Category: Larry Brody Post

The True Fact Secret of Success…

(I'm using this free Image from http://clipart-library.com/ again because a big, cautionary red X should always come with advice, right?)

…As indirectly revealed to me by my Oldest Daughter J— just the other day:

We’re visiting A— this weekend. She’s happy as a clam and taking a film class taught by SK’s ex-wife. It’s a —

Wait! Wait!

To truly appreciate the upcoming punchline, you may need a few additional facts.

I say this because I’m an old-fashioned writer who likes to make sure everything is clear, mostly so I can tell myself that the reason my work has always been misunderstood (okay, maybe not always, but a few times at least) has been because the readers or viewers weren’t paying proper attention and not because I, erm, screwed up.

Therefore:

In addition to being my oldest daughter, J— is my first child in general and a producer/writer at NPR in San Francisco. Her second daughter, A—, is one of my – wait, I’ve got to count – five granddaughters and is a sophomore at UCLA.

SK has been a writer and/or producer on a ton of Marvel films among others. He’s also been a close friend of my older son (also a human whose name starts with a J–) since their college days, which means that SK’s ex-wife has at the very least been a part of the overall Brody extended family.

Older son J– also is well-known within the same business as SK. I’d say a Remembrance of Things Past worth more of great things about him, but he likes to keep a low profile.

I also have another daughter and another son and two grandsons that don’t figure into this conversation. And even though I’m not using their names, I do know them. Just don’t ask me their birthdays, okay?

Now that you’ve been alerted to the backstory, I’ll finish telling you what Oldest Daughter J— was telling me. Let me start over:

We’re visiting A— this weekend. She’s happy as a clam and taking a film class taught by SK’s ex-wife. It’s a small, nepotistic world!

There. That’s it. ODJ said it with a sigh, which is pretty much what this kind of fact of life deserves, but the point remains, not only in showbiz but in all walks of life. The Secret of Success is to always keep in mind that we do indeed live on a small, nepotistic planet. If you can’t manage to get yourself born with the right contacts, then go out and forge other connections with everyone you can.

LB’S NOTE: This, btw, isn’t what I did. Connecting and Larry Brody do not even occur in the same universe. I got started via what I’d have to call “The Second True Fact Secret of Success,” which I’ll throw in now because what the hell:

In spite of possibly being the most antisocial human anyone could ever know, I spent not only my college years but most of my adult life happy as a clam because I was the luckiest son of a bitch you may ever know.

Thanks, ODJ!

LYMI, LB

LB: Live! From Paradise #208 “CyberPals”

(The Intro above is from this column's previous web incarnation)

by Larry Brody

Confession time.

I am the sad sufferer of a secret addiction.

No, it’s not Demon Rum. Although I do have a keen appreciation of Gwen the Beautiful’s home brewed dark ale. Here on The Mountain we call it Manns Beer, after her maiden name, and if we were going to advertise the slogan would be, “A Real Man’s Beer, Made by a Real Manns Woman.”

And it’s certainly not drugs. Why would I want to alter a consciousness that those who visit this space as well as I have learned is already so very different from that of most people that I’ve been labelled “barely tethered to reality” more than a few times? (And that’s by admirers.)

I’m not even talking about my obsessive writing in general. Nor its sister, my compulsive need to reveal what Youngest Daughter Amber calls Brody World to anyone who will read or listen. After all, there’s nothing secret about either of those, is there?

No, my Secret That Must Never Be Revealed—which I’m revealing right here, right now, today—is that I’m totally enthralled with that amazing nowhere-but-everywhere space known as the Internet

AKA, to those of us who consider ourselves aficionados, the web.

AKA again, to those of us who not only are aficionados but snarky ones to boot, the Interweb.

Unlike most members of my generation, I’m pretty well up on the computer and cyberspace realms. Oh, I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as the average 14-year-old, but I got a late start. I was almost 50 when, inspired by all the fun I’d had playing Sim City on Nintendo with a friend’s son, I got my first PC. (Sorry, Apple!)

Over the years I’ve built my own computers, bought those made by HP and Dell and even moved up into the Big Tech PC stratosphere with a couple of state-of-the-art systems from Alienware.

I was an early member of Compuserve, the first nationwide Internet Service Provider, and also of AOL back when AOL did more than merely brand things. My older son, Jeb, turned me onto Netscape when it first came out, and I’ve had my own web site, TVWriter.Com, for about a dozen years.

In fact, TVWriter.Com still is where I spend almost all the time I’m not out enjoying, or writing about enjoying, the deeply grounded aspects of Rural America that make up my Paradise life.

I don’t use this space to write about surfing to favorite sites with arcane monikers like ArsTechnica, Consumerist, DownloadSquad, Engadget, Lifehacker, MediaWeek, TechCrunch, and Woot! DotCom because to me Brody Web World always has seemed totally unrelated to Brody Paradise World. Recently, though, I’ve been thinking that maybe I was wrong.

It started with a passing comment from the Old Billionaire’s Over-Educated Son. “I know my dad loves his truck,” he said the other day. “But would he be so happy tooling around in an old flatbed if he didn’t have his own jet to take him anywhere in the world he wanted to go?”

I couldn’t answer for the O.B., of course, but I knew what Sonny was getting at…and it made me wonder whether I’d be as happy as I am communing with nature if I wasn’t also able to trade e-mails, IM’s, and message board posts with people from all over the world who share my career interests, wants, and needs.

Would Paradise remain my Eden if I couldn’t laugh or argue or otherwise carry on with Old Buddy Cal at his computer in Bellingham, Washington, just as easily as I do with Doug the Dog Breeder at his table in the local Walmart?

Considering how much more complex human beings are than we too often believe, it may well be that one community alone rarely is able to satisfy or fulfill any of us. Which, as I ponder further, makes me wonder if that’s what accounts for how family, work, and play usually spill out from each other and occupy separate niches.

A good way to learn what part of life really makes Larry B feel so good when he wakes up every morning should be to keep a close watch on both my outer life in Paradise and the inner one in cyberspace.

I’ll have to keep my eyes, ears, and mind wide open when the next long power outage keeps me firmly ensconced in nature.

Ditto the next time I find myself locked in a big city hotel room, with nothing to do but surf the web.

Uh-oh. Uncle Larry’s starting to jones just thinking about losing either aspect.

Looks like I have to admit it:

I need it all.

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From the Mouths of Retired Philosophers

(This image file was found on Wikimedia Commons & has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.)

LB’S NOTE: First in a series of quotes directly from the mouths of various brilliant but sadly unknown philosophers.

DREAM LOVER SYNDROME: The understanding that the more any two people think, feel, and behave like each other, the more likely it is that one of them isn’t real.

I think the philosopher was and still is unknown is because he and his more famous significant other discovered they were too much alike.

But I’m just guessing.