Dear Friends,
Today's news of a (happily very short) strike at the Chrysler Automobile Company provides a good excuse for me to remind you that 10,000 different Pot-Shots are now available for your possible use -- because by a strange chance, the very first of those, Pot-Shot #1, published (as a postcard) in 1967, has as its message, LET'S KEEP THE CHRIST IN CHRYSLER.

How did this happen? First, please understand that I had no idea, back then, that I was starting a series which would eventually run into the thousands. In fact, I had very little idea of what I was doing at all. All I knew was that I had accumulated a bunch of original illustrated messages which a friend in San Francisco, where I was living at the time, had offered to publish as postcards. For a trial run, he asked me to choose ten messages. I did so, and I numbered them, but the numbering was quite arbitrary, and there was no special reason why I made the "Chrysler" message #1.

Also please note that at that time, the name I originally gave to the series was not Pot-Shots or Brilliant Thoughts, but "Unpoemed Titles," because I thought of these little creations as titles for other works not yet created.

Actually as a first exemplar of what I soon came to hope would be recognized as a new form of literature, the Chrysler message was a particularly unfortunate choice, because it was a sort of pun, and not long thereafter I decided that one of my rules of composition would be to avoid puns, and all other forms of wordplay which might make it hard to translate these works into other languages.

It was also a slightly obscure joke, being intended to satirize a bumper-sticker I had seen which said "LET'S KEEP THE CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS." The fact that I had seen that message stuck on a car gave me the idea of substituting "Chrysler" for "Christmas," which in turn led to my (not very professional) illustration, with a bearded figure, somewhat like myself at that...View More

Dear Friends,
In recent days, by pure coincidence (unless you believe that the Fates are trying to tell me something) four totally unrelated matters have each caused me to hand over some big piece of my past which I’d been hanging onto.

The first piece was my motor home. Just after I told you about it being still unsold, somebody else came along wanting to help me sell it. Guess who? -- My next-door neighbor Julian, no doubt tired of seeing it parked in the street outside my house. So I handed it over, and now it’s parked in the street outside HIS house. He’s put it on Craigslist, so if you’re interested here’s the link: http://santabarbara.craigslist.org/rvs/418140643.html

Next, someone else dropped down (as it seemed) out of the sky to answer another of my nagging problems. 10 years ago, I led a successful campaign to get gas-powered leaf-blowers banned in Santa Barbara. It took 3 months of my life to secure the 9375 signatures which put the issue on the ballot, in an election which passed the ban by a large majority.

But even now, despite many efforts, that law is not being effectively enforced – causing me almost daily grief as I walk about town. But this November we are having another local election, and to my amazement, somebody I didn’t even know is running for City Council whose principal issue is enforcement of the leaf-blower ban! Even more remarkable, this candidate, a young man of 34, is a practicing Doctor.

His name is Dan Litten, and the piece of my past which I have now entrusted with him is my copy of that petition, with all those 9375 names and addresses of registered voters from 1997 – a large pile, since each sheet contained at most 12 names. I’m not sure what he plans to do with it, but it’s a public record, and I can only hope it will somehow help galvanize our community once again to get control of that particularly obnoxious source of noise and pollution.

While all this was go...View More

September 2 2007
MY FITNESS CAREER
Dear Friends
This all happened because once again Henry wanted to help me. You may remember that Henry was the benevolent friend who recently tried to sell my mini-motor home for me on Ebay. (I still have the vehicle, and am hoping soon to muster the courage to let some charity come and take it away.)

Henry belongs to a “Health Club” called 24-Hour Fitness, which, as a special promotion, was offering memberships at a discount. I’m not sure why, but he thought I might be interested.

I already do considerable walking, biking, and other forms of exercise – and I’m not a very clubby person, but I did go down to visit this facility and check it out. What I found, on three floors, was a sort of do-it-yourself house of horrors. I saw people torturing themselves on all sorts of evil-looking machines, and others baking and boiling themselves in special heated chambers.

The only thing there which at all appealed to me was an indoor swimming pool. I’m not much of a swimmer. (Santa Barbara, where I live, is right on the Pacific Ocean – and I’ve hardly ever been in it.) But I liked the idea of being able to take a refreshing dip at any hour of the day or night in the heart of downtown, just a stone’s throw from the main Post Office, where I go all the time. So, for the sake of the pool, and also not wanting to disappoint Henry – and having established that I could cancel within five days – I signed all the complicated forms, paid my money, and joined the Club, proudly announcing the fact to Henry with an email saying “I’m In!”

The very next day (yesterday) I began my fitness career by biking down to the Club with my towel, trunks and flip-flops, to take my first plunge. I can’t say it was very exciting. Two other people were already doing laps in the pool, which was so narrow that I couldn’t help feeling in the way, especially since I myself was good for only about half a lap at ...View More

Dear Friends,
First, let me thank all of you who wrote to Chummy and me about my recent slump. I read all your letters, and really appreciate your words of consolation and encouragement, and your many wise suggestions, which I’m still trying to absorb. Perhaps if what I’m about to tell you had happened sooner, Chummy might have been relieved of some of his burden.

You may remember that earlier this year (March 15 2007 in “Shoulder to Shoulder”) I told you about a business contract I had just signed with a very tall young man named Seth Streeter. I even attached a photo of that event -- but I didn’t give any more details. One reason was that I myself was not sure just what was going to emerge.

Things are clearer now, and in fact today I am finally free to announce what has resulted: a NEW WEBSITE totally devoted to me and my work, which I hope you may find as exciting as I do. It is called Brilliant-Thoughts.com – but before you go there, please let me offer a little more introduction, because, like most new websites, it is still a work in progress.

Seth Streeter is the head of a Santa Barbara firm called Mission Wealth Management, located just down the street from here. When he first contacted me nearly two years ago, I told him that the only wealth I had for him or anyone to manage was my creative work, which so far, despite a good deal of acclaim here and there, had never brought the dazzling fame and fortune which everyone seemed to feel it deserved.

I had my own website ( www.ashleighbrilliant.com) which I had developed myself, and on which people could place orders, but it was obviously not a professional job, and as a commercial endeavor it had never been very successful.

Seth’s idea was to launch a totally new website designed by a team of professionals, not necessarily to replace my existing one, but to prove that he could do a better job at maximizing my commercial potential. He didn’t requ...View More

Hello,
This is Ashleigh’s cat Chummy writing once again. Normally I have enough to do just keeping myself clean and cat-shape, or keeping watch at the window – but every now and then Ashleigh gets so depressed and confused that I have to take over some of his responsibilities. Fortunately for him, using this computer seems to come quite naturally to me.

Poor Ashleigh! He’s only 14 in cat-years, but he’s been moping about as if this were the end of the road. And right here in his computer I find that he’s the one who wrote “When you reach the end of the road, there’s only one thing to do – build more road.”

But that involves making decisions – something Ashleigh has never been very good at. Just now, he simply doesn’t know which way to go. His wife Dorothy doesn’t seem to have that problem at all. She is constantly heading out in different directions, and she comes back smelling of London or Africa or Australia.

Yet this man has so much going for him. He’s in good health, and living in one of the most desirable places in the world. He has produced an incredible body of work, which can only bring ever-increasing fame and fortune. (My own favorite is of course the one that says “The Best Things In Life Are Furry.”)

And he must know that there are people (and maybe even some critters) who care about him, to a certain extent. The trouble may simply be that life is too easy for him. There aren’t enough challenges. That might not be a problem for you or me, but this is a fellow whose whole life has been a series of projects.

The last project was to produce 10,000 Pot-Shots. That kept him busy for a good number of years, but apparently he felt there must be more to life than just churning out an endless series of immortal epigrams.

So he stopped at 10,000 – and I must say I haven’t noticed any huge crowds besieging the house and begging him to do another 10,000 – or even another one.

...View More