Sunday Whatever – Channeling Rick James by Susan DeFelice

It’s raining and fog lays a smoky screen over the distant hill dotted with houses that twinkle like fireflies at sunset. I stare out, feeling some guilt about watching Rick James videos on YouTube. I told Cheri and she went: “You know all he sang about was ‘bitches and hoes,’ right? Disgusting. And all he did was free base coke and have orgies! What’s your problem, have you sunk so low?”

All that stuff aside, which is not the entirety of his story, I like how he had this fantastic urgency to be himself come hell or high water, and he got plenty of both during his life. It shines out in his music and fashion choices. (Me? I don’t even have the guts to tell you, Cheri, that I don’t like them fried sardines you’re so proud of making. They are oily and not tasty!) Also, he had a thoughtful side as evidenced by some of his ballads you rarely hear on the radio (“My Mama”). In his autobiography he said he mostly wrote “Super Freak” for white people to dance to. He didn’t consider it one of his great tunes. I only liked that song as showcased in the Little Miss Sunshine scene.

Cheri then says, “You actually read the Rick James autobiography? Are you mad?” More words tumble out crushing glowing ruminations on the spirit of his music into ashes of clinical chatter pontificating on his addiction and abusiveness habits, not to mention his legendary shit-talking. But I like his shit-talking, it’s funny as hell. He was jealous of Prince, clearly, because he called him a short little egotistical nobody. Now that’s jealousy. He might just’ve been proud to be jealous! Isn’t that cool?

Cheri: “Cool, you say? You can have him, Sweetie. You’re from the Midwest. Don’t pretend to be all rough and tough. You’re just a marshmallow gal posing as some city chick. Your heart is fearful and guilty. This is part of what I love about you, your pastoral corn fields energy. Your spirit animal’s a deer, sneaking apples from the fields, looking this way and that to make sure ya won’t get caught, even though you’re legitimately famished. You’re trying to be something you’re not. Just be yourself for God sakes!”

“Well, Cheri, that’s why I channel Rick James, I have some inner flamboyance and he’s an inspiration.”

(His autobiography is called The Confessions of Rick James: Memoirs of a Super Freak.)

“I could give a good god damn. You’re setting our progress back decades listening to that misogynistic stuff.”

That was the last time I discussed my guilty pleasure with Cheri. Why is it we boil an artist’s talent down to whether or not and what specifically their gross imperfections are, whether drugs, booze, sexism, self-torture, abuse. Does it serve to glamorize their lives or is it so we ordinary, derivative folks feel superior?

The fog out there drifts up the hill in a sheen, dissolving into the blue-black sky, exposing those softly twinkling houses now like brashly lit searchlights. I am lonely. Rick fills the dish washing, laundry folding, floor sweeping drearies with a hilarious, touching, flawed as hell lifeblood. However, Cheri makes me feel like it’s already necessary to apologize to people whom he abused and flung insults at during his lifetime. Sorry in advance for bopping around this cavernous house blasting him. It’s near impossible being a dainty soul when real-deal funk takes a hold.

I play “You and I” over and over, wanting to get at its heart. It is a complex funky love song, an ode to friendship too, a testament that those two beloved reasons for being are intertwined, as James explains in his autobiography. The version featuring Parliament is over eight minutes long. I study the serious foxy musicians pulling it off effortlessly. There’s another song I been listening hard to, “Groove Line” by Heatwave. The end sounds like a train pulling away from the station carrying a loved one, filled with sad longing, an effect I believe the French horn creates. Whoever wrote the music must’ve been some place far from home at the time.

Cheri is pretty sure my loneliness stems from not being capable of watching a screen for too long. It gives me a headache due to I think the odd disconnection it creates. This is a total disability these days as supposedly all the heartbeats of life exist within a screen’s vast innards. The exception is the music videos, which you become immersed in because they’re from before your time or during your time but were unavailable in your region.

“Now don’t get all up on your high horse,” Cheri chimes up when I talk this way, “Screens is life now.” She can immediately spot when I’m being a snotty bore.

So, she says you can get a therapist online. You don’t even got to leave the house, with all your social angsts going on. She pokes how I wouldn’t have to deal with those cold sweats when talking to people, especially professional persons who are organized and put together. Meanwhile what did Rick James wear but funkadelic haberdashery? He was put together on his terms. It’s pretty certain he wouldn’t make you sweat if you came up to him in person. Online therapy, wow, it’s beyond nonsensical debating why you’d get online therapy for having screen issues.

Stumped by her reasoning, which is the goofy kind of logic that goes a long way these days, I yelled to Cheri: “Give it to me baby! I can’t sit in this ole hot tub all by myself!”

Amore Cheri, she didn’t get the reference (“Give it To Me Baby”, 1981) and frantically made a call to 1-888-Get-Help or some shit.

Susan DeFelice