TIGHTEN UP

TIGHTEN UP

Vince Aletti

I wish I could just write a fan letter to Smokey Robinson. (Dear Smokey, Ever since I heard “You Really Got a Hold On Me” on the radio in Rick Morris’ room at Antioch . . .) I could have done it I think several years ago. I was crazier then; I didn’t know what I was doing so I actually did more. I used to call up radio stations in Dayton and make requests and dedications. I got them to play “Swept for You Baby” on the other side of the Miracles’ single “More Love” and the station programmed it for more than a week .afterward. I was calling myself Andy Warhol then but they mispronounced that too. I used to break things and I think I should go back to doing that. I used to write stories and dedicate them to people I was in love with even if I hadn’t yet met them. And I used to dance a lot. And then, back then, I could have sat down and written this letter to Smokey Robinson. It would have had to be a love letter and I think I could have done it.

But now I have to write my love letters in other forms (“Smokey Robinson’s performance at the Apollo was unimaginably sweet . . . ”) and the people become more real but more elusive. I can’t sit down and write incoherent rambling things about chaiiging my life and guiding me through bad days to someone I’ve sat down and interviewed over grapefruit half and fruit salad in a hotel room. I’m a professional person now. I tell myself that sometimes but I still think I should start throwing talcum bottles again. And writing crazy impassioned letters. Run-on sentences. (. . . and when things were falling apart with Edward I went to “Fork in the Road” — came on it like people open up the Bible and are drawn, their eyes are drawn, to this one passage, a revelation, the immediacy of the words, their lives are changed they stop drinking or go to California maybe, — anyway, “Fork in the Road” is this immediate message: “Seems like love should be easier to bear/ but it’s such a heavy load” and the warning — beware, beware,*“If there is something that you don’t see eye to eye/ You’d better think before you tell your love goodbye/ Cause your paths may never cross again/ Make sure you take the same bend/ At the fork in love’s road” god damn is that a beautiful song and I played it for myself on his record player until things got too fucked up beware beware . . . ) Sometime ago I decided 4I think I wrote this somewhere — that if I could sing like Smokey Robinson I’d be satisfied that I’d done something worthwhile with my life. Not to mention write like him.

I will take you away with me as far as I can To Venus or Mars There we will love

with your hand in my hand You’ll be queen of the stars And everyday we can play on the Milky Way And if that don’t do Then I’ll try something new

1 will bring you a flower from the floor of the sea to wear in your hair

On the moon above I’ll write it’s you that I love

(I’ll Try Something New, ” copyright Jobete, BMI)

“A flower from the floor of the sea”! His images have the freshness and brilliance of childrens’ poetry : a delight in Cliche combined with the wit to subtly overturn one. But I’m getting academic. Maybe it can all be said simply: Smokey Robinson is retiring as a performer with his group the Miracles. Laying back some. .He is one of the greatest singers and songwriters alive today and he’s-influenced me more than any other. Gonna miss you, Smokey, but thanks for all the good times.

Loose ends:

1. Not enough money.

2: Reggie.

3. I’m not in love.

4. There are really not that many interesting things you can make with ground meat.

5. Today some man from the Daily News called and asked me questions about Aretha Franklin for a feature he was doing on her. Not very good questions but he sounded sincere. Is Aretha a superstar? Do you think she’ll last as a performer? And - he said — this is probably the most important factor: do you think Aretha has or will have a great impact on the over-all audience as Bob Dylan for instance has? First I said I really didn’t care whether she had a wide impact on — obviously — the white audience. A black performer rarely does. And I would hate to judge her success as an artist on her acceptance by the Great American Public or its youth contingent. But then it occurred to me that the reverse standard was never applied: Has Bob Dylan for instance had a great impact on black people? No. His career does not rise and fall with their approval or disapproval. Yet the definition of success for Aretha and other black performers is put on white terms. If white popular music were to be judged by its effect on black culture, how many people would emerge with, their successful image intact? Ten? Five?

6. Dealing/ or The Berkeley-toBoston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues is the worst film I’ve seen since The Strawberry Statement. Avoid it. Not only is everyone in it totally boring, unbelievable and creepy but the story itself is the most absurd film fantasy about what the counter culture does in its spare time yet released. Ugh.

7. Nothing is going on in New York. Nothing.

8 It’s not even snowing.