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After deleting my last three posts for various reasons, I needed a way to win my readership back.   While eating my eggs and toast at the Dominican Coffee Shop this morning, I saw this news item on the TV about a truck being blown over on the highway by the wind.  Perfect! Why write about something that interests people, like the Oscars, when you can write a bad Dr. Seuss-type poem about a truck blowing over on the highway?!
Strong Wind Blows Over Truck
A man, a woman, or even a truck
They all have days that really suck
Cause heavy winds blow all the same
Without a care for height or name
The wind’s a bully, his toy the road
He loves to torment the weighty load
He loves the fiery and noisy crash
The glass a-shattering, the tire slash
The ticking and tocking of the bomb
The tension of the sudden calm
And then the clicking of the timer
The wind’s a movie by Jerry Bruckheimer
Poor, poor truck lying on his side
Middle of highway, nowhere to hide
Like a sleeping baby taking a rest
But maybe, just maybe, it’s for the best
Who drives so fast in the pouring rain?
Only the crazy and those in pain
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino
Take a break and drink some vino
Visit the waitress in Albuquerque
The one with the smile that’s slightly quirky
Stay the night, don’t walk the line
The wind will fade, the sun with shine
And then you’ll be back on the road
To tell the others of this ode.
I was returning from having a cup of coffee at the McDonald’s across the street when I encountered a white-haired elderly man who lived in my apartment building. I didn’t remember his name, but I knew him from my youth as the red-haired tenant with ultra-straight posture who would chase the kids from playing Frisbee on the front grassy area.
“You’re ruining the grass,” he would shout. “Play in the back where you are supposed to!” referring to the concrete slab between the two apartment buildings that created the co-op, a fenced-in area with ground so hard and child-unfriendly that you would scrap your knees if you fell, especially on the broken glass left over from the older kids previous night’s contraband smashed beer bottles.
But time changes, and this tenant now seemed frail and friendly. Most of the kids playing in the grass had grown up and moved on. Only I had unceremoniously returned again as an adult.
“You’re Kramer’s son?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The men from my father’s generation, the first group of tenants in this apartment building, always spoke of the offspring in relation to the patriarch. I am always “Kramer’s son.” I am never the “real” Kramer.
“We need you,” he said. “We need a tenth person for a minyan.”
A minyan in Judaism refers to the quorum required for certain religious obligations, such as getting together for a prayer service. The traditional minyan for most cases consists of ten men, which continues to be the position with Orthodox Judaism.  However, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism accept women in the minyan. In this case, I assumed this traditional, old-school guy was looking for a tenth MAN. Some of the older guys prayed together on Friday night in one of the apartments, instead of schlepping to the temple all the way on Main Street. In order to make this kosher, they needed ten men. And tonight, they were one short.
I was about to opt out, because I had hoped to watch an episode of “Flight of the Conchords” on Tivo, but I didn’t speak up fast enough.
“We’re meeting in Apartment 5C. They’re sitting shiva.”
The mention of the shiva changed everything, and made me feel guilty about saying no. In Judaism, shiva is the week-long period of grief and mourning for the seven first-degree relatives: father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, and spouse. (Grandparents and grandchildren are not included). As most regular activity is interrupted, the process of following the shiva ritual is referred to as “sitting shiva.” Shiva is a part of the customs for bereavement in Judaism.
The group was not only meeting for the Sabbath, but was praying in the apartment of someone bereaved.
I was told to arrive at Apartment 5C at 6PM, and I did. I entered a crowded living room, a room too small for all ten of us — nine gray-haired, sloppily-dressed men in yarmulkes, and me.  We all looked like we wanted to be elsewhere, but were obligated by religious law to gather. I recognized the faces of the men, but only knew one of them well, Mr. Weiner, the father of my childhood friend, Barry.
Someone’s husband had died earlier that week. This was his home. The widow was in the bedroom. You could hear her crying.  The grieving son and grand-daughter sat by the piano in the living room, apart from the men. They were not particularly friendly towards us, as if we were a roaming band of gypsies invading their home.   They were probably having this ceremony for the “sake of their mother.” No one talked, partly because of the solemn occasion, but mostly because the son and grand-daughter seemed like rude assholes. Couldn’t they at least say hello or “thank you for being with us when you could be home watching “Flight of the Conchords?”
I wasn’t sure who was crying in the bedroom. I don’t ever remember being in Apartment 5C ever before, although it pretty much looked like every other apartment in the building.   Who was it who died? Do I know him? If my mother was here, she would know.  She gossips with everyone in the elevator. I usually leave the building through the side door so I don’t have to interact with anyone, so I miss all the inside info.
The apartment was not that much different than ours. There was a couch that once had plastic on it to keep it fresh-looking, and a fake Chagall print on the wall, something the Torah demands of every Jewish household in Queens.
The grand-daughter sat in a director’s chair by the terrace window. She was in her early twenties. She looked bored and was staring into space as if she was watching some imaginary movie on her bigscreen TV. I thought she was dressed inappropriately for the occasion, in a tight T-shirt with cleavage.
“Do you have any prayer books?” asked Mr. Weiner.
The son reached for a pile of black hard-covered books sitting on the piano bench and passed it the grand-daughter. She dropped one of the books, and bent down to retrieve it.
“My God,” I thought, as I looked down the top of her shirt. She had the most round and perfect breasts I had ever seen. I felt like I could spend my life between them. I was not the only one mesmerized by the sight. All the men were sitting straighter and looking more youthful, as if they had just had their first true religious experience of the evening.  I think a few of them had the first hard-ons they have had since turning seventy years old.
The grand-daughters amazingly young and full breasts seemed to energize the room, and became the ice-breaker that was needed for the men to start talking with each other. It was now 6:15 and we were still waiting for some local rabbi, who was going to lead the special service in honor of the deceased.
“Maybe he’s having trouble finding parking in this neighborhood.” said the son, a psychotherapist in New Jersey. You could tell that he was a snob who looked down on “the old neighborhood” and thought it was over-crowded and unsafe. “I certainly didn’t want to leave my Lexus in front of McDonalds!”
One of the other men spoke up, a skinny man with pants that were too short.
“Is this Rabbi Greenstein that’s coming here tonight?” he asked.
The son nodded.
“That’s the problem. Rabbi Greenstein is ALWAYS telling everyone to show up a half hour early so he doesn’t have to wait! When he says come at 6PM, that means he is coming at 6:30.”
“That’s not nice,” said the grand-daughter, the one and only time I heard her speak the entire night.
Some of the men laughed at her statement about Rabbi Greenstein. A man named “Ralph,” with glasses and a hearing aide, called this rabbi a jerk. He gave the son some simple advice.
“Next time there is a death, call Rabbi Goodwin from the “other temple” on Main Street,” he said.
Mr. Weiner, Barry’s father, and a friend of Rabbi Greenstein, disagreed with Ralph.
“Let’s be honest, Ralph. If Rabbi Greenstein told us to all be here at 6:30, half of us would be walking in at 6:40. so rather than insulting the nice rabbi, I think we should acknowledge him as a clever and intelligent man.  I don’t know about you, but I like that in a rabbi. You don’t want a dumb rabbi.”
“He has a point,” said the man who initially met me out in the front. “Say what you want about Obama, but he’s very very smart. And we need that now in this country. Would you rather have Bush in office? Someone dumb?  It’s also good to have a smart rabbi.”
“Bush was good for Israel” said another man, the one conservative in the home.
“Bush was the worst president ever.” said someone Mr. Weiner, and everyone accepted his word, as he was known to read the entire New York Times every morning in the Dominican coffee shop.”
As the men discussed rabbis and Presidents, my mind wandered back to the grand-daughter, and the true land of Milk and Honey calling my name from beneath her shirt.
“How’s your mother doing?” asked Mr. Weiner, bringing me back to reality.
“Good. Thanks. Hey, I saw Barry last week. We took a ride down to see Shea Stadium being dismantled.  He was very sad.  He loved Shea Stadium.”
“How’s the new stadium?”
“It’s OK. Supposedly it is replica of Ebbett’s Field.”
“Phooey,” said Ralph. “There is only ONE Ebbett’s Field. I used to live one block away from Ebbett’s Field. You could literally hear the crack when Jackie Robinson swung his bat.”
“That’s bullshit.” said the Bush supporter. “I used to live on Bedford Avenue. I used to cut school every day to go to the game. You could not hear the bat swinging. Maybe you were hearing your mother making gefilte fish in the bathtub!”
The men at laughed at this clever diss. The party was just getting going, when the clock rang 6:30 and the rabbi showed up at the front door. The widow came out to join the others. All of the men got up to greet her. I stood up as well, out of respect.
I was surprised to see Eleanor, one of the women who played mah jongg with my mother.
“Oh, Neil. How nice of you to come here,” she said.
“i’m so sorry to hear about this,” I replied.
While I am not terribly close with this woman, she was the first person in the building to know the “real” reason for my return to Queens, after I scolded my mother from keeping my separation a secret out of embarrassment.  I even wrote a post several month ago about Eleanor, and her attempt to revive my marriage by reading her favorite book, “Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus.”
From October 2008 —
Eleanor, the woman who sits in the back with her husband in the wheel chair, is one of those who knows the real story about why I am in New York.  After all, how long can I really be “visiting†for? But good intentions have bad results. Since then, I cannot walk past Eleanor without her calling me over for one of her “helpful†lectures about marriage and relationships.
“I have been married for fifty one years,†she told me a few weeks ago, her husband nodding in the background. “And let me tell you, it hasn’t always been easy.   But it wasn’t until about five years ago that I truly understood what marriage is all about… what makes a marriage work. It was all because I read a book. You must read this book.   This book changed my life. I don’t know if you ever heard of it, but it is called… “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.â€Â Have you read this book?â€
I have read this book and thought it was hogwash, so I lied.
“I haven’t read it.  But I have heard of it. It is about how men and women are different.â€
“Exactly.  After reading this book, everything about men and women became clear to me. This book is as important as the Old Testament. Let me give you an example of why.   A husband and wife are getting dressed to go to a Temple function. Everyone who’s anyone is going to be there. The husband says, “Let’s get going. We’re going to be late.â€Â The wife is busy putting on her make-up, wanting to look her best.  The wife asks, “How do I look?â€Â The husband says, “Fine. Now, let’s go.â€Â And then the wife is upset at her husband for the rest of the night because he said she was looking “fine†and not “beautiful.â€Â “What did I say?†asks the husband.   He doesn’t get it.  That’s because he is from Mars and she is from Venus. You are from Mars. Your wife is from Venus. Always remember that.â€
It was her husband that had passed away a few days ago. And no, I never read the book again after she suggested it.
I also remember another conversation that I had with her in the Fall while I was taking one of my walks.
Only once she did try to be a matchmaker.   She has a granddaughter who is interested in television production, a “beautiful redhead†who is having trouble finding a “Jewish man with a good soul.â€
“But she’s just 22, so you are too old.†she added at the end.
“No, she’s not,†screamed my Penis, but the muffled sound from inside my pants never reached Eleanor and her hearing aide. Eh, her granddaughter is probably a Wo-man from Venus anyway, which does not bode well for our relationship.
Are you saying that Ms. Perfect Breasts is this woman’s 22 year old grand-daughter?!
The rabbi started the prayer service. He had us face east, towards Jerusalem. This required that I did a 180 turn, which put the grand-daughter behind me, which was probably for the best. I was now facing a wall entirely covered by photographs of the family, snapshots of this married couple’s life.  There were fading black and white photos from the old days, Kodachrome shots from the 1970s of their son growing up, his bar mitzvah, his graduation, a trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania, a vacation in Puerto Rico, the son’s wedding, the birth of the grand-daughter who would one day grow up to have these Godly-blessed ample breasts!
Eleanor had been married for fifty-one years. What a run! What memories!
After the service, I thought there might be some food, as is usual in any Jewish event, but it seemed that everyone just wanted to go home to their families. I said good-bye to the unfriendly son and grand-daughter from New Jersey, taking a quick look down the grand-daughter’s shirt one last time before I left, in case I never had the opportunity ever again.
I went over to Eleanor and gave my condolences.  She seemed so grateful that I came for the service.
“Say hello to your mother for me! ” she said. “The mah jongg game is not the same without her.”
I tried to think of something clever to say, but I drew a blank. I am terrible at these moments. What can you say to someone who just lost their husband of fifty-one years?  I hugged her.
“Have you read “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” yet? she asked.
“No,” I said. “But I will.  And I will think of you and your husband, because the two of you clearly figured out a way to align the planets.”
Today, I’m going to take this time to explore some Jewish-related subjects that I’m in the mood to rant about to you, my Jewish and non-Jewish friends. I’m not sure why it occurred to me to write this today. Maybe it was the bagels and lox I had for breakfast.
I’m usually much of a ranter.  I don’t have too many hang-ups over religion.  I’m not overly-touchy about Israel.  I don’t see anti-Semitism in every joke. That would make me hypocritical, especially since I spend a good deal of my day making jokes about Catholics and Mormons. We all have our own ethnic and religious prides and foibles, and the great thing about America is that we can freely express it.
It’s pretty clear that I am a Jewish guy, right? So, I think it might be interesting to you to hear what I think about some of the following topics. And if you disagree with anything I say, don’t be afraid to say it.
1) Merry Christmas – Happy Holidays
Remember me? The guy who throws the online Christmas-Hanukkah-Kwanzaa concert every year? I like all holidays. Maybe next year, we can throw in a Muslim holiday into the concert mix as well! I’m all for inclusiveness.  However, every year, I find myself in the middle of the same boring argument — should Christians say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays?” Some are adamant that America is really a “Christian” nation and are upset that outsiders are undermining the sacredness of this three month consumer bonanza we call “Christmas.” Naturally, the haters always come out to play. And we all know who are the biggest kvetchers about Christmas, right? The Jews. First Jesus, now Christmas. What spoilers!
Here’s my take. If you live in a big city were there are many religions and minorities, you should be able to make a big public display of your holiday. There are plenty of those not celebrating your holiday, so we don’t feel bad. We go for Chinese food. Everyone loves Christmas trees. However, if you live in a small town in mid-America where there is only one Jewish and one Muslim family, it probably would be nice if you went OUT OF YOUR WAY to make the outsiders feel comfortable, which means stop pushing for nativity scenes outside of the public library and city hall! Who wants to be told “It’s a Christian nation” right to your face? It isn’t polite.
2) Israel and Gaza
Is God playing a joke on the Jews with Israel? What a pain in the ass this country is! And have you ever tried to date an Israeli woman. Talk about tough! Israel is a tough subject for liberal Jews to talk about in public. I have no problem with it. During the recent election, I found it extremely annoying how the McCain campaign was trying to appeal to American Jews by creating “Obama is a Muslim” fear, as if we were a bunch of idiots. Jews go to college. We’re not that stupid. On the other hand, I don’t find much of the progressive community a big fan of Israel, since these good-hearted souls prefer to side with the underdog, and not the American-allied bully. And who can honestly root for a country that bombs poverty-stricken innocent women and children in their mosques and schools?
So what is a liberal Jew supposed to do?
I’ll never forget when some columnist wrote a post on the BlogHer political site advocating shipping all Jews from Israel to some place in Siberia, which would help defuse the problem in the Middle East, and friends of mine, normally outspoken political women, were protecting this writer, saying, “Well, perhaps it is an issue we should discuss.” Maybe conservatives are right about liberals being the Jewish people’s worst friends! My mother went to Boca Raton to escape the cold. No Jew WANTS to move to Siberia!
Some of my favorite progressive bloggers, especially the ones in Europe, were very angry over the recent fighting in Gaza. Many Europeans dislike the Israeli government, and think the American media is controlled by the pro-Israeli propaganda machine. Two bloggers I know wrote pieces demanding that Israel be held for war crimes for the murder of innocent children. On one of the posts, the word HAMAS was never used once. The scenario in Gaza was presented as “Israeli occupiers vs. people of Gaza.”
“What happened to the real bad guys in the story?” I commented.
Talk about propaganda! While I was worried that I was losing my liberal credentials by bringing this up, it bugged me that someone could complain about slanted views, and substitute it with another man’s propaganda!  Wasn’t Hamas shipping in increasingly powerful weapons and hiding them in schools and mosques AND purposely endangering innocent victims for their own purposes?  What the hell was Hamas doing (with Iran’s help) by sacrificing their innocents for power and ideology? Shouldn’t THEY be put up for war crimes? The deaths of so many innocents is shameful, and it angers me that so many excuse the actions of Hamas as if they a local boy scout troup.
Sometimes I think the best thing for the Palestinians to do is to accept that they lost the endless war and start to figure out a way to live peacefully with their strong victors, like Japan did after World War II. Forget talking about 1948 and 1967.  Much of the Arab world likes to keep the Palestinians angry and in poverty, so they can keep them as a symbolic thorn in Israel’s side, and control their own corrupt governments. HAMAS needs to accept Israel already, stop throwing bricks at the big bully’s head, and start asking their Arab brothers to help build some nice hotels by the Ocean and trying to really compete with Israel by offering better vacation packages.
But no one progressive would ever say that.
3) Beautiful Barcelona
January 27th was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day to remember the victims of the Holocaust. This date marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.
As I mentioned, Europeans were very angry over the recent fighting in Gaza. And many European cities have large Muslim populations that are a growing political power. Because the local Barcelona media had run stories comparing the Israeli stance on the situation in the Strip to Nazi atrocities, the Catalunya government called off the city’s public memorial service. This was to be the only public event marking the day, and was scheduled to take place in Barcelona’s central piazza.
“Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right,” a local City official told Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper.
Despite my love for the beautiful city of Barcelona, I found this quite disturbing.  Even if one is upset over Israel’s actions, why exactly is this the fault of those exterminated in Nazi death camps? They don’t live in Israel. They’re already dead. If the Barcelona government was more logical, they would CELEBRATE this occasion, because if these six million would survived, there is a strong chance that THEY would be living in Israel themselves, as well as their children and grand-children, and the Israeli population would be three times as large, and Israel would even have a larger army in which to go into Gaza! So next year, rather than pooh-poohing the holiday, I say free Tapas in Barcelona for everyone!
4) 1/3 of all Europeans
A week after the Bernie Madoff scandal broke, I was having coffee with my friend Barry. We were discussing the amazing hubris of this guy. How could he pull this off?
“There’s one thing that is cool about this country,” I said. Â “Bernie Madoff is clearly Jewish and his victims were wealthy Jews, but Americans never say things like, “Oh, the Jews, they’re always ripping people off. Â All they care about is money.”
My friend laughed and said, “In Queens, they don’t, but believe me. they’re are doing it everywhere else.”
Call me naive, but I would assume most of those old stereotypes have died already in a country with an African-American President. That’s why it is good to have Europe around for some of that old-fashioned anti-Semitism. Good ol’ Europe — home of the Crusades, the Inquisition, forced conversion, and the Holocaust. Even when most of the Jews are killed off, it is still the fault of the Jews… especially during economic downturns.  It has to be someone’s fault, right?
The Anti-Defamation League said Tuesday that a survey it commissioned found nearly a third of Europeans polled blame Jews for the global economic meltdown and that a greater number think Jews have too much power in the business world.  In Spain, 74 percent of those asked say they feel that Jews hold too much sway over the global financial markets. That is the highest percentage in the survey. Nearly two-thirds of Spanish respondents said Jews were also more loyal to Israel than they were to their home countries.
Did I ever tell you that Sophia and I honeymooned in Spain? We loved it, except for the fact that it was almost impossible to find anything to eat that wasn’t made from the pig! Hmmm…
5) Circumcision
Can you believe that until I read this post on Her Bad Mother, I didn’t know that circumcision was such a big issue and that there are many ANGRY over it?!  I know that Americans tend to be circumcised more readily than Europeans (uh-oh, I can feel the American Jewish doctors having a hand in this… more trouble), and that it is considered unnecessary to many. But what is the big deal? I say, if you don’t want your son to get circumcized, don’t do it. Who cares? I don’t remember any discussion in the locker room between circumcised and uncircumcised men, or any laughing and pointing. They are just penises.
But the fact is that circumcision is a big deal in Judaism. Â It is probably one of the oldest traditions in the book, a symbol of the convenant between God and his people. Â Jews have been doing it a long time without much trauma (unless research shows that circumcision is the cause of our neurotic behavior, but how would we then explain the neurotic Jewish women?).
Her Bad Mother’s post was intelligent and well-reasoned about her personal decision not to have her son circumcised, but if you do some googling on the subject, you find some scary stuff, and not just from crazy people, but from seemingly “loving” people who care about their children.  Circumcision is called “primitive” and “barbaric” and “genital mutation.” It “destroys a man’s sexual pleasure” and “torments” the baby and should be “made illegal!” WTF are we talking about? Jack Bauer’s interrogation techniques on “24?”
Even if a person did have these beliefs about circumcision, I would think it impolite to blast a tradition so integral to another religion — in public! There are all sorts of weird rites and rituals that occur around the world, and we appreciate them as part of some other culture. Do people really want to make the bris illegal? Would the same person feel as comfortable saying that wearing a burka should be made illegal? Can you really compare the bris to female genital mutilation?
The whole issue sort of amused me.  Have you ever been to a bris? The ceremony is done quickly, and then everyone eats a lot of food. The only thing barbaric about the event is the amount of cholesterol in traditional Jewish food and the overly-sweet taste of the kosher wine.
Danny told me that he once wrote a post about the Jewish bris on the Huffington Post, and it received so many anti-Semitic comments that they had to remove the post from the Huffington Post.
Here is Danny’s post, which is on his own blog, Jew Eat Yet.
This was his reaction after taking the post off the Huffington Post. And remember — the Huffington Post readership is a progressive one, believers in freedom of speech and religion.
Last Friday I posted my piece about circumcision which was mostly a family reminiscence based on an old discovered film I saw of my 1959 bris. I added a few comments about the people who oppose circumcision and I adopted an over-the-top and I thought humorous tone of intransigence about Kendall’s ambivalence towards the procedure. When I first saw my post zooming to the “Top Posts†list on Huffington, a way they have to track the most-read pieces, and the comments started pouring in fast and furious, I was excited that my post was generating such controversy. But I was unprepared for the level of hysteria that the “anti-circ†people would unleash, some of it accompanied by blatant anti-Semitism. Never in a million years did I mean to imply that circumcising your male child was the “right†thing to do, I was just sharing my own very personal feelings on the subject, all the while saying that this anti-circumcision group makes some valid points (which I still feel they muck up by resorting to outrageous hyperbole and propaganda).
I thought I had a very tough skin when it came to people sharing opposing views but I am not used to the level of personal attacks I received on the Huffington Post. Here is a sampling:
—Pull your head out of your egotistical Jewish ass.
—Let’s make a movie…at least this time it will have sound to preserve your pompous Jewish pontification (or should I say rabbification?).
—Your wife has a better sense of what a woman wants a penis partner to look like. Unless you’re planning to raise a gay son.
—Would you think the same thing if all male babies had to have their ears cut off at birth? Let’s dress up and make a fucking ritual of it and have a party with covered dishes!
—This last bit of animal sacrifice needs to end no matter the sentimental charm it has over older Jews.
—While you’re at it, Danny, you should really think about having all your children’s fingernails removed. After all, they are unnecessary in the evolutionary sense.
—YOU are the reason there are self-hating Jews, asshole. Your son would have every reason to hate you for being a coward.
—I demand that you CUT YOUR SON’S PENIS YOURSELF. See if THAT brings you closer to God!
—Fascism comes in all forms and degrees…you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself.
—Is this “mark†kind of like that yellow star the Nazis had all Jews sew on their clothes during WW2? They tried tattoos, too. How did those work out?
—Kendall, don’t damage and risk your child’s life by allowing some idiot to chop off the most sexually pleasurable part of his penis. Chop off that idiot you married instead, and do it before you get pregnant. Find a human being for a father for your children and replace this monster.
—Being Jewish and circumcised is no excuse for the kind of abusive behavior Miller exhibits. Many Jews are humane, decent people. This bozo is a disgrace to the good name of Judaism.
—Circumcising infants is a Satanic blood ritual. That is the only possible explanation for the persistence of this heinous evil. Human beings are not this evil. Only Satan himself is. All children circumcised are severely injured for life.
All I can say is that I am blessed with my friendly readership. You seem to like me, despite my circumcised Jewish talking penis.
Valentine’s Day was now over. I went to sleep late. In the middle of the night, I had a dream. At first, it seemed inspirational — maybe about love? taking chances? — and then it turned into a nightmare.
I just got a job with the LA Dodgers farm team in Florida (I think they are in Arizona now, right?), which is pretty good in this bad economy. It was our first game of the season. Tommy Lasorda (!) gave us a rousing speech, saying there was no room for defeat. It was difficult for me not to laugh during his over-the-top statements about the importance of our mission. I was sitting next to a Christine F. from elementary school, who was now an attractive attorney. In fact the whole team consisted of friends from my past, some still twelve years old, and others now grown up.
“Kramer, get in there!’ said Lasorda. “You’re right field.”
I went out onto the baseball field. I was the last one out. Players were throwing baseballs back and forth. The grass was bright green, and the sunshine was bothering my eyes. I had no idea where to go. I was not sure WHICH side was right field. Was it like stage left? Was it the side I was facing, or from the POV of the field facing home plate? I started to panic. Steve W., someone I have not seen since sleepaway camp years ago, was playing first base. He was always a good athlete.
“Neil, take off your winter coat and winter hat. Are you nuts? You can’t play wearing that!”
I woke up with a headache.
I just got off the phone with Sophia.
“Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day. What are you doing?” I asked.
“Nothing. You?”
“Nothing.”
I noticed that a few writers online were using Valentine’s Day to participate in Hilly’s Happy Self Love Day, which turns the holiday upside down, so that each person focuses on self-acceptance and self-love rather than buying overpriced flowers for others.
I think it is a great idea, but I’m not going to do it. I don’t like to step on the toes of others who might appreciate the romance of the day. And who knows what the future is going to hold? I might be into the holiday next year! One of my female friends is holding an anti-Valentine’s Day. I can bet you a thousand dollars that she becomes a Valentine’s Day maniac once she meets the right guy. The only true anti-Valentiners are those who remain aloof from the stuffed bears who play “Love Me Tender” when you press their tummies and the corny Hallmark cards — both during the lean years AND the fruitful years, relationships be damned, and very few of us have that fortitude. So, I say, go ahead, enjoy Valentine’s Day! Next February 14th, I hope I can join you in spreading the love to others!
Long time readers of this blog will remember the fun we had two years ago, during the Valentine’s Day Emergency Hotline, in which we took turns “standing by” on IM 24/7 in case someone needed some virtual loving. We could probably update the whole concept now, and do it on Twitter. Maybe next year. Hopefully, by then, no one will need it. We all will be in LOVE and perfectly happy.
Every self-help book in the world always gives the same cliched advice — you have to love yourself first. So, maybe Hilly’s Happy Self Love Day is a more fruitful Valentine’s Day exercise than patting the lovelorn on the back and saying that everything will be all right.
Do I love Neil? I suppose I do. I spend a lot of time with him. He doesn’t bore me. He likes the same TV shows that I do. We agree on most things. But what distinguishes this Neil from the countless other Neils out there in the world? Do I love this Neil more than any other?
There is a blogger in Glasgow named Neil, who is also trying to find himself as a Neil.
“I am not althogether comfortable in my own name… Neil doesn’t quite fits with me. I try to embrace it, I acknowledge that I am probably stuck with it, but a part of me can never quite embody it.
Partly this is to do with association. I couldn’t identify with the other person at school who was called Neil (not Neil Spencer, not old Speggy!) and didn’t have any public figure who impressed me much. But maybe that has changed in the last twenty years. So I thought it might be interesting to have a look at Google’s top Neils to see what they say about the name.”
Neil Gaiman, Neil Armstrong, Neil Young, Neil Diamond… and then there I was, one notch above Neil Patrick Harris —
#8 — Neil Kramer – A blogger who, from my cursory examination, seems to be very into blogging for the sake of blogging. Rather like this then.
I was one of the Neils. How did this guy in Glasgow feel about this? Who did he think I was? Did my appearance on his list change his opinion of his Neil name? I don’t know if it helped him, but it certainly made me feel good. How can I not love a Neil… especially the #8 Neil on Google, maybe not a Neil Diamond, but a Neil diamond-in-the-rough? So, thank you, Neil of Glasgow, from Neil of New York. And on Valentine’s Day, I will accept that in lieu of any candy.
I hope those who have romantic stuff planned for tomorrow night, get lucky. Happy Valentine’s Day! And try to love yourself as well.
1. I healed myself back to health without depending on the goodness of a woman.
2) I’ve been splurging on myself with the iphone, the trip to Chicago, and the more expensive ice cream at the supermarket.
3) My Mead Composition books. Not sure why I love them so much. Maybe the connection to childhood.
4) That Schmutzie is going to laugh when she sees that I finally did one of these Grace in Small Things, and that makes me laugh.
5) Peeing in the shower this morning, just because I could.
Danny from “Jew Eat Yet” asked me a question, and since it was a lengthy one, I will paraphrase it for you, “What the hell are YOU, a full-blooded American male, going to a blogging conference for WOMEN?”
The answer is simple. I don’t think in terms of gender. We are all individuals with passions that are unrelated to our chromosomes. This does not mean there aren’t difference between the sexes. Anyone man who has ever spent a weekend with a weepy, irrational, hysterical, overemotional woman who needs more “hug time” knows exactly what I am talking about. Also, as a believer in the literal truth of the Bible, man is always first. We were on Earth first, so it is natural that we should be the dominant sex.
As ordained by religion and the natural order, women must follow two ironclad rules in their relationships with men —
1) Women must always have an orgasm, or at least fake it well enough for the man to feel he did a job well done, so he can go to sleep feeling like he is “the Man,” and brag to his friends at work the next day.
2) Women must ALWAYS take care of men when they get sick, and expect nothing in return. Men can build skyscrapers and blow up cities, but they are not trained to care for themselves when the dreaded cold-bug hits.
It has been a sad week in Queens. For the last two days, I – a man – have been home alone with a cold, and it should shame women worldwide. My previous two caretakers, Sophia and my mother, were both unavailable, enjoying the sun in Redondo Beach, CA and Boca Raton, FL.
“I’m sick, Sophia,” I said on the phone.
“Sorry, Neilochka. I got a Russian Dialect coaching job with “Heroes” and have to make it to the studio. Bye-Bye!”
I tried my mother.
“Mom, I’m sick.”
“Make yourself some soup.”
“What do you mean — “make” the soup?”
“I can’t talk now. I’m playing mah jongg, and then I have my yoga class, and then there is a show at the center with ABBA imitators! Take care of yourself. Bye!”
Clearly, these two should have their “women licences” revoked. But I will have the last laugh, because God is a MAN, and he works in mysterious ways.
Anyway, since I am trying to promote myself as an EXPERT storyteller, I figure I should tell you some sort of story, so I don’t undermine my own brand name.
Here is a story that my mother told me about her weekly yoga class that takes place at the clubhouse in her retirement village. Please note — this is my mother’s story, not mine, so don’t judge the quality of the tale by your usual high standards.
My mother’s yoga class meets in the clubhouse. There are about 25 women, from ages sixty to eighty. The instructor is a young yoga instructor in her twenties who has a regular gig at a studio. Although she has modified her sessions to be more appropriate for seniors, she doesn’t seem to be very comfortable with older people. In fact, she makes the common mistake of treating seniors like they are children in grade school.
Some of the women have cellphones, such as my mother, and the instructor makes everyone put their phones on a table in the front of the room, turned off, so the ringing doesn’t ruin the meditative mood of yoga. The instructor considers the atmosphere of the room so essential that she has told the class that if a student’s phone rings, “she will have to leave and not return to the class for the rest of the year.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I told my mother.
“She’s very serious about her yoga,” answered my mother. “She knows a lot.”
I have no idea how my mother can judge this instructor as “knowing a lot” since my mother has no experience with yoga at all, but I didn’t say anything, and let my mother continue with her story.
Last week, while the class was doing some relaxing yoga position, and gentle music was playing, one of the phones on the table started to ring and vibrate. The tall, skinny yoga instructor jumped up, her bones shaking with anger.
“Who’s phone is that ringing?” she asked, pointing a long finger at a flip Nokia sitting on the table.
No one answered. The women in the class, sitting in the dimly-lighted room, looked side to side, waiting for the culprit to come forward, but no one volunteered. Was the owner of the ringing phone afraid of being booted from class? Were the others covering her ass? Would the seniors stand in solidarity, announcing that the phone belonged to “them all” and that they would not be intimidated by this jerk?
If this was a cartoon, steam would be rising from the yoga instructor’s head (which is not a very good sign about yoga’s effectiveness in making you a calmer person).
“Do none of you have the dignity to step forward and tell the truth? Surely ONE of you must know who OWNS that phone?”
The instructor flipped on all the lights to glare into each woman’s eyes, searching for the truth like Jack Bauer involved in an interrogation.
“If none of you have the moral fiber to come forward and be a real person – I am cancelling today’s class. All of you. Leave. Class is cancelled today!”
The women started to leave. An Orthodox Jewish woman, the oldest in the class, picked up the flip Nokia. Everyone turned to her. The instructor shoved her face within inches of the culprit.
“What is wrong with you? Why didn’t you admit that this was your phone ringing?”
“Huh? I can’t hear very well…” she answered.
Her phone started ringing again.
“My son just gave it to my this weekend. I don’t even know how to turn it off!”
My mother, who just figured out to turn off her own phone, showed the woman how to press the button to turn the phone off, and then the rest of the class left yoga for the day.
Yesterday, on Citizen of the Month, I talked about the importance of storytelling in blogging, and brought up that idea of a storytelling session at BlogHer. (you can sign up to attend or present during this session over here)
I hope this idea that bloggers are writers doesn’t scare anyone off. There are quite a few bloggers who don’t want to consider themselves writers, because then they will get writer’s block, always comparing their little slices of life to the “bigger, dramatic” stories of literature, stories like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Grapes of Wrath, or Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Having your husband lose the remote control of your Playstation is just not as dramatic as turning into a cockroach or fighting a giant octopus under the sea.
Of course, we all have our dramatic moments to write about. Life-changing moments always happen in our lives — births, deaths, divorces, but not every day, and as writers, we can’t sit around waiting for some big event to occur while we post photos of our cats everyday on our blogs. I mean, we could, and many of you actually do, but it doesn’t make for exciting blog reading, and there is little chance that you will ever end up on Dooce’s blogroll.
The truth is, even a “nothing” story can be improved with story structure. Most of my story ideas usually suck. But if you stick with, a story usually develops. Let’s analyze today’s blog post AS I WRITE IT, hoping that it will be a learning tool.
Now at this point, I have no idea what I am going to write about, but I am hoping some story will come to me from the muses above, which I will then structure into something mildly coherent. It doesn’t always work, so bear with me.
Nothing of interest happened to me today. I’m not just saying that to get your sympathy just in case this post is really bad. I really mean it. It was so hot in my apartment in Queens today. The radiator is blasting, and there is no manual control, so I was even forced to turn on the air conditioning for a half hour! In the winter! The heat makes me groggy. I did a little writing, with the emphasis on the word little, and slept half of the afternoon. I spoke to my mother on the phone. I ate a tomato. That is my day. What the hell kind of story can I write about with that lame material?
Let’s start at the beginning.
Main character:
Neilochka.
Characteristics:
A little horny. A little frugal. Is that my full character? Of course not! But those two traits will be emphasized today because it will help me create a coherent story.
Beginning of Story:
Earlier today, I did leave the house. I went downstairs to the “compactor room” where we bring our cans and bottles for recycling. It is a no-no to throw these items down the incinerator chute, and the management says so in screaming red fonts on every door to every incinerator chute on every floor. There are even more rules to follow on the door of the compactor room.
A few months ago, down in the lobby, someone started a simple, but brilliant idea in a little alcove across from the compactor room. Rather than throwing away some old books, the tenant left them on one of the several empty shelves in the alcove. Within days, everyone noticed this, and the concept took off. This tiny nook has become the apartment building’s open-access library.
Tenants bring books, tenants take books. There are currently over a hundred books in our make-shift library. A pile of magazines has also developed, as varied as the interests of the building’s tenants, from Glamour to Golf to Jewish Philosophy. Whenever I bring down my recycling, I rifle through the pile of magazines, looking for something interesting to read, say in the bathroom.
(This is where the frugal characteristic comes to play, so my taking of one of the magazines in the story is not just a random act, but a logical extension of the fact that I would never actually buy these magazines)
Today, I found the March 2009 issue of Marie Claire. I don’t know too much about the magazine, but I have heard a couple of mommybloggers saying that it is their favorite women’s magazine. Well, to be more truthful, there were three hot women on the cover, so I figured I would check out the magazine.
(This is where the horniness element comes into play, further pushing the story along)
Middle of Story:
Now that the premise has been set up — Neilochka, a frugal horny guy picks up a free used copy of next month’s Marie Claire, it is time to expand on the theme.
This middle section of the story — the second act in dramatic terms — is the one that always causes writer’s block. What happens now? What does Neilochka do with the magazine? Does he play with himself? Nah, that gimmick is overused on this blog and is too OBVIOUS! Does he get into a fight with the original owner of the magazine who didn’t really leave it for others in the library, but accidentally dropped it on the lobby floor, and now accuses Neilochka of theft, and calls the police on him? That would be an EXCELLENT plot twist, and I might have gone in that direction if I was trying to be fictional, but I’m trying to stick with the real-life facts here to prove a point.
The truth is — nothing really happens in the real life second act of my story, other than me skimming through this very boring magazine, which is mostly filled with advertisements of anorexic young models selling stuff. But do you notice that I am using an old writing trick called “misdirection?” Writers use misdirection when their plot is so THIN, that they have to fill in the space with something unrelated to capture your interest. So, since I didn’t play with myself or get into a fist-fight over the magazine with another tenant, I am just blabbing on and on about anorexic models and other subjects, hoping that you won’t notice that nothing of interest is really going on. Sometimes, you just have to go with the inferior material and push it forward. TV shows do it all the time. That’s why TV shows always have guest stars showing up in their weakest episodes. Whenever a sitcom story is getting boring, some producer will say, “Let’s bring in Drew Carey or Mary Tyler Moore or one of the Jonas Brothers as a guest star so the audience won’t notice that this episode is boring as hell!”
Now that I have wasted some time with misdirection, I revert back to the story. Clever right?
OK, smack in the middle of Marie Claire magazine was an interview with a hip new all-girl rock band currently playing gigs in NY and LA. What caught my eye was that the girls were all wearing short skirts… and their bras. Apparently they are a rock group called The Vassarettes. In the interview, they talk about the importance of rocking the house while just wearing their bras, and being the first “bra band.”
Emily: “It’s totally empowering and liberating being up there onstage with nothing holding us back. It’s girl power times a million.
Kai Elle: “It means girls rule!”
Erin: “It means it’s cool for women to thrash.”
Alexa: “It means giving everything you’ve got and leaving nothing onstage.”
I was pretty impressed with the confidence of these brash young rockers. I also assumed that they were fairly bright and were called the Vassarettes because they met at Vassar College. Did this rock band idea come out of a project they were working on in their Feminist Studies class?
I actually have some good stories to tell about Vassar. There was this one girl… But I will leave this story for another day. Remember this rule! Don’t burn yourself out with each story. When you get a new idea while writing your current post, jot it down and use it on a rainy day!
The End of Story:
Let’s recap.
Beginning of Story – Neilochka, a frugal horny guy picks up a free used copy of next month’s Marie Claire magazine.
Middle of Story — Neilochka is bored by dull magazine until he sees four chicks in their bras and his eyes widen, until The Vassrettes bring up old memories, like a misty fog, as he remembers a smiling buxom young woman from Vassar College, much like the aging King Lear once thought back to his youthful encounters at the end of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
A good finale should always contain a big twist, that thrusts the story into an entirely new direction, creating excitement and drama for the audience. Think of every thriller you have ever seen in the movies. “Oh no, the killer isn’t the drug addict, it is really HIS MORMON SCHOOLTEACHER WIFE!”
A good blog post should have this same type of dramatic twist. In this case, I googled The Vassarettes in order to see the video of them performing their terrible pseudo-Spice Girls song in their bras.
Never in my life have I actually been turned OFF by women in their bras. The whole gimmick was just stupid. This spurred me on to do some more research, and I discovered that this “band” was not formed in the dorms of Vassar, but was created as a promotional gimmick for a brand of bra called “Vassarette.” Apparently this bra company, which is a Vanity Fair brand, is trying to sex up their image to compete with Victoria’s Secret.
This is the surprise twist. OK, it is not the biggest surprise in the world, but remember we are writing a blog post, not Crime and Punishment, so get off my case! I didn’t say this was going to be a GREAT post, just a post from crappy material.
And like in any good story, this twist should have a profound effect on our protagonist, in this case – Neilochka.
Up until now, we have known only two basic things about Neilochka — he is frugal and takes free magazines, and he is horny and likes to look at women in their bras. Now, towards the end of the story, it is time to create a more fully-developed character, showing his arc and character growth. Neilochka is not just frugal and horny. We now discover a new side to his personality. He is also cranky and opinionated, and he especially hates it when marketers and advertisers try to manipulate their consumers with stupid ideas like creating a girl band playing rock music in their bras, and promoting it as “empowerment.”
It is the time for the finale!
Tensions rise as the hero and villain meet on the battlefield. There is Neilochka, the David, with a tiny little blog without ads, and zilch power in society. The villain, the Goliath, is like any bad guy in any James Bond movie, or Madame Defarge in “Tale of Two Cities” a demonic figure, relentless in her goal to dominate the world. The Vassarette Bra company and her henchmen — the Vanity Fair Brand, Style Network, and Marie Claire Magazine — all want to pollute our airwaves with awful girl bands playing shitty rock music in their bras. And only ONE MAN can stop them. Neilochka! But how? With the only true weapon any blogger has at his disposal — sarcasm.
Neilochka would like to introduce you to his own hard rockin’ boy band, direct from JAPAN that perform their totally empowering music while only wearing cock rings, making the Vassarettes look silly in comparison.
END OF STORY
(OK, maybe nothing can save this story, but I tried)
GO HOME
Last week, I tested an idea for BlogHer’s Room of Your Own, and most of you gave it a thumbs down and booted it off as fast as Jason Alexander’s last sitcom.
You can call me a lot of names, but I am not a quitter. I have another idea.
First, let me remind you what this “Room of Your Own” is about —
Since BlogHer programmed panels typically feature universal topics discussed by diverse voices, the Room of Your Own sessions are the perfect place to dig deeper into any one corner of the blogosphere…its particular challenges, triumphs, concerns, issues. You can lead a discussion alone, or bring a panel of interesting speakers. There will be two full tracks (or 12 individual sessions) reserved for Room of Your Own sessions.
The Room of Your Own tracks are designed to provide BlogHer conference attendees with one more way to customize their own conference experience and contribute in a meaningful way. You must be a registered attendee of BlogHer ’09 to present a Room of Your Own session at the conference.
This year we’re launching a new way to submit, track and improve on Room of Your Own suggestions. Using one of the polling capabilities of our fabulous Drupal interface you will now be able to submit your idea, peruse other people’s ideas, indicate which panels you’d attend, and even indicate which of the panels that others have proposed you would love to join forces with and speak on too!
As I looked over the official schedule, as well as the Room of Your Own submissions, I was surprised at the amount of topics on marketing, monetization, and niche blogging. If I am paying money for a blogging conference, and I consider blogging to be writing, wouldn’t it be nice to have some discussion on… writing? And by writing, I mean the “storytelling” that we all do every day when we are not sucking up to each other or being comment whores.
Proposal Idea:
BLOGGING AS STORYTELLING
Personal bloggers are always saying that they are JUST bloggers, NOT “writers,” but guess what? — if you are stringing words into coherent sentences and publishing your stories online, you are a writer. And if content is king, as they say, why do you spend so much time worrying about marketing and promoting your blog, and so little time developing your craft?
This session will try to recapture some of those heady, half-drunken, freshman year discussions that you used to have in your college dorm while in your PJs, as we discuss the principles of storytelling, and how they are fundamentally the same in Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, The Adventures of Curious George, and your own mommyblog.
This session won’t be about about getting an agent or being published. It will be about appreciating blogging, and seeing it as a new chapter in the long tradition of storytelling. Think of yourself as a modern Scheherazade who must come up with 1001 amazing and adventurous Arabian Blog Posts in order to remain alive!
YOU are the author of your own blog. Are you the main character? What is the point of view of this character? On life? On relationships? On writing? How do you want to be perceived by the reader? Are your secondary characters, your family and friends in your life story, presented as three-dimensional personas? Does each blog post require a beginning, middle, and end? Should you be loyal to the facts or is it better to embellish your stories in order to reach a higher truth?
And learn a top secret: Why the best bloggers learn their craft from watching… soap operas?!
Join like-minded writers and bloggers who want to explore their literary side as we discuss the most important aspect of the blogging experience — storytelling.
END OF PROPOSAL
I haven’t yet submitted this yet, because first I wanted to get your opinion first, being that type of insecure person. Is it written too pretentiously? Anything I should edit out? Would you attend? Would you like to join forces and speak on the subject too? I already received some interest from the cool and creative Amy of Doobleh-vay. And most importantly, will moderating this session help me meet some of the brainier women at the conference?
Idea submitted. Feel free to add your name to the list if you wish to participate in any way. Still making list of supposed best pizza in Chicago, where the BlogHer conference is being held this year, although I am very doubtful that it can compete with the pizza of New York.
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