Elaine Lewis

Elaine!  What better way to start off our 8th season than by interviewing you!

Right, because it just screams “Happy New Year!”  Alan, actually, now that I think about it, this is the perfect time to have me as “Homeopath in the Hot Seat” because — like an idiot — I signed up for “Career Day” at my old school!!!!!!

OMG!  At your alma mater?

Yes!  Friends Select.  What was I thinking?  I have to give a brief talk on homeopathy!  Oy vey!  (That is my career, isn’t it?  I’m not sure.)

Why don’t you say you started out as a folk singer in the ’60’s, playing guitar, writing music…later traveling with a famous band….

Yes, because that leads into homeopathy so well!

OK, forget I said that.

Actually, Alan, to be accurate, The Silhouettes weren’t a band, they were a Doo-wop group from the ’50’s.

And they had a number-1 hit record called “Get A Job” in 1958!  Here it is now:

That’s my husband Rick Lewis on the right.  When they were touring on the Oldies Circuit in the ’80’s, I was their bass player; and I didn’t really write anything but I did write the lead sheets out for the band.

I stand corrected.  

Here I am tuning up backstage at a theater in Boston:

Here we are in Rhode Island in 1989, I’m on the far right next to Rick:

Wow!

Do you want to see the sax solo I wrote out for “Get A Job”?

You wrote the sax solo?

No, I wrote it out!  You see, it was like this, Alan; everywhere we played, there was a house band — it was quite pathetic, really!  They never rehearsed our songs even though we always sent a tape ahead of time — they were just lazy; I think they thought they could just wing it, play it by ear!  The sax player would never bother to learn the horn solo, he’d just make something up — insisting that if the “real” sax player were there, that’s what he would do — and I was getting tired of this nonsense so I wrote out the sax solos to all the songs!  (I was listening to a tape of one of our shows recently, and the horn solo sounded like there was a cat on stage attacking another cat!)  So, here’s what I wrote out:

You did that?  Did the band members appreciate it?

No!  “The saxophone isn’t written in the treble clef,” I was told!

Ouch!

Well excuuuuse me!!!!  “Could you transpose what I’ve done into whatever clef it’s supposed to be in?!”  I asked?   Reluctantly, and acting put-upon, the saxophonist did just that.  It was the first time our songs ever sounded like the record!

Back in those days, it was a “men’s club” (I guess it probably still is, maybe) and I, being female, was viewed as a curiosity and a pain in the butt!

Alan, are you going to help me come up with a speech for Career Day?

OK.   So what was it like?

What was what like?

Being female and touring with a famous group?

A lot of it was about finding a place to change!  There were no dressing rooms for women, so, I changed in the car once, the bathroom another time… and about having to get up early and go to bed early, neither of which I was good at!  I finally discovered Valium.  Does no one want to talk about homeopathy?  Oh!  You know what Alan?  It’s time for my snack.

Your snack???  It’s just as well because it’s time for me to go to bed!

I like the way this interview is kicking off, don’t you Alan?

***

Hello Elaine, where are we?

If you were Andre Saine, you’d have said, “Where were’s we?”

I would?

He’s French Canadian and he makes a lot of grammatical errors!

Yes, I know, he’s the director of the Canadian Academy of  Homeopathy!

I’ve decided to start talking like him in the hopes it will catch on.  I say things like, “How’s are you?”

Really?  Is it catching on with anyone?

Yes, Shana.

Well, best of luck to you in this craze which I see as going nowhere!

You’re going to have to talk louder, Alan, I’m in the kitchen!

ARE YOU READY FOR THE INTERVIEW TO START YET?!

Alan, you don’t have to yell, I’m right here!

Are you still playing?

What?

Musically.

I just produced a CD, a double CD actually, of all the Silhouettes’ songs. 

Are you kidding?!  Why didn’t you say something sooner?  Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?  How did you do that?

Well, Alan, it took me a year!  And in the middle of the whole thing, I got a brilliant idea!  Down through the years, I saved everything the Silhouettes ever said!

Everything?

Practically, because I always had a tape running, and I used to record phone conversations, I saved their voice mails, I have radio interviews; they rehearsed at my house!  That’s Rick playing guitar on the left.

So I said to myself, “Elaine, you should drop these ‘Conversation’ samples into your CD, between the songs, it would be a one-of-a-kind, for sure!”

So, how can we buy it?

You just have to write to me at LEWRA@aol.com and say, “Elaine, if it’s not too much trouble, could you please send me your one-of-a-kind CD?”  As a matter of fact, Alan, I need a good advertising slogan for it, something like, “Buy my CD, send Shana to college!” What do you think?

It’s very catchy!  How much does it cost?

College?  Believe me, you don’t want to know!  

No, the CD!

Oh!  $20.00.  It’s a double CD!

That is cheaper than college!  Are you on it?

On the CD?  Yes, I’m on it!

Wow!  What’s your favorite “insert”, if I can call it that?

Well, there’s the one where Rick and I are arguing over a paragraph from The Prophet.

Are you going to elaborate on that?

Rick used to think it was funny to try to confuse me.  Basically the problem was there were too many “it’s”, and we started disagreeing over what nouns they referred back to!

I’m laughing hysterically!  Give me another “insert” that you like.

You can hear Bill Horton apologizing to my dog.

Your dog?

Yes, my German Shepherd, Larry.  Larry insisted on decorum.  They don’t call them Police Dogs for nothin’!

 

Bill, Rick, Earl and Raymond

 

Well, if they can keep sheep in line….

Yes!  Exactly!  Alan, it’s time for my snack again.

Again?????   Well, take five, everybody!

***

Alan, where are you?  It’s a done deal, it’s over, it’s history!

What is?

Career Day!  It’s over!

You’ve given your speech?  They seem to have the wrong date up there!  And that’s not you speaking, is it?

No, it isn’t.  More importantly, Alan, what is wrong with the youth of today?!!!!!

By the way, that’s me in the background on the right, bravely holding up the wall, averting catastrophe!

Good for you, Elaine!  Now, tell me what you said!

I took a look at the seats filled with teenagers in blue jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts and backpacks and said, “Well, finally everybody looks like me!”

Ha-ha!  Did they think that was funny?

No!  “Hey!” I said.  “It’s my generation you can thank for what you’re allowed to wear to school today!”  Then I told everyone it would be appropriate at this moment if they could raise their fist and say,  “Power to the People!”

They were hesitant.  I don’t think they knew what it meant!  So I decided to move on and say, “Who’s on drugs?”

An unorthodox beginning if ever I’ve heard one!

Some of them stirred and looked around quizzically. “What drugs are you on?” I repeated.  They couldn’t think of any so another panel member suggested to them that “Advil” was a drug.  (You know what, Alan?  We need better teenagers!)  OK, so at that point, I stood up, pulled a Boiron tube out of my pocket

and said, “You see this?  These are MY drugs!  They’re Magic Pills!  They’re homeopathic remedies and they’re totally natural, no side effects!  I go through life like Superman — illnesses, injuries… bounce right off of me and I keep on going! 

Now let me tell you why that is.  These remedies aren’t really chemicals like Advil, they’re “energies”.  You pick one that matches the “energy” if your illness or injury and they repel each other (as you know from Science class, “similars repel”). 

Drugs are rarely similar, they all start with the word “anti”.  They’re “anti” the symptoms you have but symptoms aren’t really the disease, they’re the body’s adaptation to it!  Let me put it this way, if your adaptation to stomach pain is to bend over double, how does it help your stomach pain if I force you to sit up straight?  That doesn’t change anything, other than appearances, does it?  And then as soon as I get tired of forcing you to sit up straight, you’re just going to go right back to bending double again, aren’t you?  Meaning now I have to come back again and force you to sit up straight.  This is the prototype of “disease management” through the use of drugs.  Nothing gets cured, it’s just the saga of drug-dependence. 

Do you think anybody learned anything from your talk?

No.  But one girl in the front row thought I was funny!  

There’s always a silver lining.

Alan, never pass up a chance to do something off the beaten path.  You know what Robert Frost says about taking the road less traveled by?  For example, in my case?  I got a school t-shirt!

You got it as an award?

No, I asked for it!

Ahem!  Well, I’m sure there is a lesson in this for all of us — somewhere.    

Alan, I would answer that but it’s time for my snack!

Take five, everyone!

***** 

Now, where was I?  Oh yes, DRUGS!  That’s what this talk is about!  People, drugs are bad.  Just watch the commercials.  They tell you how bad they are so you can’t sue them!  I just picked a drug at random:   Avandia (type-II diabetes drug).  Side effects are listed as follows:  Heart attack, stroke, swelling, rapid weight gain, nausea, stomach pain, jaundice, increased thirst or hunger, easy bruising or bleeding, weakness, headache, sneezing, coughing, diarrhea and back pain.  I mean, why would you take this?  For type II diabetes?  A junk food disease?  You’re supposed to stop eating junk food, that’s the idea here, not to take a drug that is actually much worse than diabetes!

In conclusion Alan, if you can possibly remember your original question, your immune system can’t function normally under an onslaught of processed food and drugs.  Have I answered your question yet?

I don’t remember asking a question!  Which can mean only one thing:  time for your snack, and time for me to go to bed!  Thanks for helping us start off the new year right, Elaine; and hey everybody, don’t forget:  buy Elaine’s CD and help Shana go to college; it’s a worthy cause.  Shana, where’s are you?

Here’s I am, Alan!

Good luck, Shana!  Bye, Elaine; and thanks!

________________________________

Elaine Lewis, D.Hom., C.Hom.

Elaine is a graduate of Robin Murphy’s Hahnemann Academy of North America.

Elaine takes online cases, contact her at LEWRA@aol.com and visit her website at https://ElaineLewis.hpathy.com