Brain Farts Don’t Stink

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My brother Dennis is a talented guitar player, song writer, and singer.  He inherited my dad’s well developed, dry sense of humor.  He and his wife, Marlene, are enthusiastic and seasoned travelers, make their own wine, and are quintessential examples of young retirees who made a point to enjoy life as they were raising their family.  Now they’re enjoying their retirement even more.  I wrote about them earlier this year when my sister Lisa and I crashed their Lifestyle Visit to The Villages in Florida.  Here’s a link to that post. 

Denny pulled out his guitar when I was in Wisconsin last week to sing two songs he’s written since I last saw him.  His musical prowess combined with that observational and sardonic sense of humor is brilliant. I know, I know…brilliant is subjective, but he is my brother, and I think his work is brilliant.  And it’s my blog, so brilliant it is.

One of the songs he played for me was called I Prefer to View the World Through the Bottom of My Bourbon Glass.  The song, inspired by the picture here of their vacation in New Zealand last winter, is a musical discourse on the state of the crazy, upside-down world (the culture and society more than the beauty of the planet itself) in which we currently live.  Looking at life slightly askew, or through a blurry glass lens, definitely helps make more sense of it. 

Denny played the bourbon glass song recently at an open mike event with Dave Steffen, a lion of a rock star from the area we grew up in.  Dave is a friend of Denny’s and, back in the day, fronted a band called Sun Blind Lion.  Here, thanks to the miracle of YouTube, is a link to one of their albums.  When Denny concluded his world premiere performance of the I Prefer… song at the bar that night, a woman came up to him.  She high fived him and pronounced the song “awesome.”  She suggested he put a video of the song on YouTube for the whole world to hear, contemplate, and enjoy.

I’m not sure how much she’d been drinking that night, but I think her suggestion has a lot of merit.  When I asked why Denny didn’t post a video of the song on YouTube, he laughed.  He wasn’t ready to put his stuff out on the world wide web for all the haters to hate on, he said. 

I think that’s baloney.  His songs contain truth.  And I don’t think he’s afraid to stand up for what he believes in.  He just doesn’t want to deal with the bull hockey that YouTube can create. 

Honestly, he has enough good material to establish an intriguing and profitable YouTube channel.   I wonder if he has any idea how much YouTubers can earn when their channels catch on.  Rest assured, I will research and let him know the potential, just in case it makes a difference.  If he decides to give it a go, he can pay me a finder’s fee. I know without research that even moderately successful YouTube channels could be enough to fund the winter trips he and Marlene enjoy so much from frozen Wisconsin to tropical paradise locations every year. 

The titles of a few of his original songs I think could become his greatest hits are:

And then there’s Brain Farts Don’t Stink which is the other song he sang for me.  That ditty is about a guy in a bar attempting to hit on a pretty woman.  In the middle of the conversation, he forgets what he wants to say.  She loses interest and walks away when he can’t find the words.  That’s when he realizes he’s glad brain farts don’t stink. 

The truth of the title of that song is a fortuitous thing for us Boomers.  We don’t clear the room when we forget stuff or look incredibly stupid because our brain short circuits at exactly the wrong time.  In fact, we might actually make a few friends who can relate because of it. 

A relevant article on newscientist.com called Brain Farts: 9 Ways Your Brain Can Make You Feel Stupid is probably worth reading, but it’s behind a paywall so I never did get the gist of it.  DiscoverMagazine.com has an informative piece called The Anatomy of a Brain Fart.  It says that when the brain gets bored, it makes the stupidest of all stupid mistakes. 

Interestingly, the article, a scientific explanation of what those hoity-toity neuroscientists call “maladaptive brain activity changes” doesn’t mention age at all.  We know the truth, though.  No matter what fancy name you call them, brain farts are common and happen with increasing frequency as we get older.  Randy and I have some pretty spectacular brain fart examples these days.  It’s almost a competition. 

Not that we’re proud of that. 

What I am proud of is my big (he’s 6’3” or so) little brother.  And I’m going to keep bugging him to put his stuff on YouTube. 

Stay tuned. 

P.S. I’m flying home to Florida after spending nearly the entire month of June in Wisconsin. Mom is better. It’s been a blessing to be here and help contribute to the well-being of my family. Life is good.