Disclaimer Though this website may read like an unauthorized story line in the Left Behind series--it's just a reflection of Brian's daily life!
On Brian
"I think; therefore, you are." [ca. 1980, my most notorious saying]
"I am single by choice: the choice of every one of the three billion women on this planet." ["codified" on Monday Night, 10 July 2006, but an old quip of mine]
"Me? 47, chestnut brown hair, blue myopic eyes, wire-rimmed glasses, 5'8", slightly built, fair-skinned, single, babbling male."
"You might say scatter-brained—I say it's free-ranch thinking."
"I'm like the thirsty man in the desert. I use up all my energies chasing mirages instead of thoughtfully, patiently working my way towards a known source of good water." (Didn't think I knew that, huh?) [Monday, 9 June 2003]
"Never has a man been born whose stupidity as well as his intelligence have so worked against him than in Brian T. Simmons." [Friday, 5 September 2003]
"I am always amazed at a person who asks for my opinion more than once." [Tuesday Midday, 11 April 2006]
"On the dessert cart of life, it looks like I chose the small, plain fruit cup."
"If I listened any better, I'd be schizophrenic." [Sunday, 27 May 2007]
"The problem with oldies radio and its never-changing playlist is that I want new old songs." [as a revelation driving around, mid-2006]
"Give me a Lever™ bar and a spacious washstand, and I will move the world." (Archimedes not)
"Any shirt I can get the top button closed, breathe, and get a nice clip-on tie to look decent with is a dress shirt.
"My ideal girl wasn't a cheerleader in high school, yet has
a cheerleading outfit now."
"I may have just fallen off the turnip truck, but I remain unscathed." [early April 2007]
"If I’m a cynic, I’m bad at it." [In a Friday, 13 July 2007 reply to Tina, who wrote that I'd become a cynic.]
[On suggestions he should pursue writing] "...I don't have the discipline or half the wit to make something good. I shouldn't need a muse, but I do. And I'd be wanting to hook up with the muse...." [reworked from a letter to his nephew Bobby, on Tuesday, 17 July 2007 and a later letter to Tina, August 2007]
"[On mocking his own self-absorption in the previous paragraph of an e-mail] "The above.... begs the question: can narcissism achieve the state of self-actualization? [to his nephew Bobby, on Tuesday, 17 July 2007]
"I'm in my early 40s—it's time to stop worrying about reading the Kama Sutra—I should maybe read the Kama Suit-Yourself."
"Me at an all-you-can-eat buffet is not just a meal—it's a personal challenge."
"'Course the road to Perdition is paved with good intentions. And please remember to stop by my lemonade stand...." [Friday, 18 April 2008 in an e-mail to my alumni association constituents, in an attempt to get a benefit concert going]
"Misplaced pride, loneliness, or guilt. It's a real horse race
on which one will eventually kill me. But, there's always getting creamed by a J. B. Hunt truck...."
"My support has left me.... I'm flying thru the air.... I'm about to hit the curb.... Proverbial, but much like the accident five years ago.... Just like last year, I ask myself: 'Will I get past the status quo?'"
"I just think if I must continue to live a cartoon-like life, then I should at least have been drawn better." [at last written down on Friday, 28 September 2007]
"I am still hoping for my ship to come in. But it's late, and so I choose to ride this glacier out to meet it. Iceberg, ship...ship, iceberg--yeah, that sounds about right for me."
"Tomorrow a petite Russian woman wants to pull a 12-inch long straw out of me. I think she was a little too eager to do so today and wasted a fine pair of latex gloves when the surgeon put the kibosh on it. [from my Foyer web page on Thursday, 27 March 2008]
"You might call me hypocritical; I prefer the word "complex." ["codified" ca. 2005]
"I make my own coincidences." [later March 2008]
"Saturday, 18 February 2006: I realize 'AYCE,' as seen many places over the years, has nothing to do with youth soccer. It means 'all you can eat.' I am a moron."
"It turns out I don't have many fears at all; I just have very strong preferences against the occurrence of certain situations." [realized in early February 2006]
[Epitaph] "If I had it all to do over again, I wouldn’t."
"Éirinn go bràch? Erring go Brian. Or French me, I'm Irish...."
"I have gotten to the point in my life when I really don't care that there may be an oil company cartel or some super-secret group that is running the world. What I still do care about is that —whoever they are— they are running it badly...." [ca. Fall 2005]
"One sign of true maturity is pursuing a hobby that one has little talent at. Such is my zeal for ceramics."
"As the milennium
dawns, Brian Todd Simmons is once again poised for greatness...."
"Here it is, almost a day into 2007, and I haven't gotten any. Might as well still be 2006." [Monday Night, 1 January 2007]
"I had to forgive about five people just so I could have enough capacity to hate her as much as she deserves." [at Mim's Benfest II, to Ellie on Saturday, 24 June 2006, concerning the Great Betrayer]
"If you must, hurt me with the truth, not with a lie." [Thursday, 8 March 2007]
My Problem in a Nutshell
"Although understandable that I mourn good people who truly loved me, I find myself also gravely mourning someone who never truly loved me, hurt me more than anyone ever has, foresook me, but is not dead. I can only venture that I mourn who I thought she was, but that reasoning is flawed, as how can I mourn the passing of someone who never was?
"I look for closure that never came and never will come. Where were my Big Blue Notes? I deserved better." [mid-2006]
The BTS Mantra A Statement on How I Venture on
"I see it as good that the faithless and deceitful have been attritted before this came upon me. What I have been ends clean with truth, painful as it has been. I would not want the taint, the encumbrance, of such as these to carry on to whatever awaits, much less present them as some gain when in truth they have been a loss on my soul.
"No matter what they professed, they did not believe in me, or but believed in me for a while, which is the same. Some will be forgiven—and forgotten; others will burn in hell; one will return to hell.
"Yet, others continue to believe in me, and I now know God must too. May I think of my faithful and plead that renews my confidence."
[This is usually paraphrased: "Screw the f-cks. I have my peeps. I can do this."]
Children
"'Child on Board'? Yes, bring back corporal punishment."
"If I had it all to do over again, I think I would wait to start having nephews until I were a little older." [cf. the epitaph]
"Spare the rod; spoil my fun."
"Hagerstown cares about its kids. In every alleyway, one can see one of those yellow
diamond caution signs which reads: CAUTION: TRUANTS AT PLAY."
"Children should be seen—on milk cartons—and not heard." [at work, early Autumn 2006]
"Your daughter has a very decisive knock. She'll make an effective landlady one day." [Monday, 28 April 2008 to customers whose very patient child had been waiting a good half hour in the car with her younger sisters before checking in on her parents.]
On Driving
"If it ain’t got a tag, keep it off the drag." [mid-April 2008, in reference to farm equipment on the public roadways tying up traffic, leaving manure, straw, etc., and otherwise damaging the pavement]
"Down here, we have a center lane that most people seem to be afraid of using. Instead, they slow down about two to five miles ahead and then turn from the straight lane.
"When my God-given thimbleful of patience escapes me, I sometimes use the center lane to pass such slowbies—and justify it by saying I'm turning away from seriously hurting them. I am turning, metaphorically." [in an email to to Sandy , November 2008]
"Motorcyclists are everywhere—I think I still have part of one on my front bumper." [early March 2008, in answer to the slogan of these unfortunately street-legal ATVs and their antics]
"Use a turn signal; they're free." [ca. Spring 2005]
"Blind people can feel my bumper." [ca. the early 2000s]
"Never knock a man for just doing the speed limit." [ca. fall 2003]
Evil Me Quotes Supposedly from the Me in the Parallel, Yet Evil-ler Universe
"When my nefarious plans and the greater good can go hand-in-hand, 'tis a great glory." [Summer 2005]
"The best thing you can give a friend—or enemy—is the gift of time." [Early Fall 2005]
"Some people need a hand up; some need a foot up." [I don't know if this is my quote or Red's from That 70s Show....] [December 2005]
"When life hands you lemons, squirt someone else in the eye. Then make yourself a drink."
"'Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.' There's nothing like doing the Lord's work." [Finally added on 27 February 2006]
"What this country needs is a good, cleansing war." [Fall 1997, Jim Pickett's Human Geography class.]
"I'd like to make a movie on Christianity called Wafer Madness. Ooh look: I have whole bag of OreosTM—bow down before this awesome entity." [Thursday, 18 May 2006]
"The gland the stocks the cradle rules the world." [probably invented around 2003, but finally entered on Wednesday, 27 June 2007]
In The News
"So magician David Copperfield will soon debut a "magic" trick to impregnate a woman without touching her. Sorry, David, but Michael Jackson perfected that years ago...." [2005]
"It's 76°F in New Orleans right now; only 51° here. Those lucky dastards—why, there, you could sleep outside tonight, if you had to...." [after Hurricane Katrina, Fall 2005]
Politics
"Think globally; act locally. So less Federal government, more power to the States, Counties, Municipalities. and, above all, the individual Citizens. [summer of 2009]
"Let the revolution begin. Anyone?" [after Election Day, Tuesday, 4 November 2008]
"Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X played good cop/ bad cop for the Civil Rights Movement—you can love or hate their method, but it did lead to a confession (that segregation was wrong) and conviction (that the American people could and would do better)." [on Monday Morning, 20 September 2010]
"First, no incumbents." [created earlier in July 2008, but written down on Wednesday Night, 23 July 2008]
"Happy Autumn 2009: as the leaves turn red and gold, our government is red and we've no gold." [first appeared on my index (front) page on Monday, 2 November 2009]
"If the Taxpayer Anger Stimulus Package was so urgent, Mr. President, why did you wait four days to sign it into law?" [Tuesday, 17 February 2009]
[Of the Inauguration 2009 ceremonies:] "What terrible entertainment. Did anyone rehearse? Is that the best poetry coming out today? Is that the most heart-felt reading you could do for your own work? To stumble over the sacred oath, then make the same speech of rhetoric he started his campaign of emptiness with years ago—oh, yes, this is surely a grand day indeed." [written down on Tuesday, 20 January 2009]
"I mourn for my country... but maybe I'll hook up with a hottie at the funeral...." [after the November 2008 election, with the second part coming about a week afterwards, when some time had passed to heal]
"Powell, McClellan, Weld: That the 'Thinly Republicans' won't support one of their own—if it weren't so sad that my party wasn't putting forth a deserving candidate whose values represent ours, I'd revel of how poetically just." [Wednesday, 29 October 2008]
"Usually Congress is trying to sell us a bill of goods—this time, they trying to sell us a no-good bill." [on the Great Wall Street Bail Out; thought of in late September 2008; added here on Sunday, 5 October 2008]
"Pick-your-own strawberries. Pick your own strawberries?! Where the hell are the Mexicans?! I thought the liberals said they were here to do all of the jobs we didn't want to do." [Monday, 26 May 2008]
"I awoke to the news on Sunday that Big Brown had run the race and that the only female contender was euthanized soon thereafter—oh, they're talking about the Kentucky Derby, but I gotta wonder if someone was trying to give Hillary Clinton a hint." [Sunday, 4 May 2008]
"These remaining Presidential candidates are just about as in touch with the average American as any episode of the NBC Today Show." [late March 2008]
"As for Rudolph Giuliani's chances in the 2008 race, before I assess his positions, some liberal, I ask myself: Is America really ready for a President who looks like Bob Newhart?" [said to my brother Bill on Monday, 28 May 2007]
"In all fairness, Britain has never gone to war with any country that we could not beat for them." [an old saying of mine, finally added here on Tuesday, 20 November 2007]
"America is still a melting pot. Why we're not 'cooking' now is because we've turned the heat way down on the need (and want) to assimilate."
"I'd rather vote for a Socialist than a Democrat. At least the Socialist is up front about what he's going to do; the Democrat'll do the same thing, but lies about it all the way...."
"Hillary Clinton belongs in the U. S. Senate as much as Augusto Pinochet belonged in the Chilean Senate."
"The same liberals who are all for giving school kids carnal knowledge in the name of safe sex won't allow gun education in the schools to prevent another Columbine. Gee, why is education the key to safety for the former and not the latter?"
"I hope I live to see the day that the State of Maryland again legalizes tobacco, at least for medicinal purposes—like it did this spring for marijuana."
"George W. Bush is for reducing the output of carbon dioxide. What do you think all those executed, convicted murderers in Texas breathed out?"
[on Election 2004] "Teresa Heinz Kerry could be a very Republican First Lady.... Yeah, very Mary Todd Lincoln-ish...."
• "Anyone besides Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams is too foreign for the honor!"
• "Come on, Democrats, Lyndon LaRouche's wife was a better fit...."
[on Election 2000] "Don't feel sorry for either Vice Presidential candidate if he loses. Dick Cheney can go back to running Halliburton. And Joe Lieberman can return to ABC's Norm as Mr. Demby...."
"Big Brother,
Survivor, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? are the three most watched programs in America—this is why we still have an Electoral College." [Fall 2000]
"This country was built on cheap gas; take that away, and we've lost a huge advantage. You may soon hear more and more businesses ask the question: 'Why be in America?'" [Thursday, 7 May 2007]
"I'm a Republican—more'n more a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. I say let's break these oil company monopolies up
again—the Clinton and Bush II Administrations should never had allowed the companies to merge in the first place. And let's again use the CIA to create mistrust among the OPEC
cartel members, so they'll not be able to agree on price hikes. Bring back Carter's windfall profits tax, and slap it back on the oil companies. Have the tax go to road repairs. Just for Pennsylvania roads." [early April 2006]
Religion
"[on church events posing as secular events:] "It's not that I can't stomach the Good News (yeah, I know: the main character comes back from the dead—again—just like on Days of Our Lives—I'm not a complete heathen, don't you know)—it's just I resent trickery in proselytizin'. Like these vacation Bible schools (oxymoron) that title their classes "Outback Adventure" or "Extreme Whoop-a-doo"—it's a sin of omission.
"There's a big difference to me between Jesus being coy on His being divine for most of His earthly life—because hey, you say you're God, and people will just treat you differently—and the First Church of the Whatever suckering people into a sermon when the folks attending thought that they were going to see a gal on a trampoline." [a paraphrase of what I emailed my brother Bill on Saturday, 16 August 2008, as I considered going to see the illusionist Brett A. Myers at the Capitol Theatre. I did attend, and it was a good show.]
Work (& Me)
[On finding work:] "I'm not lazy, but harmfully choosey."[Friday, 5 September 2003]
"After the Rapture, I figure there'll be a lot of good-paying jobs opening up.... At least in the short term...." [at last written down on Monday, 19 June 2006]
"At work, I'm solutions-oriented. If there's an 800-pound gorilla in the room, I at least expect him to be waited on."
"Never take your job much more seriously than your boss takes your job—or his own job—or both you and your boss will resent it."
"I can spin a product. I'll point out the rainbow in the oil slick—no problem." [early April 2008 at a Hagerstown job placement agency]
"Think about it. If I were really Refusal Conversion Specialist material, would I still have the occasional acne?" [Summer 2005]
"Three-quarter time is great for a song, but not in a chump-change job when you need the money." [May 2006]
"For my health, I have resolved to get more sleep in 2007. Therefore, my fellow staffers, please do not disturb me 10:30—11:30
am, and 3:00—5:00 pm." [Monday Night, 1 January 2007]
Loss
"I will look back on 2005 as a tear-shed, watershed year. Inevitibilities and surprise betrayals combined did not completely spend my resolve. I know I am wiser than my heart.
"Sometimes the harder thing is to live through it and live on wanting. I continue with the hope that this is not one of those times.
"I find comfort in knowing I did my best at this being noble; I truly believe I was trying to be that, not merely pushing away out of fear. Did they ever reckon my motivation? I did not know that neither was so deserving; I doubt that takes away from my deeds. For surely, now that I know them for who they really are, what I did was far better, far better for me.
"The slate that marks me is clean. Indeed, the haunting ghosts of the past and present have been exorcised. I am now freer than I have been in all my adult life." [December 2005]
"My heart is not obliged now, though it still pays. Your deeds have let it free. No longer should, no longer will my spirit be meted out to a hope, a hope unavailing, now to an everlasting surety.
"I hurt; the pain will diminish, but I will remember. And you shall want." [September 2005]
"Death is the last experience about which our parents teach us. When my mom passed away, I thought I would certainly be inoculated from future sorrows; instead, I find myself more empathetic and am the better for it."
Men & Women
"'A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.'? A woman needs a man like a Cuban needs a bicycle."
"An appreciative dog is better than an appreciative woman—for you know for certain the dog is sincere."
"Man who does not settle down with a good woman often is found settling up with a bad woman."
"The sexes will never be equal until it is socially acceptable for men to where Capri pants. And I'm OK with the sexes not being equal just for that."
"Blessèd are the homosexuals, for they are the only guys who can objectively ogle women."
"Show me a man who will wear button-fly pants on a cold, winter's day, and I'll show you a man who had better be able to plan ahead."
"Can a man join La Leche League? If so, can he be thrown out for lack of eye contact?"
"Men are not shallow; we are simply visual." [ca. 2002]
Sic Vita (Life in General)
"It's a simple fact: the most beautiful word in the English language is 'chalupa.'"
"Like when riding on a bicycle, in life, if you're coasting for too long, you must be going downhill." [ca. mid-1970s]
"To lie some to expose a greater truth is sometimes a necessity in this world." [Summer 2005]
"Three threads don't make a warm coat."
"Commit in pencil; demand in pen." [circa February 2007]
"When you realize that you miss giving advice more than having wisdom, you may soon be ready to give advice again."
"If it ain't broke, don't fixate."
"War is the greatest compromise. Not in its declaration, but in that garnering victory must mean killing, torture, subversion, deceit, and perverse alliances with and praise for villains. To war without trying to win is truly all of the aforementioned dishonors and the ultimate hypocrisy." [first stated on Sunday, 16 March 2008 and expounded on Friday, 21 March 2008.]
"I noticed the cola delivery truck had a "This truck makes wide turns" sign. People who drink a lot of cola make wide turns too."
"Putting a 'Wet Paint' sign in a public restroom is just a bad idea: you always have to worry that someone will not see it as a warning but as a command."
"He hasn't made a major motion picture in over 15 years,
has frittered away his glamour by poor choices in TV cameos, and was never really in an extraordinary classic--indeed, Mickey Mouse is the Elizabeth Taylor of the cartoon world."
[My Latest Official Response (after much encouragement from close friends to take a stand)] "It is said that most people react to the San Diego Chicken as people did to Franklin Delano Roosevelt: they love 'em or hate 'em. But I do not love or hate the the Chicken. I appreciate what he is trying to do, but without much amusement for his antics." [Friday, 24 February 2006]
"Take pineapple out of Lifesavers™ candy, because it's not Y2K ready?
This is supposed to be the Pacific Century. Keep that flavor, but take out cherry. Rid the roll of that Sucret™!"
"There is nothing worse than a parent-condoned teen-age drinking party...
"...unless maybe it's a poorly-planned, parent-condoned teen-age drinking party." [first posted on Facebook—and then here—on Thursday Afternoon, 24 June 2010]
"If this be reason, let's fake the most of it." [at last this old, intentional misquote from the 1980s (?) was written down on Thursday, 6 March 2008]
One-Liners
"Always value a talking animal." [Tuesday, 23 May 2006]
"Just because I've come out against foot binding, I've been labeled a 'liberal' by most of my Chinese Imperialist friends." [Tuesday, 24 February 2009; originally my tag line on the Index Page from mid-January 2009 to 24 February 2009]
"She's thinner than a Carson Daley monologue."
"Aw, I remembered her as being blonde."
"Never bone up for a urine test." [Thursday Midday, 8 June 2006 at Springfield, VA]
"... [Merlin] looks like a dog that could carry on a decent conversation, if he could talk."
Imagery
"At night, the scattered lights upon the iced-over snow effect each side of the road into great ponds; it is like being on a causeway about some Nordic Venice." [December 2005]
Spirituality
"Church is the only place I really feel comfortable showing up stupid and wrong—and isn't that the way it's supposed to be?"
"Chaos, even randomness--these are just different degrees of man's incapability of understanding all of God's Plan."
"When one does something nice and good for another when one hasn't the time or attitude to do it, it is the closest thing we humans can get to surprising God."
