Happy Juneteenth week. KCRW and the team making this show celebrated the holiday on Thursday, which means we aren’t publishing a new episode this week. Instead, we’re giving you a special feed drop of a conversation I had a few weeks ago on a lovely podcast called Normal Gossip.

The premise of the show is pretty simple, which is a big reason the show is so special and such a big hit. Here’s how it works: listeners of the show write in with absurd gossip. A story they’ve heard through the grapevine or a predicament they’ve watched a friend or loved one live through. And then, host Rachelle Hampton tells that gossip to a guest, who reacts to the tale in real time. It’s always hilarious and often profound. 

I’ve had the honor of guesting on this show twice, and this week we’re giving you my second appearance. I won’t give you any spoilers, but I will tell you that the episode is titled, A United Nations of Red Flags, and the story I heard is FULL of them, including: going to second locations with strangers, falling in love too quickly while on an international vacation, and a whole lot more. Check it out. 

And radio listeners, you’ll hear an encore of one of my favorite chats I’ve ever had on this show: my conversation with Rachel Bloom. It was a mediation on COVID PTSD, grief, and trauma — themes Rachel explores beautifully in her most recent Netflix special titled, Death, Let Me Do My Special. 

And with that, can I leave you with a recommendation that will make your Juneteenth weekend complete? 

It’s an obscure Al Green live performance that is one of the most engaging, comical, and absurd live performances I’ve ever seen. I grew up watching the VHS with my brother, repeatedly. That video was called Al Green: On Fire In Tokyo, but you can find it on YouTube by the title, Al Green - Live In Tokyo. 

The scene: it’s 1988 and Al Green has gone from being one of America’s greatest soul singers to singing gospel music, and gospel music only, at least for a while. Green’s life was always this back and forth, a journey between the sacred and the secular. For instance, he grew up in a strict religious home, but after being kicked out as a teenager for listening to Jackie Wilson (that’s all he did!), he ended up living with a prostitute, hustling, and developing a drug habit. 

From 1981 to 1989, after making some of the best baby-making music ever, Green returned to the gospel he grew up with, after taking a fall from a stage during a concert as a sign from God. 

On Fire In Tokyo comes during this period of Green’s career, and it’s wonderfully trapped in between these two versions of Green: the sacred and the secular. You see it from the very start: Green walks onto the stage in an all-white suit, dressed like a Lothario. He starts jumping up and down and clapping with big cocaine energy before he even starts to sing. And then he begins to sing about Jesus, with songs that all sound as if they could be performed in a nightclub. Green takes breaks periodically during the show to pass out red roses to women in the crowd, as one does during a gospel concert, right? 

There’s one moment in the show when you think Green might be singing an actual love song, with lines about falling in love in the first verse. But then you reach the chorus, with Green and his backup singers belting, “In the Holy Name of Jesus” over and over and over again. It’s tonal whiplash, and I laugh hysterically every time the show gets to this moment.

The special goes on, layers of clothing come off, as happens in your typical gospel concert, right? Sweat drenches Green's all-white outfit. He sings and dances with the fervor of a lounge singer, at times writhing on the floor in musical ecstasy, or shuttling across the stage poking his butt out, smiling the biggest smile you’ve ever seen a Jesus freak smile. There’s a cover of “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” that you could dance to in a nightclub. The whole thing is a wild ride.

It’s comical and sexual and sacred all at once. And it’s also Al Green, which means he hits every note perfectly, and that not a single second of On Fire In Tokyo sounds bad. I watch On Fire In Tokyo when I miss the church I grew up in, which was also full of gospel music that sounded like the blues. It’s my very favorite musical space to live in — right in between the churchhouse and the club. And it’s a perfect place in which to celebrate the Black Excellence of Al Green, one of the greatest to ever straddle this musical fence. 

Happy Juneteenth. Go watch On Fire in Tokyo. We’ll see you next week with a brand new episode featuring maybe one of my favorite scream queens of our era? I can’t wait for you to check it out. Until then, happy weekend!

– Sam

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