For local funny man Jeff Brown \u2014 who wears clown shoes every day and treats April Fools\u2019 Day like a national holiday \u2014 there are few things better than when people take his jokes seriously.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe kind of humor I like is the kind that makes you think as well as laugh,\u201d said Brown, father of two satirical publications here in town, the now defunct Juneau What newspaper and Real Alaska Magazine. \u201cI\u2019ve done my job if people think my jokes are real.\u201d<\/p>\n
Job well done, Jeff.<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago he posted several joke fliers around Juneau advertising a community pot garden in the vacant Walmart building off of Glacier Highway, and several people, including me, took the phony fliers seriously \u2014 or seriously enough to call Walmart and ask about the garden.<\/p>\n
The pot garden advertisement wasn\u2019t Brown\u2019s first joke flier. He\u2019s been posting a new flier every week on bulletin boards throughout town since April. His goal: to come out with new fliers on a weekly basis for a whole year.<\/p>\n
So far, the project hasn\u2019t always been easy, Brown says. He works a few weeks ahead, always keeping at least a couple fliers ready and waiting. But coming up with 52 ideas, and then turning them into fliers, is no small undertaking.<\/p>\n
Brown said he carries three-by-five note cards in his pockets everywhere he goes, so that he\u2019s always ready in case a good idea strikes him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a goal of 52 posters, so I have to keep coming up with ideas and making posters no matter where I am,\u201d Brown told the Empire in the KTOO building where he works as program director for KTOO and KRNN \u2014 when he\u2019s not busy writing jokes that is.<\/p>\n
Some of his recent fliers include one that simply said \u201cFlier\u201d centered on a white sheet of paper with a slim black border. Another advertised \u201cFree! Little pieces of paper!\u201d It of course employed the classic flier \u201ctake one\u201d pull-tabs lined along the bottom.<\/p>\n
Brown is no stranger to humor. In addition to the two satirical publications he ran, he used to work at kids parties where he would make balloon animals and perform magic tricks \u2014 hence the clown shoes. For Brown, every interaction is offers him a new chance to make somebody laugh, and he seizes every opportunity to make a joke. I couldn’t make it through a 30-minute interview with Brown without laughing.<\/p>\n
[Brown honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award<\/a>]<\/p>\n So far, Brown has tried to remain fairly anonymous, hiding his identity as best he can from those seeking out the source of the fliers.<\/p>\n \u201cMostly, I like to put them up and skedaddle,\u201d he said. \u201cI just want to be a fly on the wall. It\u2019s kind of my secret identity.\u201d<\/p>\n And he has been to do just that. He recently watched a group of people waiting for a table at the Island Pub laugh at one of his fliers posted there. From what he has observed the fliers have been well received, which he\u2019s happy to see because he\u2019s contemplating discontinuing Real Alaska Magazine to pursue his poster project.<\/p>\n Brown said that he thinks he has \u201cmined all of the funny stuff\u201d that he can for the magazine, which he\u2019s published annually since 2010. The fliers offer him a chance to tell jokes that aren\u2019t just Alaska specific, and that\u2019s precisely why he likes them.<\/p>\n He\u2019s currently emailing the fliers to a small group of people each week so that they will print the fliers themselves and post them wherever they can. Brown is widening the scope of his humor in the hope of making his fliers gain popularity \u201cglobally if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Lofty goals aside, Brown also likes the fliers because they help him to accomplish his ultimate goal: to inject humor into life wherever possible.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most fun for me is that I get to put them places where people don\u2019t expect to find humor,\u201d he said. \u201cMy job in life is to make people laugh, to come up with things that will chuckle a little bit here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n Read more news:<\/p>\n KTOO’s Jeff Brown unleashes ‘Real Alaskan’ magazine<\/a><\/p>\n