By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Dec 31, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
 Thought for the day (Perception and problem solving)
When faced with a new and unpleasant predicament I like to think of the best part about it, the worst part, the slver lining and the reality of the entire situation.
For example, today I am congested and have a cold.
Best part: I can sound like Barry White when I talk to my wife.
Worst part: My wife keeps clear of me while I am contagious.
Silver lining: Sometimes I fully recover from my cold and am no longer contagious before my voice completely heals and I can sound like Lou Rawls for a couple of days when I talk to my wife. (Lou’s voice isn’t as deep as Barry’s was but still sounds low, slow, melodic and smooth.)
The reality of the entire situation: It’s too bad I can’t sing with or without a cold.
Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I should take singing lessons instead of taking Advil. It only means I should at least seriously consider that option.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Dec 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
 Click here to purchase his first book My second book and the fear of too much success.
I almost have enough new posts to put out a second book of Musings from the Middle before Christmas. But am not sure I have the time to risk having a blockbuster best seller.
It made me think of the time as a teenager I was shooting craps with friends and had failed to roll a pass for 10 consecutive rolls.
My logic before doubling down my bet for the 11th roll was “Since I had failed to roll a pass 10 times in a row I had much greater than usual odds to succeed on my 11th roll.” But I didn’t and lost my last dollar.
Later a math teacher explained to ne that if I flipped a coin 10 times in a row and it was heads each time on the 11th flip it would still only be a 50-50 chance of it being tails. I never liked that math teacher and always thought he was overly pessimistic about life.
So since my first book only has sold in the very high two digits (almost low three digits) and is ranked, like, two trillionth in sales rank on Amazon.com my old logic is returning and telling me if the first book was a complete sales failure the chances of a second book being a great success is pretty much guaranteed. At least if you look at the numbers, understand my logic, and have an optimistic mathematical view of the world, unlike my former math teacher.
Sometimes you just have to go for it and take the risk in life even when logic dictates you won’t have the time to handle your overehelming success. Just do it anyway and figure it out later.
And besides, what’s the worst that can happen? Sales jn the high two digits again? Heck, that would only means a third book would likely be a sure NY Times best seller.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET  JYB Sr., JYB Jr. and JYB III circa 1972 My favorite –and perhaps most emblematic—story about my father when he was a child.
When John Y Jr was about 16 months old or so, my father hadn’t quite taken to walking yet. He probably didn’t see the point when everyone around him seemed so willing to carry him everywhere he needed to go. But that’s beside the point.
His slow visual and motor development was beginning to distress my grandmother, so she and my grandfather took my 16 month old father to a psychologist to test his responsiveness, perception and ability to navigate his surroundings.
For the first test the doctor laid out a soft blue blanket and put the 16 month old John Y Jr at the center of the blanket. The doctor then placed an eye-catching and appealing shiny red ball on one of the blanket corners several feet away from my father to see if he would notice the ball and then crawl to it and retrieve it to play with.
My father, sitting in the middle of the blanket, eyed the bright red ball several feet away and reached down beside his little legs and grabbed a fistful of the blanket and started pulling the ball to toward him.
And then picked up the ball while never moving himself and began playing with it.
The doctor sent my grandparents home and told them not to worry; their son was fine.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Travel advice for intelligent life on other planets.
If there really is extraterrestrial life out there and they are aware of planet Earth and have beeen monitoring us and waiting for the right time to visit, there really is no better time of year better to visit our planet than around Christmas time and the entire holiday season.
Homes and businesses are decorated with bright colorful lights and our people are in a pleasant, gracious and friendly frame of mind–toward everyone, even strangers.
Granted, traffic can be bad and the weather is cold but, on the whole, as a planet, we are at our very best during this time of year.
And if you are savvy about it, you can find some real bargains for lodging, food and entertainment.
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Dec 26, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
“When greatness meets class, that’s what God created in Dr J” — Magic Johnson
When I was 12 years old I had the great honor of being a ball boy for the 1975 ABA All-Star game in San Antonio, Texas.
It was a heady time for a young boy like me. I idolized these men; these near mythic figures whose moves, style, attitude and basketball statistics filled my young head and heart.
There’s really not much for a ball boy to do. Sweep the floor during timeouts, retrieve errant balls, and mostly just enjoy sitting and watching the game of the league’s greatest players from just a few feet a way. And admire and absorb the sounds, the physicality, the grunts, yells, sweat, trash talk, speed, force and gracefulness… and ultimately the comraderie of an All-Star ABA basketball team.
My “moment” –my time when the pressure was on me as a ball boy occurred late in the game, in fact it was in the 4th quarter.
It was during one of the last timeouts and it was my turn to serve the water. My job was to hand each of the players, most importantly the 5 players who had been playing on the court, a small cup of water in a white cooler cup. I don’t remember how many cups I was given to hand out. I just remember that one of the last ones was the one I handed to Dr J and for my “moment” I was so nervous and excited I spilled nearly the entire cup of water on the left side of the Dr’s All-Star jersey as I tried to hand it to him.
I was embarrassed –mortified for a few moments–but Dr J, as Magic Johnson later noted, was that rare combination of greatness and class. The Dr just chuckled at my gaffe and made light of it by saying, “I don’t want water. When are we going to get champagne?”
He artfully covered for me by pretending he didn’t even want the water and was holding out for something better. I was relieved and laughed awkwardly.
Dr. J did drink what little water was left in his small cooler cup and then got up as the timeout ended and returned to the floor and finished with 21 points and help carry his team to yet another victory. He was –and is–a class act. Even to a clumsy little ball boy who idolized him but couldn’t competently hand him a cup of water during a timeout break.
That was my “moment” –and as I grew older I realized that my “moment” wasn’t a failure about me spilling the water. It was positive moment about me being witness to the gentleman and class act that Dr J was and is–even in the most smallest of his interactions. Julius Erving was the greatest basketball player I ever saw play.
And, in my opinion, one of the greatest all around human beings to ever play professional sports.
Here is a tribute to the Doc that I planned on watching only a few minutes of but 1 hour and 9 minutes later realized I’d watched the entire documentary. And I’m glad I did!
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Dec 25, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
It’s game time. Christmas-wise anyway.
Imagine you are in a football huddle late in the game.
A lot is on the line.
The quarterback unsnaps his helmet chinstrap and looks intensely but hopefully at each and every player
Then refastens his chinstrap and says to the team:
“You know what to do. We’ve practiced every conversation and family interaction for months now.
It’s Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and even though we may not be ready for them; they are ready for us.
This is it. And I say we are ready. Let’s do this thing!
Oh, and one more thing. Let’s make this the merriest damn Christmas ever!
On one. Break!”
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The coolest thing about having teenagers on Christmas morning?It is 10:26am and although Santa and his team finished their work at around 2am, neither child is awake yet.Or even stirring.
Neither Johnny nor Maggie woke up naturally at the crack of dawn like they used to a few years ago.
And apparently don’t even bother to set their alarms as teens.
But I am up.
Waiting….
I am afraid to try to wake them for fear they may say, “Just 10 more minutes…”
So I am enjoying coffee and left overs from last night’s dessert and giving them a little more time to awaken, on teen time, for an exciting Christmas morning. Around noon.
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When our son was 5 we surprised him Christmas morning with a new puppy. He was ecstatic but as he held the new puppy my wife and I noticed the puppy was shivering. My wife commented to me several times asking me if I thought the shivering was normal and if our new puppy was OK.
Finally, our commonsense 5 year old son, Johnny, interrupted and said, “Mom, relax. The puppy has been on a sliegh all night long in cold weather. Of course she’s going to be shivering.”
I looked at my wife and laughing said, “Duh!”
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My loved ones are so, so hard to Christmas shop for!!
Why do I think that?
Because everytime I slip away to try to shop for them I easily find a thing or two for me– but can never quite find a gift for them. And have to keep looking. It’s very frustrating.
But as frustrating experiences go, more fun than most.
The other night my wife and I split up to shop more efficiently and when we met back up I was carrying a bag with a men’s robe and a pair of slacks. “Who is that for?” Rebecca asked. “What? This?” I responded in mock surprise.
“It is for you,” I explained. “For you to give to me for Christmas. I just had you in mind and was thinking how I could make things easier on you”
I am pretty sure Rebecca believed me….Or at least was hoping I would find other ways to shop for Christmas that had a more direct benefit to her and others…. ; )
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 Christmas Eve 2013 Today feels like that show where the winner got to take a shopping cart and rush through the store for exactly two minutes and could keep everything put in the cart during those two minutes.
Except in today’s game they make you pay for it all. At the end of your two minutes.It looked more fun the other way.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Dec 25, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Every now and then, a movie catch phrase comes along that both works perfectly in context, and comes in handy in real life. “Toto, I’ve a feeling we aren’t in Kansas anymore,” “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” and “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” come to mind (as well as almost every line from “Blazing Saddles,” although most of those can’t be quoted without a detailed explanation and a PG-13 warning).
One of my personal favorites is from “The Princess Bride,” when Inigo Montoya hears his boss say ‘inconceivable’ and comments, “You keep using that word, I do not think that word means what you think it does.” (I’m the adult child of a former English teacher, meaning I cringe when I see mis-used words and grammatical mistakes, although I agree, “ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put” is a little awkward.) So I was delighted to see that meme pop up in connection with the latest flap over “Duck Dynasty,” with family patriarch Phil Robertson being quoted in GQ (yeah, rednecks and GQ seem like an odd pairing to me, too!), expressing some colorfully homophobic and outdated racial views.
Of course, the biggest shocker to me was that anyone was shocked – did A&E really expect that a family of Louisiana evangelical duck-hunters would have enlightened views on race relations or gay rights? (Brings to mind another of my favorite film lines, when Claude Rains is trying to impress the Nazis in Casablanca by saying, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here” right before a dealer says “Your winnings, sir.”) But in their reactions, A&E and conservative politicians seem trying to outdo each other with cluelessness.
I find Mr. Robertson’s remarks offensive – but I find a lot of things offensive about reality TV, and I’m not so crazy about the whole idea of hunting defenseless little ducks – but I digress. Mr. Robertson has a right to express his views, as repugnant (or weird – read the actual article!) as they are, and his employers at A&E have a right to hire, fire, and suspend whomever they like. A&E announced a brief suspension, apparently trying to appease the large gay and black audience for the show (??), but opening up a huge can of worms in the process. Conservative politicians and peripheral-but-trying-to-stay-in-the-spotlight-characters declared their outrage that the media was censoring a good Christian and depriving him of his fundamental right of free speech. Ignoring, of course, the fact that no one’s right of free speech was infringed, because the Bill of Rights says nothing about anyone’s right to star on a reality television program.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Dec 24, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET We can all admit it. Sometimes when it is late at night and we have been tossing and turning in bed and unable to go to sleep, the only thing that really helps is sauntering into the kitchen half-awake and helping ourselves to a satisfying late night snack.
Last night I found myself in that exact situation.
Like most homes we have a fair choice of late night snack choices. There is a cupboard in our kitchen corner where we keep chips, cereal, cookies, and even healthy snacks we are experimenting with that we hadn’t tried before.
Last night I was willing to try something a little different and something healthier than usual so I settled on Fruitables (skinny minis) as it said on the bag. Sounded interesting and even had a unique Apple Bacon flavor described on the label.
I grabbed a handful of these morsels and popped them in my mouth and began chewing. Dry and tasteless was all I could think at first so I didn’t what anyone who do in that situation and figured the solution was to pop more into my mouth until I could get a real taste of this new snack. And I did just that.
Now I had more than a full mouthful of this fancy sounding snack and decided this was about the blandest and driest and yet chewiest snack I had ever eaten and bagan wondering if it was even made for humans or perhaps I had accidentally confused a bag of puppy treats for our dogs for a late night human snack.
Turns out it was, indeed, the latter and I decided to spit out what I had been chewing on and had a bowl of Raisin Bran cereal instead.
In conclusion, I can recommend Fruitables (skinny minis) Apple Bacon flavored bits for a late night snack by themselves. Too dry and chewy and, frankly, tasteless. I personally don’t see what dogs see in them. However, if you are willing to add milk and, say, some raisins, it may be worth trying. But I recommend, all things being equal, to go with Raisin Bran instead– unless you just can’t stand Raisin Bran and are one of those people who always has to pretend you like things other people have never heard of before.
By John Y. Brown III, on Mon Dec 23, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET I am getting a little nervous.
Everything I use each day seems to have a new updated version that needs to be downloaded every six months or so.
I am 50 years old and can’t remember the last time I offered an updated download for myself.
I hope no one js getting suspicious that I may not have one.
I am starting to feel like the driver of a car that has driven 50,000 miles and has forgotten ever to get an oil change– and there are no Valvoline stations in sight.
I am just going to pretend I have one even though there is nothing really to download. Kind of like a placebo or sugar pill to make us feel better but has no medical use. Just psychological. I think that’s what a lot of these tech updated downloads are anyway.
So…For the latest updated version of me, John Y Brown III, please click here. And use your imagination. While taking a sugar pill.
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Dec 20, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Apologies and the sexes. (Yes, there are differences. Between the sexes. And, yes, differences in how they apologize to one another).
I asked my lovely and beloved wife, Rebecca, for an apology this morning for something kinda hurtful she blurted out in haste to me during a minor misunderstanding we had—and after I had blurted out something kinda hurtful to her. And also after I had apologized for my mistaken kinda hurtful comment caused by our misunderstanding.
My apology was direct, clear and stated multiple times in multiple ways with slightly different wording to make clear my apology was for what I had said and that it was beyond dispute I was at fault.
It felt good to clean up my side of the street in the same way it must feel when, say, a teenager gets caught dining and dashing and the owner of the restaurant catches him and wants to teach him a lesson by beating him up and making him wash dishes for 8 hours straight for the grilled cheese sandwich and soda he dined and dashed on and then making him apologize after calling the cops and his parents and then beats him up again and leaves him outside the locked restaurant door in the cold and windy rain without a jacket. But the young man feels “whole” again. Like he’d paid penance for his wrong. I had that “whole” feeling too, conscience-wise. That’s the main point of this analogy. The rest are just ancillary similarities that aren’t as important.
So after I had finished my penance, I asked Rebecca for a reciprocal apology and to my delight it came almost immediately, rolling off her lips like someone hungry to have that “whole” feeling, penance-wise, I just described. Rebecca lovingly, patiently and methodically explained, “I am sorry, too, if what I said made you feel bad.” I liked it at first but then thought about it and if started to feel like it was my fault and that what Rebecca blurted out to me was actually very reasonable and it was really something defective in me that caused the comment to bother me at all….and that it wouldn’t have bothered a more reasonable person. (Rebecca basically called me “imprudent” although I am paraphrasing).
After I said, “Thank you,” for the “apology” I began to realize that my “thank you” only reinforced the imprudent reference. So I asked Rebecca for an elaboration to her apology—and quickly got it.
Rebecca clarified that she was sorry also if the tone of her comment made me feel bad.
Phew! This was definitely a big improvement. I think.
So it really wasn’t all my fault —although it still felt like it—and there was more at play than me merely reacting unreasonably. Rebecca ceded that there was a “tone” problem on her side. I liked that. Nothing else to apologize for, mind you.
I then made the mistake of asking “Except for the tone part and my feeling bad part, was there anything else you regretted that you’d like to articulate to me now?” (I’m paraphrasing). I was relieved to find there was. Rebecca, understandingly getting a little exasperated by now with attempts to squeeze more and more of an apology to me out of, conceded that the “timing” of the imprudent comment was probably unfortunate given that I was writing an important email and could have waited until I was finished.
Well now THAT was really all I was looking for! And now I felt fully reconciled and understood.
I think, anyway.
Look, let’s just net this thing out. Sure, I had one simple apology (with multiple recitations….but once you say it it gets easier each time).
And by contrast, if you are keeping score at home, I got not one but three—that’s right THREE (3)!!—apologies in return.
Clearly, I was able to extract more apology-wise than Rebecca got from me.
And here’s the beauty part. I didn’t even have to mention I had screwed up on my comment on the tone, timing and how it made Rebecca feel! Totally off-the hook on that.
In the world of chess, gentlemen, I believe we call that “Game, set, and match,” right? No, wait. That’s tennis. I mean, gentlemen, in the chess world they call that “Checkmate!”, right? Or maybe they say “King me!” I can’t remember exactly. Anyway, the point is, I’m pretty sure I carried the male flag shrewdly and impressively today in this face-off for apologies between the sexes.
And if I didn’t, gentlemen, I apologize for blowing it. And for the tone, timing and way this entire post made you rightfully feel.
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The sexes apologies and dentistry
1) A man apologizing to a woman is about as painful, as difficult and carries the same resistance as agreeing to have a cavity filled in a decaying tooth.
2) For a woman apologizing to a man is about as painful, as difficult, and carries the same resistance as agreeing to have a tooth extracted that arguably shouldn’t be.
Note: Filling cavities occurs much more frequently than tooth extractions. And cavities, over time, often need re-filling. An extracted tooth, on the other hand, is a one-time event. And often, over time, gets replaced with a shiny new implant.
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