Category: Politics

2021 Year in Review

“Happy New Year 2021” by Shahid Abdullah is licensed under CC PDM 1.0

[See original post here]

In some respects 2021 was a great improvement over 2020. People were rarely locked at home. Travel resumed. Vaccines and toilet paper were plentiful. In other ways, however, 2021 was disappointingly similar to 2020. Fights broke out in public places over sundry items. The Rockettes again cancelled their Christmas spectacular. One man was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iowa for beating up and coughing on someone who asked him to pull up his mask.

In celebration of New Year’s Eve, let us review some of Brown’s Close’s highlights from 2021:

January: While there was an obvious riot in the Capitol, there were a few other, much neglected, events. Kim Kardashian and Kanye West broke up; Bernie Sanders wore mittens; and Anne Hathaway demanded everyone start calling her Annie.

February: The Kansas City Chiefs failed to score even one touchdown in the Super Bowl, devastating my coworkers in Kansas City. Also on Super Bowl Sunday, I participated in Alaska Ski for Women dressed as an apple.

March: While murder hornets plagued the world in 2020, a swarm of locusts pestered the citizens of Kenya in 2021. In other, chillier places, I finished near the bottom (but not last!) in the Tour of Anchorage ski race.

April: A blockage in the Suez Canal halted international commerce for six days. This made me wonder, when was the last time the Suez Canal was in the news — 1956?

May: In the normal course of my shopping, a retail store worker informed me Donald Trump was still the president. Her proof was a cell phone video of him walking out to “Hail to the Chief.” The video was presumably filmed in 2018.

June: Twitter was banned by the entire nation of Nigeria.

July: Simone Biles backed out of the Olympics due to a case of the “twisties.”

August: I took my dad to see “The Guess Who” at the Alaska State Fair. The entire week leading up to this event, I kept telling people we were going to see “The No Doubt,” and/or “The Good News.” At the concert, a pair of 60-year-old women seated in the wet section stormed the stage and sat on the edge of it for the remainder of the concert. The lead singer gamely came over and sat with them for a few songs.

September: The QAnon Shaman plead guilty to entering a restricted building. Not only known as the “QAnon Shaman,” I discovered he sometimes goes by “The Yellowstone Wolf.” He’s also the accomplished author of two self-published books.

October: Scared straight by news stories that Christmas would be cancelled by the supply chain crisis, I began my Christmas shopping.

November: I concluded my Christmas shopping, just in time for all gifts already purchased to go on sale for Black Friday.

December: One of my friends is from Minerva, Ohio. In lieu of a traditional Christmas movie, we sat down to watch famed Bigfoot documentary, “Minerva Monster.” The film, with an audience score of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes, does not have a critics rating.

Minerva, Ohio, is, apparently, one of the most prominent sites for spotting Bigfoot. In 1978, Bigfoot terrorized the home of the Claytons over the period of several months. The Claytons claimed they mistook Bigfoot for a large hairy man who weighed over five hundred pounds.

It’s unclear whether they know an actual person who fits this description. Nevertheless, the residents of Minerva were somewhat unconcerned with ensuring they proved Bigfoot’s existence. For example, one of the Claytons did claim he had photos of Bigfoot bites on his brother’s neck. He did not think to produce these for the documentary. Also, while the residents went through the trouble of collecting a sample of Bigfoot’s fur and sending it to Malone College for analysis, when the sample went mysteriously missing they took no steps to retrieve it.

Just as the Claytons quietly accepted their Bigfoot DNA analysis was going awry, I am dutifully plodding into the new year expecting the chaos of the last two years to continue. However, let us be optimistic. From this mighty army of one at Brown’s Close, Happy New Year, and may we all have a more peaceful 2022.

Sarah Brown had an action-packed year. Before she gets too busy in 2022, tweet her @BrownsClose1 or email her at sarah@browns-close.com. “Close” is a British term for an alley or cul-de-sac.

A Crowd Pleasing List of Thanksgiving Dinner Topics

“The 2019 National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation” by The White House is marked with CC PDM 1.0

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No family gathering is complete without at least three political discussions so passionate they clear the room. To aid you at your forthcoming Thanksgiving feast, here is a proposed list of timely dinner topics, sure to make your evening a night to remember.

  1. Masks.
  2. Vaccines.
  3. Inflation? Yay or nay?
  4. Does Joe Biden sniff women? Or do women sniff Joe Biden?
  5. Jeff Bezos, or Elon Musk?
  6. Bernie Sanders, or Elon Musk?
  7. What’s Mike Pence up to these days?
  8. Can cryptocurrency be most likened to the Holland tulip bulb mania of the 1630s?
  9. Was Aaron Rodgers immunized?
  10. Airline seats – to recline, or not to recline?
  11. Meghan Markle versus Piers Morgan.
  12. Janet Jackson versus Justin Timberlake.
  13. Britney Spears versus Justin Timberlake.
  14. Britney Spears versus Christina Aguilera.
  15. Britney Spears versus all of the other Spears.
  16. Is Benedict Cumberbatch hot?
  17. Wired headphones? Or wireless headphones? What’s cool now?
  18. Did Epstein kill himself?
  19. The ecclesiastical calendar, subdivided by the difference between All Saints Day and All Souls Day.
  20. The pros and cons of Kamala Harris’ laugh.
  21. Hepatitis A.
  22. Is Jennifer Lawrence hot?
  23. Is Justin Bieber a good singer?
  24. Turkey and gravy soda – a genius invention, or a monstrosity inflicted upon man?
  25. The First Amendment.
  26. The Second Amendment.
  27. The Third Amendment.
  28. Nicolas Cage’s acting career – please submit responses in the form of a dissertation.
  29. Why is everything so expensive?

I, for one, look forward to discussing the elusive sex appeal of Pete Davidson, whether or not Joe Biden’s neurologic exam was honest and above board, and to finally resolve, once and for all, whether aliens are invading Hawaii.            

Sarah Brown is, what her grandmother would call, an instigator. Tweet her @BrownsClose1 or email her at sarah@browns-close.com. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

COVID Year in Review

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March marks a full year that COVID-19 has moderately to significantly impacted my life. Rather than a “Calendar Year in Review” in December, I am opting for a “COVID Year in Review” in March.

March: Anchorage is introduced to former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s “hunker down” order which, as summarized by Andrew Jensen, is “a stay-at-home order, but if you want to take a walk, they’ll allow it.”

All of my usual activities are replaced with stockpiling paper products and canned soup, and eating chips and salsa.

April: The chips and salsa snacking is replaced with consuming family-size packages of sour gummy worms. Knowing this will all inevitably catch up with me, I start exercising furiously. I delight in building muscles from scratch.

What with all the restaurant closures, I figure now is the time to embrace learning to cook.

I confirm a long-held suspicion that I hate cooking.

I break down and order a pizza from Uncle Joe’s. It is the best pizza I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.

May: I debut my COVID-perfected, knock you on your rear, margaritas. The recipe remains proprietary, such that I can keep friends around.

Brown’s Close launches its website. We are immediately followed by fifty magnanimous Facebook friends, and three bots.

June: I attempt to buy a new bike, as my current bike is 17 years old and wheezes whenever we round corners. Anchorage’s stores are completely sold out, as is Facebook Marketplace. I turn to Marketplace’s older, grungier associate, Craigslist. While there are bikes listed on Craigslist, they are all obviously stolen. Some of the inventory still has the broken bike locks on them in the pictures, and others, chains. One adult man is selling what he claims to be his bike. It is pink, floral, and large enough for a six-year-old girl.

July: I go camping for the holiday. On the drive home, the car more or less calls it quits on life. I grind to a halt on the highway, walk a mile to cell phone service, and find one tow company open on the Sunday after the July 4th weekend. Given how busy the road is on the holiday weekend, and what with no offers of assistance from passing motorists, I am forced to conclude that chivalry is dead.

August: The town erupts in very strong opinions on Kriner’s Diner, a restaurant that I can’t imagine has ever seen the kind of publicity that its standoff with the mayor garnered, not to mention those hefty $15,000/day fines.

September: Learning my lesson from my bike-less summer, I purchase used cross-country skis at Play It Again Sports. The lettering on the skis is electric blue, and the boots are satin red and gold. The boots prove to ultimately give me blisters, but pain is weakness leaving the body.

October: Photos of Anchorage Mayor, Ethan Berkowitz’s pimply back appear. Though meant to be seductive, they have more of a medical quality.

November: I teach myself how to cross-country ski and become accomplished enough to participate in Alaska Ski for Women, and the Tour of Anchorage. Alas, I am dressed inappropriately for both events. My parka and snow pants are too bulky for the Tour of Anchorage, where current and former Olympians are dressed in spandex. My attire is similarly not bulky enough for Alaska Ski for Women, where participants are dressed as strawberries and blueberries, and wear neon pink wigs.

The politics of masks come to a head when Alaska State Senator, Lora Reinbold, has a midair confrontation with the “Mask Bullies,” also known as Alaska Airlines.

Senator Reinbold has not stopped there. A Google search of “Lora Reinbold masks,” yields 3,060 results as of the time of this writing.

December: Our office Christmas party takes place virtually at ten in the morning. I annoy an entire Zoom breakout room with my passion for Die Hard.

January: Capitol rioters reveal many Americans have closely held beliefs about the existence of Lizard People.

February: Two men shoot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and make off with her French bulldogs. Most media coverage, and Lady Gaga’s reward offer, focus on the safe return of the dogs, and not so much on her critically wounded employee.

March: Bitcoin reaches its highest value ever. I have friends who’ve sextupled their initial investment with Bitcoin. However, when the currency is explained to me, it just sounds made up. For example, there is what is called “The Halving,” which takes place at predetermined times. This ceremony “halves” the number of “Bitcoins” that “the Bitcoin Miners” receive when they “Mine a Block” after “solving a Hash Puzzle.” After that, there’s “The Reaping,” where teenagers are taken from their parents to fight to the death in service of “Bitcoin’s glorious future.” Only after both “The Halving” and “The Reaping,” can there be “The Quickening.” It is at this point that the “Final Bitcoin Miners” battle it out to ascertain who will become the “God of all Bitcoin.”

April: Next month, I’ll get to see my brother for the first time in 16 months. We will use this precious time to catch up on an entire holiday seasons’ worth of family political debates.

And thus, in the words of modern poet, Maria Athens, “Have a great Friday, you motherfu****!”

Sarah Brown is a troubadour, specializing in chronicling local political life. You can reach her at sarah@browns-close.com, or on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac. 

2020 Redux

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It’s the end of January. I gave it some time. I, like my 7.8 billion fellow Earthlings, looked forward to 2021 with good spirits. With the turn of the calendar, we all could usher out the most outlandish year in modern history.

There’s an old Yiddish saying. It goes, “Man Plans, and God Laughs.”

Once again, the joke is on us. 2021 is merely an extension of 2020.

The year started off lamely enough with the announcement of the death of Bond Girl, Tanya Roberts. Normally, there would not be anything unusual about that, except that Tanya Roberts was very much alive. Once this was established, she died for real.

Then there was the dissolution of the marriage of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. As a lifelong follower of Kanye’s work , I was saddened, but not entirely surprised. The divorce was reported a scant two months after Kanye gave Kim a hologram of her deceased father, Robert Kardashian, as a birthday present.

Kim and Kanye, however, were promptly upstaged. The next day, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, where they broke into Statuary Hall, and proceeded to march around in neat lines within the confines of the velvet dividers. Things descended into bedlam, however, when the invaders began pooping in the hallways.

Out of this stinky rubble, we met a few characters who have since become national folk legends. Most notably, there’s “The QAnon Shaman,” (so dubbed by The Daily Mail) who after donning fur, horns, and face paint for the Capitol siege, has since refused prison food because it is not vegan. Learning this surprised me; if ever there were a group of people I assumed were big time meat eaters, it was the MAGA crowd.

And speaking of QAnon, I’ve learned a lot about this society in recent weeks. Before, I was never entirely sure what the group believed, other than that it was a “loosely organized …community… who embrace a range of unsubstantiated beliefs” (per The Wall Street Journal).

I’ve come a long way since this vague interpretation. I now know that QAnon thinks the Chinese military is massing at the Canadian border, and that furniture company Wayfair uses product listings to send secret messages concerning human trafficking. Supporters also maintain the closely held belief that Tom Hanks is a cannibal.

At a more innocent time in my life, I would have thought all of this totally bonkers. But I now have to give it pause. As of mid-January, there is a celebrity who is a confirmed cannibal, it’s just not Tom Hanks. Multiple women have come forward accusing Hollywood A-List actor, Armie Hammer, of anthropophagy. One former flame claimed he used to suck her blood, another that he branded her, and still another that he designs his own bondage attire. Other screenshots of texts to paramours, allegedly from Armie Hammer, go into detail about wanting to eat them, and not in the traditional way.

I’ve never had the pleasure of receiving a text message from Armie Hammer, or one of his famous requests to remove and barbeque my ribs. Instead, I must settle for my own peculiar correspondence. Not to be gainsaid, a stranger emailed me on Jan. 25 in response to this column, published fourteen months ago. The unsolicited message detailed the many years of life he’s spent in therapy because he likes to wear women’s underwear.

Those of us who expected life to go back to normal at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1 were sorely mistaken. It’s going to be a long hard road back to sanity.

Sarah Brown resides in a bunker in Oklahoma. Only there can she find some godd*mn peace. Clearly, she is forced to check email occasionally, so, if you really must, you can reach her at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

A Modest List of Things to be Thankful for in 2020

“Thanksgiving Spread” by CarbonNYC [in SF!] is licensed under CC BY 2.0

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Off the top of my head, a list of catastrophes that have occurred in 2020 include:

  1. Global pandemics;
  2. Wildfires in Australia, California, Washington, and Oregon;
  3. Tornadoes in the Southern United States. These also struck roughly one month after COVID-19, which frightened everyone away from the designated tornado shelters;
  4. An invasion of murder hornets;
  5. A jet plane collided with a bear;
  6. And, of course, the death of James Bond.

With all of this upheaval, Thanksgiving may be subdued. In such times of tribulation, will Americans feel gratitude? State and local governments might even prefer citizens not give thanks, taking it upon themselves to restrict the number of guests permitted per Thanksgiving feast. Enforcement measures remain unclear; it’s hard to imagine even the most officious mid-level bureaucrat will want to be the designated government representative to knock on neighborhood doors, verifying the number of approved party guests.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving may be raucous; perhaps Americans may count their blessings more generously than usual.

I believe we continue to be blessed, despite what President-elect Biden has dubbed “a dark winter” ahead. In a quest to prove the point, I conducted some market research. Based on an anonymous survey, respondents consider themselves thankful for many items:

  1. “I’m grateful for chips.”
  2. “I’ve forgotten what work pants feel like. I’m grateful for that.”
  3. “You know what I’m grateful for? I discovered I can still somehow manage to be late for work. Even though I don’t commute. Nothing is impossible for me!”
  4. “I’m thankful that Costco installed checkout lines for shoppers with only a few items. I only ever have a few items.”
  5. “I’m grateful for Grubhub. Not even a pandemic can get me to cook apparently.”
  6. “I’m grateful I am not married. Explaining 2020 to a Quaranteen would be rough.”
  7. While limiting Thanksgiving dinner sizes struck me as churlish—“I’m thankful that I have an excuse to not go to Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t stand listening to my family argue about the election.”
  8. “I’m thankful for masks. I like the anonymity.”
  9. “I’m grateful the toilet paper shortage is over.”
  10. “I’m grateful for the toilet paper shortage. I finally learned how to use my bidet.”

I personally have much to be thankful for. The second season of Haunting of Hill House was released on time on Netflix without incident. Also, grown adults have finally learned how to wash their hands.

I am also thankful for the endless insights into the lives of other people, which I can glean through Zoom. One particularly memorable Zoom meeting early in the pandemic featured a participant with chains hanging from his walls. He happily sat on a meeting with fifty strangers, seemingly unaware that his choice of decor could be considered a tad radical.

I am grateful that the world has finally embraced the wonders of telemedicine. I’ve been a frequent user of Teladoc ever since I discovered that I no longer have to physically go to the doctor’s office to have my rashes examined, or pervasive pink eye diagnosed. I’m pleased to welcome everyone else to this new, glorious, shame-free reality.

Finally, I am thankful for the downfall of makeup generally, and Big Lipstick specifically. I have not worn makeup in eight months, thus gaining hours cumulatively back into my life. For years I resented the extra minutes per morning I was expected to spend painting on a face. In particular, I found lipstick to be insidious in nature; the constant application causes your lips to become addicted to all of the added moisture. Without lipstick, your lips soon become egregiously chapped.

No longer will my lips be slaves to Big Lipstick! I’ve broken my addiction lo these eight months, and will never go back.

I’m not alone. A study from late July proclaimed the death of the “lipstick index,” an economics measure previously used to measure how women spend money during lean economic times. My fellow sisters in arms have also broken free.

Count your blessings folks, including what may be the most significant blessing of all –  that it is almost 2021!

Sarah Brown is a grateful person. She would be so thankful should you choose to contact her at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

Unmasking Halloween

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As with every other extracurricular activity during the COVID-19 pandemic, Halloween will assuredly be dampened this year. I am not the first person to note the irony; Halloween is a holiday based entirely on the idea that everyone should wear a mask.

Will Anchorage’s new mayor issue a municipal wide ban on live Halloween, as the old mayor did with live music?

Will anyone host Halloween parties?

Will anyone else attend?

Will families go trick-or-treating?

Is trick-or-treating a socially distanced activity?

Should I just leave a basket of candy out on the porch and call it quits when one small marauder takes it all?

Is bobbing for apples illegal?

Should it be?

Should we wear masks in the water while bobbing for apples?

Will people dress up in costume?

What will be the top costume of choice?

If we assume Halloween will not be stricken from the calendar, and that there will be costumes, and that people will dress up in them, below are the clear favorites for the Most Desirable Halloween Costume of 2020:

For those who remained single before, during, and after quarantine – 

Top Singles Costumes for Halloween 2020:

  1. The Karen – Karen with bobbed hair, crow’s feet, and a bitter expression, has already been dubbed “the scariest Halloween costume of 2020,” by Good Morning America;
  2. Hunter Biden – all you need is a crack pipe and a wire transfer. No shirt required;
  3. Mask-ed Vigilantes – no obligation to separate along party lines here. This costume can be applied to both pro, and anti, mask vigilantes.

For those who managed to find love, despite quarantine –

Top Couples Costumes for Halloween 2020:

  1. Pilots and flight attendants;
  2. A pair of Sheeple;
  3. Donald Trump and Joe Biden;
  4. Amy Coney Barrett and Ruth Bader Ginsburg;
  5. Hydroxychloroquine and Remdesivir.

And for the rarest life form of all, those who managed to maintain friendships despite quarantine, and subsequent highly charged political events–

Top Group Costumes for Halloween 2020:

  1. The cast of Tiger King:
    • Joe Exotic;
    • Carole Baskin;
    • Fraudster Jeff Lowe;
    • Pony-tailed polygamist Bhagavan Antle;
    • Stool pigeon Howard Baskin;
    • Victim and tiger feed, Don Lewis.
  2. The cast of General Hospital:
    • Doctors;
    • Nurses;
    • COVID virus;
    • COVID vaccinations;
    • Ventilators;
    • N-95 Masks.
  3. The cast of former Anchorage Mayor, Ethan Berkowitz’s sex scandal:
    • Ethan Berkowitz dressed in a backless suit and carrying a selfie stick;
    • Maria Athens;
    • Molly Blakey, intermittently dispensing booze and cookies;
    • The escort known as Rae – She’s mysterious, so costumes are open to interpretation.
  4. The cast of Current Events, not to exclude:
    • Plague;
    • Pestilence;
    • Exodus (sometimes known as Brexit);
    • The Apocalypse – This can be subdivided into the Four Horsemen, and One Woman, of the Apocalypse:
      1. Scott Atlas;
      2. Alex Azar;
      3. Deborah Birx;
      4. Anthony Fauci;
      5. Mike Pence.
  5. The cast of a Zoom meeting:
    • A baby;
    • A pet;
    • A bra;
    • A toilet;
    • A thermos of vodka;
    • The Mute Button.
  6. The cast of Cancel Culture:
    • Woodrow Wilson;
    • Teddy Roosevelt;
    • J.K. Rowling;
    • The New York Times;
    • Mount Rushmore;
    • Broadway show, Hamilton;
    • And, of course, The Founders.

I myself choose not to rank costumes, but shall instead dress up as everything. On Halloween, you will find me isolated indoors eating cookies and drinking vodka out of my favorite tiger mug. Photos of Mount Rushmore will cycle repeatedly on the television, and I will don my beloved pair of fluffy sheep slippers. I will then promptly miss the mute button as I talk on the phone while doing a highly personal activity.

Every year, Sarah Brown celebrates Halloween with maximum enthusiasm. This year, she can be reached at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

Canceling Summer

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As we look forward to what promises to be an unusual back-to-school season, we can reflect on what was certainly a unique summer. 2020 proved the summer of canceling, and on both sides of the political aisle. In May, Mat-Su School District attempted (unsuccessfully) to cancel The Great Gatsby, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Things They Carried, Invisible Man, and Catch-22. Since then, progressives have taken up the canceling mantle; they attempted (successfully) to cancel Woodrow Wilson, Cops, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Teddy Roosevelt, Kriner’s Diner, and, for a hot minute, Gone with the Wind. Hamilton and Mount Rushmore still await their fates.

For the free speech advocates out there, cancel culture is a threat. For those of us harboring dictatorial tendencies, however, it’s an opportunity. I hereby participate in cancel culture, seize complete power, and you all can consider the following books, movies, and other entities officially banned:

  1. Iron Man, sometimes known as Tony Stark: He’s too beloved. I cancel him first as a show of my power.
  2. Les Misérables: Thanks to Broadway and Hollywood, this story is well-known. Those of you who did not read the unabridged version in 10th grade English, however, missed all of the real misery found in “The Miserable Ones.”

The novel is overly long – nearly 1,500 pages. A significant portion of these pages bear no resemblance to a plot. For example, there is a 100-page tangent describing the Battle of Waterloo in detail. The battle takes place well before any incident in the story and has absolutely no impact on subsequent events. There is yet another 100-page tangent on the history of the Parisian sewers. The first 100 pages of the novel take a deep dive into the background of a character who appears early in the book and is never seen again. Finally, central, beloved character, Fantine, croaks on page 200, making it through just over 10 percent of the page count; realistically, Fantine has an outsized influence on pop culture, considering just how little of the story she endures.

To this day, I resent the fact that we read this particular opus, as opposed to say, a different Victor Hugo vehicle. If we really must, why couldn’t we read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, at a tightly paced 900 pages?  And why, oh why, did we have to read such a massive, meandering, French novel in a class entitled, “English Literature?”

  1. Martin Van Buren: As a gal who prefers more of a clean cut look, I find Van Buren’s choice of hair stylings personally offensive. I am triggered by all photos of his shaggy, shaggy locks.
  2. Game of Thrones: I’ve tried. I’ve tried twice. Both times I made it through Season 1, Episode 5. I’ve never felt the need to go back for Episode 6. I tuned in for the last season just to triple confirm I wasn’t missing out on anything. Confirmed.

And while we are at it—

  1. Dragons: All images, iconography, or other interpretations of dragons must go. Their fire breathing ways are out of touch with our currently warming planet.
  2. The Gatekeepers: Every year in high school, we read a requisitely depressing bit of non-fiction. The Hot Zone, Nickel and Dimed, Fast Food Nation, Into the Wild, and Into Thin Air to name a few cheery tomes. The Gatekeepers was about how unlikely it is any student will be accepted into the college of his or her choice. As an anxiety prone eleventh grader who lived my life under intense self-imposed grade-related pressure, my school telling me I was never getting into college was not psychologically beneficial. Given the Great College Admissions Scandal of 2019, I hazard a guess this academic mania has only increased in the last 15 years; ambitious young zealots are being driven to further extremes by their teachers telling them they will never amount to anything.
  3. Oh, the Places You’ll Go: The fact that children are being taught they can go anywhere in life except to their first-choice college is cruel.
  4. Dune: Locations are called names like, “The Minor Erg.” I’m out.
  5. Zachary Taylor: For such a tough guy, his death was unceremonious. He was taken out by food poisoning courtesy of a bunch of cherries and a glass of milk. Such a weakling must be struck from the annals of our glorious history.
  6. Puppies: The intrusive little buggers steal all of the attention at parties when people should otherwise be listening to me with rapt, undivided, attention.
  7. Romeo and Juliet: Talk about your teenage hormones. The cringe inducing moments were augmented when my teacher specifically called on me to read the sexy bits aloud during English class. We did get to watch the 1968 film version after we finished reading the play. Juliet has a topless scene. That got the ninth grade’s attention.
  8. Any book where the protagonist speaks at length about his or her changing body.

Given the oodles of media I’d leap at the chance to ban, I look forward gleefully to my career with the FCC.

Sarah Brown sometimes goes by YDL (“Your Dear Leader”). Should you care to reach her, prostrate yourself on the floor, and summon her politely at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

Groundhog Days

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There is a Facebook prompt going around that brought me a welcome respite from the otherwise angry political, mask, and/or election messages.

“Can you describe your favorite movie in as boring a way as possible?”

Responses were admirable:

  1. “A group of short men spend a long time walking. They end up throwing away a piece of jewelry.” (The Lord of the Rings)
  2. “A teenage boy doesn’t want to go to school, so he picks up his girlfriend and hypochondriac friend, and they drive around Chicago.” (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)
  3. “A number of people go to an amusement park where the attractions are not working as intended. The power goes out, and after a day or so the people leave.” (Jurassic Park)
  4. “A woman falls for her boss and his kids. They go for a hike.” (The Sound of Music)

And my personal contribution –

“A guy drives south and is arrested for murder. He’s saved by his cousin.” (My Cousin Vinny)

This got me thinking. In a year where every day seems to be a repetition of the previous day (Groundhog Day), why don’t we reflect on our daily activities in as exciting a way as possible? For example, my days were always action packed, and COVID-19 has only heightened the mayhem.

The day starts when I bound down the hallway, fire up my computer, and glance through my work emails. There is an offer for me to appear in CEO Today Magazine, for the scant price of 1,500 British pounds. This is the fifth such offer in two weeks. I am not a CEO, and I am not British.

My gaze shifts to one of my many other browser windows currently open, where I read about the recent Twitter hackings of high-profile accounts. Such victims include former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, probable 2020 President-elect Kanye West, and likely alien Elon Musk. I am elated I have not yet fallen victim to Twitter Hacker, Cozy Bear, or his associate, Fancy Bear. Fancy Bear is now what I call my mother when I wish to annoy her.

An Outlook Calendar Reminder pops up; it’s Five-Minutes-to-Zoom. I dial in, and am admitted to a meeting with other industry professionals around the nation. One company’s representative does not realize his mic is on. He is speaking to someone off camera.

“Go in the corner and clean up that poop. That poop. That poop there in the corner. We can’t have this place looking like a garbage dump.”

His pets, presumably, were at it again.

At noon, I step onto my front porch for a breath of fresh air. My neighborhood is often a source of whimsy, and today is no different.

One of my neighbors is painting bloody handprints across the front of her house. She completes this pastiche with a giant red “X” on her front door, and then drags a seven-foot-tall red-rimmed cross for display next to the street.

A line of cars starts to congregate outside of her house. The neighbors all get out to gawk at her handywork, and whisper to each other. A middle-aged woman on a bicycle wearing a helmet and backpack begins taking frantic photos from the opposite side of the road.

The posse of neighbors confronts the woman. While her initial reaction is to shout back at them in an even louder voice, she eventually recognizes she is outnumbered. She backs down and drags the cross back into her garage. She leans it gingerly against the wall, and then hurls the entire contents of her municipal garbage can out onto her front lawn and into her driveway.

In a final crescendo, she places a giant handwritten sign in her front window. It reads, “We love.” The “o” in “love” is a smiley face.

I watch the property value of my home evaporate.

Chased away from the fresh air out front, I return to my home office, where I open my window. Perhaps I can enjoy the breeze from out back.

I am immediately treated to the high-pitched shouting of the man who lives next door.

“I am triggered whenever I watch The Shining!”

(“A family moves to a hotel in the off season, but goes back to Denver in the middle of winter.”)

“That’s when it happened! It was at the chalet in Switzerland when I was two! That’s why I stopped eating fruits and vegetables!”

Whatever made Next Door Man forever forsake plant-based food products must assuredly be traumatic. Feeling ethically compelled to respect his privacy, I begrudgingly shut the window, and finish out the day working in a stuffy, hot room.

At the close of the workday, I sit on my couch and look for something to watch on television. Crimson Peak is running (“A girl falls in love with a guy and moves to his house. The house is condemned, but she gets some help from its prior residents”).

I stare at the screen hypnotically until the credits roll. 

That night, I have a number of nightmares about living in a sinking house in the middle of nowhere. In one dream, I wander around the house, watching red matter seep out of the walls. I don’t really panic, however, until I put all of my clothes into one of the house closets. I am unable to locate the closet again, and thereby lose all of my clothes.

I wake up sweating, and turn on the fan in my room.

It was a thrilling day indeed.

Sarah Brown is a folk hero. She can be reached at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

For the Love of Kanye

“Kanye West @ MoMA” by Jason Persse is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

[See original post here]

I love Kanye West. He is my favorite celebrity. That is, I will take time out of my day to read any news story, or watch any television clip, in which he features.

Given all the cumulative hours I’ve spent researching Kanye, I know a bit about him. For example:

  1. Kanye once spoke uninterrupted on Ellen for nearly eight minutes. Topics included Picasso, bone density machines, shoes, Leonardo DiCaprio, bullying, being likeable, and the universe. He concluded by apologizing “to daytime television for the realness.” Ellen watched on the sidelines.
  2. Kanye once asked Mark Zuckerberg to give him $50 million. Mark Zuckerberg did not respond.
  3. Former President Barack Obama has called Kanye West “a jackass” at least twice.
  4. Kim Kardashian suggested Kanye (her husband) hire a Board of Directors to approve his Tweets. To my knowledge, said Board was never hired.
  5. In a ranking of 1 to 100, Kanye West once rated his own album 100.
  6. Kanye invented leather jogging pants.
  7. Kanye famously protested Taylor Swift’s win for the best video award at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on stage in the middle of her acceptance speech. Following his public demonstration, he wrote her an apology song and issued a series of apology Tweets. As far as I know, while Taylor Swift did accept his apology, she never performed the apology song. He later took back all of these apologies in 2010.
  8. I confess, I don’t know why he sometimes goes by Yeezy.
  9. Kanye was, at one time, perhaps the world’s unlikeliest Trump supporter. The two, he said, “are both dragon energy.”

Kanye has long been featured on many of my dating profiles. In the world of dating apps, conversation starters can be tricky. But Kanye has never failed me with this classic: “Who is more outrageous? Kanye West or Charlie Sheen?”

Healthy, sometimes even heated, arguments would break out. Rarely would they result in dates, but they have certainly enabled me to hone my debate skills.

I always knew I found a kindred spirit when they would give my question the intellectual consideration it justly deserved.

“Did you know that Kanye once spoke uninterrupted on national television for eight minutes?”

“That’s… just damned impressive.”

“When was the last time you spoke on national television for eight minutes?”

“I blacked it out.”

“Ever watch the tape?”

“No, it’s like when you’re drunk. Best not know what was said.”

Of course, this week we all know that Kanye announced he is running for president in a scant four months. Kanye made the announcement via Twitter in a historic virtual mic drop. But, much like a mic drop, he has not quite followed through. For example, he does not appear to understand, or otherwise care, that he must file to run as president with individual states in order to appear on their respective ballots as an independent candidate. The deadline for much of this has already passed. But perhaps I’m wrong to count him out; Elon Musk has
already endorsed him, along with a minister from Wyoming.

Should Kanye run and presumably vote for himself, it will be his first time voting. Expected to file as a candidate for the “Birthday Party,” he recently announced that he decided to run for president while taking a shower. He went on the record as planning to use “the Wakanda management model” to run the White House. I cannot weigh in on the practicality of the Wakanda model as a leadership theory because I slept through Black Panther. I can confirm I have a storied history of falling asleep through a number of similarly loud movies, including Thor: Ragnarok, Doctor Strange, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And, yes, these were all on dates.

I don’t know Kanye West. I don’t know whether he is a good person. I don’t know whether he is faithful to Kim Kardashian, or a decent father to his four children, North West, Saint West, Chicago West, and Psalm West. But I can unequivocally say I am glad someone like him exists, and he lives life unabashedly as himself.

Sarah Brown is a narcoleptic Fan Girl. She can be reached at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @brownsclose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

Civic Entanglement

“Saeimas sēde 2011.gada 17.martā” by Saeima is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

[See Original Post here]

On an average day, I have little to no use for the public. Yet, during the first week of the new year, I was pulled into civic engagement in Anchorage.

I was called for jury duty on the first Monday of 2020. I had no personal experience with jury duty before, but my opinion had long since been formed by my dad who served on a jury for an assault case when I was in elementary school. The case involved brothers Harry, Larry, and Sam. Sam allegedly hit Harry in the back of the head with a two-by-four when Harry refused to make him a sandwich. Harry’s glasses fell off, and he went face first into the table.

Seeing his brother passed out with a large lump on his head, Sam felt duly remorseful.

“Why did you make me do that? Why did you make me do that?” he screamed.

At his trial, Sam did not contest his guilt. He did, however, continue to question Harry as to his motives.

Larry did not add much to the proceedings; he was drunk at the time.

My dad chuckled when he told the family about his jury experience at its close. I, however, was appalled that he had been forced to waste his time in this manner.

I grumpily informed my friend that I had been called for my own service.

My friend can best be described as an optimistic, effervescent, rose-colored glasses butterfly

“But you’ll get to do your civic duty! It will be so interesting!” she fluttered.

Nothing sounded less interesting to me than doing my civic duty.

Legally, however, I was forced to acquiesce. I showed up as requested at eight o’clock in the morning on January 6. My fellow jurors were folks much like myself; all looked uniformly peeved to be doing this and not all of the other activities we had each planned for eight o’clock on Monday morning. Most were wearing work clothes, and hang dog expressions. A few looked like students. The man sitting next to me was very old, unkempt, and did not appear to know where he was.

He flagged down one of the court staff immediately.

“Eh, eh,” he protested, waving his hand.

She looked around to see whether there was anything even remotely more pressing for her to do than deal with this man.

Seeing nothing –

“Alright, come this way,” she kindly ushered him into an office.

They were in there for several moments. Then he came back and waddled to his seat. Whatever his trouble was, it appeared that he was still not excused from jury duty.

The courthouse had very thoughtfully provided internet access in the jury room. My mood lifted somewhat; I could still fritter away the morning on Facebook.

“Good morning jurors!” one of the chipper clerks chirped over the microphone. “Thank you so much for serving here today!

“We have a very exciting morning lined up for you!” she continued with all the enthusiasm of a circus master.

A few of my fellow office drones spared her cursory grimaces before going back to their laptops.

I, however, was enthralled. What would it be like to have a captive audience of two-hundred people every day of the week? My stand-up comedy routine would be on point.

As indeed was hers.

She cracked wise about how our employers would most likely want to see documentation of our attendance, and highlighted how we all got free parking.

“So, when you leave, and go to the parking meter and it asks you to pay, you will of course giggle mischievously, as if you are getting away with something. Because you are! You don’t have to pay! You park for free!”

A few polite titters from the crowd. Most of my fellows appeared to wish they could currently be paying for parking somewhere else.

“And now, I am thrilled to introduce our next speaker!” the clerk moved seamlessly through her M.C. duties.

She hauled a judge to the front of the room.

He cleared his throat.

“I do hope you don’t feel like we are wasting your time,” he started.

We do. That’s exactly how we feel.

“Thank you for serving here today. Our tradition of American jurisprudence demands it. None of us could do our jobs without you. All of the lawyers are currently scurrying behind the scenes, making their cases airtight to be heard before you—”

He paused and heaved a sigh of reverence.

“—the jury.”

I looked around, impressed. No one had ever treated me with reverence before.

Apparently, my fellow jurors were all treated with reverence on a semi-regular basis. Many were blatantly ignoring the judge and scrolling through their phones.

“Now there is a saying, ‘Cases are settled on the courthouse steps,’” the judge continued. “You might not make it beyond this room, but you have still served a vital function in our democracy.”

He bowed, and handed the microphone back to our Master of Juror Ceremonies.

“Thank you for that riveting speech!” she gushed. “And indeed, he is right, we had two trials going today, and one of them has now settled; half of you were assigned to that trial, and are hereby excused. I will read the list of names now.”

The atmosphere in the jury room sharpened noticeably. It was the most engaged the audience had been all morning.

She began reading names alphabetically.

Those of us at the head of the alphabet by surname were excused, demonstrating the exact reason I will need to think long and hard about changing my last name if I ever get married.

I was released.

Jury Duty ended up being completely inconsequential; just as the clerk said, I really did feel like I was getting away with something. It was as if I needed to do penance.

My penalty presented itself sooner than expected. Unable to resist the pull of community, I attended the Anchorage Assembly’s Townhall at the Loussac Library later that week.

To the credit of the Assembly and Administration, they did start and end the meeting punctually. This good feeling, however, was undercut by the fact that the Assembly was proposing not one, but two alcohol taxes.

Those who felt compelled to rise for public comment were tax-friendly. They did not, however, adhere to the topics at hand. Rather, one attendee praised the proposed oil tax, which was not under the municipality’s purview. Another audience member called for a toll to be instituted on the Glenn Highway for visitors driving into Anchorage. This would mean the municipality would be taxing a state road, and I’m sure the rest of the state would have something to say about that.

Still a third audience member got up to speak at length about how we should all be taxed, only to abruptly conclude her remarks by saying she was opposed to the Assembly’s taxes.

There was a small group named “Project 20’s” passing out stickers, and the head of the group took the microphone. She spoke at length about how she grew up in Alaska, how her parents grew up in Alaska, and how her child was growing up in Alaska, and yet, I still was not sure what Project 20’s was about.

I checked my watch.

I’d been there for seventy-seven minutes.

I was sitting in the middle of the last row of the auditorium. Rather than disturb half the row on my left, or the other half on my right, I stood up and climbed over the back of my chair in a frantic bid for freedom.

I tripped and stomped loudly to my feet.

Everyone in the row turned to look at me, now thoroughly disturbed.

So much for being considerate of others.

Against all odds, Sarah Brown is considering a career in public service. While she mulls over her decision, she can be reached at sarah@browns-close.com, and on Twitter @BrownsClose1. “Close” is a British term for alley or cul-de-sac.

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