By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Nov 19, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
I have some idea now what it feels like to cancel a concert tour.
The past week I have been listening to Pearl Jam every morning.
It has become too exhausting for me to tap into my inner Eddie Vedder every morning for an entire week.
This morning I decided I needed to take a break from listening to Pearl Jam due to exhaustion.
I am going to listen to Paul Simon instead. Who is smaller and has a much softer persona to tap into than Eddie Vedder. I am not cancelling the entire Pearl Jam tour, so to speak. I just need a few days of Paul Simon to rest and recuperate.
I may be ready to listen to Pearl Jam again as early as next week — especially if I focus on listening to Simon’s later works, which are akin to eating chicken soup. And may help restore my voice which has become a little scratchy from the Pearl Jam singing this past week.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Nov 18, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
They say go with your first thought on things.
I was never sure what that meant until this morning.
On my way to meet someone for an early morning business meeting, I got an email from someone else that he couldn’t make our meeting — a meeting I had set for the exact same time and completely forgotten about –because he had “something unexpected come up at work.”
1) My first thought was, “Oh wow! Thank you, God! That would have been humiliating. I wrote an email response telling him “No problem,” and that we could reschedule.
2) My second thought was I should put a little hint of disappointment in my response email to make him feel guilty for cancelling at the last minute.
3) My third thought was “Wonder who the heck he is meeting with who is so important that he had to cancel a meeting with me” –that I had admittedly forgotten and couldn’t make myself because I was meeting with someone else too.
4) My fourth thought was, “Maybe you should just email the response from your first thought and keep the rest to yourself.”
So, always go with your first thought. And if you can’t do that hold off until the fourth thought. And don’t dwell on the second and third.
A good rule of thumb is that genuine gratitude is always better than false indignation.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Nov 17, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
I was just notified I have been–again–a victim of credit card fraud.
Someone in NY manually charged some product from Nevada that costs 99 cents.
I thought it was kinda pitiful. If I had met the man on the street and he’d told me about the 99 cents and that he was about to commit a major crime for it, I might have given him the money myself. Especially if it would have meant he would have left my credit card alone and I wouldn’t have to go through getting a new one. Heck, that would be worth maybe $1.50 to me. Just to avoid the hassle.
If you are out there and thinking of stealing my credit card information to buy something less than $1.50 (like this last guy), talk to me first. Let’s see if we can’t work something out. If you are interested in more than that, we are going to be negotiating for a while and I am not willing to be shaken down for more than, ohhh, $2. Tops!!
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Nov 14, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Memory supplements may or may not help improve mmemory. But I have discovered a way to make you feel again like your mind is a steel trap.
Going off a prescription medication that has listed as a side effect “Memory.” It wasn’t clear from the side effect list if “memory” was affected negatively or positively as a possible side effect. Turns out it is negative. Fortunately, however, “Not caring about having memory loss” was NOT another side effect. So, my doctor took me off it.
It’s nice having the memory again of a 51 year old rather than a 91 year old. Like taking off ankle weights after wearing them all day, I feel like I can mentally run and jump again like never before. I feel ready to re-memorize all the books of the Bible, memorize the alphabet backwards (just for the heck of it), and learn a new language on Rosetta Stone in one day (but probably not today).
I probably won’t do any of these things. In fact, I am sure I won’t. But it is nice to have the thought that I might and could. Even better than the results I had with Gingko which I bought several years ago but admittedly never gave a full chance. (Full disclosure: I couldn’t remember where I put the bottle.)
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 13, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
I was just reminded of an interview my grandfather Brown did with the wonderful Sue Wylie when he was 84 years old.
After explaining all of the political races he had lost, Sue tried to offer a softball question to distract from the awkwardness and wrap up everything on a pleasant and hopeful note.
Sue queried, “But Mr Brown if you could live your life over would you have done anything differently?”
After a confused pause my grandfather responded, “Well, Honey, of course I would. I would have done a whole lot of things differently. Look, it’s a little silly to get to the end of your life and say you wouldn’t have done anything differently …if you could do everything over again.”
And he stopped. I loved it. And I never forgot the leason that when you are asked a question and aren’t sure how to answer it, you can’t go wrong going with raw candor. And then stopping.
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Nov 12, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Getting advice from my wife on the differences in how men and women communicate.
Rebecca suggests if you are mad at someone to just to ignore them. But I worry that the other person (the person you are mad at and ignoring) isn’t aware that my silence means I am mad at them.
I asked if it was possible to follow up with an email explaining my anger strategy.
Rebecca said only if it is a guy you are mad at.
I prefer communicating like a male. It keeps me from having to track down old email addresses, if nothing else.
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t’s your loss, Honey.
My wife is working on something in our bedroom and asked me if I had time to help by doing her a favor….. I explained that I had a pile of busywork to finish and couldn’t help right now. Rebecca understood and I went back to my office in our home.
But before getting down to work, I saw I had left a basketball in the office from earlier. Feeling fidgety, I picked up the ball and tried to spin it on my finger, like I used to as a boy. I was a little rusty at first… but by the third try it was the ball spinning equivalent of riding a bicycle. You don’t forget how to do it.
This was exciting to me.
So I took the ball and walked into our bedroom where Rebecca was working away and I started tossing the ball up and down while pacing casually and trying to think of how to bring up the topic most naturally, “Would you like to see me spin a basketball on my finger?”
But before I could ask anything, Rebecca looked up at me and said, “What are you doing in here? I am busy now and I thought you told me you had work to do.”
“I do.” I said. “Have work to do.” I paused and acted like I had been working and was confused how I ended up back in our bedroom holding a basketball. I looked at her and thought one last time about asking her if she wanted to see me spin the basketball on my finger.
“What do you want?” Rebecca asked. “Seriously? Are you just going to stand there? I really have a lot to do now.”
I just shrugged and said, “I have a lot to do too.” And mumbled under my breath “Probably even more than you” as I slinked out of the room with my basketball.
And back in my office I made a decision. I am never showing Rebecca how I can spin a basketball on my finger. Never. Ever. Even if she begs me to.
Unless she begs a whole lot. Over and over and over again. Then maybe.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Nov 11, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Something very thought provoking just occured to me.
What if life really is just a dress rehearsal? If so, how many “live” performances are we talking about and will we be expected to perform in all of them? And what kinds of snacks will be offered at intermission?
Could we maybe do just one full performance and just do some informal Q & A on the other nights?
I mean, we aren’t even finished with the dress rehearsal yet and it is hard sometimes to stay focused and remember my lines. I am not even sure we need an ending that ties up all the lose ends. Too many loose ends to keep track of anyway. Just go with a Sopranos type ending and wrap it.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Nov 10, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Parking next to this truck this morning while eating my breakfast made me think about some things.
First, staring at gigntic bugs while eating is a terrific way to suppress your appetite.
Second, although I am a Democrat, I am OK with outright killing these insects rather than just capturing and imprisoning them in hopes of eventually reforming them and returning them to society.
Especially the giant one on the left that I felt like was staring at me during breakfast.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Nov 7, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
Reconsidering my high school highlights reel
As I drove to Rebecca’s 30th high school reunion last night I passed the low bridge on River Road and was reminded that one of my most thrilling accomplishments that made me feel my high school class was clearly more awesome than Rebecca’s involved that bridge — and I hadn’t thought about that night for a very long time.
It was the night that me and two other guys from my high school class stripped down to our underwear and jumped off the low bridge into the icy cold water below. As I smugly recollected that awesome night 33 years ago from the perspective of a non-17 year old, it occurred to me I may have over-estimated the raw awesomeness I had attached to that evening for all these years. Somehow, from the perspective of a modestly mature 51 year old adult, that high school highlight seemed to drop form a “10” to about a “6” on a scale of 1-10. I heard that voice in my head that says things to me like, “That was a bad choice..” In fact, I even began to worry that reassessing my high school highlight reel, so to speak, may lead me to conclude that my high school graduating class wasn’t superior to my wife’s. Especially after I spotted three guys at Rebecca’s reunion who looked like they may have jumped off that same bridge in their underwear on multiple occasions.
Reconsidering my youthful delusions is never an easy thing. So I did the only prudent thing to do in this situation and decided to just table the whole issue of whether my or my wife’s high school class was more awesome –until my wife’s 35th high school reunion.
===
Attending your spouse’s 30th high school reunion makes you realize that almost all high school graduating classes have the same stock characters and only a few minor diferemces in the supporting cast and cameo roles.
And for the first time in over 30 years you are forced to entertain the possibility that your high school graduating class may not have been the baddest, coolest, most epic high school graduating class in the history of the universe (excluding the senior class i…n Fast Times at Ridgemont High but they weren’t real).
And that your 1981 Central High School graduating class may only have been a slightly above average graduating class compared to other high schools in your school distict in 1981.
And then you begin to wonder if you have made any other warped presumptions about yourself and the world in other areas of your life. But calm yourself by being certain there was never a greater, hipper kindergarten class in the history of the universe than yours. But are especially grateful your spouse doesn’t have any kindergarten reunions to challenge your belief.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Nov 6, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
This morning had an awesome start. The 4 1/2 minute drive from my house to the coffee shop rocked — literally. I really nailed Eddie Vedder’s voice and the air guitar solo in a Pearl Jam song playing in my car.
But while in line for coffee and waiting to meet a business associate, I couldn’t stop looking at two very distinguished looking businessmen about to meet with each other. While I was stirring half-and-half into my coffee …at the condiment bar an even more impressive third member joined their party and they decided to take the “large table in the back.”
The guy I was waiting to meet wasn’t as impressive as these three and I was secretly hoping they would notice me at the condiment bar and invite me to join their table and their meeting. I even asked one to pass me a stir stick and gave a very confident and “important” look as if to say “We have a lot in common. More than the guy I am waiting to meet.” But nothing.
I sat down at a tiny table that hadn’t even been wiped off and tried to look like I was thinking about about a large financial deal. Finally, my guy shows up. But walks past me to say hello to the three guys at the back table.
What if they invite him to join their table and I am left all alone at my small and dirty table? That would really suck. As great a start as my day got off to it was now cratering.
I tried to think of a way to make my table, as I sat by myself, look cooler than the other tables — but feared it wasn’t working. And the worst part of all is I don’t think anyone in the coffee shop even knew about the Eddie Vedder song I lip-synced so flawlessly just a few minutes earlier.
I have some idea now what it feels like to cancel a concert tour.
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