A Very Smart Cat

As little ones, my generation listened to Bill Cosby on cross-country road trips. In junior high, we covertly huddled around the depraved, fiendishly delicious voice of George Carlin. In high school, it was Cheech and Chong with their potty humor and weed culture coolness of which we simply couldn’t get enough. In the ’90s, I took up audio comedy again and listened to Jerry Seinfeld’s stand up for hours — days — on end.

Now, at age 50, a grandmother and post-politico, I am addicted to the voice of the drastically clever — at once self-deprecating and aggrandizing — edge of the baby-boom poster child, Dylan Brody.

Brody’s two new CDs, Brevity and True Enough, expose a splendid storyteller and a Swift-Twainian ethicist. He is never didactic, never comes off ass-holier than thou, never seems terribly concerned that the world is full of bullies and idiots, but he does mention these things in passing, as he hypnotizes his audience with yarns, tall tales and new-age legends.

Brevity is a collection of works produced for radio broadcast with musical intros and outros. Brody’s voice is usually relaxed and fluid, sometimes a bit shaky to the point that you wonder if he’s nervous, but then you remember it’s recorded, so it’s intentional, or organic, or something. It is definitely authentic, tight prose written by somebody who knows how to write and performed by somebody with great timing. It’s wicked smart stuff, very funny and sad sometimes, and deeply moving and frighteningly close to sentimental in places. I found myself in tears more than once. That really irritates me.

So I read his bio, curious as hell about the person behind this singular voice:

Dylan Brody began performing stand-up comedy on the open-mic circuit in New York the summer after he finished high school. During his sophomore year at Sarah Lawrence College, the world famous IMPROVisation in Hell’s Kitchen accepted him as a “developing regular,” where he began to hone his stand-up skills and develop his onstage persona. The great George Carlin, whom Dylan admired as a child, once called to encourage his work, referring to Brody as a “very funny young political comic.”

Brody studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England. During this time, Dylan worked London’s comedy clubs and developed a loyal following at the Canal Café Theater where he performed weekly. Returning to America, Dylan worked comedy clubs from New York to Los Angeles, where he shared the stage with some of the comedy world’s biggest stars, including: Adam Sandler, Jeff Foxworthy, Dennis Miller, John Lovitz, Larry Miller, Norm McDonald, Louie Anderson, Richard Belzer, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. He has written jokes used by dozens of comedians, including Jay Leno in his monologues on The Tonight Show.

Mr. Brody wrote his first play while still in grade school. He went on to become an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and twice published novelist. One of his latest plays, Mother May I, won the prestigious Stanley Drama Award for play-writing. His novels, A Tale Of A Hero And The Song Of Her Sword and The Warm Hello,were published in 1997 and 1999, respectively. His screenplay, Spells of Grey, was a semi-finalist for the coveted Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting.

For more than two decades in television, radio and live performance, Dylan Brody has been making people laugh around the world. He has evolved into an artful humorist with an engaging style all his own. Dylan can be heard regularly on KYCY Radio in San Francisco, California, sharing his thoughts and unique perspective of life and the world around us.

Then I listened to True Enough, a series of live stand-up shows wherein he deconstructs his entire life — sort of an abbreviated Catcher in the Rye for aging, 21st Century comics — and he deconstructs the American Democratic System. And censorship and jury duty. He illuminates an experience I’m sure we’ve all had — that of a Jewish in-law visiting your wife’s southern Baptist family and attending a swap-meet wherein Neo-Nazis ask your advice about the placement of a shirt-patch swastika. All of Brody’s work is in the first person, and it is clearly autobiographical, but then there are parts that simply can’t be true. No way did he blow a guy in high school, right?

It turns out that the parts you think are obviously true aren’t, and the parts that couldn’t possibly be true are, except when they’re not.

What is true is that Dylan Brody is a fiercely funny, sweet, kind sort of a character who makes you want to adopt him along with his wife (whose name escapes him at the moment), dog, very smart cat and typewriter. You want to hang out with him, listen to his stories, share a bottle of something with him, kindle the menorah, make up the prayers, haul out the holly and light up the Christmas tree.

Brevity and True Enough are available lots of places, but I’ll bet he gets a penny or so more if you get them from his website. There is wisdom to be absorbed and lots of mirth to go around, and not many storytellers still spinning these days. The CDs will make great stocking-stuffers for anybody who celebrates in that way, or great New Years entertainment, birthday gifts…whatever. Get them. Listen. Pass them on. You can even download them on iTunes. You have no excuse. Do it. You’ll be really glad you did.

Ho-ho-ho.

Photos by Miriam Preissel