BRAIN FREEZE

by John Kawie

press kit www.brainfreezedvd.com

In 1990 John Kawie turned his back on 17 years in the aerospace industry, sold his com-pany, and moved to New York City to pursue his dream of doing stand-up. He then worked in concert with comedians like Howie Mandel and Dennis Miller.

Being the only Arab-American comic at the time, he brought a unique perspective to the Middle East specifically, and to the world in general. He co-produced a multicultural stand-up show called “Those People” which was featured in Alan King’s 1995 Toyota Comedy Festival in New York City.

As a writer and performer he was a regular on “The David Brenner Radio Show”, and a contributor to Bill Maher’s monologue on Comedy Central’s award winning show “Politically Incorrect”. John not only was a substitute host for Dick Cavett on his radio talk show, he also wrote for Dennis Miller’s show on HBO. Wanting to explore acting, he began get-ting spots for TV commercials.

At the age of 47, and on the cusp of the breakthrough that is every artist’s dream, John suffered a devastating stroke, which he thought would derail his career... and life. While undergoing therapy he was a consultant with Robert DeNiro, who’s character was a stroke survvor in the Joel Shumacher film “Flawless”. Being unable to continue standup as he knew it, he focused his energy into writing his solo show “Brain Freeze” which is about his journey through the stroke and its aftermath. “Brain Freeze” has been performed Off Broadway and at theaters and hospitals throughout the country.

“Brain Freeze” won Best Solo Show in the 2003 International Fringe Festival in New York City. John is currently developing the stage per-formance into “Brain Freeze” the book. He also writes a humor column called “Life At The Curb” for the American Heart Association’s magazine “Stroke Connection”.

JOHN KAWIE Writer-Performer

Here’s what the critics are saying about

BRAIN FREEZE “Remarkable! Darkly hilarious... quite triumphant: it illustrates the strain and the cost of perpetual hope.”

“Poignant. Kawie opts for gently humor... in this touching, true-life tale of perseverance.”

“An extremely positive and hopeful tale about a man changing his perspective... he is no longer a victim. (In) group therapy Kawie’s storytelling is at its height. ... a powerful ending. ... Kawie presents an honest, generous, surprising, and ultimately touching account of his own Mt. Everest.”

“Brain Freeze... awarded Best Solo Show Fringe2003.”

~ Robert Dominguez The New York Daily News

~ Bruce Weber The New York Times

~ Elena Holy Director of the NYC Fringe Festival

~ Seth Duerr nytheatre.com

Here’s what the critics are saying about

BRAIN FREEZE

“Wow! That’s all we can say is Wow! Anything else would be redundant.”

“This is a show that should be on Broadway.”

“I laughed. I cried. And everything in between.”

“Brain Freeze will melt the cultural denial that greets those of us with brain injury.”

“I watched John. I saw myself.”

“ What a journey. Between crying and laughing it is thrilling exhaustion.”

“Sad. Fierce. Funny.”

~ Uncle Dirty (Comedian Bob Altman) & Silver Friedman (Original Improvisation)

~ Jackie Martling (The Howard Stern Show)

~ Gary Greenburg (head writer, Jimmy Kimmel Show)

~ Margie Ann Stanko (writer and TBI survivor)

~ Mark Birch (actor)

~ Valerie (Stroke survivor)

Here’s what people are saying about

~ Jay Potter (actor and comic)

9/21/11 5:29 PMLife at the kerb : The Lancet

Page 1 of 2http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60661-2/fulltext?version=printerFriendly

[Close]

The Lancet, Volume 377, Issue 9778, Page 1644, 14 May 2011doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60661-2

Life at the kerb

Desmond O'Neill

Stroke is not usually a laughing matter. Until, that is, New York stand-up comedian John Kawie resumes his career after

a major stroke. This DVD of his comeback session offers something special for clinicians involved with stroke. From

Kawie's entrance—if bounding and hemiparetic can be contained in the same phrase—and his few prefatory curses that

he has to climb stairs up to the stage, we are shocked out of our professional reserve, and challenged to rethink, and

engage with, the individuality of our patients.

Stroke medicine is overfixated with the acute at the expense of the chronic—a myopia neurovascularia whereby an

intense focus on the acute hospital phase is followed by a loss of interest afterwards in the challenges patients face with

the new ways of living that stroke demands. All great humour has the human condition at its heart and this is no

exception, even if no aspect of human decency or reserve is spared from Kawie's relentless dissection. Unsparing of a

fellow-sufferer who has fallen into a self-pitying mode, complaining that he cannot hail a taxi from inside the lobby,

Kawie's response, that “life is at the kerb”, becomes a leitmotif for the engagement, recovery, and accommodation that

underpin his return to public life.

Even the onset of his stroke has its tragi-comic hue: never has dysarthria been used to such comic effect, as he vainly

tries to defend himself from accusations of being drunk (an experience not uncommon in young-onset stroke). Humour

also provides a cheeky assertion of dignity in the face of the many indignities that come with personal care by others,

particularly the stellar miscasting of personal care assistants at home.

In a phenomenon recognised but poorly articulated in rehabilitation, Kawie provides a new variation to William Osler's

dictum on learning from patients: in this case, it is the other patients, rather than physicians, who are learning from

each other. A friendship struck up with a brain-injured patient, initiated through a shared admiration for the shapely

posterior of one of the therapists, provides the spark for his realisation that his future lies in his own hands.

Kawie's key props are his residual deficits, from the difficulty of buttoning his coat with a hemiparesis to memory

problems: he jokes about needing Post-Its to jog his memory, and then opens his coat to show his lining completely

covered with the multicoloured reminder notes. His adventures with escalators in his beloved bookstore are

excruciatingly funny, but his rejoinder to those who suggest using the lift even more bracing: if they can have bungee-

jumping and other adventure sports, why can't he have escalators?

The dark and wildly funny heart of the performance is the group therapy session, where Kawie is given a glove puppet

9/21/11 5:29 PMLife at the kerb : The Lancet

Page 2 of 2http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60661-2/fulltext?version=printerFriendly

that gives him licence to express his savage rage and bile at oversimplifications, pat answers, and the expectations of

conforming to certain “positive” patterns of recovery. At a deeper level it is a cry of anguish and anger at what he has

lost, and an uncomfortable prompt to clinicians as to whether our processes allow for a therapeutic and individual

venting of these losses.

The chief casualties of Kawie's remarkable performance in Brain Freeze are pity and professional complacency. He

challenges us to replace pity with an identification of our shared destiny, fragility, and spirit. In turn, clinicians need to

identify and struggle with what James Joyce termed the “hemiplegia of the will” that sometimes prevents us from

seeing the bigger picture. Maybe, after recovering from our helpless laughter, we too might rouse ourselves to get out of

our insitutionalised lobby and discover that at its best, stroke medicine, like life, is at the kerb.

Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Limited. All rights reserved. The Lancet ® is a registered trademark of Elsevier Properties S.A. used under licence.The content on this site is intended for health professionals.

Full-size image (26K) Download to PowerPoint

John Kawie: Brain Freeze

Written and performed by John Kawie, directed by Mark Maxey. Big Round Records LLC, 2010.

http://www.brainfreezedvd.com