FROM MOTOWN TO OHHHTOWN

Earlier this year, the nation held its breath during an exchange on the Today show in which Smokey Robinson and A1 Roker faced off over the title of Smokey’s latest album, Gasms. When pressed to give his interpretation of the name, A1 declined: “It’s a family show and I need a job,” said America’s Weatherman, prompting Smokey to counter accusingly, “Oh, that’s where you went with it.”

See, to 83-year-old Smokey, there are all kinds of gasms. There are mind gasms, eargasms, and, of course, the type of gasms that can form intimate bonds among people, create human life itself, and lead us to make terrible choices when it’s closing time at the Applebee’s bar. As Smokey informed Al, “It’s about whatever you want it to be about, man.”