October 30, 2023 • 24 mins
A big secret. Tornados. Rain. A lost wallet. $15,000 dollars in cash that’s gone missing. Peter’s last day feels ominous.
–
This episode features information and audio from the following sources:
In Heaven Everything is Fine, Josh Frank
Over the edge: The incredible life and mysterious death of Peter Ivers
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show contains content that might screw you up, and
not in a good way. Listen to discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi, video pals, Welcome the New Wave Theater. Have you
ever imagined that the ocean was calling your name and
the clouds were spelling out messages for you alone?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
You're listening to part of Peter's last monologue from New
Wave Theater. It was recorded on March second, nineteen eighty three,
the day before he was found dead.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well guess again, because almost any reality frustrated Girk cand
hallucinate a mind twister from shackle Land, But it takes
real blendovision to not see yourself as being ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
For the people who encountered Peter that day, the memory
still weighs on them. They remember hanging out with them,
working running errands. None of them realized that they were
actually saying goodbye, and they wonder did they miss something.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Most of us don't know. It's all last day on earth.
None of us know when we're going to go.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's Alan Sachs, who's been investigating Peter's death.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Your least day might be totally ordinary. It might just
be a day good, bad, boring. Who knows, but after
someone dies, no matter how it happens, we always put
a lot of emphasis on that last day.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Alan thinks that Peter's last day may have clues about
what happened to him. What did he do, who did
he see? Was he acting like a guy who was
about to meet his end.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Part of what makes solving this murder so difficult, though,
is that it's been forty years since all this happened.
Memories fade, people forget stuff, and look, we did a
lot of drugs back then, So there's a lot of
unreliable narrators in this story.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Pretty sure Alan's talking about everybody else, not me, But.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I've gone back and pieced together his final day. I
was surprised by how many people he met and how
much he did. It was just Peter. He loved people.
I tried to figure out what Peter did in hopes
it can help us find out how he died.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It's unclear if the cops looked closely at Peter's last day.
If they had, they would have talked to the people
you'll hear from today. They would have heard about a
monumental decision that Peter had just made. They would have
heard about an argument he had late that night. They
would have heard about the last moment anyone saw him alive.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You're not going to do this. You can't do this
to me. This can't happen. And you're fucking crazy and
you heard screaming coming on. And I'm not going to
do this anymore. I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm Penelope Spheris. This is Peter and the Acid King.
(03:18):
It's the morning of March second, nineteen eighty three. Peter
Ivers has barely slept.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That morning feels off. Peter had lost his wallet the
night before.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
He spent most of the night looking for that damn wallet.
The day before, a tornado had touched down in South
La right near Peter's loft.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
It was a day of massive clean up in south
central Los Angeles as the area along Broadway tried to get.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Back to normal. People who were here when the tornado
struck say they've never seen anything like it. The tornado
killed nine people, and to top that off, there was
an earthquake, a minor one, but still so yeah, yesterday
felt apocalyptic, and today it's raining.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And when it rains in La life grinds to a halt.
But the weird weather, the loss wallet, none of that matters,
because today's a big day. He's going to get a
big check for a screenplay he'd written, and then he's
got a songwriting session with Franny Goldie, and finally he's
(04:28):
going over to the Cave to record a monologue.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So Peter gets in his car and heads out on
his first errand to pick up the check for the
script payment. He co wrote the movie with this guy,
Rod Falconer.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
It was going to be a musical rock musical.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It was called City of Tomorrow, cool title.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
It was a futuristic version of Alexander the Great set
in a vastly divided city controlled by all sorts of
power groups and and so forth. So this is going
to be the big revenge on official Hollywood that we
were going to do this goddamn punk rock musical, but
it was going to come out from Warner Brothers. You know, really,
(05:12):
you know, it was a really good script.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's a mix of far flung ideas, inventive, futuristic, kind
of quirky, but the script can also appeal to mainstream
audiences thanks to Rod's instincts.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
So we were actually just had finished literally just turned
it into Warner Brothers where Lucy was at the.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Time Peter's ex girlfriend. Lucy Fisher is now a VP there,
so she had helped them get it on the desk
of the right person.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I mean, you can just imagine that Peter is buzzing
with excitement. He's got a big check to pick up
from William Morris.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
By the way, William Morris is the talent agency that
helped negotiate the deal, and that check Allan's talking about
is a big chunk of change. It's for fifteen thousand dollars,
which is about fifty thousand dollars in today's money.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It's probably Peter's first paycheck of this kind. He's been
living in a shitty loft downtown for over a year now,
so this money, it really means something to him.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On his way to William Morris, Peter stops by Peter
Rafelson's house. Rafelson's in his twenties at this point, but
he's already a Hollywood veteran. His dad, Bob Rafelson, is
a film legend. He produced Easy Writer, which means Peter
Rafelson grew up in the good old Hollywood shit storm.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
I just think of myself as a brat that grew
up in Hollywood in the center of all of the action. Really,
I mean the home I grew up in wash where
Bob Dylan and the Beatles and the Monkeys and everybody
on acid in Hollywood, and it was really the sort
of mecca of culture and debauchery. And I saw everything
(07:04):
and was able to somehow survive long enough to figure
out that my passion was music.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, having the Beatles hanging out at your house will
do that anyway. By the early eighties, Rafelson's passion for
music is fully formed, and he wants to be a
new wave theater.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And I had a band and I wanted to be
on the show, and I made a demo called Gi Joe,
which was an anti war punk track.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Rafelson asked Peter Ivers to show his demo to David Jove.
So Peter takes him to the cave.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
He took me to the most unassuming hole in the wall,
literally a hole in the wall, had barricades and all
kinds of strange defensive blocks. He banged on the door forever,
nobody answered, and then only the door swung open so
(08:02):
hard outwardly that it hit Peter and threw him back
and out popped what looked like a hobbit. It was
David Jove, angry as could be, screaming come in, come in,
don't let the flies in, don't let the flies in.
We go in, the coke comes out, the alcohol comes out,
(08:25):
the cassette goes in. He listens to the tape, stops
at halfway through and says.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Get out.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
And I'm like, you know, I don't know what's going on.
At this point, Peter's like, wait, well, what do you
mean he's a friend that He says, fucking poser, fucking poser.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
This is crap. Well, needless to say, Rafaelson never appeared
on New Wave Theater, but he stayed friends with Peter,
and on March second, the two of them pile into
Rafaelson's old BMW.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
He asked if he could treat me to lunch, and
that we had to make a quick stop. On the
way to lunch. We went to I believe it was
William Morris Agency. Keep the car running, he said, I'll
be just a minute. He runs in, comes out with
a check.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Peter clutches the check. He's way stoked.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
He says, I have to make a call. We've got
to find a phone booth. He makes the call and
then comes back and he goes, I got to go
cash this check right now, And as I recall, he
comes out of the bank with a wad of cash
that looked as big as he was. It was ridiculous.
It was like small bills ten thousand dollars or seventy
(09:40):
five hundred bucks or whatever it was. It was clearly
a large wad of cash.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
According to Rafelson, Peter decides to hide the cash. He
tucks it into his day planner and puts it under
the seat of the car. On the way to lunch,
they stop at a bookstore.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
We park in in front of a used bookstore across
the street. He buys me a copy of Doune, which
was about to be directed into a film by David Lynch,
who he'd worked with on eraser Head. And he bought
a copy of Doune and inscribed in it to me,
every decision is a chance to be a hero. Those
(10:20):
words echo in my mind every day since then.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
For lunch, they go to Cafe figure O. It's gone now,
but back then it was a bustling lunch joint on Melrose.
The espresso machine was ancient, loud and always running. The
menu was a newspaper with a headline on the cover
like Greenpeace moves to spare Wales and other crapova like that.
(10:46):
That didn't make any sense. During the lunch, Rafael Sun recalls,
Peter is hyped up and chatty.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
And when it came time to pay for the meal,
he realized that I think he left the cash in
my car, which was on locked.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Rafelson pays for their meal and they hustle out to
his car to look for the money. Peter is frantic.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
We drove back trying to retrace what happened. He had
hidden it under the seat and left it in there
and couldn't find it. I think he'd lost all the
money or something. He freaked out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, okay, not so fast.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Peter Rafelson's my friend. I trust what he says, but
I'll say that In Josh Frank's book about Peter, Rafaelson
tells a different version of the story.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
In Josh Frank's book, Rafelson says that Peter didn't cash
the check he deposited it. No money was lost, So
it's not clear which of these stories is accurate.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Like I said, memories fade and they can change over
the years. So just take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Whatever happened to it. Getting that was important to Peter.
It was a sign his luck was changing for the better,
but in reality, his luck was running out. After lunch,
Peter goes over to Franny Goldie's house.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
My name is Franny Goldie. I am a songwriter Hall
of Fame nominee. I have a song on the new
Bruce Springsteen album that I'm super hyped about.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But before she was working with the Boss, Franni worked
with Peter Ivers.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
So I remember when I first got the call from
Linda Perry.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Linda Perry was Frannie's producer at the time, and not
the Linda Perry from four None Blas.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
She presented Peter to me like, I really want you
to get together with this guy. He wants to write songs.
And then she told me he was a Harvard graduate
sum a cumee, and I was totally intimidated, and I'm like,
I don't know if I can hang with that.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
That's going to be a whole new experience for me.
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
I just pictured that as something scary. And then we
met and I felt very comfortable in at ease with
him immediately, and I loved cooking for him. Oh my god,
I loved cooking for him. He appreciated every morsel. You know,
most people they just this is delicious. He would say, ooh,
(13:32):
what's in here?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
This is so good?
Speaker 6 (13:33):
What did you put in here?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You know?
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Oh, this is such sweet orange Jude, I love.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It, Jois de vivra, lust for life, whatever you want
to call it. Peter had it and Franny loved it.
Peter constantly encouraged Franny, told her how creative and inspiring she.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Was, which makes people feel good, and then you kind
of almost instinctively want to pass that all to others.
And when people say putting love and goodness out in
the world and all of that, it's sort of a
ripple effect. And when you're around people like that, it
(14:13):
makes you want to be a better person.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
They write some big songs together, Let's Go Up, which
was recorded by Diana Ross, All We Really Need with
Marty Ballen and Little Boy Sweet recorded by June Pointer.
But today they're working on a song for a Japanese
pop star. Once they're settled in they get to work
on the song.
Speaker 6 (14:35):
Peter would kind of walk around the room and pace
and he would always end up underneath the piano, and
I could really relate to that because when I was little,
I loved sitting under the piano there. It was like
(14:56):
my little house, and it was very I felt protected
and safe and kind of like I could be away
from the world a little bit. And I think it
was that for him in a way. And he'd sit
down there and he was the only person I knew
that wrote on graph paper, and he would feed me
(15:19):
lyrics like I'd be playing some melody and kind of
singing kind of a thing, and then he would kind
of just put a piece of paper up from underneath
the piano and I would grab it and I would
start singing what he had written. And I would say,
the majority of the time it felt really good, like
(15:42):
it was right on, it was perfect for what the
melody was.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But today the creative process is just not coming together.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
I'm very perceptive, very hypervigilant, and I just remember feeling uneasy.
I just remember something felt off. We were working on
a song, and I do remember really clearly that Peter,
who was always like hush laser focused, was not. He
(16:16):
seemed preoccupied and almost anxious, I guess, I would say,
but definitely preoccupied and not one hundred percent there.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
They wrap up and Peter leaves. They agreed to meet
at the recording studio the next day.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It takes real certainty if you have a dream to
resist the doubting opinions of the doll at heart.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When you have.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Real blendo vision, you've already learned to get out of
your own way long enough to be perfect, to see perfect,
long enough to learn that the sweetness you allow yourself
to see is all you'll ever be.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
A few hours after leaving Franny, Peter Ivers is at
the Cave recording a new Wave theater monologue, his last one.
Usually Jove gives a lot of direction, but this time
Peter gets it in one take. There's something kind of
uplifting and fun about Peter's performance. It's not bogged down
(17:11):
by that heavy, druggy feeling that David's writing normally has.
It's like Peter's made up his mind about what's next.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's not a moment to waste on anything that prevents
us from the richness of our own foreverness. To slap
your face, you mental case, and bite your back, because
nothing can make.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
You anything but what you already are.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And there's nothing like a believer to believe in believing
that the mistake isn't trying to think turn it off.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
New Wave Theater was a product of two distinct minds,
David Jove and Peter Ivers. In the beginning, it was
a relationship that benefited both men. But by March second,
nineteen eighty three, that symbiotic relationship had tilted out of balance.
Peter's career was spinning in a different direction into film
(18:00):
scripts and songwriting gigs. Meanwhile, David Jove was singularly focused
on New Wave Theater and for that he needed Peter.
Up until that point, Peter and David were inseparable. Their
work on the twelve episodes of New Wave Theater that
I was involved in was superlative.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Peter gave him some legitimate credibility. I mean, don't forget.
Peter's girlfriend was Lucy Fisher, who was head of Warner
Brothers Productions Film Side.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
That's Ken Yeas and Alan Sachs. They were both at
the Cave on the night of Peter's last monologue.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Jove liked the fact that Peter was friends with Harold Ramis,
one of the top comedy writers in the industry.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Peter was Jove's connection to Hollywood. Unfortunately for Jove, Peter
had come to a big decision. He was quitting New
Wave Theater. Now it's time to bring the news. But
as usual, the cave is full of people partying and
hanging out, people like Alan Sachs and Ken Yeaz. So
(19:10):
when Peter finishes recording his monologue, he asked Jove if
they can step aside and speak privately.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I had sensed some tension between the two of them.
Jove's a fucking madman and having to take direction from
him that would take a toll on anyone. And meanwhile,
Peter's career was taking off, so of course he was
ready to split.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Alan and Ken. Can hear David and Peter talking quietly
at first, so they can't really make out the words,
and then Jove starts yelling.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Jove goes completely fucking ballistic. It's not like a normal conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
David was crushed, couldn't accept it. Needed a host, needed Peter.
He was the essence and soul the show.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
You're not going to do this. You can't do this
to me, This can't happen, and you're fucking crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Usually Peter doesn't raise his voice, but now he's shouting.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And you heard screaming coming on, and I'm not going
to do this anymore. I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And it's this moment that brings us all here now
to Alan Sachs's mission to find out what happened to Peter,
because as Peter walks away from David Jove, Peter and
Alan's eyes meet, and.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Peter looks at me and goes show with this kind
of spooky look on his face, and then he gets
into a shitty car and heads out.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And that's it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That was the last time I ever heard Peter's voice.
And when it happened, it didn't dawn on me that
it was the final goodbye. It was just so long,
see you next time, shout.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Peter goes home to his loft after leaving the cave
that night. There he makes some calls, first to Rod Falconer,
his screenwriting partner, then to a girl he met at
a party. Finally, fully clothed, he climbs into bed and
goes to sleep. What happened next has haunted his friends
(21:38):
for forty years.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I'm going to be reading from the car on his report,
and this is not the easiest thing to read.
Speaker 6 (21:46):
I just remember calling him falling to the floor, blood
curdling scream, and I just I couldn't stop.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
We went up a few flights of stack and literally
at eye level we could peer down the hall from
that stairwell and see what presumably was Peter Iver's dead
feet covered in a sheet, and cops and homicide investigators everywhere.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
That's next time on Peter and the Acid King. Peter
and the Acid King is based on interviews recorded and
researched by Alan Sachs. It's produced by Imagine Audio, Alan
Sachs Productions and Awfully Nice for iHeartMedia. I'm Your Host
(22:47):
Penelope Spears. The series is written by Caitlin Fontana. Peter
and the Acid King is produced by Amber von Schassen.
The senior producer is Caitlin Fontana and the super revising
producer is John Assanti. Our project manager is Katie Hodges.
Our executive producers are Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Caarra Welker,
(23:12):
Nathan Kloke, Alan Sachs, Jesse Burton, and Katie Hodges. The
associate producers are Laura Schwartz, Dylan Cainrich and Chris Statue
Co producer on behalf of Shout Studios, Bob Emmer. Sound
design and mix by Evan Arnette, fact checking by Katherine Barner.
(23:36):
Original music composed by Alloy Tracks, Music clearances by Barbara Hall,
voiceover recording by Voice Tracks, West Show artwork by Michael Dare.
Special thanks to Annette van Duren. Thank you for listening.
(23:58):
Oh and one last thing. If you liked this episode,
rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, please
This show contains content that might screw you up, and
not in a good way. Listen to discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hi, video pals, Welcome the New Wave Theater. Have you
ever imagined that the ocean was calling your name and
the clouds were spelling out messages for you alone?
Speaker 3 (00:20):
You're listening to part of Peter's last monologue from New
Wave Theater. It was recorded on March second, nineteen eighty three,
the day before he was found dead.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well guess again, because almost any reality frustrated Girk cand
hallucinate a mind twister from shackle Land, But it takes
real blendovision to not see yourself as being ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
For the people who encountered Peter that day, the memory
still weighs on them. They remember hanging out with them,
working running errands. None of them realized that they were
actually saying goodbye, and they wonder did they miss something.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Most of us don't know. It's all last day on earth.
None of us know when we're going to go.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's Alan Sachs, who's been investigating Peter's death.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Your least day might be totally ordinary. It might just
be a day good, bad, boring. Who knows, but after
someone dies, no matter how it happens, we always put
a lot of emphasis on that last day.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Alan thinks that Peter's last day may have clues about
what happened to him. What did he do, who did
he see? Was he acting like a guy who was
about to meet his end.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Part of what makes solving this murder so difficult, though,
is that it's been forty years since all this happened.
Memories fade, people forget stuff, and look, we did a
lot of drugs back then, So there's a lot of
unreliable narrators in this story.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Pretty sure Alan's talking about everybody else, not me, But.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I've gone back and pieced together his final day. I
was surprised by how many people he met and how
much he did. It was just Peter. He loved people.
I tried to figure out what Peter did in hopes
it can help us find out how he died.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
It's unclear if the cops looked closely at Peter's last day.
If they had, they would have talked to the people
you'll hear from today. They would have heard about a
monumental decision that Peter had just made. They would have
heard about an argument he had late that night. They
would have heard about the last moment anyone saw him alive.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
You're not going to do this. You can't do this
to me. This can't happen. And you're fucking crazy and
you heard screaming coming on. And I'm not going to
do this anymore. I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm Penelope Spheris. This is Peter and the Acid King.
(03:18):
It's the morning of March second, nineteen eighty three. Peter
Ivers has barely slept.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
That morning feels off. Peter had lost his wallet the
night before.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
He spent most of the night looking for that damn wallet.
The day before, a tornado had touched down in South
La right near Peter's loft.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
It was a day of massive clean up in south
central Los Angeles as the area along Broadway tried to get.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Back to normal. People who were here when the tornado
struck say they've never seen anything like it. The tornado
killed nine people, and to top that off, there was
an earthquake, a minor one, but still so yeah, yesterday
felt apocalyptic, and today it's raining.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
And when it rains in La life grinds to a halt.
But the weird weather, the loss wallet, none of that matters,
because today's a big day. He's going to get a
big check for a screenplay he'd written, and then he's
got a songwriting session with Franny Goldie, and finally he's
(04:28):
going over to the Cave to record a monologue.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So Peter gets in his car and heads out on
his first errand to pick up the check for the
script payment. He co wrote the movie with this guy,
Rod Falconer.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
It was going to be a musical rock musical.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
It was called City of Tomorrow, cool title.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
It was a futuristic version of Alexander the Great set
in a vastly divided city controlled by all sorts of
power groups and and so forth. So this is going
to be the big revenge on official Hollywood that we
were going to do this goddamn punk rock musical, but
it was going to come out from Warner Brothers. You know, really,
(05:12):
you know, it was a really good script.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's a mix of far flung ideas, inventive, futuristic, kind
of quirky, but the script can also appeal to mainstream
audiences thanks to Rod's instincts.
Speaker 5 (05:25):
So we were actually just had finished literally just turned
it into Warner Brothers where Lucy was at the.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Time Peter's ex girlfriend. Lucy Fisher is now a VP there,
so she had helped them get it on the desk
of the right person.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
I mean, you can just imagine that Peter is buzzing
with excitement. He's got a big check to pick up
from William Morris.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
By the way, William Morris is the talent agency that
helped negotiate the deal, and that check Allan's talking about
is a big chunk of change. It's for fifteen thousand dollars,
which is about fifty thousand dollars in today's money.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
It's probably Peter's first paycheck of this kind. He's been
living in a shitty loft downtown for over a year now,
so this money, it really means something to him.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
On his way to William Morris, Peter stops by Peter
Rafelson's house. Rafelson's in his twenties at this point, but
he's already a Hollywood veteran. His dad, Bob Rafelson, is
a film legend. He produced Easy Writer, which means Peter
Rafelson grew up in the good old Hollywood shit storm.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
I just think of myself as a brat that grew
up in Hollywood in the center of all of the action. Really,
I mean the home I grew up in wash where
Bob Dylan and the Beatles and the Monkeys and everybody
on acid in Hollywood, and it was really the sort
of mecca of culture and debauchery. And I saw everything
(07:04):
and was able to somehow survive long enough to figure
out that my passion was music.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Yeah, having the Beatles hanging out at your house will
do that anyway. By the early eighties, Rafelson's passion for
music is fully formed, and he wants to be a
new wave theater.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And I had a band and I wanted to be
on the show, and I made a demo called Gi Joe,
which was an anti war punk track.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Rafelson asked Peter Ivers to show his demo to David Jove.
So Peter takes him to the cave.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
He took me to the most unassuming hole in the wall,
literally a hole in the wall, had barricades and all
kinds of strange defensive blocks. He banged on the door forever,
nobody answered, and then only the door swung open so
(08:02):
hard outwardly that it hit Peter and threw him back
and out popped what looked like a hobbit. It was
David Jove, angry as could be, screaming come in, come in,
don't let the flies in, don't let the flies in.
We go in, the coke comes out, the alcohol comes out,
(08:25):
the cassette goes in. He listens to the tape, stops
at halfway through and says.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Get out.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
And I'm like, you know, I don't know what's going on.
At this point, Peter's like, wait, well, what do you
mean he's a friend that He says, fucking poser, fucking poser.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
This is crap. Well, needless to say, Rafaelson never appeared
on New Wave Theater, but he stayed friends with Peter,
and on March second, the two of them pile into
Rafaelson's old BMW.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
He asked if he could treat me to lunch, and
that we had to make a quick stop. On the
way to lunch. We went to I believe it was
William Morris Agency. Keep the car running, he said, I'll
be just a minute. He runs in, comes out with
a check.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Peter clutches the check. He's way stoked.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
He says, I have to make a call. We've got
to find a phone booth. He makes the call and
then comes back and he goes, I got to go
cash this check right now, And as I recall, he
comes out of the bank with a wad of cash
that looked as big as he was. It was ridiculous.
It was like small bills ten thousand dollars or seventy
(09:40):
five hundred bucks or whatever it was. It was clearly
a large wad of cash.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
According to Rafelson, Peter decides to hide the cash. He
tucks it into his day planner and puts it under
the seat of the car. On the way to lunch,
they stop at a bookstore.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
We park in in front of a used bookstore across
the street. He buys me a copy of Doune, which
was about to be directed into a film by David Lynch,
who he'd worked with on eraser Head. And he bought
a copy of Doune and inscribed in it to me,
every decision is a chance to be a hero. Those
(10:20):
words echo in my mind every day since then.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
For lunch, they go to Cafe figure O. It's gone now,
but back then it was a bustling lunch joint on Melrose.
The espresso machine was ancient, loud and always running. The
menu was a newspaper with a headline on the cover
like Greenpeace moves to spare Wales and other crapova like that.
(10:46):
That didn't make any sense. During the lunch, Rafael Sun recalls,
Peter is hyped up and chatty.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
And when it came time to pay for the meal,
he realized that I think he left the cash in
my car, which was on locked.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Rafelson pays for their meal and they hustle out to
his car to look for the money. Peter is frantic.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
We drove back trying to retrace what happened. He had
hidden it under the seat and left it in there
and couldn't find it. I think he'd lost all the
money or something. He freaked out.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, okay, not so fast.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Peter Rafelson's my friend. I trust what he says, but
I'll say that In Josh Frank's book about Peter, Rafaelson
tells a different version of the story.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
In Josh Frank's book, Rafelson says that Peter didn't cash
the check he deposited it. No money was lost, So
it's not clear which of these stories is accurate.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Like I said, memories fade and they can change over
the years. So just take it with a grain of salt.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Whatever happened to it. Getting that was important to Peter.
It was a sign his luck was changing for the better,
but in reality, his luck was running out. After lunch,
Peter goes over to Franny Goldie's house.
Speaker 6 (12:16):
My name is Franny Goldie. I am a songwriter Hall
of Fame nominee. I have a song on the new
Bruce Springsteen album that I'm super hyped about.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
But before she was working with the Boss, Franni worked
with Peter Ivers.
Speaker 6 (12:34):
So I remember when I first got the call from
Linda Perry.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Linda Perry was Frannie's producer at the time, and not
the Linda Perry from four None Blas.
Speaker 6 (12:46):
She presented Peter to me like, I really want you
to get together with this guy. He wants to write songs.
And then she told me he was a Harvard graduate
sum a cumee, and I was totally intimidated, and I'm like,
I don't know if I can hang with that.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
That's going to be a whole new experience for me.
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (13:09):
I just pictured that as something scary. And then we
met and I felt very comfortable in at ease with
him immediately, and I loved cooking for him. Oh my god,
I loved cooking for him. He appreciated every morsel. You know,
most people they just this is delicious. He would say, ooh,
(13:32):
what's in here?
Speaker 3 (13:33):
This is so good?
Speaker 6 (13:33):
What did you put in here?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
You know?
Speaker 6 (13:36):
Oh, this is such sweet orange Jude, I love.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
It, Jois de vivra, lust for life, whatever you want
to call it. Peter had it and Franny loved it.
Peter constantly encouraged Franny, told her how creative and inspiring she.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
Was, which makes people feel good, and then you kind
of almost instinctively want to pass that all to others.
And when people say putting love and goodness out in
the world and all of that, it's sort of a
ripple effect. And when you're around people like that, it
(14:13):
makes you want to be a better person.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
They write some big songs together, Let's Go Up, which
was recorded by Diana Ross, All We Really Need with
Marty Ballen and Little Boy Sweet recorded by June Pointer.
But today they're working on a song for a Japanese
pop star. Once they're settled in they get to work
on the song.
Speaker 6 (14:35):
Peter would kind of walk around the room and pace
and he would always end up underneath the piano, and
I could really relate to that because when I was little,
I loved sitting under the piano there. It was like
(14:56):
my little house, and it was very I felt protected
and safe and kind of like I could be away
from the world a little bit. And I think it
was that for him in a way. And he'd sit
down there and he was the only person I knew
that wrote on graph paper, and he would feed me
(15:19):
lyrics like I'd be playing some melody and kind of
singing kind of a thing, and then he would kind
of just put a piece of paper up from underneath
the piano and I would grab it and I would
start singing what he had written. And I would say,
the majority of the time it felt really good, like
(15:42):
it was right on, it was perfect for what the
melody was.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But today the creative process is just not coming together.
Speaker 6 (15:51):
I'm very perceptive, very hypervigilant, and I just remember feeling uneasy.
I just remember something felt off. We were working on
a song, and I do remember really clearly that Peter,
who was always like hush laser focused, was not. He
(16:16):
seemed preoccupied and almost anxious, I guess, I would say,
but definitely preoccupied and not one hundred percent there.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
They wrap up and Peter leaves. They agreed to meet
at the recording studio the next day.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
It takes real certainty if you have a dream to
resist the doubting opinions of the doll at heart.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
When you have.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Real blendo vision, you've already learned to get out of
your own way long enough to be perfect, to see perfect,
long enough to learn that the sweetness you allow yourself
to see is all you'll ever be.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
A few hours after leaving Franny, Peter Ivers is at
the Cave recording a new Wave theater monologue, his last one.
Usually Jove gives a lot of direction, but this time
Peter gets it in one take. There's something kind of
uplifting and fun about Peter's performance. It's not bogged down
(17:11):
by that heavy, druggy feeling that David's writing normally has.
It's like Peter's made up his mind about what's next.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
There's not a moment to waste on anything that prevents
us from the richness of our own foreverness. To slap
your face, you mental case, and bite your back, because
nothing can make.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
You anything but what you already are.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
And there's nothing like a believer to believe in believing
that the mistake isn't trying to think turn it off.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
New Wave Theater was a product of two distinct minds,
David Jove and Peter Ivers. In the beginning, it was
a relationship that benefited both men. But by March second,
nineteen eighty three, that symbiotic relationship had tilted out of balance.
Peter's career was spinning in a different direction into film
(18:00):
scripts and songwriting gigs. Meanwhile, David Jove was singularly focused
on New Wave Theater and for that he needed Peter.
Up until that point, Peter and David were inseparable. Their
work on the twelve episodes of New Wave Theater that
I was involved in was superlative.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Peter gave him some legitimate credibility. I mean, don't forget.
Peter's girlfriend was Lucy Fisher, who was head of Warner
Brothers Productions Film Side.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
That's Ken Yeas and Alan Sachs. They were both at
the Cave on the night of Peter's last monologue.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Jove liked the fact that Peter was friends with Harold Ramis,
one of the top comedy writers in the industry.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Peter was Jove's connection to Hollywood. Unfortunately for Jove, Peter
had come to a big decision. He was quitting New
Wave Theater. Now it's time to bring the news. But
as usual, the cave is full of people partying and
hanging out, people like Alan Sachs and Ken Yeaz. So
(19:10):
when Peter finishes recording his monologue, he asked Jove if
they can step aside and speak privately.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I had sensed some tension between the two of them.
Jove's a fucking madman and having to take direction from
him that would take a toll on anyone. And meanwhile,
Peter's career was taking off, so of course he was
ready to split.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Alan and Ken. Can hear David and Peter talking quietly
at first, so they can't really make out the words,
and then Jove starts yelling.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Jove goes completely fucking ballistic. It's not like a normal conversation.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
David was crushed, couldn't accept it. Needed a host, needed Peter.
He was the essence and soul the show.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
You're not going to do this. You can't do this
to me, This can't happen, and you're fucking crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
Usually Peter doesn't raise his voice, but now he's shouting.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And you heard screaming coming on, and I'm not going
to do this anymore. I'm gone.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
And it's this moment that brings us all here now
to Alan Sachs's mission to find out what happened to Peter,
because as Peter walks away from David Jove, Peter and
Alan's eyes meet, and.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Peter looks at me and goes show with this kind
of spooky look on his face, and then he gets
into a shitty car and heads out.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
And that's it.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That was the last time I ever heard Peter's voice.
And when it happened, it didn't dawn on me that
it was the final goodbye. It was just so long,
see you next time, shout.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Peter goes home to his loft after leaving the cave
that night. There he makes some calls, first to Rod Falconer,
his screenwriting partner, then to a girl he met at
a party. Finally, fully clothed, he climbs into bed and
goes to sleep. What happened next has haunted his friends
(21:38):
for forty years.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I'm going to be reading from the car on his report,
and this is not the easiest thing to read.
Speaker 6 (21:46):
I just remember calling him falling to the floor, blood
curdling scream, and I just I couldn't stop.
Speaker 4 (21:57):
We went up a few flights of stack and literally
at eye level we could peer down the hall from
that stairwell and see what presumably was Peter Iver's dead
feet covered in a sheet, and cops and homicide investigators everywhere.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
That's next time on Peter and the Acid King. Peter
and the Acid King is based on interviews recorded and
researched by Alan Sachs. It's produced by Imagine Audio, Alan
Sachs Productions and Awfully Nice for iHeartMedia. I'm Your Host
(22:47):
Penelope Spears. The series is written by Caitlin Fontana. Peter
and the Acid King is produced by Amber von Schassen.
The senior producer is Caitlin Fontana and the super revising
producer is John Assanti. Our project manager is Katie Hodges.
Our executive producers are Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Caarra Welker,
(23:12):
Nathan Kloke, Alan Sachs, Jesse Burton, and Katie Hodges. The
associate producers are Laura Schwartz, Dylan Cainrich and Chris Statue
Co producer on behalf of Shout Studios, Bob Emmer. Sound
design and mix by Evan Arnette, fact checking by Katherine Barner.
(23:36):
Original music composed by Alloy Tracks, Music clearances by Barbara Hall,
voiceover recording by Voice Tracks, West Show artwork by Michael Dare.
Special thanks to Annette van Duren. Thank you for listening.
(23:58):
Oh and one last thing. If you liked this episode,
rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts, please
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