COLUMN: Y.M.C.A.

Some people have hot girl summers. I apparently get heart attack summers.

Ever since politely declining an invitation back in June from a hooded gentleman with a scythe, I've spent a good portion of the last three months climbing aboard a delightful array of assorted treadmills and elliptical machines in order to teach my blood how to once again flow throughout my body unencumbered. It's been a swell time.

Truth be told, I haven't altogether hated it. Honestly, it's occasionally been kinda (gasp) fun. I've lost a decent amount of weight, I've gained a ton of stamina, and I've met some really great people. Not once has anyone pointed and called me names, so cardiac rehab has already proven itself to be a MILLION times more valuable than junior high gym class ever was.

But all good things come to an end, and I've only got a few remaining sessions before I graduate rehab, receive my complimentary t-shirt, and get shown the door. From there, staying on the healthy path will be entirely up to me. Gulp.

I'm in it for the long haul, though. I've done the hard part. I've turned that new leaf. I deleted the pizza delivery numbers off my phone. This is the longest I've gone without a cheeseburger in my adult life. I've got a long road ahead of me to get back in fighting form, but I'm already a few miles farther down that highway than I ever thought I'd get. 

And this week, I did something I never thought would happen. Shane Brown, of his own free will and volition, joined the YMCA.

The me of two decades ago would've hung his mouth open in utter shock upon hearing such nonsense. WILLINGLY entering a building where people PURPOSELY sweat and work out without a sectional sofa or flatscreen TV in sight? Say it ain't so.

But listen, I've done my research -- and I have it on pretty good authority they have everything for a man to enjoy, I can hang out with all the boys, and it's fun to stay at the YMCA. Honestly, if you can't trust a cop, a construction worker, a soldier, an Indian, a cowboy, and a biker, who CAN you trust? 

I've been to the YMCA a handful of times now, and I've already noticed a few things.

At cardiac rehab, I sometimes feel like an athlete. It's easy to have confidence when you're surrounded by exercise professionals who know what they're doing and your heart rhythm is being monitored by attentive nurses in real time. Each week, I've been adding a little more resistance and speed to hopefully improve my performance and capability. It's almost like I'm becoming a real jock or something.

And then I went to the YMCA and had a bit of a reality check. I'm definitely no jock. Over the past few sessions at rehab, I've been quite proud of myself for trying their stand-up elliptical machine. Ten minutes on that baby and I'm an exhausted, flabby pile of ick trying hard not to barf. Well, the YMCA has a bunch of those machines, too. And the first time I was there, I watched a dude log 60 minutes on one of those things while chatting on his phone and barely breaking a sweat. Last time I was there, I thought I was walking a decent pace on the treadmill until two girls got on either side of me and starting running at more than double my speed. I am many things, but a "real jock" is NOT one of them.

Still, no-one laughed at me, and I've yet to flee in terror. I've been hitting the YMCA after work on my off days from rehab. I signed up for their fancy e-Gym, where the machines act as your own personal trainers and automatically adjust weights and resistance to meet your exact needs. Today, one of those machines told me I currently have the upper body muscle strength of an 83-year-old, so thaaaat's awesomesauce. I tried to see if I can do more than ten minutes on THEIR stand-up ellipiticals -- and I cannot (yet.) Their treadmills are high-tech and have screens where you can pretend you're walking along a beach in Europe or through the mountains of Argentina. Today, it randomly chose a casual stroll down the Sunset Strip. I was hoping to bump into Axl or Slash along the way, but no dice. 

So here's to this good thing not coming to an end anytime soon, and here's to getting that Village People song out of my head as soon as possible. Don't worry, once I become a buff and toned jock with abs of steel, I won't point, laugh, or kick sand in your face as I walk past you on the beach with a hot babe on each arm. Promise.

COLUMN: Am I A Prude?

As I've said many times in the past, one of my biggest fears in life is the self-realization that I've become a... (gasp) fuddy-duddy.  

I'm seeing it happen more and more often, like when my friends who used to stay out until dangerous hours doing dangerous things are now tucked into bed by 10 p.m. Like when I flip past the oldies channel and they're playing a song that came out AFTER I graduated college. Like when I see some hooligan on the street and immediately assume they're up to no good. When I use words like "hooligan." 

I am no longer a spring chicken -- but I do a decent job at living in denial. I still occasionally do dangerous things at dangerous hours -- but the danger is mostly me going, "Gosh, it's late. I bet there's a lot of drunks on the road. I need to be extra cautious during these risky hours of travel." I still watch TV shows about 20-somethings and their 20-something problems. I share silly viral videos off TikTok and find myself astonished when my friends have no idea what I'm talking about.

But the biggest denial of my laps around the sun happens on the weekends, when I spend my evenings filling dancefloors with people half my age. I might have a mild-mannered day job during the week, but when the weekend comes, you can usually find me in some DJ booth, doing my very best to soundtrack a great night out for clubgoers young enough to be my children. And it doesn't phase me one bit. When I'm behind the DJ decks, I never feel like the old guy in the room. I'm just focused on the tunes. But as much as I don't want to admit it, sometimes the tunes are what makes me feel ancient.

Everyone says the music of their era was the best music ever -- and everyone is usually wrong. The music of your youth is simply what you identify with the most, and it will usually always be your go-to. Big band fans probably hated Elvis. Elvis fans probably hated the Beatles. Beatles fans probably hated disco. While it's great to have favorites, it's always a pet peeve to hear someone say, "today's music is TERRIBLE!" Just because you don't identify with something doesn't make it inherently bad.

At least, that's what I always believed. Then the 2020's showed up. Maybe I'm officially old. Maybe I'm officially becoming set in my ways. That said, there's been some straight up TERRIBLE music climbing the charts lately. 

"Excuse me?" the cute, polite, well-mannered girl at the club asked last weekend. "Do you take requests?"

"Maybe," I replied with a smile. "Whatcha wanna hear?"

"Thanks," she said. "Can you play '[EXPLETIVE] On My [EXPLETIVE]?'"

I played it for her. But I also kinda wanted to wash her mouth out with soap, or at the very least offer a brief but informative lecture on self-respect and safe sex practices. But it's official - I know I'm becoming a fuddy-duddy when the lyrics to today's pop songs start embarassing me. But seriously, have you HEARD some of these tracks? 

Back in the Fifties, they wouldn't show Elvis' hips on TV for fear of upsetting people. In the Seventies, punk rock was the shocking sound of molten anger. In my era, the limits of decency were shattered by the fiendishly filthy 2 Live Crew, whose juvenile raps caused such outrage Congress got involved.

Well, the 2 Live Crew may as well be Kidz Bop compared to some of the most popular songs in the clubs right now. I bet these tracks would even make Luke from 2 Live Crew blush. I wonder if he has teenagers now? I wonder if he lets them listen to these filthy new songs? I'd really like to picture some poor kid getting a lecture about morality from the guy who wrote "Me So Horny."

But last weekend really brought it all home for me. A retro cover band was playing a Gilda's Club event at the Rust Belt, and yours truly got the opportunity to show up and open the night DJing a set of all 80s music. I hate people who say the music of their era was the best music ever -- except when people from the 80s say it, because they're correct. 80s nusic was, is, and always shall be magical.

That night, I didn't have to worry about the Top 40 charts. I didn't have to worry about being a fuddy-duddy. I certainly didn't have to worry about [EXPLETIVE] on my [EXPLETIVE]. That night, I was only focused on a few key concepts: (1) That I was living on a prayer, (2) that girls just want to have fun, and (3) that I had to fight for my right to party. I'm not one to brag, but that night, I may have rocked down to electric avenue and then I took it higher. It was ridiculous fun, and I got to drop New Kids, Debbie Gibson, AND Tiffany in the span of a half hour, so my mission was accomplished.

I have no plans to stop mixing records unless clubs finally decide to stop hiring an old guy to do it -- and the way I see it, I'll eventually cycle back to being cool again, because what club wouldn't want to book the old senior citizen DJ who limps into the booth with a cane and then melts peoples faces off with sick beats? In the meantime, if you ever want to throw an 80s party, you know who to call.

COLUMN: AI Shane

Are you familiar with those cheesy motivational posters that some people hang on their office walls? You know, the ones that say cringeworthy things like "PERSEVERANCE" beneath a picture of a sailboat trying to navigate a stormy sea? Yeah, I've always hated those posters.

I once had a boss who COVERED his office with those tacky things. On his first day, he summoned every employee for a one-on-one, and I proceeded to open my mouth and insert my foot immediately upon arrival. "Whoa," I exclaimed uncontrollably as I looked around his office. "Was there a sale somewhere at Motivational-Posters-R-Us?" That boss never liked me much. I can't imagine why.

Well, maybe I have a guess or two. Perhaps it was the "motivational" poster that hung for years in my cubicle. It was a gorgeous shot of a beach at sunset with the word MOTIVATION in giant print. Beneath it, an inspirational message I could always turn to during rough times: "If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."

Well, it's been twenty years or so since I hung that poster up -- I figure it's high time we gave those robots a shot.

Nothing's been more buzzworthy this year than artificial intelligence and ChatGPT, the interface that lets you talk to a robot and beg it to write your term papers for you. Artificial intelligence is here, it's smart, and it's becoming hard to tell the difference between AI and a real person. 

This smart technology has grown considerably, even over the past couple years. If you don't believe me, go to Youtube and search "AI commercials" and watch some great clips from a few years back, when they tasked AI machines to study the human race and produce TV advertisements humans would like. The resulting ads were delicious nightmares, where eight-legged breakdancers with cheese for lips told you that pizza was better than family.

Today, though, teachers are literally struggling to tell the difference between real homework assignments and AI-generated cheats. The practical benefits of advancing AI are limitless, from self-driving cars to robots that can do the intellectual heavy lifting for us. Of course, the down side is that we as a people continually move ever closer to a dystopian future where mankind becomes enslaved by robots smarter than us. "The Terminator" CANNOT become a documentary, people.

That said, if a kid can now skate through college letting a robot write his term papers, there's absolutely no reason why a tired newspaper columnist can't take a quick vacation and let some piece of software write his newspaper column for a week, right? I figured it was worth a shot, so I went to the ChatGPT interface this week and gave it a simple command:

"WRITE A NEWSPAPER COLUMN IN THE STYLE OF DISPATCH/ARGUS AND QUAD CITY TIMES COLUMNIST SHANE BROWN."

Simple enough, right?  It took ChatGPT about 3.5 seconds to deliver a 700 word column. This was the first paragraph:

"Saddle Tales: Where Hooves and Hearts Converge, by Shane Brown.  Howdy there, folks, and welcome back to another riveting ride through the wild and wonderful world of the Quad Cities. Today, I reckon we're gonna stir up some dust and dive right into a topic that's as timeless as the Mississippi's flow – horses. Yep, you heard me right, those four-legged companions that have been galloping through history, leaving hoofprints on our hearts and heritage."

I will never doubt technology again. Had I not given you a spoiler alert, there's no way you would've known that paragraph wasn't written by me, eh? The artificial intelligence knows me perfectly: my fondness of the word "howdy," my predilection for flowery alliteration, and of course, my favorite column topic of all time: horses. You nailed it, ChatGPT!

Don't blame the robot, though. It was pretty cocky for me to have assumed that ChatGPT would have any earthly idea who Shane Brown is, let alone what my "style" would be. Just because one nice lady at the grocery store last week told me she liked my column (aww!) does NOT make me a household name worthy of anyone's intelligence, artificial or no.

Also, I'm not saying that I Google my own name on the regular, but if you DO fancy searching online for "Shane Brown," you'll likely run into a business called Shane Brown Performance Horses. That particular Shane Brown lives in Texas, likes horses considerably more than myself, and has no qualms posing against fenceposts while wearing spurs that I can only presume jingle, jangle, and jingle. I believe ChatGPT just wrote a column in HIS style, not mine.

Artificial intelligence has evolved, but probably not quite to the point where I can take a vacation and leave my column in its good hands -- mostly because artificial intelligence doesn't have hands. Yet. Please tell me it doesn't have hands. 

COLUMN: Riverdale

Last week, I was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Instead of the usual silly banter about cats and pop culture, I used my column space to eulogize a dear friend who left us way too soon. I was hoping to get back to more silliness this week, but alas, another friend has left us way too soon, and I fear we may need one more eulogy.

Farewell, Riverdale. You were the most ridiculous TV show I've ever been hooked on, and you will be missed. It's undoubtedly going to be a good long while before a show this bonkers ever gets greenlit again, so let's take a moment to sit back and appreciate its profoundly silly legacy.

If you've never watched Riverdale, either (a) you don't watch the CW network, or (b) you don't have anyone under 25 living in your home. Youth seems to be a fundamental prerequisite to even approach an appreciation for Riverdale. Either that or you need to be a newspaper columnist with the emotional maturity of a teenager and WAY too much time on his hands.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, Riverdale is loosely based on the beloved, long-running Archie comics. The characters we know and love from the comic books of yore are all present and accounted for. There's plucky teenager Archie Andrews and his best pal, Jughead. And there's Archie's competing love interests: girl-next-door Betty and big-city socialite Veronica. They live in the quaint everytown of Riverdale and their lives are filled with wacky hijinks and the whimsical follies of life as a teenager.

Its just that the hijinks and follies on the TV show are a tad less wacky and whimsical and a bit more psychotic and murderous.

In the Archie comics, the gang's plans are often foiled by the hard-nosed Miss Grundy, their white-haired, no-nonsense teacher at Riverdale High. In the TV show, we also meet Miss Grundy right away in the pilot episode -- when she and Archie are having sex while they accidentally witness a murder. Yep, it took about one minute of the pilot episode to realize this isn't your dad's Archie comic.

The Archie I grew up with liked to hang out with his friends eating burgers and shakes at Pop's Chock'lit Shop. In the TV show, Pop's is a front for Veronica's secret speakeasy she runs out of the basement. In the comics, Archie's teenage garage band writes a song called "Jingle Jangle." In the TV show, Jingle Jangle is the illicit street drug that the gangs of Riverdale riot to control. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Riverdale writer's room. You know those people had FUN.

Riverdale was helmed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a writer who -- true story -- had once been sent a cease-and-desist letter from Archie Comics for trying to mount an unauthorized stage play where Archie moves to New York and comes out of the closet. Critics were never kind to Riverdale's half-sensical crazypants plotlines, but the teenage fans of the show ate it up until the plotlines became too hammy for even the most ardent of fans.

In the first season, Archie and his pals try to solve a murder. In the second season, there's a serial killer stalking Riverdale. In the third, there's a crazy cult AND the school falls victim to a fad Dungeons-and-Dragons style game that drives students insane. By the time the sixth season rolled around, even the craziest plotlines were running out of steam -- so they decided to give Archie and his friends SUPERPOWERS, because what the heck, why not? It got to a point towards the end where even the cast seemed embarassed of their own show.

Me? I ate it up. I was perfectly okay with the hammy dialogue, the insane plot twists, and the absurdity of the whole thing. If you're wanting to watch something grounded in reality, maybe pick a show that ISN'T based on a comic book? If you want gritty drama that reveals the inner truths about the nature of man, maybe choose a show without a lead character named JUGHEAD? If you're watching Riverdale and expecting anything other than mindless popcorn fun, you're doing it wrong.

Riverdale was a glorious train wreck, and I shall miss my favorite secret shame. Worse yet, with its passing, so too ends the CW network as we've known it. For years, the CW has been THE home for impeccably cool young-adult TV. When it first sprung from the ashes of the WB and UPN, the CW gave us shows like Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl, which helped cement the network's legacy for top-tier content. Over the past decade, it's been the home of fantastic superhero shows like Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl. Its the network that birthed Veronica Mars and My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, two of the most compelling TV shows to ever exist outside of streaming.

But the CW was recently sold to Nexstar, who immediately cleaned house and cancelled nearly every venture that made the CW special. In an effort to make the always-struggling network profitable, its new owners are moving to a line-up that will rely heavily on low-budget reality TV, shows licensed from other countries, and sports coverage with minimal production budgets (starting next year, the CW will be the new home for the NASCAR Xfinity series.)

While the CW never turned a profit, it DID turn heads -- and made executives realize there's an audience for ridiculous shows like Riverdale. Hopefully, other networks and streaming services noticed. With any luck, someday someone will launch a TV show even more bonkers than "Riverdale." I really don't want to be forced to watch GOOD television. Those shows are kinda Debbie Downers.

COLUMN: Kari

When I had a heart attack a couple months ago, I didn't tell too many people right away, except for family and a few close friends.

That night, as I lay in my hospital bed, I got an unexpected text message.

"Mr. Brown," it read. "What is all this noise I'm hearing about your health? Are you ok? Worried about you."

"I'm still kicking," I replied. "Bad week, though."

"Look," came the response. "I'm chronically ill as you know. If you'd like me to teach you some tips and tricks to get healthy, I'm happy to help. The world is a better place with you in it."

"Appreciate it," I replied.

Those messages came from my friend Kari. As brief as the exchange was, it made me feel better while I was stuck in the hospital, unsure of what the future might hold. It turned out the future held me getting released from the hospital the next morning. The day after that, I got a phone call that Kari had unexpectedly passed away in her sleep. Sometimes life isn't fair.

Back in the old timey days -- you know, when we had to walk barefoot through blinding snowstorms on tiptoes as to not wake the dinosaurs -- Augustana always used to take the freshman class on a riverboat cruise as part of college orientation. My friends and I would always clamor to land this coveted DJ gig because we wanted to help our alma mater whenever possible and certainly NOT because it was a good opportunity to hit on freshman girls. Cough.

I had barely started playing music on one such freshman cruise when a girl stomped up, all full of snark and attitude. "So," she asked with a mischievous twinkle, "when are you gonna play GOOD music?" I figured anyone that cocky (and chock full of good music taste) was destined to become a friend, and Kari quickly did. Memories from those days are fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure I was the one who introduced her to my old roommate, who would become her first husband years later.

In the universe of my friends, Kari was often the sun. It seemed like people would just gravitate into her orbit and rotate around her. The Dos Equis guy had nothing on Kari - she was always The Most Interesting Person in the Room.

In life, you're lucky to get, what, maybe 5 or 6 killer stories in your arsenal? You know, the kind of amazing tales from your past that can captivate strangers and make you the center of attention at any social gathering. I've got a few go-to adventures I like to re-tell. Nearly every single one of them involves Kari in some capacity. The time we snuck backstage on a whim and ended up meeting Duran Duran? Kari instigated it. The night a kitten randomly jumped in my car and decided I was its owner? Kari was in the passenger seat. The epic Y2K New Year's Eve party that people only speak of in hushed tones and reverence? It was at Kari's house.

She wasn't just a force of nature, she was OUR force of nature. The girl who could talk her way into anything. The girl with unlimited charm who took zero grief from anyone ever. The girl who could single-handedly keep a party going for way longer than it should have. 

Kari lived her life louder and larger than her personality. As her first marriage ended, she took a job with MTV and moved to London, where she quickly adopted a Madonna-esque British accent and regaled us with tales of hanging with rock stars. Having fully conquered the British Isles, Kari eventually moved back to Atlanta, where she worked in marketing and public relations until her death, which is still such a surreal and silly-sounding thing to say, because forces of nature shouldn't be able to die. I like to think that she's simply up there somewhere, in charge of making party arrangements for us all in the afterlife. It's either that or she's in heaven's jail, having been arrested for stalking John Lennon.

My friend was a force of nature, but she WAS also chronically ill. Having fully exhausted her old liver (who she named Merle, "because he is haggard,") Kari was on the transplant list for a new one, had curbed her epic ways considerably, and had been taking good care of herself while sharing her journey online in hopes of helping anyone else who was struggling. Living with Merle was no picnic, but they're speculating it may have been untreated COVID that took her from us -- which means she was likely feeling lousy in those last couple of days, yet still took the time to check on ME in the hospital.

It's sad that she's gone, no doubt. But at her memorial service last weekend in Chicago, it was magical to see old friends and re-tell all those epic stories. There were tears, but there were WAY more smiles, and that's undoubtedly what Kari would have wanted. She probably would've cussed us out something fierce if we were all mopey and weepy. I'm sad that the world lost such a ball of energy, but I'm happy I had the pleasure of orbiting her sun. Love ya, K.