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Meet Jim E. Brown, Manchester's hottest up and coming poet and singer/songwriter. His autobiography "Brown on Brown" is a no-holds barred romp through the streets of East Didsbury to the hills of Chorlton-cum-Hardy....and everywhere in between. Jim E. spills the beans on East Didsbury, his alcoholic years at his favorite pub Ye Olde Cock, his love of Gushers candies, his Father's Pus-filled soars and much more! Purchase of the book includes digital download of "Jim E. Brown Sings His Love Songs," a £250 value! Enjoy!
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Every album needs an introduction, although they are never easy to come by. I try to use an honest and open approach with all of my music.
It was difficult for me to open up and talk about the peas that my mother forced me to eat, but when I did it felt therapeutic. I had been holding it in for too long. I personally find this to be one of the more moving moments on this entire album so I decided to charge 26 pounds for this track (the most expensive on the album). I was born on 9/10/2001 (one day before the 911) and we actually recorded this on my 19th birthday (9/10/2020). Many people think I look older than 19 but due to a smattering of degenerative conditions I have the appearance of a 40 year old.
Because I've always looked older than my years I was able to buy alcohol from a very early age (5), even though I've only been legally allowed to drink since I turned 18 last year. While the other youths at Ashbury Meadow Primary School were sipping on apple juice I was drinking Bellhaven Scottish Stout in the schoolyard. I suffer from alcoholism which has further aged me well beyond my 19 years.
My descent into alcoholism was both rapid and intense. My parents never discovered that I was hitting the bottle because I quickly learned how to hide it from them. For example, if my mum was making a jello, I'd pour a fifth of vodka into water pitcher in our fridge just before she prepared it. You see, my mum made jello just about everyday for me. I learned to feign appreciation for the gelatinous desert, but in fact the nectar i truly desired was not made from pig hoofs, but fermented from potatos...yes, Vodka!
I was 5 years old and buying the cheapest vodka money could be on the daily. Where did a 5 year old get the money to do this, you ask? Where there's a wall there's a way my friends; and no that's not a typo. I began panhandling by the wall near my house. Once I got the requisite five quid from strangers who felt bad for me I'd head right to Cradlebury Commons Market and purchase a plastic bottle of Nikita Imperial. Ah, the moment that clear liquid touched my tongue it was like heaven on earth.
But the fear of getting caught was too great. My older brother, Mark F. Brown had been caught drinking a jug of wine behind the Tesco. My parents sent him off to a boarding school called Shacklebury Heights, an extremely rigid and difficult place for boys.
The Headmaster (Count Withersby) was notoriously cruel and would give each boy 5 lashes before bed as a matter of course. I knew I had to do whatever it took to avoid Shacklebury Heights. When Mark F. would come home for holiday he looked worn. The welts on his thighs were enormous and his joie de vivre had been sucked from him like a potato chip into a vacuum cleaner.
I needed to keep drinking but getting caught was not an option. After my mother prepared the jello each day I'd slip an Ambien into her lemonade and get blissfully twisted as she slept it off. To ensure my father wouldn't catch me it was not so easy. You see, I feared slipping Ambien into his beverages as he had an Ambien Allergy.
He used to remind us all the time that Ambien gave him sores which would ooze pus. If he got enough of the pus-y sores on his face he could be fired from his job (he was a male model) and then the family wouldn't be able to afford bread and eggs to eat (my family loved bread...we used to eat bread for lunch and dinner each day and a boiled egg for breakfast). So i had to find an alternate way to sedate him.
Even though I was only 5 years old I was very studious. I went to the John Ryland Library (on Deansgate) to study everything I could about anesthetics. I was absolutely determined to find a way to sedate my father without creating those pus-y sores! learned about anesthesiology. At the age of 6, after months of daily research, I began to sedate my father daily using a drug called Propofol which I stole from the Manchester Royal Infirmary (my Grandmother Petchula Clemmons worked there). Years later news broke of Pop Singer Mike Jackson and his untimely death due to Propofol abuse.
When I was 5 I looked 20. By the time I was 13 I looked over 30 years old. My adolescence was in its beginning stages and I was starting to take an interest in women. I would try to strike up conversations with extremely beautiful women in their 20s. When my appearance piqued their curiosity the moment was almost always ruined by my high pitched voice. You see, my voice hadn't changed. I had the innocent squeal of a pre-pubescent and it made women extremely uncomfortable. Here was a handsome strapping adult (or so they thought) with the voice of a child. Every day I'd try to strike up a conversation with women as I rode the 23 Bus to my Didsbury Road stop. Finally I met a woman who found the curious dissonance between my voice and my face appealing.
Her name was Carol Krathersburn, a divorced nurse from Droylsden. She was 47 at the time and lived with her two sons Edward and Joseph, 13 and 14. Little did she know that I was classmates with her sons. When she took me home with her I had no idea they were her sons....but I knew the repercussions of them finding out about this affair would be too dire for me to deal with. Luckily my expertise in anesthesiology came in handy. I sedated them (and their mother) with the Propofol and IV I had in my knapsack and rushed off.
When I got home mum had prepared a spread of 2 loaves of bread on the table. Dad and I started ferociously pounding the bread down our gullets. It felt good to eat after the stress of sedating my classmates, but I really needed a shot of vodka. The only problem was I had used my day's rations of propofol so I wouldn't be able to sedate Dad. Should I just tell him I was an alcoholic? No, not worth the risk of being sent to Shacklebury Heights like Mark F.
"Dad." I said. "What's it like being a male model?"
"Well, Jim E.," said Dad "being a male model is kind of like eating a loaf of bread. It's nourishing in that it provides money for the family but it's rewarding in that it tastes good."
"But how can modeling have a taste?" I asked.
"Well, it doesn't literally taste good, but if it were a food, it would taste good."
"I don't understand Dad."
"In time you will, Jim E., in time you will."
My father patted me on the head and pinched my cheek.
"Don't you want to go to bed, Dad?"
"It's only 5pm Jim...and my bed time isn't until 7:30"
"Ah. Ok. But maybe it's better if you go to bed a little earlier than that?"
"Why would that be, Jim?"
"No reason." I said. My mind was racing. I was dying for a fix. I'd need to figure out a way to get at least a little booze on my tongue or the shaking would begin and then my parents would certainly learn about my drinking problem.
I looked at my father's face. I knew the only way I could get him to sleep was with an Ambien. The torment of those pus-y boils ruining his male modeling career sent a chill through my spine but I couldn't resist. I slipped an Ambien into his evening glass of milk and he went out like a light. "Easy as pie" I thought to myself as I gulped down a fifth of vodka.
In the morning I was awoken by a shriek. It was my father. I ran upstairs. He was in the bathroom staring at a face covered in pus-y boils. "Today's my big shoot! I'll have to cancel! My career is over!" He began to weep. "I didn't take an Ambien! And that's the only way these pus-y boils appear! How could and Ambien have been placed into my system?"
I said nothing. My father was a trusting man, and he couldn't imagine that his own son would betray him this way. He didn't know the depths of my alcoholism. There was a lot he didn't know. I stared at the pus-y boils on his face and knew that this was the end of an era.
My father took his own life minutes later. From that day forward my mother became the breadwinner. She took up a job as a teller at Coutts & Co. bank on Hardman Blvd.
But even though she was the breadwinner, we would never eat bread again. It reminded her too much of Dad.
From that day forward we ate only peas in the Brown household.
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