Alaska’s Renaissance Man

(Juneau, Alaska  —  52 Poster Review  —  September 26, 2016)

Jeff Brown has been entertaining himself for decades. Fortunately he’s been entertaining the rest of us as well. But why does this seemingly normal, former Coast Guard sailor and Groucho Marx aficionado insist on hanging the hilarious posters of biting satire all along the Gastineau Channel?

No one, last of all Brown, can answer that question.

Maybe he’s a futuristic super hero or maybe he’s a lunatic but that’s no way to talk about a man that was recently recognized for lifetime achievements by the Alaskan Governor’s Awards for the Arts.

Maybe, as many fear, it is Brown’s attempt to take over the world.

“This guy has no boundaries,” said a former colleague at The Juneau What, a funny paper published here some year ago. “He redefines multi-media.”

Jeff is an accomplished musician, does public radio shows for children, creates crazy postcards, publishes Real Alaska Magazine and produces traveling magic shows. He also founded the Alaska Folk Fest and established a growing worldwide celebration of the wonderful world of balloon animals. (He is the standing balloonist laureate).

“Look! It’s him! The one in the invisible clown suit! Grab him! Catch him before he gets away!”

Impacted by such groups as Firesign Theater, Jeff sounds a lot like a guy that has just won a prestigious award. Whether he is in Juneau, Sitka or Ketchikan people know him as the man with the big imagination.

“What inspires a person to twist a balloon into a shape of a moose or take photos of someone vacuuming a glacier or run for mayor in a gorilla suit? asks writer Ed Schoenfeld in a recent piece on Brown.

You’d never hear it from Brown but let’s hear it from him anyway:

“I guess it all centers around making people happy. That’s kind of what I’ve given myself as “job in life”: to make people smile and to make their lives a little bit easier to live,” he said.

About the only thing Brown hasn’t done is sell hot dogs.

“Never sold hot dogs,” he said.

-Melvin Toole