GEORGIA'S HEROES 4 TODAY

Part 4 of 5

Today's Focus: James Brown

I have no idea where he lived as a teenager or in his early twenties, but it was probably another up-to-date, cutting-edge- of-the-Pleistocene town like Macon and Augusta.

James Brown is best known for his sensitive, tender love songs that, like so much of rock-n-roll, helped lead the way towards todays progressive attitudes towards women as human beings, as opposed to objects. Songs like "Hot Pants!". Over 1/2 of the lyrics he sings are based on a single word (probably Swahili for freedom, truth, love & beauty) - "Ow!". In any given song, the rest of the lyrics are mostly the title, over and over.

For the last 20 or 50 years, Master Brown (more on that in a moment) has been living in Augusta, GA (which some of the more astute readers may remember as the intestinal exit duct of the South). He also bought his mother a house there. Both houses are in very prestigious parts of Augusta.

At Christmas, JB decorates his manse and acreage with so many lights (which include a black Santa and some decidedly African raindeer - try finding those at your local K-Mart) that the Georgia Power Company puts his December-January bill in their annual budget. The year he was out of town and forgot to notify them, they had to lay off 300 workers those months. He also throws a mongo holiday bash, for which he hires teenage white males to run around in 1850's-like outfits to greet the guests, open the gates, etc. He calls them "boy". I believe they have to call him "master" or "master Brown". This endears him mightily to the white population in Augusta, many of whom have been tested KKK-positive.

The paperboys fight to get the routes he and his mother live on, hoping to meet this legend. They also fear to approach either house, lest he call them "boy", and their friends ridicule them for not taunting him back. This is because they know that if they do say something, ahem, off-color, his bodyguards will spread their rear ends all over about 3 square miles of pavement.

All this just goes to show that if a poor black man works hard, caters to raw emotions, and acts wild, he can get rich, and turn into just another overindulgent, overrated, filthy rich jive honky.

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DISCLAIMER:The above satire may contain look-and-feel of real persons. However, under the Copyright Act, since only a small portion of the LAF was reproduced here for purposes of example, no sweat. My lawyer, if you insist, is Guido Spumoni, but don't get him riled. Trust me.

All recollections about JB & his family in Augusta are from the 60's and early 70's. I suppose he may have changed a bit since then, but I haven't seen any Enquirer headlines about camels and needle's eyes.

Last updated: 30 Apr 1994