Spoofs on the Contemporary Scene

Billboards Seen Along the Morning Commute


"Three Miles to JERRY'S SMELL-THE-ROSES DRIVE-THRU"


"CONTEMPLATIVE RELIGIOUS RETREATS - Free Internet"



"ATTENTION WORKNG MOMS. Turn Your Quality Time Into Cash! "



"BUSY EXECS.  Enjoy a Leisurely Vacation in Half the Time!"



"ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY GETAWAYS. Twice-a-day flights from all major hubs."





Religious Best Sellers


The St. Francis of Assisi Guide to TV Ministries

Twelve vows of poverty suitable for TV evangelists. Methods of distributing funds to needy viewers. Includes boilerplate apology for promiscuous personal behavior.


A Coach's New Testament

Ten parables of Christ clarified by football analogies. Actual plays diagrammed. Forward by Pete Carroll.


Perfecting God

An evangelical scholar outlines five ways in which God might perfect Himself through fuller acceptance of the teachings of Christ.


When Golf Happens to Good People

Rabbi Kimmelman explains how golf can exist in a world created by a loving God.




Bonus Thoughts (Old and New)

"My life, alas, has been more a basket of kumquats than a bowl of cherries. I kumquat do this, and I kumquat do that."


I sometimes wonder -- how do you disown a child?  Do you say, "Go, and never brighten my door again?"


I say to my child, "If you have not failed yourself, you have not failed me, and you are the sole judge in the matter."


"Oh, if I could relive my life knowing what I know now. Oh, if I could relive my life.  Oh, if I could know what I know now."


"What's missing in man's quest to understand the universe is someone else's point of view."


"Trouble is, no creature who completely understands its role in the universe is talking."


"Eventually, in our quest for knowledge, there will be one thing left to understand, and when we come to understand it, it will change our understanding of everything else."


"In our study of the cosmos, there has never been a mystery that a larger mystery would not explain."


"In a far corner of the universe there is a tiny planet that orbits a minor star. Each time the planet completes an orbit, I count off a segment of my life. To date, I have counted off 72 segments. Why do I do this? I dunno, it passes the time."


~~ Robert Brault

Remembering Liz Armbruster

It is a year this week since the passing of Liz Armbruster.  Wife, mother, grandmother, Liz was a frequent commenter on this site and the proprietor of her own wonderfully-written blog. Her death, at age 51, was sudden and unexpected, and she is missed deeply and personally. Last September, in tribute to Liz, I revised a poem written earlier about the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Billy Mays. As I said then, "I trust that Billy won't mind if I now call upon Liz to represent the mortality of us all."



Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee. ~ John Donne



First the bell tolled for the King of Sidekicks,
and it tolled for a perfect pace,


And then the bell tolled for a TV Angel,
and it tolled for a heavenly face,


And then the bell tolled for the King of Pop,
and it tolled for an elegant grace,


And now the bell tolls for the humble blogger,
and it tolls for the human race.


***********


Why be saddled with this thing called life expectancy? Of what relevance to an individual is such a statistic? Am I to concern myself with an allotment of days I never had and was never promised? Must I check off each day of my life as if I am subtracting from this imaginary hoard? No, on the contrary, I will add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived. And with each day, my treasure will grow, not diminish.

~~ Robert Brault


***********

Some original thoughts of Liz Armbruster:

I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring.

In what you say of another, apply the test of  kindness, necessity and truth, and let nothing pass your lips without a two-thirds majority.

~~ Liz Armbruster

R.I.P.

Thoughts Requiring No Comment

At age 72 I have two questions: Can a fetus have a near-birth experience and can it last 72 years?


When there is hell to pay, it is usually cheaper to pay it than to finance an endless purgatory.


There is cause and effect, and then there is government -- cause and opposite effect.


Eternal damnation is damnation relieved by a federal stimulus program.


Success is the ability to keep circumstances from becoming extenuating.


You are the leading expert on what the world looks like through your own two eyes.


To ease my solitude I did once live with a cockatiel, until my solitude took me aside and said, "Either he goes or I do."


We each play the starring role in our own life story, except for a married man, who plays the husband.


If you give a little girl a set of play figures, she will arrange them in such a way that each is necessary in the lives of the others.


I suspect that every little girl, at some point, tries to explain to Ken why he should love Barbie.


As a child, I was a bit slow to figure out where I came from. I remember one day, at kindergarten, little Linda telling me that she came from her mommy's tummy. I thought about that a long time and then said to myself, "Nah, I don't even know Linda's mommy."


~~ Robert Brault

Thoughts on a Sunday Afternoon

"There is a benevolent probability that two people searching for the same thing will find each other."



"You can aspire to House Beautiful, but, me, I like to think that when people come to my house, they feel a whole lot better about their own."



"Eventually in life there is one last game of hide-and-seek, in which you hide and nobody ever finds you."



Hide-and-Seek

A mother always counts to ten
And never, never peeks
But always knows just where you hide
And there she never seeks
Until the very nick of time,
Lest tears run down your cheeks.



"I think if I were choosing a religion, I would choose the one with the least penalty for heresy."



"The trouble with having a body is that people know it's where you hang out, and you don't get any privacy."



"In the last biopic I saw, there was an instant when the screen went dark and the hero, 12 years old, emerged 21. Wouldn't you have loved to play the parents?"



"Speaking of biopics, Hollywood has turned down my life story -- insufficient drug problem."



"The search for happiness is unlike any other search, for we search last in the likeliest places."



"If every time you search for happiness, your mom turns up, it's only because she's afraid you won't find it."



A toast once heard: "To my big sister, who never found her second Easter egg until I'd found my first."



"What do we ask of friendship except to be taken for what we pretend to be -- and without having to pretend."



A Few Thoughts Reprised

"You do not find a soulmate in the quiet of your room. You must go to a noisy place and look in the quiet corners."



"In a soulmate we find not company but a completed solitude."



Sometimes two people need to step apart
and make a space between
that each might see the other anew,
in a glance across a room
or silhouetted against the moon.


~~ Robert Brault

I Am the Master of my Fate -- NOT!

"Alas, by the time Fate caught up with my life, Chance had it all planned."



"How helpless are the whims of Fate before the stratagems of Chance."



On a windswept hill
by a billowing sea,
my destiny sits
and waits for me.



"Be the master of your fate, be the captain of your soul, but do not hesitate, should the chance befall you, to be the slave of your heart."



"There are couples a matchmaker would match every time -- and couples who, for no rhyme or reason, rhyme."



I saw by the duck pond an elderly couple
throwing crumbs on the water,
close against each other,
thinking each other's thoughts,
casting each other's shadow,
and I wondered -- which had been the great love
and which the acquired taste that became an addiction.



"In the life we might have lived, the years never pass. On the person we might have been, time never leaves its mark. How different would seem our might-have-beens if we could picture them as would-be-nows.



Under every full moon
I recall a lagoon
where a mandolin played,
and memories stir
of the dreamers we were
and the plans that we made.



"Only in the playworld of a child's imagination is there a reason for everything."



"On days when I crave order in my life, I drop in on the playworld of my child."



"Anything we tell our kids about life is a placemarker until they figure it out for themselves."



"Life is a handful of irreversible decisions, none, with the grace of God and the diligence of our parents, made before age 18."



"No one ever decided to have kids based on a feasibility study."



"What is the fire in our belly but the eternal flame of a thousand ancestors."



"It is a curious thing, this world of my perception -- how I stand always at its center, and yet it pays me absolutely no mind."



Dear Bishop Berkeley:
If the world existed
But in my invention,
Wouldn't it pay me
More attention?


~~ Robert Brault

Our Resident Cynic Demands Equal Time

In the interest of balance, I occasionally like to give voice to my cynical side. So here are a few less than inspiring thoughts, which I hope to sneak past everybody on a weekend. I will return Monday to commence a once-a-week schedule that will feature, chiefly, more enlightening material.


"In marriage, two become one, usually after some disagreement as to which one."



"Always a test of quick reflexes is the ability to forgive someone before they forgive themselves."



Do what you must
And your friends will adjust.



"Often mistaken for courage is the awareness that facing your enemy is safer than turning your back on him."



"Politicians don't lie, they misspeak. And they don't steal, they mispocket."



These days you meet lots of nice people, mostly in the sub-category, "He's a nice guy, but don't cross him."



One of the advantages of aging is that if you wish to insult me, you must shout it into my hearing aid, and then I'm just as apt to smile and say, "How true. How true."



"Self-criticism is most often an attempt to head off hearing it from someone else, who hasn't previously given it a thought."



"An artist must marry his talent...and the two must elope...a big church wedding is fatal."



There was never a set of "Thou shalt nots" that kids did not go to for ideas.



"Occasionally we should think of trimming our relationships, beginning with the ones that are over."



"Bizarre: an adjective applied by the rich to any proposal that does not make them richer."



"There is no child more worrisome than one who will not join the common madness."



"When I think of childhood days, I conclude that I can only have entered adulthood through a hole in my reasoning."


"I believe in miracles, because otherwise I would be surrounded by unexplained phenomena, and I don't believe in unexplained phenomena."


~~ Robert Brault

Define Heartache: A Reminiscence

I've just read of a new hotel opening in Manhattan, down on 29th and Broadway. It’s the latest in the fast-expanding Ace Hotel chain. The building itself is not new, having for 100 years been the home of The Breslin, a residential hotel once a favorite stop of boxer Joe Louis and his entourage. I expect the Ace people have done some serious modernization. As you might expect, there’s a story or two attached to The Breslin’s long history. Here, for the record, is one I know about personally.


**

In the fall of 1963, I came out of the Army and went down to New York City to set the world on its heels.

I had irons in the fire. While in the Army, I had sold a Picturesque Speech item to Dewitt and Lila Wallace at Reader’s Digest and was looking to establish a relationship with the folks up at Pleasantville.

Also, I was writing Chinese philosophy for the men’s cartoon magazines. Those of you who were regular readers of Dolls & Gags will remember Al Fong Spong. (“He who heeds hoot owl heeds he who whoos.”) I was the latest in a line of Spongs, raising Spong, I thought, to a new level.

And I had noticed an opportunity over at Random House, where they were starting work on a new dictionary. I happened to know the founder and chairman, Bennett Cerf, from his appearances every Sunday night on “What’s My Line,” the TV quiz show. Growing up in the 50’s, I never missed it.

I had written Bennett, “You will be needing definitions.” My idea was to submit a weekly packet of definitions, gradually moving through the alphabet. I would do so in the manner of the great Samuel Johnson, providing thoughtful definitions of common words. And I would do so, I wrote, on a speculative basis initially, since I was as yet an unknown writer.

I took a room at The Breslin for $37 a week, including maid service. I had $600 in savings. It was still, then, a clean, respectable hotel. The room was spacious, with a full kitchenette, a queen-sized bed, a visiting area with a sofa, and a large picture window fronting on Broadway. I set up my Olympia portable typewriter on the writing desk in front of the window and commenced my career as a writer in the Big Apple.

I was 24. The day clerk at The Breslin was an attractive thirtyish blonde named Cara, who, I fancied, couldn’t take her eyes off me. There was an old fellow I got to know, always smiling, who would sit all day in a big armchair in the lobby. He was a retired army major, a veteran of WWI. His wife had died a few months earlier, and he had sold his home and come to The Breslin, apparently to sit in the lobby.

“I should like to focus on intangible nouns, such as joy and sorrow,” I had written to Bennett. “I find that dictionaries do not do these well, defining joy as happiness and sorrow as sadness. In fact, joy and sadness are emotional states known only to children, adults knowing no happiness so pure as joy and no sorrow so uncomplicated as sadness.”

I never heard back from Bennett Cerf. But I received a letter from an assistant editor, whom I’ll call Miss X (not her real initial). She told me that Random House was not soliciting definitions. It was a personal letter, not a form rejection, and she said that I had some good ideas and might consider using them in some other context.

I wrote back to Miss X, saying, “Very well, but one last thought. Whatever you do, don’t define heartache as sadness or sorrow, which it is not. And don’t refer to heart and ache separately, which another dictionary does, and which is ridiculous. Please consider what type of person, and in what state of mind, looks up heartache in a dictionary anyway.”

A week or so went by, and it got to be a Friday in late November. I remember the day in every particular. I spent the morning in the reference room of the New York Public Library on 42nd and 5th Avenue. In early afternoon, I started back to The Breslin, headed down toward Herald Square. As I walked , I noticed that people were crowded around newsstands. I could hear the muffled sound of newsstand radios as I passed. I stopped a man and asked, “What’s going on?” He said, “The President’s been shot.”

Back at The Breslin, a small crowd was gathered around the lobby TV. The major turned as I entered. “He’s dead. They shot him,” he said. His face was drained of color and there was a hurt in his eyes I remember to this day. At the desk, Cara was in tears. She took something from my mail slot and slid it toward me. “There was a woman here this morning. She left you this.”

The note was folded once over and sealed with scotch tape. “Just passing by. Thought we might chat. I will be at Kelly’s Bar on Lexington across from Grand Central at 4. Look for a motherly type in navy-blue. We can talk about heartache.” I pocketed the note and went upstairs to my room. For an hour, I lay on the bed, watching the events unfold on TV. I thought of my life, and my attempts at writing, and suddenly it all seemed so juvenile. Occasionally I’d glance at the note and feel a flush of embarrassment.

Kelly’s Bar at 4 was dark, and there was a makeshift sign, “Closed in Respect” taped to the front door. I felt relief as I walked away. That evening, not wanting to be alone, I packed a few things and caught a Greyhound for my parents’ home in Connecticut. I remember the hush that had fallen over the city as I walked the thirteen blocks from The Breslin to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Even the traffic horns were respectfully silent. On every newsstand, the evening editions blared, “PRESIDENT SHOT DEAD.” On the bus, a guy and a girl laughed out loud about something and were roundly shushed. The rest of the two-hour trip unfolded in silence.

I watched, with the rest of the world, the events of that weekend. By Monday I had decided to give up the New York pipedream and make a serious go at a career. Next day I returned to The Breslin, packed up my typewriter and moved back to Connecticut. Soon afterwards I went to work for Aetna Life & Casualty in Hartford and began a long career as an insurance company systems developer. My writing became an avocation.

I never met Miss X. I have several times popped into Kelly’s Bar, and once I had a long conversation with the barkeep there. I don't believe the word heartache came up. I’ve had heartaches of my own over the years – none, perhaps, beyond the usual in life, but among them, and far from the least of them, I can tell you, is the memory of those few months at The Breslin in the fall of ’63.


~~ Robert Brault

This Perfect World

Each day, awakening, are we asked to paint the sky blue? Need we coax the sun to rise or flowers to bloom? Need we teach birds to sing, or children to laugh, or lovers to kiss? No, though we think the world imperfect, it surrounds us each day with its perfections. We are asked only to appreciate them, and to show appreciation by living in peaceful harmony amidst them. The Creator does not ask that we create a perfect world; He asks that we celebrate it.

~~ Robert Brault