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Dr. Wes Browning is a one time math professor who has experienced homelessness several times. He supplied the art for the first cover of Real Change in November of 1994 and has been involved with the organization ever since. This is his weekly column, Adventures in Irony, a dry verbal romp of the absurd. He can be reached at drwes@realchangenews.org.

Articles by Dr. Wes Browning

The artist as a young duck-licker.

by Dr. Wes Browning | March 3rd, 2021

The Real Change issue of September 1997 was the one in which I confessed to a duck-licking addiction. I really just wanted to get on the “all homeless people must be addicts” bandwagon and looked around for a distinctive addiction that might set me apart from the others even as I would be coming into the addiction fold, as it were.

So I wrote about hitting rock bottom, having been found face-down in a pile of duck feathers in a ditch alongside a road in Tukwila after a serious duck-licking binge. It was not my proudest moment. The column, I mean. The duck-licking was made up.

It’s 10 p.m. on a Thursday. Do you know where your magnetic north pole is?

by Dr. Wes Browning | February 24th, 2021

I love the science news I come across on the way here to write this column. “Scientists Found a Way to Communicate With People Who Are Asleep And Dreaming.”

Scientists had people sleeping in their labs and used flashing lights, touch, Morse code and I don’t know what all to try to communicate to the sleepers while they were dreaming, and ask them yes or no questions or simple math problems, like how many times did this light flash.

Read more in the Feb. 24 - Mar. 2, 2021 issue.

Mars is an example of something that’s useless. There are others

by Dr. Wes Browning | February 17th, 2021

What’s the attraction of Mars? I don’t get it. It’s an entire planet’s worth of desert. The total surface area of Mars is slightly less than the land area of earth, minus the water area, and it’s all cold desert.

Read more in the Feb. 17-23, 2021 issue.

Please stimulate me economically — sometime soon

by Dr. Wes Browning | February 10th, 2021

Long time readers of this column may recall that I have a special place in my heart for New Zealand. It’s mostly just the feeling that it looks like a safe haven, what with being surrounded by all that water. I have to admit, though, when I found out what bad earthquakes they’ve had, I thought maybe there’s no great difference from here. Coasts, check. Interior mountains (high), check. Earthquakes, check.

Read more in the Feb. 10-16, 2021 issue.

My sweetheart, poor devil, has come back from the store and tells me monkeys like grapes

by Dr. Wes Browning | February 3rd, 2021

The big news locally this week is we get to sit inside restaurants again, because our region has done so very well at not getting sick.

Don’t get cocky about it. Keep wearing your masks while you order and until the food arrives and the waiter leaves you with your designated loved ones scheduled to get sick with you. You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones you kiss and hug every day so you’ve long ago given up all hope of being able to protect each other from contagious diseases. Your sweethearts. The poor devils who if you die, they die, and vice versa.

Masks mean we dance with other parts of our faces. Can you dance to executive orders if they come fast enough?

by Dr. Wes Browning | January 27th, 2021

This column didn’t start out well. I wanted to talk about things I hadn’t got around to in previous weeks because of our last president. I dug up my notes to myself from previous weeks to see what I was thinking. The first note I came across was “Need butter, garlic, some random meat, bread, TP and paper towels. Grapes?”

The next note I found was “They take a back seat in the ’39 Studebaker of their consciousness.” They who? I’ll never remember! Who’s driving? Is this all a metaphor I don’t want to understand? If so, why did I write it?

Read more in the Jan. 27 - Feb. 2, 2021 issue.

Are fascists going downhill in more ways than one?

by Dr. Wes Browning | January 20th, 2021

All of a sudden after more than five years of seeing tweet after tweet from at realdonaldtrump all night long while he devours cheeseburgers and fries in bed, now Twitter bans him. Now as he’s on his way out. And then Facebook bans him. Gee thanks, guys, for saving the country from all that.

Politico reported this morning (it’s last Friday to you) that Joe Biden’s inauguration was being postponed. I was stunned. Then I read the article and found out that the rehearsal was being postponed. The rehearsal — not the inauguration itself. Politico yanked my chain.

Read more in the Jan. 20-26, 2021 issue.

How many emperors invited barbarians to sack Rome?

by Dr. Wes Browning | January 13th, 2021

In the waning days of his presidency, Trump is resembling evil genius Sideshow Bob, stepping on rakes. Or, Wile E. Coyote running into walls painted to look like tunnel entrances.

Betsy DeVos resigned as secretary of education because Trump’s handling of the Capitol Hill riot has set a bad example for America’s children. But she had no problem with the Access Hollywood tape?

She followed many other administration officials who resigned the day before, including Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary and wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell.

Read more in the Jan. 13-19, 2021 issue.

You never know what you’ll find out when you get an adult talking

by Dr. Wes Browning | January 6th, 2021

It’s New Year’s Eve as I write this. I was thinking I’d list some New Year’s resolutions, but midnight is still hours away. So, for now, I’m more in the mood to look back. Way back.

One of the aspects of my life that has given me the most satisfaction has been the fact that I’ve been able to carry on reasonably amiable conversations with a huge range of people from all walks of life. The range is so huge that when I share this fact in detail, a lot of people get horrified.