Thursday, October 11, 2007

Bobby Brown and Brainiac at 40

Ok, Brainiac the blog isn't 40 -- but I am! My 40th birthday was on October 6, and I'm still recovering from the three-day-long celebration. Which is why I haven't been posting. Sorry...

As if I needed a reminder of my mortality, I noticed in this morning's Globe that "Roxbury's own Bobby Brown was released from an LA hospital yesterday after suffering what his attorney termed a mild heart attack."

According to the Globe:

TMZ.com was the first to report that the former boy-band star had been hospitalized Tuesday, suffering a "heart-attack scare" that began with tightening in his chest and tingling in one of his arms. According to the website, the 40-year-old R&B singer was rushed to the hospital by girlfriend Alicia Etheridge, and even recorded a video message to his family in the event he didn't survive.

Yikes! A heart attack at 40? Actually, I think Brown is only 38, since he was a grade or two behind me at the William Monroe Trotter Elementary School, on Humboldt Avenue. (The Trotter is sometimes described as being in Dorchester, sometimes Roxbury. Actually, it's in Grove Hall, a no-man's land between the two neighborhoods. Now you know.) I didn't really know him, though he stole my calculator once.

Of course, he's led a much more active lifestyle than I have. When I was entering Boston Latin School in 1980, Brown was founding New Edition; and when I was going off to college in '86, he was getting kicked out of the group because of his "lewd on-stage antics." When I was dropping out of grad school in '92, he was marrying the divine Whitney Houston. And in 2003-04, when I was toiling away as a columnist for Ideas, Brown was getting himself arrested for battery and drunk driving. I've published one book; he's got over half-a-dozen albums and a reality TV show under his belt.

Brown also rapped these immortal lines: "Too hot to handle, too cold to hold/They're called the Ghostbusters and they're in control/Had 'em throwin' a party for a bunch of children/While all the while the slime was under the building/So they packed up their group, got a grip, came equipped/Grabbed their proton packs off their back and they split/Found about Vigo, the master of evil/Try to battle my boys? That's not legal!"

Let's face it: I don't deserve a heart attack.

Brown has denied that he'd had a heart attack, telling Associated Press Radio that he was simply at the hospital for a check-up. "I did go to the hospital, to just get a check-up, get everything tested out so that I could go on this tour, and everything is fine," he said. Brown added: "I don't know where the heart attack thing came from. I got my heart and everything checked out earlier this morning, and I'm just fine."

Phew! I, for one, am willing to believe that Brown is telling the truth. Stay healthy, Bobby.

Posted by Joshua Glenn at 01:34 PM

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