By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Aug 12, 2014 at 9:29 AM ET The life of a comedian is rarely a funny matter.
The deep source of humor for the professional comic almost always seems to be a survival mechanism that just happens to work better than all the other survival mechanisms tried before it that came up wanting.
Sometimes that defense mechanism —that life antidote— stops working, too. And there may be no back-up fortification for when a joke doesn’t work anymore. And that deep source of humor can cruelly transform itself into an all-encompassing darkness that envelops and even suffocates, figuratively or literally, the same person it served so well.
And for a brief moment, like today upon the news of Robin Williams’ apparent suicide, the world gets a glimpse of that over-sized and heavy heart and sees that you weren’t just a silly boy looking for the next pratfall and a few more well-earned laughs. But that you were working always on something far more complicated, serious and sorrowful than your comedy repertoire ever belied.
How ironic that the man who brought more laughs and lightness to the world over the past four decades —more than probably any single person on our planet—today leaves that same world so deeply saddened and distressed. Then again, the genius of so many great comics is that the flip side of their humor –pain and emptiness–is never too far away from their punch lines. And probably much closer than the audience realizes.
As prodigiously hilarious and zany as he always seemed to be, I believe Robin Williams was, first and last, a very serious and sensitive man. Who we never got to know all that well. But will certainly miss terribly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDJjq0Pd0RM
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Aug 11, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET
 My cell phone –an ATT Android–has a visual voicemail feature that tells me when I have a new voice mail message.
But wait, there’s more.
The visual voicemail app also, with some voicemails, will delay the notification for several hours. Or even a day.
I know what you are thinking. It must not work right. But I figured out what really must be going on.
This feature, I have to assume, somehow measures the enthusiam of the caller and will delay notifying me of the call accordingly –to the extent the person doesn’t seem eager to talk to me.
I mean, what else could it be? Right? There’s no other reason I can think of for the voicemail to work this way.
Dang. Technology sure is amazing.
Oh, so yeah. When you leave me a voicemail be sure you sound enthusiastic so I will get it right away.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Aug 7, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET  Now I find out!
I finally lose enough weight to buy a pair of designer men jeans–as opposed to “Dad jeans” –and find out almost all have a button-fly instead of a zipper. I am serious!
What is happening to the male population? C’mon guys. What self-respecting male would prefer button-fly over a zipper? And if they did, what would the reason be?
It isn’t for practical reasons or to impress women. I am pretty sure my wife couldn’t care less about my fly stylings. Is it to impress other men like women who dress for other women?
What happened to my gender while I was overweight and in dowdy clothes?
Surely I didn’t lose all this weight just to be able to wear a svelter pair of Dad jeans, did I?
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Aug 6, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET TMI? (Too much instruction?)
I just tried to look up on YouTube “How to whistle using a blade of grass” to prove to myself how incredibly exhaustive “How to” videos are on YouTube.
And I found one!!
But what really caught my attention is that 45,459 people had “viewed” the video.
Including me.
(It’s actually an excellent instruction video, you know, if you are interested and don’t already know how to.)
And I will point out that to date no one has yet put out a “How to” video on how NOT to whistle using a blade of grass.” So there is still a vacuum waiting to be filled.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Aug 6, 2014 at 8:30 AM ET
One of my favorite college classes examined children’s literature through the lens of cultural attitudes towards childhood. For example, the Brothers Grimm wrote all those dark, scary tales of witches & evil forests because in their day (early 19th century), childhood was just a smaller version of an awful adulthood. Poorer kids had to work on farms or in factories, even wealthier kids succumbed to disease, and stories had to prepare them for the general dangers of the world. In the Victorian era (later 19th century), children were viewed as pure and angelic, so their books were supposed to help enhance their innocence. And by the 20th century childhood really evolved into a separate phase of life, where books could enhance kids’ imagination or teach them valuable lessons. (And reading all these stories was a welcome change from typical academic fare – I loved sitting in the library, where my classmates were absorbed in Advanced Principles Of Molecular Biology or The Sociolinguistics of Anthropology, and they’d look over to see me enjoying “The Little Engine That Could.” But I digress . . . )
Sometimes, however, we would run into a classic piece of children’s literature that didn’t fit this historical trend – and in the case of some, like the Lewis Carroll ‘Alice’ books, as college students we naturally concluded his influence was pharmaceutical instead of cultural. Rabbits with pocket-watches? Disappearing grinning cats? Drinks & cakes that changed her perspective? (Okay, you can explain the Mad Hatter by the fact that the chemicals used in hatmaking were so toxic, they caused brain damage, hence the expression ‘mad as a hatter’, but Carroll’s Hatter was still pretty weird.) And for generations kids have enjoyed the strange, surreal world of Alice, thinking nothing in their lives would ever seem so crazy.
Until lately – the political scene has gone so out of whack, not even Lewis Carroll could have written it . . .
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Aug 5, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET My son just went skydiving…And didn’t tell me until after the fact.
“My son?!” I exclaimed when my wife and daughter told me. “I cannot believe my son—my flesh and blood–could muster the nerve to jump out of an airplane! I could never do that!”
To which my daughter Maggie wryly replied, “At least he’s not doing the kinda things you did when you were his age!”
Game, set, match to Maggie.
A good and loyal sister –and best family comeback of the year.
And, yeah, super proud of my boy!!
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Aug 4, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET I have decided that people in NYC aren’t really rude. They just aren’t very people smart and don’t know how to handle it.
Like the kid in high school who strughled with math and would say things like “Math is stupid!” or “No one will ever use this stuff. What a waste of time!” He wasn’t being rude but what we will call “Math rude” because he was confused about how to do math and was afraid others might notice.
I know this happens for a fact because I was “Foreign languages rude” myself. And “Chemistry rude.” And “Music appreciation rude” and Pre-calculus rude,” too.
So if a New Yorker is brusque with you for no apparent reason, don’t get angry or get your feelings hurt. Just remember, it’s not you. They are just being “math rude.”
By Jonathan Miller, on Sun Aug 3, 2014 at 7:08 AM ET
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Aug 1, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Have a failed marketing campaign? Are you still, after attempting multiple promotional strategies, still struggling to break through?
Here is one of my father’s favorite explanations. Mine too.
Maybe the dogs don’t like it:
Once upon a time a pet food company created a new variety of dog food and rolled out a massive marketing campaign to introduce the product. Despite hiring a first-rate ad…vertising agency, initial sales were very disappointing. The agency was fired and a new agency and a new campaign was launched. Sales continued to disappoint. If anything, they fell even further. In desperation, the CEO called in all of the top executives for a brainstorming session to analyze what had gone wrong with the two campaigns and how a new campaign might revive sales.
The meeting went on for hours. Sophisticated statistical analysis was brought to bear on the problem. One VP argued that the mix of TV and print ads had been messed up. Another argued that the previous campaigns had been too subtle and had failed to feature the product with sufficient prominence. Another argued that the TV ad campaign had focused too much on spots during sporting events and not enough on regular programming with a broader demographic. Another argued the opposite–not enough sports programming had been targeted. After the debate had raged for hours, the CEO felt they had accomplished very little. He asked if anyone else had any theories that might explain the failure of the new product. Finally, one newly hired employee raised his hand and was recognized.
“Maybe the dogs don’t like it,” she said.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jul 31, 2014 at 12:00 PM ET Friend: Hey John. I saw you walking downtown last week but didn’t say hi because you looked busy and I didn’t want to bother you.
Me: Oh, funny.
Always say hi.
That was just my “Downtown look.”
I try to walk fast and furrow my eyebrows and look like I am concentrating on something complicated so other people won’t realize I am just trying to remember where I parked my car.
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