John Belushi could be
3:55
Speaker 2: spotted in the shadows and off the radar and on
3:57
Speaker 2: the rails. Once before River Phoenix walked inside on that
4:02
Speaker 2: fateful evening October thirtieth, going on thirty first, nineteen ninety three.
4:07
Speaker 2: Johnny Depp had outbid both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Frank Stallone
4:11
Speaker 2: to become the club's new owner. The address maintained it
4:15
Speaker 2: to see and be seeing the lure, even if the
4:18
Speaker 2: Vendi's low lit vibe made it hard to see anything
4:20
Speaker 2: at all. Tom Petty played there Grottis on opening night.
4:26
Speaker 2: Unlike the story about Chris Chambers, the character River played
4:29
Speaker 2: and Stand by Me the Rob Reiner film, adapted from
4:32
Speaker 2: a Stephen King novella called The Body. River did encounter
4:36
Speaker 2: two men arguing inside the viper room when he entered,
4:39
Speaker 2: and there was no knife, and River wasn't stabbed in
4:42
Speaker 2: the throat as he tried to keep the peace, like
4:44
Speaker 2: the fictional Chris Chambers had been. But River was the
4:47
Speaker 2: kind of person to keep the peace. He was big
4:50
Speaker 2: on peace, big on love, big on family and veganism
4:52
Speaker 2: and goodness to others and to the earth itself. He
4:55
Speaker 2: was the kind of guy he wanted for a brother,
4:57
Speaker 2: the kind of guy you could bring home to Mom.
5:00
Speaker 2: It's a kind of guy who was up for any adventure,
5:02
Speaker 2: the crazier the better. The kind of actor that directors
5:05
Speaker 2: only found once every generation if they were lucky. Rob
5:09
Speaker 2: Reiner found that actor when he cast River and stand
5:11
Speaker 2: By Me. That was nineteen eighty six. It was River's
5:15
Speaker 2: breakout role Coming of Age, Flick piss Up a rope Man,
5:18
Speaker 2: and that's all River had been doing up until that point.
5:21
Speaker 2: Coming of Age, River was just fifteen. He was Chris
5:24
Speaker 2: Chambers because he had already lived that role, just like
5:27
Speaker 2: he had lived the role with Charlie Fox and Peter Weirs.
5:30
Speaker 2: The Mosquito Coast, released later in eighty six, River played
5:34
Speaker 2: the son of a brilliant inventor, Harrison Ford, who rejects
5:36
Speaker 2: the commercialism of the United States and moves his family
5:39
Speaker 2: to Central America. River was intimately familiar with that narrative.
5:43
Speaker 2: He could also relate to the role of Danny Pope
5:46
Speaker 2: and Running on Empty, directed by veteran Sidney Lumett, who'd
5:49
Speaker 2: worked with everyone from Alpaccino to Paul Newman. In that
5:53
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty eight film, River played the son of counterculture
5:56
Speaker 2: radicals who were on the run from the FBI and
5:58
Speaker 2: never stayed in one place for too long. River knew
6:01
Speaker 2: about counterculture just like he knew about the rejection.
6:04
Speaker 1: Of American commercialism.
6:07
Speaker 2: River pold from his own life experiences to make each
6:10
Speaker 2: character feel lived in.
6:12
Speaker 1: Unlike a lot of his.
6:13
Speaker 2: Contemporaries, River had something unique, something special. He borrowed into
6:18
Speaker 2: his roles like the method actors of your and delivered
6:21
Speaker 2: performances that transcended his straight out of central casting good looks.
6:26
Speaker 2: That all changed after Halloween nineteen ninety three, shortly after
6:30
Speaker 2: River died on a sunset boulevard sidewalk. The tragedy of
6:34
Speaker 2: his death overshadowed all that other stuff, his talent, his choice, roles,
6:39
Speaker 2: his goodness. Fame will do that because fame doesn't care
6:43
Speaker 2: about what movies you were in or the sort of
6:46
Speaker 2: impact you made while you were around. Fame just wants
6:49
Speaker 2: to know how it all ended. Fame wants the stuff
6:52
Speaker 2: from the dark room, the room where you disappeared, where
6:55
Speaker 2: your star went out, The room that you managed to
6:57
Speaker 2: emerge from, only to collapse on cold a fault under
7:00
Speaker 2: the pall of Hollywood light pollution. River's next role was
7:04
Speaker 2: supposed to have vent Daniel Molloy in Neil Jordan's adaptation
7:07
Speaker 2: of the Anne Riis novel Interview with the Vampire, a
7:10
Speaker 2: role that ultimately went to Christian Slater. Excepting that role
7:14
Speaker 2: was a calculated move. It must River's image. He'd been
7:18
Speaker 2: mussing that image ever since his pin up photos graced
7:21
Speaker 2: the pages of fan rags like teen Beat and Bob.
7:24
Speaker 2: His dedication to the cultivation of himself as an actor
7:27
Speaker 2: was at the center of the best stories about River,
7:29
Speaker 2: the stories people told to keep the memories alive, the
7:32
Speaker 2: ones that made the campfire circles and tracks out into
7:35
Speaker 2: the woods were trains rumbled down nearby tracks and junkyard
7:39
Speaker 2: dogs failed to live.
7:40
Speaker 1: Up to their legend.
7:41
Speaker 2: River lived up to his legend even when he was
7:45
Speaker 2: denying his own legend. Gainesville, Florida, nineteen eighty nine. A
7:52
Speaker 2: skinhead at the party made River Phoenix as the River Phoenix,
7:56
Speaker 2: the one who had just been at the Oscars, the
7:58
Speaker 2: one who was trying to blend in with the low
8:00
Speaker 2: vocals play shows with his alt rock band Alekazattic, The
8:04
Speaker 2: same one who'd spent the day tearing down some of
8:06
Speaker 2: those old Tiger Beat pinup photos that Arrival band had
8:09
Speaker 2: stapled next to the flyers for his band's upcoming show
8:12
Speaker 2: at the Hardback. The skinhead knew he wasn't just another dude.
8:16
Speaker 2: He wasn't gonna let him slip into anonymity that easily.
8:19
Speaker 2: But River was feeling contrarian. He was all method. He
8:23
Speaker 2: slipped into a role. He told the skinhead that his
8:26
Speaker 2: name was Rio. You must be thinking of another guy,
8:29
Speaker 2: he said, I'm Rio, not River. Who's the difference? Another
8:33
Speaker 2: skin had got in on the debate. He summoned a third,
8:36
Speaker 2: and soon River was surrounded. Nah, man, you're full of shit,
8:40
Speaker 2: one of the skin had spat his head tilted, Why
8:43
Speaker 2: you full of shit? You got a fucking problem with me? No?
8:47
Speaker 1: River responded, no problem.
8:49
Speaker 2: He looked as three tormentors in the eyes, just not
8:52
Speaker 2: interested in having this conversation right now? And the skin
8:55
Speaker 2: heads laughed, not interested, and they laughed some more, not interested?
9:00
Speaker 2: Are you interested in my fist in your face? Are
9:02
Speaker 2: you interested in my boot up your fucking ass? Or
9:04
Speaker 2: are you too good for that too?
9:06
Speaker 1: Look?
9:06
Speaker 2: River said, you want to beat the shit out of me?
9:09
Speaker 1: Fine?
9:09
Speaker 2: Why do you want to beat the shit out of me?
9:11
Speaker 2: Because I look like someone else? Because I am someone else?
9:14
Speaker 2: Because you think I'm not telling you the truth? The
9:16
Speaker 2: skinheads paused, Wait, they were confused. Did not want to
9:20
Speaker 2: beat the shit out of him? Was he actually not
9:21
Speaker 2: the person that he thought he was. Was he telling
9:23
Speaker 2: the truth? Too many questions? The confrontation had become all
9:27
Speaker 2: pretzel logic and was therefore rope in the process. However,
9:32
Speaker 2: River Phoenix had become someone completely different right there before
9:36
Speaker 2: their eyes. Hollywood, February nineteen seventy one. John McVie looked
10:07
Speaker 2: out the window of his room at the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel.
10:10
Speaker 2: Yuka Street was eerily calm, but John's anxiety was on eleven.
10:16
Speaker 1: His English band.
10:17
Speaker 2: Fleetwood Mac had just rolled into town on their American tour.
10:20
Speaker 2: It was supposed to be a rebirth, their first record
10:23
Speaker 2: and tour without founding member Peter Green.
10:25
Speaker 1: They had a lot to prove.
10:27
Speaker 2: And they were scheduled to prove it for three straight
10:29
Speaker 2: nights at the Whiskey at Go Go. There was one
10:31
Speaker 2: major problem. Fleetwood Max guitarist and singer Jeremy Spencer was missing.
10:37
Speaker 2: He left after they checked into the hotel, said he
10:39
Speaker 2: was going to the grocery store. When hours passed and
10:42
Speaker 2: it was obvious that Jeremy wasn't coming back, the band
10:45
Speaker 2: went into panic mode. They called the British Consulate, they
10:48
Speaker 2: called the LAPD, they called their label Warner Brothers. They
10:51
Speaker 2: even got the whiskey's owner, Elmer Valentine, a former Chicago
10:54
Speaker 2: cop with a storied history of losing and finding guys
10:57
Speaker 2: via his connections in organized crime, to join the search,
11:01
Speaker 2: but no Dice. There would be no Fleetwood Mac shows
11:04
Speaker 2: at the Whiskey that week. Three days later, the phone
11:08
Speaker 2: in John's hotel room rang. It was the band's manager,
11:12
Speaker 2: Clifford Davis. The voice on the other end of the
11:15
Speaker 2: line was frantic, John, You're not going to believe this.
11:17
Speaker 2: They found him, They found Jeremy. You're not going to
11:20
Speaker 2: believe this. Jeremy had gone tropo with the Jesus Freaks.
11:24
Speaker 2: He was found dancing, chanting, and praying alongside four hundred
11:27
Speaker 2: others at a four story building in LA's gritty downtown,
11:30
Speaker 2: the makeshift headquarters of the Children of God, a pseudorevolutionary
11:34
Speaker 2: religious sect that preached change through rejecting societal norms. Jeremy's
11:39
Speaker 2: hair was cut short, he was wearing a sackcloth. He
11:43
Speaker 2: had given his two hundred dollars over to the Children
11:45
Speaker 2: of God, or more accurately, to its self appointed prophet.
11:48
Speaker 2: David Brandt. Burg Berg was a pastor who had fallen
11:52
Speaker 2: from grace. Booted from an evangelical church on suspicions of
11:56
Speaker 2: sexual misconduct, he rebounded by attracting impressionable hippies along the
12:00
Speaker 2: beaches of Greater la to what he called Teens for Christ.
12:05
Speaker 2: The hippies called him Father David, or Moses, or eventually
12:08
Speaker 2: just Moe. By the time Jeremy Spencer was absorbed into
12:12
Speaker 2: Moe's fold, Teens for Christ had morphed in two Children
12:15
Speaker 2: of God. This membership was growing exponentially. Moe was seizing
12:20
Speaker 2: the attention not to mention the worldly possessions of twenty
12:23
Speaker 2: something counterculture types who continued to desperately seek out the
12:26
Speaker 2: hippie dream, the same hippie dream that had begun its
12:29
Speaker 2: death spiral a few years earlier at the Rolling Stones
12:32
Speaker 2: deadly Altamont festival. John and the others in Fleetwood Mac
12:37
Speaker 2: hardly recognized their bandmate. All it took was a few
12:40
Speaker 2: days for Jeremy to become someone else. He had nothing,
12:44
Speaker 2: he wanted nothing, He said very little. They asked Jeremy
12:47
Speaker 2: to return, but he refused. He renounced Fleetwood Mac. He
12:50
Speaker 2: renounced materialism, He renounced his wife and his two children.
12:54
Speaker 1: He was an ever turning back. He was a child
12:57
Speaker 1: of God.
12:58
Speaker 2: Now Crockett, Texas, nineteen seventy two, Fleetwood Max Sentimental Lady
13:07
Speaker 2: crackled from the speakers as John Bottom drove his VW
13:10
Speaker 2: down I forty five. Sitting behind him, his wife Arlen
13:15
Speaker 2: held their two year old boy, River Jude, and sang along.
13:18
Speaker 2: River was their first child, though they were currently expecting another.
13:22
Speaker 2: He was born at a peppermin farm in Madris, Oregon,
13:25
Speaker 2: which John and Arland stumbled upon while driving around with
13:28
Speaker 2: their DIY mobile commune. With Arlind nearing her due date,
13:32
Speaker 2: they had put down stakes for a spell, and the
13:35
Speaker 2: couple's commune members worked the farm in exchange for a
13:38
Speaker 2: place to crash. The idealism of their hippymo is what
13:42
Speaker 2: led John and Arland to Oregon in the first place,
13:45
Speaker 2: and also what led them to Texas. Now they were wanderers,
13:49
Speaker 2: peace and lovers, and they knew there was more to
13:51
Speaker 2: life than materialism. There was a higher consciousness out there
13:55
Speaker 2: for the taking. War was over if you wanted it,
13:58
Speaker 2: And they were searching for something, something real, something true,
14:01
Speaker 2: and they would know it when they found it, Just
14:04
Speaker 2: like he John Bottom had known that she Arlen Dunetts
14:08
Speaker 2: was Lee one when he first saw her standing on
14:10
Speaker 2: the edge of Santa Monica Boulevard back in nineteen sixty
14:13
Speaker 2: seven film Stuck out in the dry Los Angeles are
14:16
Speaker 2: She took his breath away. He pulled the VW over,
14:20
Speaker 2: offered her a ride, and that was that brother, and
14:23
Speaker 2: they started a new journey together in that moment.
14:26
Speaker 1: It was fate.
14:27
Speaker 2: From there, Fate gave him a mobile commune, and then
14:30
Speaker 2: the Peppermint Firm, and then River arrived, and then cut
14:33
Speaker 2: to another epic VW odyssey with John and Arln River
14:37
Speaker 2: and tow of course, still searching for that thing, that honest,
14:41
Speaker 2: real thing, somewhere away from the trappings of stuff, free
14:45
Speaker 2: from political and economic ideologies that smothered creativity and individuality.
14:50
Speaker 1: And they would know it when they found it.
14:52
Speaker 2: And in Crockett, Texas, in nineteen seventy two, they thought
14:56
Speaker 2: they'd found it. The Children of God Community Crockett was
15:00
Speaker 2: one of over one hundred that had popped up across
15:02
Speaker 2: the United States and Canada in the early seventies, and
15:05
Speaker 2: at each one, members were expected to follow the same rules.
15:10
Speaker 2: Reject society, reject materialism, give up all your worldly possessions,
15:14
Speaker 2: don't pay taxes, and don't vote. David Brandtberg aka Father
15:19
Speaker 2: David aka MO. So called children were also expected to proselytize,
15:24
Speaker 2: and they sang songs, they bore witness, they handed out pamphlets.
15:28
Speaker 2: John and Arlin were put in the group's leadership track,
15:31
Speaker 2: and soon they were seeing the world and spreading the
15:33
Speaker 2: word from Mexico to Puerto Rico to Venezuela. And during
15:37
Speaker 2: their four year tenure as proselytizers, their family grew a girl,
15:40
Speaker 2: Rain Joan of Arc and then another boy, Joaquin Raphael,
15:43
Speaker 2: and then another girl, Liberty Mariposa River and Rain took
15:47
Speaker 2: the street corners of Caracas with a guitar and sang
15:50
Speaker 2: songs to scrounge up tips. And there was a darker
15:53
Speaker 2: reasoning behind MO. Their leaders called to live lean and
15:57
Speaker 2: live communally. The apocalypse was near and it was best
16:00
Speaker 2: to unburden yourself of such meaningless flotsam and jetsam before
16:04
Speaker 2: the biblical shit hit the fan. But families like the
16:07
Speaker 2: Bottoms were being duped by Mo's cult, because that's what
16:11
Speaker 2: it was a cult. They weren't told about everything that
16:14
Speaker 2: was going on behind the scenes. There were unspeakable things
16:17
Speaker 2: happening in the darkness behind closed doors. Some light was
16:21
Speaker 2: shed on the true nature of MOA's cult when he
16:23
Speaker 2: sent around a missive to his flock that encouraged women
16:26
Speaker 2: to freely practice what he dubbed flirty fishing, in other words,
16:30
Speaker 2: find wealthy and powerful men, sleep with them, and convince
16:33
Speaker 2: them to turn their money and their bodies over to
16:35
Speaker 2: the Children of God. When that piece of mail arrived
16:39
Speaker 2: in the Bottom's mailbox, the wool was pulled from their eyes.
16:42
Speaker 2: They began to see the cult for what it really was,
16:45
Speaker 2: and it wasn't that real true thing they had searched
16:49
Speaker 2: so long for on the road, and they severed their
16:52
Speaker 2: ties with the Children of God for good. It wasn't
16:57
Speaker 2: until much later that more of the cult's truth emerged.
17:00
Speaker 2: Mo had been openly promoting incest and pedophilia in the ranks.
17:04
Speaker 2: Children were encouraged to experiment sexually with other children, and
17:08
Speaker 2: according to mo it wasn't taboo for adults to engage
17:11
Speaker 2: in sexual acts with kids either. Back in nineteen seventy eight,
17:16
Speaker 2: the Bottom family split for good from David Bramptberg aka
17:20
Speaker 2: Moe and his Children of God when they boarded a
17:23
Speaker 2: cargo ship in Caracas and sale to Miami, and they
17:27
Speaker 2: would search for a better reality. They would make a
17:29
Speaker 2: fresh start, and they cleansed the past by adopting a
17:32
Speaker 2: new surname, Phoenix, which was rich and meaning for river.
17:37
Speaker 2: It was his first experience becoming someone new.
17:44
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this. We're were were.
17:52
Speaker 2: The club kids came from the suburbs. They came from
17:54
Speaker 2: Gresham and Beaverton, and they came across the Columbia River
17:57
Speaker 2: from Vancouver. When they made it to port into the
18:00
Speaker 2: City nightclub on Northwest Thirteenth Avenue, the boys could finally
18:04
Speaker 2: take their shirts off, and the girls could ignore the boys,
18:07
Speaker 2: and they all could feel free to be whoever they
18:09
Speaker 2: truly were. Gay, bye, stray, curious, unsure, whatever. Most nights,
18:14
Speaker 2: the line to get inside the alcohol free all ages
18:16
Speaker 2: clubs stretched down the sidewalk, and the anticipation to get
18:20
Speaker 2: beyond the front door was palpable. Each time the door
18:23
Speaker 2: would open to let in another guest, unrelenting bass would
18:26
Speaker 2: ooze out into the night, so with a steady waft
18:30
Speaker 2: of close cigarettes, the club kid at the front of
18:32
Speaker 2: the line would get the customary pat down and then
18:35
Speaker 2: would walk inside past the sign of the front office,
18:38
Speaker 2: the one that prohibited over heterosexual behavior, and then on
18:41
Speaker 2: into the main room, a dance floor heaving to the
18:44
Speaker 2: rhythm of house music and the flash of strobes, boys
18:48
Speaker 2: and wigs, girls with shaved heads, studded collars.
18:50
Speaker 1: Next to pop preppy callers.
18:52
Speaker 2: From ten pm to two am, every Wednesday through Sunday,
18:55
Speaker 2: anything went. The City Nightclub was the only place in
18:59
Speaker 2: Portland and where marginalized kids between the ages of fifteen
19:02
Speaker 2: and twenty five felt comfortable being themselves. In the early
19:06
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties. It was an important gathering place for gay
19:10
Speaker 2: teens and kids who had nowhere else to go, and
19:13
Speaker 2: the City Nightclub offered a room where they could live
19:15
Speaker 2: out loud without fear of judgment. August nineteen ninety River
19:20
Speaker 2: Phoenix stood in the City Nightclub's long line, just another
19:23
Speaker 2: twenty year old anticipating the transformative powers of deep bass,
19:27
Speaker 2: flashing lights, and sweaty bodies. But unlike the other clubgoers
19:32
Speaker 2: looking to be part of something bigger than themselves, River
19:34
Speaker 2: was looking to disappear. He didn't want to be River
19:37
Speaker 2: Phoenix that night. He wanted to be another anonymous Portland
19:40
Speaker 2: street kid looking for something they couldn't be found in
19:42
Speaker 2: the daylight. His locks of blonde hair were cut short,
19:47
Speaker 2: his tiger beet pinup style replaced with something greasy and haggard, thin,
19:52
Speaker 2: sunken eyes. He wore a dirty barn jacket. He was
19:55
Speaker 2: a fallen j crue angel. The River was disappearing into
19:58
Speaker 2: research for his next My Own Private Idaho, directed by
20:02
Speaker 2: Portland's hot indie filmmaker Gus van Zant, whose last film,
20:06
Speaker 2: Drugstore Cowboy, took home awards for Best Picture and Best
20:10
Speaker 2: Director from the National Society of Film Critics. In My
20:13
Speaker 2: Own Private Idaho, River would play Mikey Waters, a narcoleptic
20:17
Speaker 2: street hustler who hits the road with co star Keanu
20:20
Speaker 2: reeves to seek out some idealized version of his mother.
20:23
Speaker 2: For both River and Keanu, then best known as one
20:26
Speaker 2: half of the excellent Bill and Ted, the roles were
20:29
Speaker 2: daring choices that broke from their established tiger beat tight
20:34
Speaker 2: The role was such a dramatic shift that River's agent,
20:36
Speaker 2: Iris Burton, didn't want River.
20:38
Speaker 1: Taking the role in the first place.
20:40
Speaker 2: She was worried it would destroy him.
20:42
Speaker 1: It was worth the risk.
20:43
Speaker 2: Maybe if the role destroyed anything, it would be his
20:46
Speaker 2: teeny bopper image to deliver a faithful character on screen,
20:51
Speaker 2: something dark and desperate, unlike anything he'd played before. River
20:54
Speaker 2: lost himself in the city underworld street culture of Portland.
20:58
Speaker 2: He got into heroin using hard drugs like cocaine, since
21:01
Speaker 2: he was fifteen, freebasing at an age when his peers
21:04
Speaker 2: were experimenting with zema, and so it was easy enough
21:08
Speaker 2: for River to go even harder. Important smack was everywhere,
21:11
Speaker 2: especially in the cities underworld of dealers, users and hustlers,
21:16
Speaker 2: and at places like the City Nightclub.
21:18
Speaker 1: He sought out the.
21:19
Speaker 2: Action going on above the big communal dance party on
21:22
Speaker 2: the first floor. He was looking for what was happening
21:25
Speaker 2: upstairs in the smaller room, the room with a darker soundtrack,
21:29
Speaker 2: more alien sex fiend than Frankie Knuckles. Because like all
21:34
Speaker 2: great things, the City Nightclub had a flip side, a
21:37
Speaker 2: dark side. It lurked upstairs. It blended in among the
21:41
Speaker 2: shadows of the wallflowers, coke, heroin and pills, or the
21:44
Speaker 2: currency creepy old men going incognito or trying to go incognito,
21:49
Speaker 2: though they always stuck out like sore thumbs, and they
21:52
Speaker 2: were looking to take advantage of younger boys hard up
21:54
Speaker 2: for attention or for a few bucks. The boys, on
21:57
Speaker 2: the other hand, were playing their own grift. Soon they
22:00
Speaker 2: were the ones propositioning the older men in order to
22:02
Speaker 2: make a quick buck in one of the bathroom's stalls.
22:05
Speaker 2: River had already been given a crash course in the
22:08
Speaker 2: grift game.
22:11
Speaker 1: That happened earlier that night.
22:12
Speaker 2: When Scott Green, a former Portland street kid who was
22:15
Speaker 2: part of the inspiration for the character of Mikey Waters,
22:19
Speaker 2: took River down to a four block stretch of Southwest Stark.
22:22
Speaker 2: Portland's gay community referred to it as Vassaline Alley, the
22:27
Speaker 2: Pied Piper, Somebody's place gay bars and hotels, where impulsive
22:31
Speaker 2: trysts were just as likely to happen in a lobby
22:34
Speaker 2: bathroom as they were in a paid hourly room. River
22:37
Speaker 2: and Scott took their spots against the wall of a building.
22:41
Speaker 2: The paint was peeling, cigarettes burned between their fingers, the
22:45
Speaker 2: pavement was wet from a recent storm. Scott gave River
22:48
Speaker 2: pointers on his posture. Posture was everything. Posture could make
22:51
Speaker 2: a brick a deal, And they watched a kid climb
22:54
Speaker 2: into the passenger seat of a sedan that had just
22:56
Speaker 2: pulled over into a handicapped spot on the side of
22:58
Speaker 2: the road. Bumper was dented on the driver's side. Headlights cut,
23:03
Speaker 2: muffler rumbling, and the kid closed the door behind him.
23:06
Speaker 2: How old is he, River asked, Scott shrugged. A few
23:09
Speaker 2: minutes later, the kid was out of the car, stuffing
23:11
Speaker 2: a bill into the pocket of his jeans. He lit
23:13
Speaker 2: a cigarette and disappeared into the shadows on Stark where up.
23:17
Speaker 2: Scott said to River as a Vovo station.
23:19
Speaker 1: Where I can pulled up next to them.
23:22
Speaker 2: The middle aged bald man at the wheel was making
23:24
Speaker 2: discreete eye contact. Just remember if he box at the price.
23:28
Speaker 2: Remind him that he's welcome to drive back home without
23:30
Speaker 2: getting anything.
23:31
Speaker 1: You've got the upper hand.
23:35
Speaker 2: River and Scott never actually followed through with any of
23:37
Speaker 2: the Johns they met on the side of the street.
23:40
Speaker 2: River just wanted to see how the deals were made.
23:42
Speaker 2: The two would bail on the Johns as soon as
23:44
Speaker 2: the deals were struck, laughing and screaming as they tore
23:47
Speaker 2: ass down the back streets of Vasiline Alley. Now standing
23:51
Speaker 2: in line for the City nightclub, River looked across Thirteenth Avenue.
23:55
Speaker 2: He was distracted by a small group of protesters lining
23:58
Speaker 2: the opposite sidewalk, and they were silent and pointed handmade signs.
24:02
Speaker 2: Of the crowd of club kids repent read one of them,
24:05
Speaker 2: the letters surrounded by a cartoon depiction of Hell, and
24:09
Speaker 2: the doorman had to yell to get River's attention.
24:12
Speaker 1: He was next in line.
24:13
Speaker 2: There was an issue. River wasn't carrying his wallet, immersing
24:17
Speaker 2: himself in the research of the role. He wasn't carrying
24:19
Speaker 2: anything that would identify him as his true self, and
24:22
Speaker 2: since he and Scott had bailed on all the Johns
24:24
Speaker 2: that night after sealing each deal, he didn't have any
24:26
Speaker 2: cash on him either. He couldn't pay the cover charge.
24:30
Speaker 2: Against his best judgment, he told the doorman under his
24:33
Speaker 2: breath that he was, in fact River Phoenix, researching a
24:36
Speaker 2: new role, Gus van Zan and all that. Surely that
24:39
Speaker 2: name meant something here, right, drunk store cowboy? You know?
24:42
Speaker 2: Could you let him in for a quick look around?
24:44
Speaker 2: And the doorman asked for id and the River had nothing. Listen,
24:48
Speaker 2: the door man said, you know you got the five
24:50
Speaker 2: bucks to get inside or you don't, But we gotta
24:53
Speaker 2: move this line along. And if you really are who
24:54
Speaker 2: you say you are you should ask some idea on
24:56
Speaker 2: you proven that to be true. I think I would
24:58
Speaker 2: know River Phoenix when I see him. Let me tell
25:00
Speaker 2: you you ain't him.
25:02
Speaker 3: Media Smoller Saller, Slower, slower, slower, slower.
25:28
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen nineties, the Sunset Strip in Hollywood
25:31
Speaker 2: was a twenty four to seven pharmacy. Whatever you wanted
25:34
Speaker 2: you could get. He just had to know where to
25:36
Speaker 2: look or.
25:37
Speaker 1: Who to ask.
25:38
Speaker 2: Sometimes you didn't even have to look for it, and
25:40
Speaker 2: the pharmacy would find you.
25:42
Speaker 1: Did you need anything?
25:43
Speaker 2: Coke, ecstasy, weed, uppers, downers, junk was a bad scene
25:47
Speaker 2: for someone who was doing more drugs than he was
25:49
Speaker 2: letting on, perhaps even self medicating as he navigated the
25:52
Speaker 2: demons of.
25:53
Speaker 1: His past and the pressures of fame.
25:55
Speaker 2: While researching his role from my own private Idaho, River
25:59
Speaker 2: disappeared a little too far into his fictional character, so
26:03
Speaker 2: far that when the shoot was over, he didn't fully
26:05
Speaker 2: return to who he was before his recreational drug use
26:09
Speaker 2: had become unchecked. He would often binge for hours or
26:12
Speaker 2: days and then swear off drugs when another Sunday morning
26:15
Speaker 2: came down, and this was a cycle that played out
26:18
Speaker 2: over and over again. He ran that cycle sometimes with
26:22
Speaker 2: John Fruchante, guitarists for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the
26:25
Speaker 2: La band River had become friendly with as he continued
26:28
Speaker 2: to make a go of it with Alkaz Attic Pruschante
26:31
Speaker 2: really left that faded pink mansion up Laurel Canyonway, the
26:35
Speaker 2: one that everyone called Houdini's Mansion, even though it was
26:38
Speaker 2: Erro Flynn who had lived there, not Houdini. Fruschante had
26:42
Speaker 2: gone on hiatus from his stay job with the Chili
26:44
Speaker 2: Peppers and was spending most of his days and nights
26:47
Speaker 2: at the so called Houdini's mansion doing the so called
26:49
Speaker 2: disappearing act. The River was interested in that disappearing Hollywood,
26:57
Speaker 2: October thirty first, nineteen ninety three, twelve twenty seven, Am
27:02
Speaker 2: River carried his guitar as he made his way inside
27:05
Speaker 2: the Viper Room. It was his intention to get on
27:08
Speaker 2: stage as part of the pickup band that Johnny Depp
27:10
Speaker 2: had assembled to perform songs of his band p As
27:13
Speaker 2: in the letter that evening, every performer in the band
27:16
Speaker 2: was looking for the same thing River was looking for
27:19
Speaker 2: to play against type to be reborn, if only for
27:22
Speaker 2: the evening to disappear, And there was Johnny Depp, actor
27:26
Speaker 2: by day and Viper Room owner by night, playing the
27:28
Speaker 2: role of singer and guitarist Al Jurgensen, ditching his standard
27:32
Speaker 2: industrial fare and ministry for something far less transgressive. Gibby Haynes,
27:37
Speaker 2: frontman for the Butthole Surfers, seeing what it was like
27:39
Speaker 2: to not be the sole frontman for once, Ben montyche
27:43
Speaker 2: keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, down shifting from
27:46
Speaker 2: sold out arenas to slummet with the cool kids. And
27:49
Speaker 2: there was Flea, bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers,
27:52
Speaker 2: who wanted a jam with a unique roster of la
27:55
Speaker 2: cats and gleaned some new insight into the art of collaboration.
27:58
Speaker 2: Flea's usual collabiter, Jean Fruchante, had already attempted to play
28:02
Speaker 2: an opening set, but he had brought that Houdini Mansion
28:05
Speaker 2: vibe with him down from the hills. He was high
28:08
Speaker 2: as shit. He barely made it through one psalm before
28:10
Speaker 2: we stopped and puked on the stage. And the Viper
28:13
Speaker 2: Room stage was as tiny as the pickup band's roster
28:16
Speaker 2: was deep. There just wasn't enough room for River to
28:19
Speaker 2: take part, so he took a seat guitar aside. It
28:23
Speaker 2: wasn't in the cards to become another version of himself
28:26
Speaker 2: on stage alongside all the other versions of all the
28:29
Speaker 2: other performers who were better known for doing things besides
28:31
Speaker 2: being in a pickup band called p And though the
28:35
Speaker 2: room was dark, this wasn't the streets of Gainesville or
28:38
Speaker 2: the meaner streets of Portland. This was Hollywood, and inside
28:41
Speaker 2: the viper room, he was made as the River Phoenix
28:44
Speaker 2: by those who walked by his table. Not even thirty
28:48
Speaker 2: minutes later, however, almost as soon as River had been
28:51
Speaker 2: made by those in attendance as a celebrity that he was,
28:54
Speaker 2: River was gone again. He'd split.
28:57
Speaker 1: He wasn't at his table.
28:58
Speaker 2: He wasn't standing in the tight packed crowd in front
29:01
Speaker 2: of the small stage absorbing the ripple of sound waves
29:04
Speaker 2: coming from Johnny Depp's band. Where was River Phoenix. He
29:09
Speaker 2: had slipped out the back door of the viper room,
29:12
Speaker 2: undetected by most inside. He remained anonymous on the outside too,
29:16
Speaker 2: And that's where he was, on his back on the
29:19
Speaker 2: sunset boulevard sidewalk. The seizures started. His arms flailed, his
29:25
Speaker 2: legs kicked, his head banged against the pavement, and the
29:28
Speaker 2: rumble of Johnny Depp's pickup rock show seeped out from
29:31
Speaker 2: the Viper Room's black walls. Hollywood revelers taking advantage of
29:35
Speaker 2: a Saturday night to celebrate Halloween one night Early side
29:38
Speaker 2: stepped around River's convulsing body, and they were used to
29:41
Speaker 2: random encounters with derelicts tweaking on the sidewalk, but they
29:45
Speaker 2: had no idea who was literally dying right.
29:47
Speaker 1: In front of them.
29:48
Speaker 2: Neither did anyone still inside the Viper Room, and by
29:52
Speaker 2: the time the paramedics arrived, River had been having a
29:54
Speaker 2: series of seizures for about fifteen minutes straight. He was
29:58
Speaker 2: out cold, no pop yes, they administered a shot of
30:01
Speaker 2: narcan CPR. They took him to Cedar Sinai, and he
30:05
Speaker 2: was pronounced dead at one fifty one am Halloween morning.
30:10
Speaker 2: Official cause of death an overdose of cocaine and heroin.
30:15
Speaker 2: News of River's death hit the wires and the disappearing
30:18
Speaker 2: started again.
30:19
Speaker 1: John Fruschante locked.
30:20
Speaker 2: Himself from the Houdini mansion up the hill, Johnny Depp
30:23
Speaker 2: skipped town, and the Viper Room closed down for a
30:26
Speaker 2: week and became a makeshift shrine to River's memory. Steve Lightfoot,
30:29
Speaker 2: an unemployed cook who drove a van around town that
30:32
Speaker 2: read Stephen King shot John Lennon See the photos that
30:35
Speaker 2: prove it, peddled a crackpot theory that River was secretly
30:38
Speaker 2: murdered by the American government for his crusades against animal cruelty.
30:42
Speaker 2: Years later, another particularly explosive murder theory bombshell, was dropped
30:47
Speaker 2: by someone close to River. Director William Reichart, who had
30:51
Speaker 2: worked with River on the nineteen eighty eight film A
30:54
Speaker 2: Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon and at the
30:56
Speaker 2: time of River's death was preparing to work with him
30:59
Speaker 2: again on his upcoming version of The Man in the
31:01
Speaker 2: Iron Mask, gave an interview to writer Gavin Edwards in
31:05
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. Edwards was speaking to Reikert as research for
31:10
Speaker 2: his book about River called Last Night at the Viper Room.
31:13
Speaker 2: In that interview, Reichart claims that shortly after River entered
31:17
Speaker 2: the Viper Room, and immediately before he began to have convulsions,
31:21
Speaker 2: a friend of his, a guitarist, stopped by his table
31:24
Speaker 2: it gave him a cup and told him to drink it.
31:27
Speaker 2: Reichardt's story goes that River did as he was told,
31:30
Speaker 2: but that he had no clue that the cup contained
31:32
Speaker 2: a dissolved speedball that's cocaine and heroin, and not just
31:36
Speaker 2: any speedball, but one that was eight times a lethal dose.
31:40
Speaker 2: You can easily go online and find many zealous defenders
31:43
Speaker 2: of this theory, the theory that River Phoenix was actually killed,
31:47
Speaker 2: whether intentionally or not, by someone that he knew. These
31:51
Speaker 2: theories from William Reichart and Stephen Lightfoot, regardless if you
31:54
Speaker 2: believe them or not, regardless of whether or not they
31:56
Speaker 2: are real or fake, they do do the same thing.
31:59
Speaker 2: They displaced the pin and draw our focus instead to
32:02
Speaker 2: the scandal and the shame of it all, and they
32:05
Speaker 2: also get to a more profound truth, the truth that
32:08
Speaker 2: the most important things are the hardest things to say.
32:11
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's easier to mask grief behind a scandalous
32:15
Speaker 2: claim or a makeshift sign on a white van than
32:18
Speaker 2: it is to state what we really feel. That it
32:21
Speaker 2: sucks that River Phoenix is no longer with us, and
32:24
Speaker 2: how do you convey exactly what all that means? When
32:28
Speaker 2: we watch as intoxicating jaunt as a young Harrison Ford
32:31
Speaker 2: in the opening scene of Indiana Jones in the Last
32:34
Speaker 2: Crusade or as nuanced comedic turns and I Love You
32:37
Speaker 2: to Death and the vastly underrated Sneakers we all think
32:40
Speaker 2: the same thing. Will miss them forever because River Phoenix
32:46
Speaker 2: ought to be here, but he's not, and that is
32:50
Speaker 2: a disgrace.
32:54
Speaker 4: I'm Jake Brennan in this is disgrace Land. All right, guys,
33:10
Speaker 4: thanks for checking out this episode.
33:12
Speaker 1: On River Phoenix.
33:13
Speaker 2: I called River a once in a generation actor in
33:16
Speaker 2: this episode, but Wizzy, do you guys agree? Do you
33:18
Speaker 2: think so?
33:19
Speaker 1: And I want to know for you, guys, the question
33:21
Speaker 1: of the week is who is the greatest.
33:23
Speaker 2: Actor from the nineteen nineties and why? Six one seven
33:28
Speaker 2: nine oh six six six three eight. Leave me a voicemail,
33:30
Speaker 2: sent me a text and let me know. You can
33:32
Speaker 2: also reachweet at disgracelamd pod as well on Instagram, X
33:36
Speaker 2: and Facebook.
33:36
Speaker 1: Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or
33:38
Speaker 1: Spotify and you can win some free merch. All right,
33:41
Speaker 1: here comes some credits.
33:43
Speaker 2: Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is produced in
33:46
Speaker 2: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
33:50
Speaker 2: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod.
33:52
Speaker 1: Dot com.
33:53
Speaker 2: If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank.
33:57
Speaker 1: You for supporting the show.
33:58
Speaker 2: We really appreciate it, and if you can, become a
34:01
Speaker 2: member right now By going to disgracelampod dot com slash membership,
34:05
Speaker 2: members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland AD free,
34:09
Speaker 2: Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month,
34:13
Speaker 2: weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access
34:17
Speaker 2: to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelampod dot com slash membership
34:22
Speaker 2: for details, rate and review the show, and follow us
34:25
Speaker 2: on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelampod and on
34:29
Speaker 2: YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod, rock a
34:34
Speaker 2: rolla
34:37
Speaker 3: He adn