Brookwrite

Hazzan Pepper's Lonely Column Banned

It was twenty years ago today
Southern Shofar let this column play
It's been going on without no style
And no guarantee to raise a smile
So, may I impose on to you
The hack you've read for all these years...
Hazzan Pepper's Lonely Column Banned!

We're Hazzan Pepper's Lonely Column Banned
We hope you will enjoy the prose
Hazzan Pepper's Lonely Column Banned
Sit back and let your good taste go.

It's wonderful to write here,
It's certainly no quill,
You're such a lovely readership,
We'd love to take you home with us,
We'd take you both right home...

I don't really want to stop the flow
But the editor thought you should know
The writer's gonna write more wrong
And he wants you all to read along...

*****

What would you think if I write like a loon,
Would you turn the page away from me?
Lend me your eyes and I'll lead you along
And I'll try not to strike the wrong key.

I get by with a little help from Hashem
I just write with a little help from Hashem
You survive with a little help from Hashem.

What do you do when my column's astray?
(Does it worry you to read alone?)
How do you feel when you put it away?
(Are you glad 'cause so much was unknown?)
No, I get by with a little help from Hashem
I just write with a little help from Hashem
You survive with a little help from Hashem.

(Do you read anybody?)
I read this column enough
(Could it be anybody?)
I want this column enough

(Would you still read if I wrote it at night?)
Yes I'm certain that I'd read it all the time
(What do you read when you turn out the light?)
I can't read then, 'cause I would go blind
Oh, I get by with a little help from Hashem
I just write with a little help from Hashem
You survive with a little help from Hashem.

*****

Looking ahead to the end of the next twenty years...

With my jokes older, greying your hair,
Many years from now
Will you need to rinse your eyes with Listerine
Forget with a bottle of wine?
If I get moved up onto page three
Would you look for more?
Will you still need me, will you still read me
When I'm sixty-four?

You'll be older too
And if you read my words
They will stay with you

It has been handy, tending the muse
When all light has gone
You can read about it by the fireside
Sunday mornings minyan at nine
Back to the Garden, or Sea of Reeds
All to re-explore
Will you still need me, will you still read me
When I'm sixty-four?

Every column comes out of a journey to the Isle of Write
When things get unclear
Kosher shrimp's okay?
With kings who number three
Sol'mon, Saul, and Dave.

I'll still be a card, in every line
Skewing points of view
Titillate with things that no one else would say
Your last brain cells, wasting away
Giving no answers, lacking in form
Now or evermore
Will you still need me, will you still read me
When I'm sixty-four?

*****

In conclusion, A Day in Southern Jewish Life

I wrote the news today, oy yoy;
It was a funny man with modest grades
And though the jokes were rather sad
Well, you just had to laugh
I wrote by telegraph

He wrote his mind and went too far;
He didn't notice that the times had changed
A crowd of readers stopped and stared
They'd seen his jokes before
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lord...

I saw a film today, oy yoy;
The day no army had to go to war
A crowd of people turned astray
But I just had to look
Back to Habakkuk

I'd love to learn you one..

Woke up, under my bed
Dragged a kippah on my head
Fell my way downstairs and re-woke up
And looking up, for minyan I was late

Wrote a joke and that was that
Then I thought if it fell flat
Found my way using mirrors and smoke
In case you might've thought it's not what it might seem

I wrote the news today, oy yoy;
Four thousand holes in this week's sermon here
And though the holes were not so small
They didn't count at all
Still don't know how many holes it takes to fill the Western Wall

I'd love to learn you one...

Doug Brook is a writer in Silicon Valley who premiered this column in The Southern Shofar in September, 1996. He would like to say thank you on behalf of the banned, and hopes he passed the audition. To read these or any other past columns, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, like facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.