On November 22, 1963 in a motorcade travelling through the city of Dallas, Texas, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. For the next four decades, the United States was – and continues to be – captivated by the mystery surrounding the violent death of one of her most visionary leaders. The questions are numerous – did Oswald act alone? Who was Jack Ruby? How much does the CIA know? Like many Americans, we ask: when will these questions be answered?
Not now.
Now we’re going to talk about how to write a Thought of the Day. I am often asked, “What did you do to your hair?!” I am also asked, “How do you manage to consistently turn out the funny essays that grace the pages of T.J. Monkeys every day?” The answer of course is that I am brilliant and also incredibly physically attractive to beautiful women.
So, dear reader (Hi Bret!), I know you want to know just what goes into the writing of a Thought of the Day. I will tell you. First, your Thought of the Day must have a subject. This will form the “backbone”, if you will (and if you won’t… well, then bite me), of the piece. I can see that is not entirely clear to you. Let me try to explain it like this: the subject will form the “vertebrae” of the piece. Without a strong subject, the piece will wander aimlessly from thought to thought and soon you’ll be starting a thought with a paragraph about JFK and wind up talking about the cast of CHiPs – which is completely ludicrous.
Next, you need to ask yourself certain questions: What point do I want to get across with my Thought? How best to convey it? What is the purpose of thought? What is the purpose of my life? What is “thought”? As you can see, these questions can be somewhat weighty and I recommend asking them and then setting them aside and quietly tip-toeing out of your brain. Remember: your brain has no place in thought and it should mind its own damn business! And while you’re at it, tell your spleen to get off its high horse because it may think it’s all that, but you have no idea what it does, and as far as your concerned that makes it pretty dispensable, and with less spleen in you there would be lots of room for more cheetos and all that cheesy, baked goodness.
Right, anyway, once you have abandoned rational thought your Thought of the Day can really take off! Be sure to include lots of rising action before you get to your d»nouement (French for “seizure caused by the loss of your spleen”). For example, if your Thought is about how you think that Eric Estrada was clearly the best CHiP, you can’t just come out and say, “Eric Estrada was by far the best CHiP.” Why not? Well, first off there are a lot of John fans out there and some people really think that blonde chick was cool too – even though I think she might have been the same blonde cop that was on T. J. Hooker – and, anyway, if you just come out and say Estrada was better you’re going to create a whole lot of what is termed “consumer resistance.”
In order to make your point, you have to prove that Estrada was better. This involves a whole lot of research and some complicated lab experiments in which lab rats are exposed to several hours of CHiPs to determine their reactions to the various characters. In doing this experiment, you should be sure to cleanse the rats’ “televisual palates,” so-to-speak, with some kind of neutral programming such as “Maude” or an early “Gimme A Break” (the later “Gimme A Break” episodes are too edgy and should not be used) in between each viewing.
Once you collect your data, you should arrange it neatly into a chart of some kind that clearly shows the reader that rats like Eric Estrada. Now, don’t get bogged down in the age-old argument that rat-tastes are more refined than human-tastes because you don’t want to go there… trust me. Anyway, by this point you’ve got a nice little Thought mapped out and my work here is done.
Now, did everyone follow the creation of the Thought of the Day? Do you think you have the wit and the sheer resilience to create a Thought? Well, I personally don’t think you do, but don’t let that undermine your confidence in any way.
And hands off the Estrada Thought – that one’s mine and it’s sheer gold.