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Juneau Entertainer Wins Lifetime Achievement Award for Arts and HumanitiesWhen people see or hear Jeff Brown, they laugh, but they also smile.Alaska governors have bestowed upon him titles such as minister of merriment, balloonist laureate of Alaska and professor of play. And now Jeff Brown of Juneau has been awarded a lifetime achievement award from the state council on the arts. Last night at the Hotel Captain Cook, Brown was recognized by his fellow artists and patrons of the arts and humanities. He is the program director for Juneau's public radio station, KTOO-FM, where he has been a volunteer, board member or staffer since leaving the coast guard in 1975. The wide range of his endeavors over three and a half decades has made him hard to categorize but easy to enjoy. Part of his repertoire is performing magic tricks. But you might say his entire public life in Alaska has been charmed. He once did a live radio broadcast while riding an elephant down a Juneau street, calling attention to a traveling circus. He participated in a public service announcement for proper garbage handling, which was done as a music video: "These plastic bags, they can't be beat / but put 'em in a can when you put 'em in the street / and if the dogs are hungry, you shouldn't be shocked / you find your trash all over the block." "Well, you've got to do something beside watch TV a lot,” Brown says. “So I’d come home and work on stained glass, I’d come home and work on balloon animals, sculptures, come home and work on magic tricks, and at some point some things stuck and some things didn't. But it's just fun to do anyway He also has brought his satirical touch to print, making outlandish fake Alaska postcards, and a fake Juneau newspaper turned into a fake Alaska magazine. "We went from newspaper to high-tech glossy, and it's been very successful, because it makes people laugh, and that's my job in life is to make people laugh and feel good about themselves and living in general." Brown's prodigious output and enthusiasm earned him a lifetime achievement award among the 2011 Governor's Awards for the Arts and Humanities. The master of ceremonies said: "In the case of Jeff Brown, while his dedication was obvious, the exact category was not as obvious. Jeff is a humorist, a musician, a juggler, a radio host, a founder of the Alaska Folk Festival and official jester for four Alaska governors." Everyone agrees that Brown is funny, but what's unusual about his brand of humor is that he doesn't poke too hard; he doesn't draw blood from his subjects. "I think he goes out of his way to accentuate the positive, and to still have a laugh at or about something, without denigrating that moment by being mean,” said Ben Brown, chairman of the Alaska State Council on the Arts. "I'm not in this world to offend people,” Jeff Brown said. “There's plenty of people around to make people sad, to make people angry. But my idea of a joke is to make the person who I'm making the joke about to laugh just as hard as anybody else." When people see or hear Jeff Brown, they laugh, but they also smile.
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DJ Thomson said on Friday, Oct 21 at 3:49 PM
Wish we all could have been there, Jeff.
75685262John Greely said on Friday, Oct 21 at 9:00 AM
Nice piece, Bill. Thanks for the portrait of a true Alaska character.
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