Maybe your irritating jokester is really just sick

Did you hear about the two silk worms that raced? They ended up in a tie!

Ha ha ha.

I told you that gut-busting gag to tell you this: Pity the poor jokester. He might not be just irritating. He might be ill.

At least that's the conclusion of a pair of recent studies by two UCLA brain researchers (more like UCLA "bruin" researchers, am I right?) that were recently published in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. According the studies, two subjects' brain trauma and dementia led to what the scientists describe as “intractable joking.”

Or intractable brilliance, am I right?

Of course, I don't want to make the scientists angry, because I'm afraid of a mad scientist. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, two men had problems with their wit.

In one case, one man would wake his wife up in the middle of the night to tell her jokes he made up. When she complained about not sleeping, he began to write them down – and accumulated 50 pages of puns and poop jokes that he later revealed to the researchers. Lucky researchers!

Which reminds me of the constipated mathematician. He worked it out with the pencil! Get it?

Anyway, back to the guy. It turns out he had a brain hemorrhage 10 years earlier that led to other erratic behavior, including obsessions about recycling and restaurant napkins.

I presume the restaurant napkin obsession started after he visited the "Star Wars" restaurant. You know, the one with Darth Waiter! Get it?

The other case study involved a guy with dementia who lost his job due to continually joking. He "would frequently break out in laughter, almost cackling, at his own comments, opinions or jokes, many of which were borderline sexual or political in content," according to researchers.

Please, don't let those researchers talk to my co-workers!

Anyway, after that impressive opening, the UCLA report descended into scientific mumbo-jumbo, with information about lesions and other stuff I couldn't understand (it was almost like reading a French foreign lesion! Get it?). The article didn't share why those around the men didn't simply appreciate having a funny colleague or husband.

The scientists examined one man's brain after he died (fortunately, he didn't die of laughter. We think.) and found that he had the aforementioned lesions on the right front of his brain, just like the other (still living) guy. According to the study, people with lesions on the right frontal lobe of their brain still respond to silly puns and slapstick, but can’t appreciate more complicated jokes or those that are new to them.

That reminds me of this: What does a brain do when it sees its friend across the street? It gives a brainwave. Get it?

Well, let's just be glad that we're not addicted to dumb jokes, unable to stop.

Which reminds me, did you hear about the two silkworms that raced?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Norwegian TV makes boredom exciting

You know what they say about Norwegians.

Neither do I, but here's what they should say: Norwegians sure like slow TV.

I learned that recently when Mrs. Brad and I (well, mostly Mrs. Brad) started watching "Slow TV" programs from Norway that are now on Netflix. So far, we've watched the seven-hour "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo" and now we're viewing the 11-plus-hour "Telemark Canal."

What are they, you ask? "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo" is seven hours of video shot from the front of a train making the trip from . . . Bergen to Oslo. "Telemark Canal" records an 11-hour boat ride through Norway's . . . Telemark Canal.

They're exactly what they say they are. But longer. Hours, hours and hours of slow-moving, beautiful scenery and almost no dialogue (especially if you don't speak Norwegian).

Mrs. Brad likes it.

In fact, I came home after an evening meeting recently to find her watching a train go through the Norwegian mountains in silence.

"Are you watching this? Seriously?" I asked her, in the same tone teenage Brad asked my parents if they really wanted to have another cup of coffee after eating dinner at a restaurant.

It's another example of how we're different.

The greatest thing I saw on TV recently was the "Skills Challenge" at the NFL Pro Bowl in late January. I haven't watched a Pro Bowl since I was about 10, but the skills challenge was awesome.

It involved quarterbacks throwing at moving targets, like in a carnival; wide receivers catching balls dropped by drones (drones!) flying 80 to 125 feet above them; a multiplayer relay race; and best of all, a 10-on-10 dodgeball competition with the same rules you had in middle school (if they catch it, you're out. If you hit someone in the head, you're out. And so on.). While Mrs. Brad was busy in another room, I gripped the arms of my chair, hoping Indianapolis Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton could keep catching balls fired at him by eight players on the other team.

"This is the greatest thing I've ever seen!" I shouted.

"That's nice," she said, probably thinking of how peaceful it would be to take a solo train ride through the Norwegian countryside.

And it would be, based on "Train Ride, Bergen to Oslo." I watched several hours with Mrs. Brad (a great way to relax during a 15-minute Golden State Warriors halftime, by the way) and we amused ourselves by guessing how to spell the cities that were overheard on the PA system (most sounded like "Hernenbergen" to me).

Slow TV is a thing in Norway. Norwegians consistently tune into the slow programs on NRK, the nation's public broadcasting network. As many as 40 percent of Norwegians have watched various slow programs, which include such things as the opening day of fishing season, firewood chopping and the subsequent fire, a knitting marathon and more.

According to the people who write about Netflix, it's an emerging trend here, too. Mrs. Brad sure thinks so, although I hope she draws the line at the knitting marathon.

I'll keep watching "Telemark Canal," because I'm interested in a peaceful program, the waterways of Norway and spending time with Mrs. Brad.

However, if they can drop a football from a drone to someone on the ship or have a game of dodgeball break out?

We'll both be thrilled!

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

Sad farewell to my first journalism mentor

Ted Sillanpaa changed my life 30-some years ago.

Ted died Feb. 3. He was a 60-year-old sports writer, coach, mentor, father and friend, gone too soon because of cancer. It's appropriate to commemorate a newspaper lifer with a column in the medium where he served most of his life.

Ted gave me my first newspaper job. While I was attending college and trying to figure out what to do with my life, he asked if I was interested in being a sports writer at the Times-Standard newspaper in Eureka. I said yes. It was amazing. It was miraculous. It was the most fun I'd had, working with interesting people, writing about things I loved.

Ted taught me how to write professionally and modeled how to lead. We left Eureka the same week, me coming to Fairfield, him heading to Southern California before returning to Eureka a few years later. In 2000 – nearly 15 years after we last worked together – I recruited him to be my assistant sports editor in Fairfield.

We were back together again.

Ted and I were friends. Our personalities were very different – I was the class clown, trying to make people laugh; he was the kid sitting in the back of the room, making snide remarks out of the side of his mouth. But we shared a love of sports, of old-time celebrities, of journalism. We laughed at the same things at work. We cared about each other's families.

In recent years, long after we stopped working together, we still texted back and forth during Giants or Warriors games. During last year's baseball playoffs, he sent me several messages about celebrities in the stands, writing in the style of Larry King.

Ted was complicated. He was funny, smart, an outstanding writer (we used to tell each other: "We write better than people who write faster, we write faster than people who write better.") and versatile.

But he also liked to start dust-ups with readers. He would write things that demanded a reaction. That was Ted.

Ted succeeded me as sports editor, then began a truly nomadic journalism career, working in Napa, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Walnut Creek and at various online publications. As newspaper staff sizes shrunk, he bounced from job to job, staying near his kids (three of whom had bylines in the Daily Republic) and trying to hang on. Ted loved newspapers, but it was a one-way love affair.

He kept writing. He kept loving his kids – he was a remarkable father and grandfather. His four children were the center of his life. They knew how much their dad loved them.

Ted mentored generations of sports writers. West Coast newspapers are filled with people who credit Ted with teaching them the basics. Literally dozens of people's lives were changed because Ted Sillanpaa hired them, worked with them and taught them how to be professional journalists – lessons some of us carried beyond our newspaper jobs.

Cancer hit him a few years ago. Typically, he not only didn't seek sympathy, but showed disdain for it. When I heard that he was near death, it came as a surprise: He had said nothing to indicate the severity of his illness. When his oldest son called to tell me he died, it seemed impossible.

Ted?

There are a lot of ways to gauge lives. Ted Sillanpaa wrote thousands of newspaper articles and made tens of thousands of newspaper readers laugh, think and get angry.

But perhaps the best measure of the man is this: Ted left behind scores of athletes he coached (he was a longtime youth sports coach, too), journalists he mentored and friends to whom he was fiercely loyal.

And, especially, he raised four extraordinary children.

Our lives were made richer by a sometimes-cantankerous sports writer who loved his kids, loved his athletes and loved his writing proteges.

RIP, Ted. Thanks for being my friend and for making my professional life possible.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.

A non-fan's guide to picking a Super Bowl team

You can make the case that today's Super Bowl LI isn't the ultimate game. Because, as Dallas Cowboys running back Duane Thomas pointed out 45 years ago, if it's the ultimate game, why are they playing another one next year?

Still, it's today. And it's on TV. And everyone will be talking about it tomorrow, assuming the new president doesn't do something to upstage it in the next 24 hours.

You might as well watch, in the same way you'll watch the Academy Awards, any royal wedding and every episode of a new "Battle of the Network Stars."

This is football and you need a team. That's where I provide a service – for the non-fan or anyone who can't decide who to support.

In the spirit of those voter's guides we get before elections that feature the pros and cons to each proposition on the ballot, I present the arguments for and against each team, based on things that don't require extensive football knowledge and could be based on facts (or wild conjecture).

Why the Patriots: Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in NFL history and, although he's kept it quiet, is the son of Peter Brady of "The Brady Bunch." The team is from New England, which is clearly an improvement over Old England. Also, the Patriots are, by definition, patriotic, which we support. The Patriots are playing in their seventh Super Bowl since 2001, which is five more than the 49ers and Raiders combined during that time, so they must be good. Finally, Patriots owner Robert Kraft wears shirts with collars that are a different color from the rest of the shirt, which is cool. Finally, Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston (which is the real home of the team).

Why not the Patriots: Boston sports fans are insufferable boors and another championship will just add to their arrogance – and who needs to hear another team described as "wicked good?" Brady, while the grandson of Mike and Carol Brady (she's his step-grandmother), was suspended for four games this year for cheating (details not important, but they involved deflating a football), so a win for him would disprove the old saying that "cheaters never prosper." Their owner, Robert Kraft, wears those dumb shirts with collars that are a different color from the shirt. Finally, Bobby Brown was born in Boston.

Why the Falcons: The franchise has never won a Super Bowl and is long overdue. Quarterback Matt Ryan is the youngest son of Jack Ryan, star of the Tom Clancy books and who was played in the movies by Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine, so he probably knows what to do in case of a terrorist attack. The Falcons share a nickname with both Fairfield High School and Solano Community College, so there's a local connection. In addition to being the unofficial capital of the South, Atlanta has the nickname of "Hotlanta," which is awesome (I've tried to get people to call my hometown "Hotsun City," but it didn't work even though the sun is hot). Finally, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in Atlanta.

Why not the Falcons: Atlanta has among the worst fans in sports – the Braves played postseason games in front of empty seats, the Hawks frequently perform in front of crowds that are more interested in the opposition and the Falcons have, at times, had to give away tickets to get fans to fill their stadium. Michael Vick played for the Falcons and he did some bad stuff. Their owner comes to the sidelines too much and dances badly. Finally, Kanye West was born in Atlanta.

So here's the big question: Do you cheer for the hometown of Kanye West or Bobby Brown?

When are the Academy Awards?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.