Raising a child can be so hard. We know because we raised one once. All the worrying that the kid'll get into drugs when he becomes a teenager, intently hoping he'll develop good people skills and eventually land a stable job. The headaches were endless. We even remember walking through a blizzard with the kid on our mind once, and praying heaven above would instill some good moral values in him, and that a nun would find him in his basket before he freezes solid on her porch. Yes sir, child-rearing was the hardest three hours of our life.
We learned a lot though, like if you want your kid to grow up a famous funk musician, raise him in a whorehouse. Seriously, there are no better role models than prostitutes and fat guys with the faint stink of KFC on their breath. According to James Brown anyway. Kind of.
James Brown was raised in a brothel, and he wouldn't have changed it for the world.
James Brown grew up in a brothel run by his aunt Honey, and says his experience there put a level head on his shoulders. He claims common sense is the end result of his questionable upbringing, and is quite proud of it. As Brown incoherently put it:
"It (life) would have been worse without that. Because I wouldn't have known that life. Suppose a man who knows nothing about that world is made governor. How's he going to tell a prostitute that she could have another direction? Even if I was the most educated person on the planet, it wouldn't do any good anyway. I'm much better off with common sense."
Following the sage-like wisdom of disease-riddled harlots really took James Brown places too. It got him his first #1 hit in 1959 with the song Try Me, it got him a real-live street named after him, and he got a 7' tall bronze statue of himself dedicated by the city of Augusta, Georgia.
That all sounds pretty good, right? Well, before you start paying call girls for hourly advice, know that their apparent astuteness also got Brown a short stint in prison at the young age of 16, 2.5 more years for a shotgun incident with a high-speed chase (this included allegations of threatening pedestrians with the firearm), 2.5 years for assault, several charges of domestic violence, allegations of a 1988 gunpoint rape, at least three failed marriages, and a mug shot that gives Nick Nolte a run for the big ugly.
But you know, whatever. Uneducated money grubbing slut-bags are real smart and stuff.
Read more:
Brown: 'No regrets about brothel upbringing' – Contactmusic
[story by Shawn Lindseth]
