James Brown and Wilson Pickett In a Cold Sweat

James Brown once performed "Cold Sweat" with Wilson Pickett also known as the Wicked Pickett. The video shows the performance along with a rendition of one of the songs that made Pickett famous in the 60’s, “In the Midnight Hour.” The rendition is almost iconic because it depicts maybe not an oedipal rivalry, but an Oedipal triumph though it is unclear who is Oedipus and who the unfortunate Laius in this case. Brown is giving one of his concerts and he calls Pickett up from the audience. Pickett is dressed in black tie and tails and the King of Soul sports a more heterodox attire, a glitzy regal looking jumpsuit which enables him to bare his chest both physically and metaphysically. If you notice any video of James Brown, he is a commanding figure. His diminutive but muscle bound form is a Napoleonic presence on stage. However the minute Wilson Pickett take the mic, he overshadows Brown. In fact his rendition of “Cold Sweat" is not only compelling, but aficionados might even think better. Brown seems to slink away and you can detect an unmistakable envy even jealousy in his body language. He is bobbing and weaving, but he is like a fighter who isn’t punching back as Pickett totally overshadows him. The battle might have been won when Brown offers him an encore, but once Pickett unleashes “In the Midnight Hour" it’s like a team experiencing home field advantage. The war was lost. Neither Pickett nor Brown are alive so we’ll never know what either was really feeling, but like the "Thrilla in Manila" or the "Rumble in the Jungle,” or Monty Python’s famous, Mr. Creosote projectile vomiting scene, this is one video you don’t want to miss.

Say It Loud

The Sunday Times Book Review has been making some inspired assignments lately. First there was Clinton on the latest volume in Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ ("Seat of Power," NYT, 5/2/12) and this past Sunday the review assigned Al Sharpton to do James Brown (“Say It Loud,” NYT, 6/1/12). Back in the 70’s Don King had an office on the Upper East Side and Sharpton refereed a little scuffle that was going on between King and Brown right on the street in front of the office—the infamous self-promoter briefly sidelining a promoter out of control. Now Sharpton's cast in the role of another kind of referee in offering a judgment on RJ Smith’s The Life and Music of James Brown. If a review can be deemed any indication of the sensibility of the writer, then the one time walking agent provocateur has aged well. “People were often surprised at his relevance, but James never doubted his own significance, or the fact that he was a historic figure and an undeniably game-changing artist,” Sharpton opines. A few sentences later, he remarks, “James didn’t bring blacks to the mainstream; instead, he brought the mainstream to blacks and made them appreciate and internalize black music and culture themselves.” Those who might not always cotton to Sharpton’s tendentiousness in politics will certainly appreciate his literate punditry. Perhaps Sharpton’s true calling lies in book reviewing! Newsweek once did a survey about how Americans rated varying professions. Criticism was right at the bottom of the list, along with garbage pickup, but Sharpton has pizzazz and charm and rolls off words like a latter day Samuel Johnson. Sharpton’s review of the James Brown bio was a breath of fresh air. Those who follow the workings of TNYTBR will wait with baited breath to see what Sam Tanenhaus comes up with next.

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Rubber Band

Cruisin’ east on 495 to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

Is resistance the only means by which the forces of inertia are overcome? Is it like a rubber band, which must be held in place against a countervailing pull in order to produce force? Without resistance, the human project fails. Caligula refused to resist his desires, and ended up exemplifying the corruption destroyed the Roman Empire. All the jokes about women saying no to sex recapitulate the history of the demiurge, as well as Newton’s Third Law of Motion—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

   

Is it the tendency of all matter, including inanimate objects, to differentiate? If there is a higher order of being, would it necessarily occupy itself with the condition of man? That would require too many calls to the field. The circuits would burn out. The switchboard would close down. And then there is the desperate motif of Bruegel’s “Triumph of Death”: pleading is not believing.

   

News reports that there is water on the dark side of the moon give hope to residents of the New York metropolitan area whose urban ambitions have been thwarted by skyrocketing rents in the once inexpensive outer boroughs. The moon will be Australia, and a whole new class of convicts will give birth to the Nicole Kidmans of tomorrow. But what will it be called—Up Above as opposed to Down Under? And who will be the Crocodile Dundee of the moon? The moon will beget its own problems, its own vacation resorts, where pleasure is disappointed, and its own universe of therapy, including the lunar hour, roughly equivalent to 45 minutes.

    

There may be "no second acts in American lives," as F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted, but the English writer Penelope Fitrzgerald embarked on her estimable oeuvre at age 58.

Dreaming about Luciano Pavarotti singing James Brown Live at the Met.