Columnist speaks on behalf of the Council

Dear Esteemed-yet-Troubled Reader:

It is with great pleasure that I announce the beginning of a new era in the form of a bi-weekly advice column, featuring the fabled Council of Advice.

The Council of Advice, as I’m sure most of you know from your primary education, was formed in a plane of existence unable to be spelled with the feeble letters of our modern alphabet. Comprised of peoples from all walks of life, both living and dead, some even fictional, the Council gained fame mostly for their clever and compassionate means of delivering advice, but also briefly for a solo project as an all-saxophone Captain and Tennille cover band.

The Council has sworn themselves to you now, my aforementioned esteemed yet troubled reader, and to helping you with whatever major or minor crises seem to be playing out in your own lives. When your inner Jiminy Cricket has lost his mind and is too busy free-styling incoherent babble to actually advise you, call upon the wisdom of the Council. If you need them, call them – no matter where you are, no matter how far. Don’t worry, baby.

Is it OK if we call you baby?

The benefit of submitting your problems to the Council is the several-fold response you’ll receive in return. Since the members of the Council come from a wide variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise, the advice given will allow you to see all perspectives on your issue.

For example, if you’re having problems with a roommate who eats all your soy sauce, you may receive responses from Becky the 1980’s sitcom bully, or Pokey Oaks the resident folk-singing Granny. Expect your favorite anti-social author Henry David Thoreau to weigh in on your friendship issues, or the neighborhood kid who always left his shoes at your house to give you his two cents on how to handle an overly chatty classmate.

The Council is made up of individuals from all walks of life and they all have something to say about your problems. Think of them as the more cultured peanut gallery – the cashew crowd, if you will. This is not your grandmother’s advice column, beautiful readers, but a far more sophisticated beast. Like a two-headed elephant who teaches math through physic powers.

Should you find yourself reading this and nodding fervently while your inner monologue screams “Yes! Finally! I have so many unanswered questions and the Council is exactly what I was looking for,” then please, by all means, drop us a line at councilofadvice@gmail.com.

Tell us what your problem is and we’ll let you know what we think would be the best possible course of action. Feel free to use a pseudonym, as well. If it’s good enough for Dr. Seuss, it’s good enough for you.

And who am I you ask, fair, sweet, precious reader with your heart of gold?  Just a humble soul who’s name was pulled from the deli line’s ticket machine of fate. Though I lack the insight and skill of the Council in giving advice, I will act as their intermediate, connecting the problem-having population of Temple with the vast vault of knowledge residing in the collective minds of the Council.

For if there is a problem, yo, they’ll solve it. Check out the hooks while my DJ revolves it.