Check this shit out. James is cool. He and his dad get into a fight about saving the redwoods. Later on his dad feels bad so he gives James an airplane ticket to France. And James goes. Now wait just a God damned minute! Why would you go to France? Cause you've always wanted to go or cause you're studying French or cause your grandma is from France or cause you're into architecture and want to see the Eiffel Tower up close. But why does James Brown go to France? Cause he's got a motherfucking plane ticket. James Brown is the shit. That's "the" with the long "e" : James Brown is theee shit.

So he's on the plane and he sits next to this lady. SWF, early thirties, into Coleridge, biking, and strong coffee, seeks SWM, late twenties to early thirties, for conversation, gossip, foot rubs. No smokers or drugs. And James Brown doesn't even have to lay on the charm. He is the charm. He don't have to put on the cool. He is the cool. James Brown rolls his own! And I don't even mean that metaphorically!

They hang out in Paris. Les Deux Maggots, Louvre, The Dali museum. Holding hands on the Champs Elysee, hand in each other's back pockets under the Arc d'Triumph, whispered giggles and eyeball-fencing at Notre Dame. James Brown is the master eyeball-fencer. He will kick your ass. He looks at you with his head slightly lowered and you don't know if he's a brahma bull, baby, or a psychopath with the fix you desperately need. So they have Paris.

They meet her sister, who lives there, going to school. They're in sister's apartment after a long day of nodding at Napoleon's tomb. James Brown is in the middle. He got his hand on SWF's thigh and his other hand on sister's knee. They're watching Knight Rider re-runs dubbed in French, all of 'em smiling with their eyes half-closed. Sister stands up, says she's going to bed, smiles at James Brown and SWF and says good night. James and prey go to the other bed.

I am not going to describe the sex. Don't have to. You'd just find something about it to make you think you could do it better. Well, you couldn't. Just imagine it the way you'd want it to be, big or small or fast or slow or aggressive or tender or whatever. Then try to imagine it a little better. That's James Brown. Don't go saying it couldn't be cause it is.

The next day, James Brown gets up and flies back home. Now why would you leave your partner's bed? Embarrassed? Afraid? Unsatisfied? James Brown left because he had a plane ticket! I'm telling you he is the motherfucking man.

James sits at his desk in his office where he tutors English students, and like I said he rolls his own. You watch his stubby fat fingers roll the tobacco and the paper, and he does not drop a single shred. How do you roll them so smooth, James? you ask him, cause he rolls so smooth you think maybe you'll start smoking so you can roll your own too. And James just smiles at you, and his eyes say just takes a lot of practice, bitch. It's a compliment when James Brown's eyes call you bitch. Everybody wants to be James Brown's bitch. Everybody in the world. Mother Theresa even, God rest her soul, wants to be James Brown's bitch. Maybe you think you don't want to be anybody's bitch, maybe you think you're above being a bitch. Well you aren't- you are already James Brown's bitch.

Cause that's how James Brown kicks your ass. He's already your friend. Maybe you're a little old man in China, never seen more than your plot of land and your grandkids running around playing with the neighborhood dog. But you are James Brown's friend. And when he sees you, he says, "Hey, man," and even if you're in a bad mood cause the drought is killing your crops, you smile anyway cause James just kicked your ass.

Here's something else that happened to James Brown. Fuck that. James Brown happened to it. Every morning James Brown comes in early to make coffee which he drinks out of a crooked little green tea cup that doesn't even have a handle! James makes up the coffee, and if you like your coffee week you like James Brown's coffee, and if you like your coffee average you like his coffee, and if you like your coffee strong you like his coffee. If you like your coffee thick enough to paint your house with you like James Brown's coffee. Later on Will comes in. He's got permanent five o'clock shadow, but it's cool, not stupid like that guy on Miami Vice. Will's pre-law, and that means he knows coffee. So he grabs a styrofoam cup which makes all coffee taste like shit, even if the coffee came out of God's ass itself. He pours a cup and drinks it and says, who made this coffee? And the weird guy from Kansas who just started working there who doesn't drink coffee but might learn how because James Brown makes it says James Brown made it, and just then James Brown walks in with his head kind of lowered at the fastish-slowish walk speed he's got, and Will, pre-law, five o'clock shadow, just ups and says to him, you are the coffee god. James Brown makes coffee so good it tastes alright even in a styrofoam cup! He will kick your motherfucking ass!

Or how about this. That weird guy from Kansas, right? Kind of new at the whole graduate English thing, right? Doing a reading of Ulysses, that joke book that that Irish weirdo wrote, right? He's pissing and moaning about how he can't find anything at the library about the book, can't understand the book anyway, what's the point, maybe he should go back to the farm, and James Brown says here, read this. It's theee book. It totally makes him understand, totally writes his little report he has to give to the class on chapter six. Where'd you get this book, James Brown? the weird guy asks. I don't know, found it in a bookstore a few years ago, thought it was pretty cool. James Brown even kicks James Joyce's ass. And that is ass kicking.

James Brown will kick your ass, babies. He will turn you around and make you wish you were three or four other people at the same time so you that you can have James Brown three or four different ways. He don't got no piercings, don't got no tattoos, don't watch TV, rolls his own, drinks coffee out of a teacup, kicks your ass, shaves his head, saves the redwoods, tutors English, listens to jazz but not that Kenny G fusion shit, eats rice dishes with olives and dates, fights with his dad, flies to France, buttons his shirts to his neck, wears shorts, cool-as-shit glasses, nods his head when he smokes, carries a wristwatch but doesn't wear it, been in his mid-twenties since the eighties and will stay there into the noughts, and most important of all smiles at you and makes you glad you got what you got and ain't got what you ain't got. What's that sore spot on your ass? That's where James Brown kicked it.