Yellow Mama E zine

Payola

 

by Peter Mladinic

 

           It’s my story. I started in Cleveland, went to palatial digs

           in New York, and ended in rooming house central

          California obscurity, no one greasing my palm to play

           The Teen Queens’ “Eddie My Love,” The Cadets’

          “Stranded in the Jungle,” The Moonglows’ “Sincerely.”

 

           “Play mine, Mr, Freed!” Call me Alan. Like The Little

           Rascals’ Stymie, I said, “If you give me a nickel, I will.”

           A little goes a long way, to the Brooklyn Paramount show

           headlined by Chuck Berry, with Etta James, The Charts,

           The Coasters, The Midnighters, The Dells. Earl Carroll

 

           and The Cadillacs, singing “Speedoo,” ties loosened,

           shirts sweat-soaked, soul groove across the floor.

           Kids in the orchestra dancing in aisles. I, Moondog Alan

           Freed, put the show together, yesteryear’s go-to guy,

           if you want your record played, if you want to be famous.

 

           Payments hushed, till scandal rocked, like Bill Haley’s

           Comets, around the clock. Now, if I listen carefully

           I can hear rhythms from a red radio on a walnut shelf.

           A girl dances to “Rip it up, shake it up,” alone in her room,

           payola something out across the river, through the trees.

 

           Now, on TV, a bunch of kids dancing to the Moonglows’

           “See Saw.” In checkered blazer and black bowtie,

           baggy-eyed, I watch over them. Known in Cleveland

           in New York the prince of sound, payola left me a fifth

           of gin on a kitchen counter, and the shirt on my back.

 

 

 

         Peter Mladinic's most recent book of poems, The Whitestone Bridge, is available from Anxiety Press. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.

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          Bernice Holtzman’s paintings and collages have appeared in shows at various venues in Manhattan, including the Back Fence in Greenwich Village, the Producer’s Club, the Black Door Gallery on W. 26th St., and one other place she can’t remember, but it was in a basement, and she was well received. She is the Assistant Art Director for Yellow Mama.