Christie's auctioned off James Brown's estate and his family wasn't thrilled with the results. Among the 317 items up for sale were Brown's fabulous wardrobe of jumpsuits, capes, and boots, along with his trophies, leather couches, and even his Walk of Fame star. Everything brought high prices but the total take was $857,688 - about half of what was expected. Our personal favorite item was brown's 1960's salon hair dryer. When we met him backstage at Chicago's Regal theater, he and his pink foam rollers were under that dryer. It went for $10,625.

Afer two months of suspended animation, James Brown has been buried at an undisclosed location, and his wife Tomi Rae Hynie seems to have settled in Los Angeles. We're told she is staying with some generous and wealthy friends and has enrolled James Jr in an LA school. There's no doubt that James Jr is the music legend's son - his teachers marvel at how much he resembles his famous dad, and he is said to have many mannerisms and physical moves just like James Sr. In other words, he's inherited all that funky choreogaphy.

We had no idea what Tomi Rae Hynie went through to keep her man James Brown happy. An insider from the Brown camp revealed that James, 72, liked his women "to look a certain way." If his wife or girlfriend had beauty flaws, James insisted they do somethng about it. He felt he had a reputation to maintain and didn't want a fat unattractive female partner. - he wanted a "trophy wife." That's why he encouraged his exwive Adrienne to have liposuction - unfortunately she died while recovering. James was devastated and Tomi, 36, came along just in time to save him from despair. But Tomi wan't perfect either so James spent $60,000 to fine- tune her looks. She had breast augmentation, lip augmentation, liposuction, her cheeks and chin done, her brow lifted and her teeth redone. Most of the work was done in the last year or so and she became dependent on painkillers. She's been through a lot and now she's shut out of the house and James' will, it seems. We hope she has a smart lawyer - she deserves her share.

We are horrified that James Brown might have inadvertantly started a tasteless trend. Everywhere we looked for the past few days - from online to newspapers to television - we have been greeted by pictures of dead James Brown lying in his casket. Whether we WANTED to see it or NOT! Tame celebrity shows including The Insider showed me, against my will, pictures of James Brown's dead body.. Since when did it become okay to reveal deceased celebrities laid out in their caskets? At one time only The Enquirer would do such a tasteless thing. We're sure that James, always fussy about his appearance, would NOT have appreciated this. We're afraid James has opened he door to a parade of dead celebrities in the future.

A friend of ours who used to write for Rolling Stone told us an amusing story about the recently departed James Brown. It was back in the early 80's and this reporter called James to ask his opinion of the new sensation Prince, who was being compared to him. Prince's shiny suits, pompadour hair, and melodramatic songs were reminiscent of early James Brown. When our reporter got James on the phone and brought up Prince, Brown didn't hold back. "He's a skinny imitation of me!" growled the Godfather of Soul. "HE RIPPED ME OFF!" The moves, the style, the hair - I did it all first!" We don't know if James became more politically correct later on, but he had no love for Prince back then.

We're shocked by the sudden loss of James Brown, but we'll never forget the day we spent with him. It was back in the 60's in Chicago and we were HUGE fans. When it was announced that he would appear at the Regal theater on the South Side of Chicago, we could hardly wait. The Regal was like the Apollo theater in New York - it catered to the black audience and featured the best musical acts of the era. James Brown always drew long lines. Visions of his shiny tight silk suits, pompadour hair and amazing moves, plus that big orchestra, danced in our heads as we got in line in the rain IN THE MORNING at the Regal. In those days we were the only white people there. Brown performed several shows a day with a movie in between. You paid once and could stay all day! We sat through the movie several times and were able to move up to the front for Brown's evening show. He did the camel walk and the splits. The audience was shrieking and swooning as he fell to his knees wailing and his cape guy came out and wrapped him up. He tossed his rhinestone cufflinks into the adoring audience and we managed to GRAB one (which we still have to this day.) After the exhausting show, we finagled our way backstage, determined to meet our idol. James couldn't have been nicer. We were surprised that he was wearing pink foam rollers in his hair - and was about to go under the hair dryer to prepare for his next show. We talked about his silk suits, he introduced us around , offered us food, and gave us an autographed photo before we left. It was an unforgettable day. We expect to see Eddie Murphy at the funeral.