Weekend Open Thread: A. Whitney Brown’s Wife is a Blues Goddess

One of the people I knew during my legal career in New York through my online political blogging activities was A. Whitney Brown, a writer and supporting cast member on Saturday Night Live during the 1980s, best known for commentaries on what was then Dennis Miller’s (before his brains leaked out of his head) hosting of Weekend Update and then later a correspondent on the pre-John Stewart Daily Show.  (There was one, you know.  You can look it up.  And its co-creator Lizz Winstead is real, not just a story used by parents to scare their children.)

I went to hear one of Whitney’s shows at a local bar, where he told the single funniest and most insightful (and not really antagonistic, though a bit undermining) joke about Leviticus (or one of those books, anyway) that I have ever heard — and we would continue to hang out in mutual admiration (mine being more justified) on an online political blog for years after I left New York.

This video — at what I take to be from an atheist conference — doesn’t contain that joke — I’d tell it, but I don’t want to mangle it — but you’ll see why I think that he’s in the same vein of precious metal as the late George Carlin and the still around Bill Maher.  To my taste, though, but to my mind more appealing (because more gentle and self-effacing) than either:

Well, anyway, Whitney showed up again recently to write something funny and smart (and tongue-in-cheek) about how it was impossible to prove that the Bible had not been created by Gutenberg in the 16th century and challenging the “Old Bible” theory of the Bible against his creationist alternative.

But he also did something more important. He told us that he had gotten married and moved to Austin, TX. That sort of thing is always nice to hear. But then he introduced us, through the magic of YouTube, to his wife:

To which I say “wow” — except that I say it several times, over and over.

This is your Weekend Open Thread. Talk about what you’d like — and it need not be in the manner of the Winships. (It can be, though, especially if you are a Winship.)


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose attorney, semi-disabled and semi-retired, residing in northwest Brea. Occasionally ran for office against jerks who otherwise would have gonr unopposed. Got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012; Josh Newman then won the seat in 2016. In 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002; Todd Spitzer then won that seat in 2018. Every time he's run against some rotten incumbent, the *next* person to challenge them wins! He's OK with that. Corrupt party hacks hate him. He's OK with that too. He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.) His daughter is a professional campaign treasurer. He doesn't usually know whom she and her firm represent. Whether they do so never influences his endorsements or coverage. (He does have his own strong opinions.) But when he does check campaign finance forms, he is often happily surprised to learn that good candidates he respects often DO hire her firm. (Maybe bad ones are scared off by his relationship with her, but they needn't be.)