Kelly, just to let you know, I am totally prepared for you this month! I have a back-up co-host for the show now that you seem incapable of coming out of your dressing room after James Brown! (And for those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about, see the quiz from last month and the month before!)
Hey, I’m with Mick Jagger! And Elaine, I have to ask you, WHO was responsible for putting the Rolling Stones on after James Brown anyway? It just seems like an incredible lapse in judgement!
Kelly, let me explain something to you; now, no one will believe this today, but back then, in the disgraceful days of racial segregation, if you were black, you couldn’t close a show! That’s right! Being the show-closer was a sign of respect, a sign of distinction. Letting a black performer close a show would have meant that he was better than all the white acts on the show, it would never have happened! But the stupidity of this was patently clear to Mick Jagger when he was expected to close after James Brown! He said, “No way, I’m not going to do it!” He had to be dragged forcibly out of the dressing room! Here’s what James Brown himself said about it: “After he [Jagger] saw me [at rehearsal], he didn’t even want to rehearse. Some discussion started then about them going on sooner. I heard that Mick smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, he was so nervous.”
Elaine, explain the famous cape “shtik” at the end of “Please Please Please”.
James Brown used to be a boxer. Apparently, when a boxer is defeated he walks off to his corner and his corner man throws a robe over his shoulders in a sign that it’s time to leave the ring, the boxing ring. So, the idea in this song is, there’s a lady who leaves him and he’s devastated and he walks off defeated, his robe is thrown over his shoulders by his announcer, Danny Ray, and then he decides triumphantly, NO! I’m going to try one more time! And he throws off the robe, struggles back and begs her again to come back home: “Please, please, don’t go!” Here it is now, a very rare video, we’re lucky to have it, James Brown on “Shindig” from 1965:
James Brown “Please Please Please”
Oh, I get it now! Yeah, I can just see the Rolling Stones following that with…what? They hadn’t even recorded “Satisfaction” yet, they had nothing! It’s pathetic, really. Will there be anymore tributes to James Brown in upcoming issues?
Kelly, if people want to see more James Brown, somebody’s going to have to write to me besides Shana!
I’m going to write my letter right now!
Kelly, wait, come back! Kelly! Oh geez, not again! I’m ready for you this time! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Shobi–her family is every bit as health-challenged as Kelly’s! She’s got a great case for us today; this is your father’s case, right Shobi? And amazingly, your mother’s case is in our “Aggravation Zapper” article in this very issue!
I’m surprised my whole family isn’t in this issue, Elaine! But thank you for inviting me, it’s such an honor to be here!
I remember so well when I got your email; here it is.
OK, here we go:
Subject: My dad – urgent
Elaine
It was good seeing you for muffins!
My dad is having a bad moment, though, with a severe respiratory infection – a cough that sounds like gasping. He also suffers from sleep apnea. This respiratory infection comes every time he travels by plane (which he has to do, as this is part of his work). After any flight, long or short, he is left as of recent with this severe phlegmy cough and a high fever. He says the only thing that helped him get thorugh his bussiness trip was having about 5 very hot baths/showers a day between meetings. But the infection is really, really bad. And he is struggling to breathe – the cough sounds so painful and sounds very much like gasps. Even with all this he is struggling to keep working and won’t stop to give himself the rest he needs to heal. He is going about his bussiness but he can barely speak as he is coughing so much – with every word!
He has been seeing a naturopath in Sri Lanka, but he hasn’t been able to help him this time around with the infection.
I know I haven’t done the constitutional for him – but please can you help us with this acute? As soon as I can think I’ll start filling in the constitutional for him.
Shobi
And then I emailed you back and said, “Is it normal for him to suffer from sleep apnea?” I was trying to see if this was part of the case or the way he is all the time; and you wrote back:
Yes. but he hates wearing the oxygen mask when he sleeps as he feels like it’s suffocating him. At the moment, he doesn’t want to wear a tie – he feels like that, too, is suffocating.
So, that’s it folks, that was the information I had, do you know what the remedy is? Write to me at [email protected] and let me know, the answer will be in next month’s ezine. OK, wait, the answer is ready now, click below:
Now listen! Click below to hear the original recording of “Please Please Please” by the Godfather of Soul from 1956:
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Elaine Lewis, DHom, CHom takes online cases. Visit her website at: elainelewis.hpathy.com
