Ruvym's Rant

The Kernel

2009-09-29T18:53:00.002-04:00

I've decided to stop waiting for this magical date in the future when my new blog will look exactly like I want it to look. Considering I have no web-building skills and I haven't even bothered to do anything about that in months, it's probably better if I just come out with it, work on the content, and worry about the flash at some other point in time. Imagine this the way you would imagine Apple coming out with a device as cool as the iPhone for what it does, but maybe not as cool in terms of how it looks. That's me, now. And this is The Kernel, the new blog - http://enterthekernel.blogspot.com.

FYI, http://thekernel.blogspot.com is a lame ass blog someone started in 2004, posted twice to, and then disappeared, and because of this nonsense I'm supposed to use "enterthekernel" in the address. No matter, I feel like it works on some level, all Matrix-y.

I'll be writing to it for the time being, so at least for now, Ruvym's Rant is without a complaint in site. I know, who would have ever thought this day would come?

The Sum Up

2009-07-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

As I sit at Nina Cafe in Neve Tzedek, a nice little spot with an entire wall of floor to ceiling windows, good iced coffee, and free WiFi, I'm thinking about this latest Israel trip which has spanned 18 days, a tour of the entire country, extensive time in Tel Aviv, and a cough that just won't go away. This was time 5 in Israel, and it started off in a familiarly unfamiliar way - a group trip, as always, but one that I was helping to staff/lead. For a while I had wanted to take my appreciation for this country one step further, and be there to inaugurate new travelers into the riches of the land. Fine, so I couldn't be a tour guide, I couldn't answer most of their questions about this or that relic or monument or site, but I could give thoughts on the politics of the region and background on my own life and journey from cynical Birthright participant during my trip in the Winter of 2004-2005 to proud Israel-lover. A friend, before the trip, expressed a genuine excitement for the opportunity I would get with the "kids" - "wow, you'll be there with them, showing them everything. They'll see it through your eyes. You're going to have an amazing experience."

And it was amazing, and exhausting, and crazy, and a whole bunch of things I both expected and didn't expect. I didn't expect how much I'd become a babysitter, a parent, for people close to my own age. Sure some of them were "kids" in the sense that they were new to college, but several were adults, people I might otherwise be friends with outside of this world of the touring bus and treks through cobbled streets and desert and forest. I didn't expect becoming a disciplinarian and putting myself on a level where I could be friendly with people, they could appreciate me and enjoy my company, but they would only ever remain acquaintances, and any close friendships would have to wait until after the trip. And, perhaps most importantly, I didn't expect how "suspended" my own experience would be. Going into it, I was excited to see all the places I knew we'd go to, even though I'd seen them several times before. But while at those places, I was too busy running around and counting heads and planning for the next portion of the tour that I didn't really have a chance to absorb anything for myself. Standing at the Kottel (Western Wall) during a 30-minute "here, you're at the Kottel, use this time to go pray or walk around or do whatever you feel you need to do in this space" moment, I realized that it had all become boringly familiar, that this incredible site that means so much to so many people, was just another place I'd been to many times before. All that was going through my head was the idea that in 5 minutes, everyone would come streaming back and we'd be moving on and that before we could move on I needed to make sure that 44 people were following me.

On some level I thought it a good thing, the way I have had such great fortune to come to Israel so many times that something like the Kottel could become "ordinary" for me. Someone who lives in the Old City can see the Kottel everyday, and perhaps it's just another big wall for them. But it was also a little disheartening. In this world where I seem to constantly be searching for something to strike me, to elicit an emotional response from me, not being able to rely on something like the Kottel for that was really sobering. If the Kottel can become "another big wall," then what about other things in the world, in your life, even more "ordinary" than the Kottel? What will become of them?

Maybe I was just exasperated, reading too much into it, getting shaky from the heat. That evening, during our Shabbat in Jerusalem, I had a "what the hell" sort of moment. Standing around with my co-staff after midnight, cleaning up the final pieces of a room used by the trip's participants for the post-Shabbat meal snacking and drinking and singing and carousing, I found myself exhausted, fed up, feeling worthless.

"Why am I here?," I wondered. "What does anyone care that I'm here? Have I done anything? Have I helped anybody's experience along or helped them see something they wouldn't otherwise have seen or understood?"

I paused, my voice echoing in the room, my co-staff looking at me and nodding, agreeing with the rhetorical questions. Then I took a deep breath and felt great. At that near-cracking point I finally got that my being on that trip had absolutely nothing to do with me. The idea was liberating, experience altering. On some level, getting to staff a trip is a free ticket to Israel, a chance to go back to all the places you remember and love, for yourself, so that you can see them again and enjoy them while you're helping others have a good experience. But that is such a tiny part of the whole story. What it's really about it putting aside anything that has to do with you, and running around like a mad man so that every single person on your bus can get back on their return flight home, let out a nice, deep, 10-days-in-the-making sigh, and smile. Suddenly I didn't care that I was tired and sticking around to pick up dried fruit purchased from the Machenae Yehuda shuk from the floor, or that some participants were just being straight-up disrespectful and making me feel like an asshole for doing my job. It was all good, every last piece, it was all as it needed to be.

I wiped the sweat from my face and climbed back upstairs to the lobby. I looked over at my co-staff and we had this little moment of understanding. Really, she was the only person who could relate to me and the position. Somewhere in the Caesar Hotel, our participants were probably hanging out in a room, continuing the party that we wouldn't be invited to because we were "in charge." So we hung around a little, had a few swigs of water, and went our separate ways, to sleep for far too little time before we had to do it all over again the next day.

That's why by the evening of Day 10, after 24-hours of people getting sick just as the trip was about to let out and stints at hospitals and in doctor's offices and with Russian-speaking doctors coming to visit us during our activity sessions, I was sad to see everyone split up. We dropped off half the people at a bus station in Tel Aviv so that they could continue on their own journeys, their within-Israel trip extensions. Most of them I knew I'd never see again. The other half, me and my co-staff included, we took back to the airport so they could board the flight home. Some hugs, some waves, only lightly bittersweet farewells, and we watched them streaming towards the check-in counter. The biggest question I had in my head was, "did they like it?" Sure I also wanted to know that my being there played a positive role, that without me it just wouldn't have been the same. But that was ancillary. I admit that I can be a little self-absorbed sometimes, and apologies for that, but this was hands-down the most self-less I've ever been in anything I've ever done. I'm not bashful to admit that. Believe it or not, this ego was put into a holding pen for 10 days, and it ended up feeling pretty damn good.

And now I'm on the back-end of the 8 extra days I extended after the trip. These 8 days have been relatively underwhelming. I went from high-intensity to doing whatever I wanted, for me and only me. Maybe it's just because I'm somewhat of a workaholic by nature, but the 8 has provided more downtime than I can handle. There's only so many times you can go to the beach, or sit around at a cafe with an iced coffee or two or three, or meet up with people for food and drinks. I know, wha-wha-wha, crying about vacation time. But it's not so much that as it is coming to a better understanding of who I am and where I go from here. Israel is a metaphor, it's something that is so much better shared, even with crazy people that don't let you sleep, than it is on your own. Kind of like, well, everything in life. Oddly enough, that's something I only recently realized. So on the plane heading back I'll be very ready to jump back into the "real world," even with its daily annoyances and frustrations, and to see the people I've been away from for all this time. I'm not too good with the Hebrew but, ani lo yo'deah, I think this was a pretty awesome experience. Ken? Ken.

Sherut

2009-07-26T05:45:00.001-04:00

As I find myself on a sherut (mini bus that translates pretty directly
as "service"; someone told me this, so I have no idea if this is
right) to Jerusalem, I figured I would take a moment to send a little
note after many many weeks of not writing anything. So here I am,
still on my Israel trip, my fifth Israel trip, and I have 5 more days
to go. The Birthright trip I led ended on Wednesday night and I've
been bumming it ever since, if you consider "bumming" staying with a
friend who has the good fortune of living in an amazing apartment in
Neve Tzedek, the Tel Aviv equivalent of the West Village or Park Slope
or some other trendy NYC spot with small shops and pretty streets. The
current trip to Jerusalem is my effort to stay consistent about seeing
family everytime I come to Israel. I guess I could always eek by
without doing it, but it just don't seem totally right.

I have a lot of things floating around in my head right now, and a lot
about this latest experience has been very unexpected, the way I
managed the responsibilities of staffing the Birthright trip and the
opportunities I had for self-reflection during it, the feeling of
transitioning into being away from all my "campers" and trying to fill
the time with my own things, the intruding thoughts I keep getting now
that I'm more on my own here. I think I need to get back home, back
into my life and routines in order to understand it all better. Plus I
also have those 5 remaining days before I head back to NY, so its way
too early to close the book on this latest journey.

Let me leave you with 2 thoughts:

1) After seeing how little I've written to the blog in the last few
months, I've come to understand that it's probably time for me to move
on from it. So this is an initial announcement that soon I'll stop
writing to this blog that has been my life companion since October
2004. I'll have a lot more to say about that after I get back and make
all the arrangements I need to make as I transition into a new blog
space and format that I think will fit me better. This is not the end,
just an adaptation.

2) I went to a bar/club last night that rests on the rocks of the Tel
Aviv shore directly attached to what was once the Dolphinarium - the
site of a deadly terrosit attack from several years ago. It was,
literally, the one space I wanted to avoid completely for the duration
of my trip, but, of course, its exactly where I got invited by a
friend who was there celebrating her friend's birthday. I changed
quickly, ran there from where I was staying, and after 15 minutes of
superficial analysis by the unattractive female promoters, was finally
asked for ID and allowed in. I didnt last more than half an hour.
Whether it was the continued exhaustion from the previous evening's
Shabbaton experience in a warm apartment in Kevar Sava, the continued
exhaustion of not yet having caught up on my sleep after a crazy
Birthright trip, or just a controlling desire to be in a space where I
could speak with people and enjoy their company without loud music and
drunken fist pumping, I had to apologize to the birthday girl and my
friend and walk out the metallic revolving gate. Or maybe it wasnt any
of those things. Maybe, instead, it was the sadness I felt moments
earlier as I stood off to the side, away from the crowds, staring at
the melodramatic cliche of water smashing against the rocks at the
base of the beach. I dont really know what was going through my mind,
what I was thinking about, but I knew that I couldn't stay there, that
something just didn't feel right for me. And now as this sherut
lurches back and forth, I know that I'm almost where I need to be and
that I will write more at another time.

A Better Flush

2009-06-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

I'm by no means a handyman. I'm kind of the opposite actually. For a while though, I've felt as if I needed to be a little more "guyish." You know, go camping, fix things around the house, act more emotionally distant with the people in my life, the basic sort of things you can expect from a guy, stereotypes welcome. I mean, you take me from college and I was just this Metrosexual dude who really got into the style of the early 2000s, complete with unnecessarily tight shirts, gelled hair with a little touch of Sun-In, and yes, even H&M capri shorts "for men," which, in my defense, were totally acceptable as a European transplant for a good 3 months in the Summer of 2000. In any case, I've been working on getting a little rougher around the edges. You understand what I'm trying to say.

I don't approach this with any particular direction or even with any particular intent. Rather it's just sort of a feeling I've gotten, that I want to do more of these guy things that, for whatever reason, I wasn't really exposed to growing up. Like with the camping, honestly, I'd never slept outside before my Birthright trip in the Winter of 2004-2005, and even then it was a faux-Bedouin campsite with a relatively clean and functional outdoor facility. Then came a couple more Bedoiun camp experiences on other trips, followed by my first "real" camping experience with my own campsite and my own (rented) tent in October of last year. And of course you know about my latest camping trip which was the first time I "roughed" it for two consecutive nights and had the awesome fortune of sleeping outside in the middle of a crazy thunderstorm.

I have to be honest - I loved it, and I had no idea what I was missing.

Now comes the other part of this thing - being able to fix stuff around the house. A couple of months back, for the first time ever (laugh if you want), I changed the light switch in my kitchen. Maybe to the average do-it-yourself raised-on-Bob-Vila sort of guy, this is a joke, but for me it was kind of a big deal. We're talking turning the power off, hands shaking as I removed the light switch box, wondering if there was some latent current that was going to ignite my hair. Somehow I did everything right and, lo and behold, the freaking light in my kitchen works again, and all without needing to call the super and waiting a few weeks.

Fine, so when I had to have my massive 10,000 BTU AC installed, I did call the super, but that was only because the thing weighed like 80 lbs. and the last thing I needed was to have my nice new AC fall out the window. If I had some help, I might have even handled that on my own, but we can move past thing.

But the thing I'm most proud of now is this weekend's toilet adventure. You see, a couple of weeks back, trusty old toilet tank decided to keep the water running indefinitely. And sure, I can just close my bathroom door and I won't hear it (just like I do to ignore the dripping from my shower), but this time I said to myself, "hell no. We're going to take care of this problem." That's right people, I took action into my own hands. Off to Home Depot I went to buy the "Total Toilet Kit" which has everything you need to make your toilet tank better. That kit stood in my bathroom for over a week before a chance delay this weekend - "sorry dude, I have to take care of some chores and can't run until later. Can you give me an extra hour?" - let me break open the box and get some fixing going.

Here I was thinking that I could take care of everything within that hour I had, but oh shit, I was wrong. The freaking toilet tank in this place probably hadn't been touched since the last Iranian Revolution. Inside was all rust and oldness and I made the mistake of deciding I didn't need to wear any gloves. By some miracle, I also happened to have all the tools I needed, save for an emergency trek back to Home Depot for a handsaw because sometimes things don't want to come apart the way they're supposed to. That's right, I now own a handsaw and that little period of time when I had it in my backpack on the way back from Home Depot I admit to contemplating what it could do to someone if they tried to attack me in midtown Manhattan in broad daylight. I had the fire in the eyes. I sat there on the F train, looking down at my greasy nails and feeling the numbness in fingertips and wondered if the people around understood what was going on with me - I was busy, I was fixing something.

Back at my place, after the two hours of work that preceded the trip to Home Depot for the handsaw, I thought that maybe the remainder would fly by. But instead I was met with more resistance from the tank, now detached and sliding around in my bathtub where, I decided, it would be less messy since I could just wash all the excess rust and dirt down the drain. More ripped skin on my hands, a nearly-crushed finger, sweat, tears, yells of frustration that I apologize to my neighbors for, and then, a total of four hours after the saga began, it came to an end. Holding my breath, I pressed down on the newly-installed plastic chrome lever and was met with the sound of flushing water followed by a filling tank and topped off with my triumph - the sweet silence of no leakage. I know that sounds weird, but you get it.

That night I went out and drank myself silly. I was on some crazy high from the whole experience. So I wondered - what about it made me feel so good despite the torture of the whole ordeal? More than anything- and this is going to sound cheesy but it's totally true - it was empowering. I maybe have a little bit of a problem with relying on people, with allowing myself to be helped. I guess that can be a bad thing sometimes, like when people really want to help you, where helping you allows them to show you that they care about you, and your rejection of that help is interpreted - wrongly - as a sign that you don't value them as much. But when it comes to stuff like this, it's kind of nice to know that I'm not totally useless with a wrench and a screwdriver.

There are already a couple of new items piling up on agenda: 1) fix the shower radio :-( and 2) hang those damn shelves that have been sitting on my dresser for 5 months.

The Woodsman

2009-05-26T00:07:00.000-04:00

I was out of town this weekend, engaging in some "camping" in upstate NY. There I was going around telling everyone about my weekend plans and over 50% of the people I mentioned them to corrected me - "That's not really camping, that's, like hanging out outside." Easy for you to say, but for this kid, who grew up in the sheltered confines of a Flushing apartment complex with a crack house across the street and dear old dad carrying a steel baton whenever we went outside after dark to play around in the snow, "camping" is kind of a big deal.

Put this into further context - the first time I ever slept outside (i.e. in a tent) was during my first Israel trip back in 2004. That's right, the good 'ol Bedouin tent experience. It was then that I learned the importance of having earplugs for outdoor sleeping arrangements. Besides one or two other subsequent Bedouin tent opportunities, the first time I camped in the States was last fall when I went with "the guys" to a site up near Woodstock. Sure it was tame in the sense that the site was government regulated and we had a nice stone fire pit/grill and access to decent park bathrooms, but it was still a step outside my element to say that I actually put up a tent and used lanterns to cook outside in the dark and slept on hard ground.

This time it was a jump to a two-night stay, but still in the sort of "camp" setting that people gave me crap for. I considered this a step-up in terms of my daring. And I have to be honest, that all-night lightening storm and torrential downpour that we had was pretty sweet. I woke up at 7:30 feeling all damp. I haven't peed myself in a really long time, so I looked for other explanations. Sure enough, I was sleeping in the part of the tent that was at the bottom of the site's slope and there was a nice little pool of water directly under my bag. Now that's hardcore bitches. You trying sleeping 6 hours in a pool of water. Rawr.

And heck, I didn't shower for like 60 hours, even after that quarter-day hike we went on and I got soaked during. Attacked by mosquitoes and gnats and having to contend with one toilet for an entire camp ground filled with douchie frat-types, I think I managed pretty freaking well.

So sure, I wasn't on the Appalachian trail and I didn't knife a mountain lion or drink my own urine, but baby steps. Give a brother a break. I'm feeling like next time I might be ready to go on a more thorough sort of trip where I carry all my supplies (yet to be purchased) in my massive hiking backpack (yet to be purchased) and make my way through the forest, stopping and camping out at random points. I had a friend out there with me who just got back from several months in South America and he was telling us about one of the 8-day hikes he went on, lugging around all of his stuff during 8-10 hour daily hikes. That's bad ass, to be trekking through Patagonia with 60 lbs. on your back for that long. One day. Who knows.

Also, today is Memorial Day, and so I need to acknowledge all our soldiers because one of my pet peevs is people taking this country for granted. I'm not going to get into it here or now, but I wanted to put it out there. I'm also proud, on this Memorial Day, to be the owner of a brand new passport. Thank you State Department. Major ups to you. Only shitty part is the pic I ended up submitting which will now represent me in all foreign locals for the next 10 years. I went into the photo shop all psyched, ready to take a good pic, feeling confident that this one would be way better than the 17 year-old me with the fuzzy mustache that I've had to carry around for the last decade. I did everything they tell you to do - wear a bland colored shirt, not smile, and have a kick-ass hair day. All factors gearing me up for a great shot, except that when it came out it looked like I had a lazy eye. I went around for like 3 days asking people whether I actually did have a lazy eye until I finally realized that it's a photographic effect caused by the guy's off-centered flash reflecting off of my retina (or at least that's what I came to tell myself was the problem). In either case, I've replaced what I had with a pic that makes me look like a Russian criminal. Well done.

Last thing, regarding Memorial Day, as our group was passing through the little town around our campgrounds looking for some nice pancake house, there were a few veterans standing around collecting money for their local veteran's association. I stopped to give the guy a $3 donation and then he proceeded to give me back two of my dollars, saying that one was enough. I didn't necessarily get this but I took the money and repocketed it. Then he looks down at the shirt I'm wearing, which happens to be an Israeli Navy shirt because I own several pieces of Israeli military apparel (and yes, I know no one in Israel would be caught dead wearing one of these, and yes I realize that on some level it's played out and cheesy, but I think you'll manage just fine knowing that I still wear mine). I see him thinking about it for a second, and then he goes, "Israeli Navy!? Why not!?" Just made me smile.

Joe

2009-05-05T00:36:00.001-04:00

"Damn, this is fucking brilliant." He's already eating the cookie as he's sitting down across from me, maneuvering himself into the steel chair across from me, on the other side of the round yellow table.

"Since when do you say 'brilliant?'"

"What? Brilliant. Who cares? They say it in commercials."

I'm watching the crumbs collecting all around, but not inside, his plate. The cookie is 3/4 of the way eaten before he offers it to me. "Dude. Try this. Vegan molasses. I can't believe it's vegan." He holds it up towards me in a way that suggests he knows I'm not going to take him up on his offer.

"I'm OK."

"Suit yourself." The cookie disappears.

"So how has it been?" I ask, absent-mindedly swirling the coffee with my straw.

"Meaning?" He plays coy on purpose.

"The job stuff."

"What about it?"

"Have you been doing OK?"

"How else would I be doing?" He uses the tip of his finger to pick up some of the crumbs on the table and brings it to his lips. "It's not the end of the world."

"I know, but, I mean, I guess it can't be easy."

"Nah, whatever. It's kind of a good thing, helps you reprioritize what's important and what's not. Trim the fat, you know?"

"I guess."

"Yeah." he looks away, towards the windows, where the first hints of summer highlight girls finally walking around in skirts and dresses after a long and dreary absence of legs.

"So is there a plan?"

"Huh?" He refocusses his attention on me. "What?"

"Is there a plan? Are you, like, approaching this in a certain way?"

"Am I approaching this in a certain way? Yeah, I cash my unemployment checks, get a whole shitload of singles, and blow it all at strip clubs. That's how I'm approaching it."

I laugh, "funny thing is you're probably telling me the truth."

"Funny thing is that I'm not." He starts looking around again, then leans in and whispers, but loud enough that I know the people in the tables next to us can hear. "Dude, there are so many hot girls here."

"What did you expect, it's the West Village."

He pushes himself back again, throwing his body against the chair so that it tilts a little and he has a moment where he shuffles to regain his balance. "Shit, these things are death traps."

"Try not to be so animated and I think you'll be OK."

"Seriously though, it's crazy. All day I walk around and I'm staring at everyone. Everyone is hot! I think I need a girl. But first, I need a job. You know, it's not easy meeting women when you don't have a job."

"I can see that. But maybe it's the new black, you know? Like it's 'in' now. All those unemployed bankers. Maybe it's a little more acceptable than it would have been a few months ago."

"Give me a fucking break."

I laugh, "Fine, maybe not."

"You're such a douchebag."

"Chill. I'm just trying to lighten the mood." And really, I am, but now I feel like I've inadvertently offended him.

"There's a time and a place for your dark humor, and this is neither the time nor the place." His gaze is fixed on me, his finger pointed right at my face. Then he dips that same finger back towards the crumbs and brings some fresh ones to his mouth. "Why is it that all our conversations go back to women?"

"It's kind of a fascinating subject."

"It is." He delivers an impassioned nod.

"And we're in our 20s."

"We are."

"And male."

"Keep it coming with the worthless details. Lets do this." He closes his eyes and spreads a Cheshire Cat grin across his face.

"And you desperately need to find your better half because this half is lagging the fuck behind."

"Dude, no more unemployment jokes. It's getting old."

"You read into that one. I was talking about your weight."

"You find me an extra $60/month and I'll sign up for the damn gym." He grabs at the side of his stomach and pinches. "I don't think this used to be here."

"Honestly, you've looked the same for like the last 10 years." I feel bad that maybe he might be taking more of this personally than I thought.

"So you're saying that 10 years ago I was hotter?"

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying."

"Can we change the subject? Isn't there something else we can talk about?" His attention wanes again. "That waitress is cute," he says, tilting his head towards her with an intent to be all inconspicuous-like, but in short, tense movements that makes it look like he has a nervous tic. "Is she always here?"

"Pretty much."

"This place totally raises my spirits. I just need to be around hot women and I feel better. Anxious and bothered and love-lorn, but better." He sits for a moment, motionless, contemplating something. "Ah!"

"What!?"

"Let's change the subject, this is driving me nuts."

"Fine. We can always talk about Swine Flu."

"Um, don't you mean H1N1?"

"You're an asshole."

"Thank you Dr. Sanjay Gupta."

Cigarettes

2009-05-03T13:44:00.001-04:00

"Shit." She lifted her purse up to her face and stuck her head inside.

"Hold this," she said, handing me her coffee and tossing in the liberated arm in an effort to fish something from the bottom. The deli clerk looked on curiously.

Out came her cell phone, a packet of tissues, the case for her sunglasses, a rolled up issue of US Weekly, the pages of which unfurled as she populated the plastic counter with the "if you were born after this date in 1991, we won't sell you tobacco products" sticker.

"Don't judge," she said without looking at me, still trying to see to the bottom of the purse.

I smiled, "whatever. I know you're just taking a break from 'The Economist.'"

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. We can't all be as intellectual as you."

"We're so fucking old."

"What?"

I pointed to the sticker. "1991? Damn."

She didn't answer, choosing instead to focus on her task. A hand finally emerged with a fistful of change that she spread out. Among the dimes and nickles, the copper gleam of the pennies made her face glow triumphant. Her fingers began pulling apart the coins, counting up to the $1.52 that she still owed for her packet of cigarettes. The rest of the change clanged against objects as swiped it back into her purse and let it sink back down to the bottom.

"You should consider getting a little change thingy."

The clerk huffed in annoyance as he recounted everything and rang it up, passing the Marlboro Lights over to her.

"Thanks!" she said in her sprightly way, and ran out of the deli. I grabbed the other items that she left on the counter.

"Hey, you might want these."

"Yeah. Good call." She let me throw everything back inside the bag as it hung from her shoulder, using her free hands to light the cigarette that was already fixed between her lips. After a few self-congratulatory drags, she pulled her sunglasses down over the eyes still puffy from the previous night's binge drinking, and turned to look at me.

"So."

"So."

"I'd offer you a cigarette but you don't smoke. Gum?"

"No, thanks. And I do smoke, every now and then, while I'm out sometimes. But I don't think I've ever had one up in the middle of the afternoon."

"Judgy judgy." Her voice squeaked in a way that indicated she was in the process of losing it.

"I'm not being judgmental. I'm just saying."

"It was your tone."

"Hey, if you read into my tone, that's your own thing. Don't blame me for your insecurity."

"We can do this all day. Every time we meet up we end up sparing."

"I'm sorry." I threw up my hands in a highly excited manner and grabbed her shoulders playfully. "I'm so sorry!"

She pushed me away, "OK, OK. Stop. Thank you. OK."

I laughed. "Why so serious? With your monster bee glasses. Those things are like eye parasols. You're scaring me."

"My eyes are very sensitive to the sun. And they were only closed for 4 hours last night. I showed, didn't I? Even though I went out last night."

"Well sure, you'd be lame if you flaked out on our once-every-6-months coffee because you decided to go out. I don't see how this is you doing me a favor..."

"God, you don't stop do you?" She finally began walking towards the subway.

"Whatever, you like it." I followed alongside.

"Clearly enough that we only hang out twice a year."

"Yeah, why is that?"

"Busy. Life. Responsibilities. You being annoying."

"It would probably just be weird if we actually saw each other more than that. Like what would we talk about? I feel like we have the sort of relationship where stuff needs to build up for a few months in order for us to be able to have anything to say."

"That's sort of sad, isn't it?" She took another puff and blew out a cloud of smoke that misted transparent as we walked through it.

"I don't know. I don't think so." I looked ahead, down the street, squinting from the light.

"Well," she tilted her head towards me and took my arm, "then I will cherish these next few moments that we have."

I glanced down at her. "You're always looking for an excuse to have physical contact with me."

"I guess I can't help myself," she said sarcastically. "It's just that you have such shapely arms." She pulled herself away abruptly and threw the finish cigarette to the ground without stepping on it. "It was good seeing you though."

"Yeah. Definitely. I'd say we should do this more often but, well, you know."

"Probably wouldn't work out anyway."

"Probably not."

"You taking the F?" She asked, pointing to the station we had arrived at.

"Brooklyn."

"You and Brooklyn. I never would have guessed. It seems like its becoming serious."

"What can I say? She's after my own heart."

"And we know how picky you are."

There was that accenting moment of silence that always crawled into the conclusion of our conversations, reminding that we wouldn't see each other again for a long while. It was always those pauses that I recalled whenever I thought back to our previous meet-ups.

"And so," I finally started, "you're doing well? You're happy?" I wanted to leave with a highly simplified image of her in my mind, ignore the complexities that had dominated the last three hours of our time.

"I am," she said, smiling at me from behind the glasses that made it impossible to tell where she was looking. "Everything is really good."

I pulled her towards me to give her a hug, the stubble from my cheek grabbing at her hair as it brushed past. Her arms wrapped around me mechanically, politely. In the middle of the hold, she suddenly squeezed me tight for a second, relaxed, and then squeezed tight again for a moment longer.

"Well," her voice was squeaky again as she released me and moved away backwards on her heels, her flip-flops smacking against the pavement, "enjoy your ridiculously long commute."

I waved to her. "You don't have to worry about me."

She smiled as she turned to continue down the street, "I never do."

Bangin'

2009-04-28T01:05:00.000-04:00

I can't stand how every time I come out of the Union Sq. subway station after work there are these dudes there with their upside-down buckets and pots bangin' away. I'm like, "bitch, it's not 1999 anymore. 'Stomp' was new and different - but not ever good - over a decade ago." Maybe it's a tourist thing, or maybe it's a matter of taste, but they still draw crazy crowds of people who, by standing around these douchebags, make it impossible for me to get out of the damn place. And really, like after a day in the office working behind a computer screen, I need to hear this crap? Bang bang bang. Gives me a damn migraine. And it's not even good! I'd take some dude on a darbuka any day. Maybe a drum circle with real f'in drums! Even that crazy guy who come onto the subway and mounts an entire keyboard on a stand in the center of the train is at least talented. And that other guy in the leather jacket that I sometimes see with an electric guitar, a small amp, and a slurred voice actually has some style to him. The mariachi band guys are decent too. And yet with these drumming guys, there's nothing cool or hip about the fact that they found their instruments in the dumpster. They sound like that's where they came from. A paint can was good for holding paint, but it's not all that good as a percussion instrument. And would a little inventiveness hurt? I mean if I'm going to come to terms with the fact that their gimmick is that they play "music" with trash, can't we at least pick some trash that makes OK music? What about like making a string instrument out of a cardboard box and old cables? Then maybe I'd impressed. Earplugs next time. For sure.

And while I'm on the subject of noise, the other day while I was enjoying a nice day outside, on the bench of a local coffeeshop, this guy drives by in his f'in Audi, windows rolled down, pumping some junk rap music with a crazy subwoofer that's, of course, making my iced coffee shake like some apporaching t-rex. Fine, so this guy is trying to compensate for something, he wants some attention, I get it. I've seen it before and I'm over it. But like, it's not enough that he's just going to drive by being dick, instead, he decides to park his car on the corner of the street along which I'm sitting and, get this, he gets out of the car and walks away. We're talking his car is just sitting there, windows still rolled down, keys still in the ignition, blasting this music while he just takes off. I think, OK, he stepped out and he's going to jump back in, but schmuck is gone for a good 10 minutes, forcing the rest of us to listen to his awful, awful track selection. What's wrong with people?

The Spark of Entry

2009-04-21T11:24:00.000-04:00

This girl I know did a little project where she collected people's stories about how they got more into their Jewish identity. I wrote a little background story about my experiences which you can find here. It's kind of the more developed situation that existed behind the monologue I do for the "Monologues" show. Check out the rest of the site too. It's kind of small right now but I definitely think it has potential to become a blog of sorts or a larger collection of people's individual stories.

How Many Socks is Too Many Socks?

2009-04-19T09:41:00.000-04:00

Its only in the last few months that I've allowed myself a luxury I never had before - giving all my laundry to the dry cleaners to do. I estimate that I end up paying a premium of about $30 extra per month in order to not have to do it myself. Is that worth it? Depends on how you look at it. Do I want to sit for a few hours at some random steamy laundromat (especially with the summer coming up), making sure that no one reaches into the machine to touch my unmentionables? Not really. Do I like spending more money? No. So it's kind of a little bit of a dilemma, especially when you consider that you probably care more about your own clothes than some random person.

So fine, I guess at some point the whole time thing really got to me - faced with the prospect of having to do laundry that week, I'd keep putting it off indefinitely because I just couldn't/didn't want to find the time needed to do it. That's like with me and cleaning. Sometimes it all just seems so exhausting and time consuming that I'd rather not do it at all. Now it's the little dry cleaning place around the corner that is the lucky recipient of my business. As a cash-only establishment, I get a little bit of a headache everytime I need to dig into my pocket for $25, but whatever, in healthy relationships everyone has their quirks.

Except that recently, I've found that my dry cleaner's quirks have extended to losing my socks. When I used to do my own laundry, this was a rare occurrence. I know everyone always seems to have issues with the aliens that come down while you're not looking and whisk away single socks, leaving you with sad, unpaired and useless slivers of fabric, but this didn't really happen to me. Maybe I was lucky, maybe I have a knack for spotting loose clothing and reuniting it with its other half. Whatever it was, I didn't have to go to Costco to purchase the sox six-pack to compensate for the lost footwear.

Now, in the last 2-3 months, I've found myself with SEVEN unpaired socks. Luckily they tend to be the cheaper, plain black or white socks, but still. SEVEN. How do you lose so many socks? And is this too much? I feel like it is. I get that, maybe, every month or so, they lose a sock. But this is at the point where they've now lost multiple socks in single loads. Yesterday I come in to get my laundry again, and the woman who runs the place - who at this point is holding onto my loose socks in the event that, miraculously, she should somehow find a matching sock somewhere - tells me "oh, so we were able to match a pair because we found a loose sock in the load you dropped off."

And I was like, "um, no. There weren't any loose pairs in that load. I don't randomly throw in a single sock for you to wash."

She didn't really understand what I was saying I don't think, because she kept repeating herself, as if expecting me to be really appreciative when, really, what it came down to was that they managed to lose another sock that matched with a sock they had already lost. Perfect.

Ugh, it could be as simple as going somewhere else, but I feel like maybe this is a problem with all dry cleaning places that wash your clothes for you? Really, they otherwise do a fine job and they're by far the cheapest and closest option, so maybe I don't have such a bad thing going? I don't know, I'm torn. And there's also a part of me that has a sneaking suspicion that they don't really add bleach when I ask them to. Maybe I'm just being paranoid about that.

The People Upstairs

2009-04-17T16:46:00.000-04:00

Every morning at 4:30am, the ceiling above my bed begins to creak as the person living upstairs gets up for the day and starts moving around. I don't know who gets up at 4:30 to go to work, but apparently I have the good fortune of having one of these people living right above me. My building is post-war (I think), and it's all like "charming" wood finish and parquet floors, so I'm not surprised that it makes noise when you step on it. But what I don't get is how much this person moves around between 4:30 and 5:30 (when they seem to leave). First the sound is focussed right over me, so in the bedroom I'm guessing, but then for the next hour there's one set of creaks which move heavy, back and forth, from the bedroom area to the living room area, as if this person is just walking non-stop, for no particular reason. To the living room, to the kitchen, to the bedroom, to the living room, to the bedroom, to the bathroom, to the bedroom. Oh my God. It's ridiculous. Then separate from this main, louder noise, there's some weird scurrying sound that has to be some sort of pet (even though you aren't really allowed to have any, which means it could also be a scary crawling child monster) that creaks lighter. It moves on its own, apart from the main creaking, but also goes back and forth through the entire apartment for an hour.

Somehow I used to not be bothered by it and it didn't wake me up. But I guess since I'm older I'm becoming a lighter sleeper and now unless I wear earplugs, I'm up for an hour before the sun rises, until this person gets the hell out of their apartment and goes to wherever it is they go to in the morning. I'm just so damn curious to see who it is, but as always seems to happen when you live in an apartment building, I very rarely see anybody else entering or leaving. It's only in the hallway that I hear the occassional sounds, the opening of a mailbox or the walking up of stairs. When I first got here, I met one dude and thought "oh, this is going to be different than Manhattan because people are more social." Really, after that guy, I never met anyone else. Just now when I was getting my mail, there was a woman who walked in at the same time and there was this little awkwardness of us being neighbors who don't know each other. At one point, as I was turning my key in the lock, I looked back at her to be all like, "oh hey, you live here?" But she was already walking up the stairs and not noticing me. Interestingly enough, I got back to my place and the person above me seems to be home, so maybe she's that person? That would have been good to know because then I could have asked, "what is it that you do?" and "do you own a small rodent or are you in possession of a child that crawls?"

Still, I can't say it's as bad as my last apartment building where I gave every neighbor a holiday card, wrote my apartment number when I signed them, and never heard back from anyone. Not a peep. I kind of feel that if I went through the trouble of doing that here, at least a few people might get back to me, invite me over for dinner, set me up with their cousin(s). You know the drill. Neighbors are freaking crazy.

Self-Inflicted Literary Torture

2009-04-12T23:39:00.000-04:00

I remember being back in college and hearing all these stories surrounding the James Joyce tome "Ulysses."

"Beware," they said, "beware this book."

It was always billed as the unreadable book. A masterpiece that existed more in a fantastical, collective awe than in any sort of reality. Why not reality? Because everyone just talked about how amazing it was but I never actually met anyone who read it. The thing they all said was how they started it but could never get through it. How they'd trudge through 100, 300, 500 pages and then just run out of breath. Some people had started it and stopped and restarted it up to 4, 5 times. This was the book that would bring grown men to tears. I'm not saying that grown men, particularly, have a harder time crying than others. Really, it's just an expression. I think you know what I mean.

So "Ulysses" has always been this "thing" for me, this book that I might just, possibly, pick up one day and challenge myself to get through because it's more about saying that I did it than actually wanting to read it. I mean, it doesn't actually sound all that good (the plot, that is), and I'm not a particularly big fan of Joyce (I read "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" in school and thought it kinda sucked). So for me it would be more about a personal challenge that wouldn't necessarily have much literary or intellectual value (particularly if the book ends up being a boring, rambling mess, and I forget its content as soon as I set it down, as has happened with plenty of other "classics" I've been encouraged to read). I kind of think of it in the same way I think about keeping Passover - it's more about the experience of seeing if I can stick to the whole no bread or pasta thing for the whole stretch than gaining any sort of particular cultural or spiritual value from it. Yeah, I like the seder meals and the food and the community part, but the act itself, the actual "fasting" doesn't really do it for me other than to make me feel cool that I stared carbs in the face and totally dissed them.

Which brings me to my other point, or rather, to the whole reason I brought up "Ulysses" - the book I'm reading now. If I pick up a book and get at least 100 pages in, I have to finish it, no matter how shitty it is. The only book that has ever stumped me was "The Gulag Archipelago" which is my own personal "Ulysses," which is to say I've started it and not finished it at least 3 times, each time getting to page 400 or so. And with that, it's not that it's bad; rather, it's just very dense and hard to read day in and day out until you get through the whole thing. I started it when I went to Cancun in March 2004 and I can still see the Bulldog Cafe flyer I used as a placeholder while I was trying to read through it on the beach. Sad.

Right now I'm on page 423 of "The Brothers Karamazov." Holy crap. That thing is a monster and it's not at all enjoyable or even good in a "this is good literature" sort of way. It's just not. I'm sorry. I know it's like one of the greatest works of man, but I don't know what the big deal is. And still, I just know I have to finish it. It's been a month, continuing from when I started it 2 years ago, and I'm like 300 pages away from being done. I'm totally not enjoying the experience and I kind of wish I knew how to quit it.

Modern Times

2009-04-06T22:46:00.001-04:00

They're changing them on me. Slowly but inevitably, soon they will all be the same. It's 1984 on a NY scale, or maybe it's just me being dramatic. Maybe both.

Fine, I won't get ahead of myself, but it's already happening. Since November I've been a regular on the F train, the tried and true line of most of yuppie/hispter central Brooklyn, the blue blooded transport of the south eastern part of the borough. And so in these few months I have become invested in my train. In the mornings I see the same people getting through the same books, the same women in their late 20s and early 30s stroking their ring-less hands anxiously, the same young parents explaining inconsequential details to their children.

And then there's the voice, the reverberating of the conductor's explanations - transfer options, train traffic ahead, the need to stand clear of the closing doors. I have come to recognize two very distinct ones depending on what particular morning train I happen to catch. One is of an older gentleman, probably in his 50s, a heavy NY accent. He's definitely a local, and while he often sounds lazy, tired, bored, behind that superficial aspect of his tone, I hear a love, a passion he has for his City, for his work. His voice is an answer to every doubt I have ever had about whether this is the City for me. When I hear him, I can't imagine belonging anywhere else.

The other voice isof a younger man, clean-cut and precise. He's soft in the way he speaks, polite and considerate. During the winter, when the doors being open for even a second too long meant we'd all freeze, he'd apologize to everybody for it. Faced with the opportunity to transfer to the G from 3 consecutive stations, he'd consistently suggest that interested parties wait to transfer at a station that was underground rather than above, to avoid having to stand out in the cold.

And those trains that they run, there are two consistent types. Sometimes its the parallel rowed one with the grey seats. Otherwise its the old school lego block train with the interlocked seats, red and orange and yellow, stacked atop one another so that if you sit in the double seat the juts out into the middle, your knees touch the knees of the person sitting perpendicular to you.

Its the kind of thing you can't stand or don't care for until it's gone. And now, for the last few weeks, all I see are the new trains, the ones that have been running on the 6 line for over a year, and the more updated version which has been speeding towards Astoria for a few months now. It's all blue benches and steel, not enough to call it "sterile" but significantly devoid of grit in the way I think of NY. That part I'm actually OK with, but it's the voices too that have vanished. Replacing the sounds of the conductors I've come to know are the robotic voices of some unnamed woman and man who just don't really seem to give a shit about me in the way it seemed my human conductors did. And now they're everywhere, the stock voices on all the new trains. They still relay the same information, but there's just no humanity to any of it, there's no character to the particular train that I'm in. I'm just a thing being launched from one borough to another now, a number in a machine, not a NYer who is always running late and never seems to have enough time for everything he needs to do.

I wonder if I'll ever see my conductors again, or if I might just hear them once more at some point, a whisper coming from the edge of a platform on some late night drunken wait for the train that I'll recognize as what NY used to be.

How Dare You Sing For Co-Existence?

2009-03-30T16:17:00.000-04:00

Last week I was like, "awww, that's heart warming." I'm a sucker for feel-good stories, especially when it seems there's only chaos and bullshit happening in the world. So when I read this article, I thought that maybe, on some small scale, it's possible to change things, affect some people, spark a little compassion and mutual understanding amidst the unsolvable riddle that is the "Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" or the "Jewish-Arab Conflict," or whatever you want to call it. One major issue I have with the current state of affairs is the obvious indoctrination of children who grow up in the West Bank and in Gaza (and throughout the Arab/Muslim world). We've all heard the stories about the crazy textbooks that teach children to count based on killing Jews and which constantly promote continued "resistance" and the eventual creation of a Palestinian state that encompasses all of modern-day Israel. And fine, we look at everything with a skeptical eye, and despite the hateful things anti-West, anti-Semitic things they show on TV in that part of the world (you can watch a few clips from memritv.org to get an idea of what it looks like), we still wonder about how much hate incitement and brainwashing and indoctrination actually happens.

Well this adds a little peg to the "I told you so" pile. A bunch of these kids went from Jenin to play for a group of holocaust survivors and here I am thinking it's really nice and sweet and an amazing show of humanity, and what happens less than a week later? You get this - the total condemning of the concert and the "banning" of the Israeli Arab woman who planned it from entering Jenin. Of course I can understand this response of a people who call the Holocaust a "political issue" and who said that the participation of the children was a "dangerous matter" because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians and because it might "impact the national culture of the young generation and cast doubt about the heroism and resistance of the residents of the camp during the Israeli invasion in April 2002." Yeah, we wouldn't want to create any doubt in the minds of children about these "heroes" now would we.

The thing that scares the leaders in Jenin and in the Palestinian Authority about something like this is precisely the idea that doing things like this might, just might, help contribute to a "normalization" of relations with Israel, something no leader on the Palestinian side really wants because that might mean a true two-state solution where Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace rather than the continuing plan of having Israel disappear altogether. Think about it - you undermine the refugee camp system, you undermine the root hatred that Palestinians have for Israelis, and you undermine the grand objective of removing the "Zionist epidemic," of destroying Israel, of creating a Palestine that stretches from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. The elements of moderation and of peace who would see a true two-state solution and a normalization of relations between Israel and a future Palestine, elements that include women like Wafa Younis, the conductor of the orchestra, are shunned and silenced in favor of those who would prefer to continue the 60+ year status quo of "resistance" and hatred. Maybe people like living for generations in a refugee camp system, in a bubble, I don't know. Maybe it creates a sense of worth and purpose that might not otherwise be found in the "boredom" of peaceful co-existence. This is not to lay full blame on Palestinians or on Arab leaders for all that has not come about in the last 60+ years, but only to highlight a simple little event that, at least for me, underlines the entire problem - you can't have peace if you don't have a partner who's interested in peace.

That's also why on some level, I can agree with at least some of Netanyahu's direction even while I totally shun any racist policy that might have, in the past, been suggested by some of the members of the coalition that is emerging to run the government. The parts that I like recognize that there is no current partner for peace with the Palestinians, that Hamas is useless and that the PA is corrupt and weak and unrepresentative of the Palestinians and just as hateful towards Jews and Israel as the most extreme elements, and that as a result we must focus first on the building of Palestinian civic society, an infrastructure, an economy that can support its own people and bring them some prosperity and investment in the world outside of the refugee camps, and of an educational system that does not direct Palestine's children towards a culture of death and martyrdom. Maybe then a partner for peace may emerge, maybe then people can get serious about compromising on true borders that involve a little less of some and a little more of something else than they might have originally liked or wanted.

Monologues in Sarasota

2009-03-23T20:13:00.001-04:00

So here I am, sitting in the "green" room (which is something I don't get because they're almost never green and I know I've been meaning to look it up but I still haven't so the name continues to not make sense to me) of a theater in Sarasota, Florida. I'm out here with my show "Monologues" performing for the community. Can you believe? We came out for a one-night stay so we could do the performance tonight and then we're back in town tomorrow. I feel like such a jet setter.

I have to say, this group of people I do the show with are an amazing bunch. I was the first to go, so I have the good fortune of being able to sit back here and BS with you guys while I hear my fellow Monologuers doing their pieces. This is a big deal for us, being able to travel like this, bring the show to new people who wouldn't otherwise see it. We have high hopes for the direction of this thing. I mean, already, we went from a small, 3-show open in the LES back in November 2007 and now we've got a consistent run on the UWS and some travel opportunities. Next on the agenda are two more NYC shows on March 31 and April 1, followed by a trip down to Miami for two shows at the end of April, back to NYC for two more shows on April 30 and May 1, and then to Chicago for one show on May 7th.

So, this is where I say "if you haven't seen it, you gotta come out!" You'll forgive me this cheesy post saturated with self-promotion but I'm in Monologues mode because of where I am and what's going on around me. It's not an exaggeration for me to say that this is, hands down, the single most rewarding thing I've done in the last 1-1.5 years. And if you know me, you know how ridiculously hard it is for me to describe something like that. I think that comes from my emotionally detached Aquarian nature, at least that's what the horoscopes tell me. In any case, see the show, tell your friends, make love not war.

Blogging From The Berry

2009-03-20T17:40:00.001-04:00

I figured that since I've been unable to find time to blog from home or whenever I'm in front of a computer, I might as well try blogging from the road. The "road" in this case is while sitting on the bench outside of my favorite coffee shop in the West Village (a coffee shop and bench that was featured in the only song I ever wrote in my life, a collaboration with the best guitar player I know - Carlos). Gotta tell ya - it's really freaking nice to be out of work by 4pm on Fridays, coffee in hand, weekend to look forward to. I deserve it though, because I have been a work horse lately, so this is my little respite.

Today, since I'm writing all this on my Blackberry, I want to discuss Blackberries for a minute (or "BB"s as I'm going to call them throughout so as to save my poor thumbs). Damn it's getting cold out here; it was so nice a second ago! Anyway, I've had one since the firm days, so like 2.5 years now, and its gotten to the point where I couldn't imagine how much more complicated life would be without one. I just think of all those emails I'm able to deal with at random times so that when I come into work, I'm not swamped by everything I wasn't able to take care of. Yeah, that's right, I rather be able to do stuff on my own time rather than just when I'm in the office. The only problem is that the other side of the equation isn't common yet - a less office-centric workplace. If I'm able to deal with so much after work and during my weekend and from my own computer, then there should be a corresponding decentralization of work so that I'm able to work from wherever and whenever I'm most efficient and only actually show up to an office for necessary meetings and to touch base with people. I'm thinking the new future, coming shortly I hope, will feature an expectation of only 20 hours in-office time with the remaining 20+ hours of full-time work being reserved for you to accomplish as you see fit. I mean, so long as you get your stuff done, why should it matter how or when or where you do it? That's what always bothered me about the firm - face time. They'll tell you "oh no, we dont care about that," but that's a big lie. True, face-time is a lot less important these days, and limited face time is necessary for the feeling of corporate unity, but the extent to which it is still demanded these days is a little behind the times and the direction of technology. If I'm most efficient working at 1pm from my bed, then why deny me that efficiency? I'm telling you guys, we need to get over this office thing.

That said, there's something scary about the blurring of personal and worklife that is happening. I mean, I watch myself on my BB and I realice I'm kind of addicted. I check my email or the news whenever I'm bored or sense a lull in whatever ectivity I'm involved in. I'm addicted to dealing with things immediately. I walk down the freaking street holding the thing up in front of me so I can read/type while moving. My peripheral vision picks up on the person directly in front of me and their movements guide my own.

It's when I'm not behaving in this way that I notice how damaging it is to society. I'm on the subway and everyone's head is bowed as they type away or play with their iphone. No one notices anyone else anymore. No one notices anything going on around them. I thought people stuck to their little bubble before because New Yorkers by nature are skeptical of others and suspicious of interacting with strangers, but this is a whole new level of reclusiveness. Everyone sits in their little virtual cocoons while the world spins around them. Even right now, as write this from the bench, who knows how many things I've missed out on? A funny looking kid I could have laughed at or a dog in a mini-wheelchair or a skateboarder falling on his ass while attempting a trick. Just thinking about it makes me regret sitting on this thing for so long.

Additional note because I just have to mention this - the dude next to me on the bench (playing with his iphone mind you) totally farted. I think it was one of those "it's ok, I'm outside and it's windy, so no one will know" farts, but no, the fumes totally hit me just now.

Yeah OK so I'm kind of turned off from continuing and I think I said everything I wanted to say, so I'll sign off for now. Enjoy your weekends and don't fart next to other people even if you're outside.

On a Cold Vermont Afternoon

2009-03-09T16:44:00.000-04:00

Over a year ago I was walking around in Woodstock, Vermont, slowly recovering from the shock of discovering a town named "Woodstock" that existed in a place other than New York and was actually less hippy and more cool than the "original" namesake. We had just popped out from a shee-shee chocolataire place and had finished exploring the graphic novels in the independent bookstore when we decided to make a little stop at the local mom-and-pop grocery store. Amidst the hanging salamis and Vermont-jarred preserves, a friend of mine made happened across a distinguished gentleman with white hair who had a familiar air about him.

"I know that guy," he whispered to me, all undercover-like, making sideways glances at the guy who was now speaking with an older woman we assumed was his wife, as they considered cakes and muffins and croissants.

I looked towards him, I stared actually, because I assumed his advanced years would prevent him from noticing a gawker. It was the kind of move my brother would have yelled at me for, furrowing his brow in anger and saying something like "what the hell!? I'm never telling you anything again!" But I was right, and he didn't notice me, so I continued the unabashed observation.

Who was this mysterious man with the aristocratic air? I too sensed that I knew him from somewhere.

"He's in movies," my friend said, "he's a character actor. What the heck's his name?"

My friend left to walk around the tiny store, to grab another angle, to have a better look. Each time he repositioned himself he would glance up momentarily, continuing with the sneaky vibe that was really just making him more obvious than he would have otherwise been. But still, no luck.

"I can't stand this," he told me as we left the character actor back at the store and proceeded towards the car because the 2-hour parking allotment was about to run out, "I have to remember who he is."

And so for months, for over a year, it was a running joke. Sometimes I'd randomly ask my friend, "so did you figure out who that guy in Vermont was?" He'd always toss me a look of pure disappointment; clearly this was something he thought a lot about, maybe even something that kept him up at nights. I wondered about the dark circles under his eyes.

All of this was the status quo until, that is, last week, when out of the blue, and without prompting, I got an email from him titled - "The actor we saw in Vermont." The rest of the email consisted of just a name and two simple links:

Robert Vaughn - http://serialy.mirekholy.net/data/hustle/wallpapery/robert_vaughn.jpg

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001816/

Thank you Robert Vaughn for bringing us to the brink of madness.

My 10 Favorite Videos of All-Time

2009-02-27T11:12:00.001-05:00

OK, so maybe this is a list I can't really totally stand behind because, seriously, do I even remember what my Top 10 Videos of All Time are? Probably not. But still, it might be fun to try to put one together based on what I do remember, based on what has stuck in my mind despite all those years of heavy drug use. You know how it is. Also, as a background point - I will not include the video of myself doing my monologue. I feel like that's a cop-out, although the rap video I appear in...it might just make an appearance. You might also be wondering what inspired me to work on this? I admit - it was the video put up on Gawker of the end to the NYU "protest" about everything/nothing that happened last week. Because it's just so freaking good, I'll put it at the end, as something that's both current and amazing, and so that you can look forward to it. So this list, it isn't in any particular order:

Apple: Think Different
OK, so technically this is an ad, but it doesn't make it any less awesome. Years later, I still get goosebumps when I see this thing and hear the commanding voice of Richard Dreyfus narrating in the background.

Shoes
One of the greatest YouTube videos of all time. I became a little obsessed with the creator of it for like two weeks but then realized the rest of his stuff just couldn't live up to it. It's just so freaking campy and random. In three syllables - a...ma...zing.

Japanese Prank Show
Oh those crazy Japanese people with their unabashedly embarrassing prank shows. No one tops the Japanese when it comes to pranks...and digital cameras. This one I've watched at least ten times and still cry everytime. Please be patient and sit through the whole thing because the build-up to the final few minutes is what makes the final few minutes that much funnier.

Light 'Em Up
It helps that I was in this video, but independent of that, I just think it was an awesome song. Yeah, fine, I admit, being part of the process makes it cooler in my mind.

Amazing Guitar
I've watched this one at least ten times also. I don't know how he does it.

Romance of the Jedi
There was this relatively short-lived period of time in my life when I became obsessed with spoof movie trailers. This one started the obsession and remains my favorite.

Best Monologue Ever
From "Scent of a Woman." Best monologue ever (at least in any film I've seen). Everytime a certain someone I'm related to catches this on TV, he starts crying. That's when I start laughing. What can I say? We're an emotional people.

Where the Hell is Matt
The original came out a few years ago, but ever since that self-made Internet hit, Matt Harding has made a living out of travelling around the world and doing a stupid dance in exotic locales (and in the process, making us all freaking jealous of the fact that we spend most of our lives sitting in front of computer screens). This is the latest one he's done, which might just be his best (in no small part thanks to the near-perfect soundtrack that accompanies the clips).

Charlie Bit Me
Just because.

NYU Occupation!
A bunch of rich kids got bored and took over the 3rd floor of the NYU student center. Hilarity ensued.

It's That Magical Place, Far Far Away, The One I Call "Iran"

2009-02-24T01:15:00.000-05:00

I'm a progressive guy, at least I like to think I am. This whole Iranian thing, them being crazy and them building missles and them wanting to kill everybody, I of course take it all with a grain of skepticism. I'm the first to jump on the "but look at their Western loving students!" bandwagon. "Look at them! They wear blue jeans and listen to Britney Spears!" I'm the first to recognize that they have their own complex and proud Persian (not Arab) history that colors their actions and their existence. I'm the first to want to believe that despite everything Ahmadinejad says, despite what the Ayatollah spouts to chanting masses, that Iranians are a people who can see past the rhetoric of lunatics and war-mongers. But at the same time, I'm a realist, and you can write all the lovey-dovey articles you want about the place - the fact is still that for all that Iran has which is hopeful, for everything that makes me pray that some sort of student-led revolution against the Islamic Revolution is brewing in some illegal bar circuit somewhere in Tehran, I remain relatively uneasy about what is going down in Iran.

I have a confession to make - I have a subscription string on the "New York Times" website which connects me to articles that reference "Jew," "Jewish" (although I guess that one ends up being redundant), and "Israel." This is a relatively new thing I started doing about 2 years ago when I became totally obsessed with Jewish/Israel news because, sometimes, it seems that's all the world wants to talk about anyway. Yes, sometimes I'm a follower. This morning I get a link to Roger Cohen's article on Iranian Jews. According to Cohen - and this is me simplifying - everything is just peachy for the crew of 30-40 thousand Jews that remain in Islamicized Iran. Cohen goes ahead and interviews a couple of shop keepers, cites the basic fact that the Jews who remain in Iran have been relatively unharassed since 1979, and just shows us that Iran's not all that bad when it comes to their Jewish citizens - in stark contract to how it feels about the Zionist scourge of Israel.

And so it seems Cohen is very willing to accept his seemingly obvious conclusion - Iran can hate Israel, but it doesn't have to hate it's Jews. Well, of course not. I mean, consider some of the facts he also mentions - "I know, if many Jews left Iran, it was for a reason. Hostility exists. The trumped-up charges of spying for Israel against a group of Shiraz Jews in 1999 showed the regime at its worst. Jews elect one representative to Parliament, but can vote for a Muslim if they prefer. A Muslim, however, cannot vote for a Jew."

Jews, in an Islamicized society that is not democratic, are a marginal, ineffectual group of nobodies who the Iranian regime doesn't even bother with (except to the extent they need to toss a few on trial for spying for Israel every now and then, just to keep them in check). Consider the pre-Iranian population of 100,000 Jews, most of which left. The ones that left were the ones who had money, who were, for the most part, the educated, the elite, the successful. The ones who stayed were, for the most part, the day laborers, the poor, the ones who couldn't get out or didn't have the wherewithal to get out in the face of a country that was turning from a Western-backed Shah (granted, not the nicest of men in his own right) to an ass-backwards fundamentalist regime. I don't disown these Jews, I don't discount the tranquility with which most have probably led their lives in otherwise domestically peaceful Iran. But this, by no means, shows me that Iran means no harm to the Jews or to the West, that it is not as much fire and brimstone as Iran's leaders, themselves, seem to project.

Like I said, I'm a progressive, and so I know that Iranian society is filled with cosmopolitan people who don't like the regime, who don't like the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad or any of this "we need nuclear fuel because we really need nuclear power plants" bullshit that any of them is spouting, who love the West and everything the West still continues to mean to dark parts of the world - freedom of expression and freedom of existence. But this does not discount the fact that the place is run by people who, whether we like it or not, are the ones that are still in power and who still control the country's direction and who still have it on a collision course with the West and with Israel and, yes, even with "Jews."

Even if you take a very brief step back from the obvious Jewish-Israel association and simply say "well, they don't like Israel, but they don't mind Jews," a quick visit to a site like MemriTV shows you what a nice selection of anti-Semitic propoganda still appears on primetime Iranian TV. I mean, books like the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" is still a top seller in Iran, "Mein Kampf" is freaking mainstream reading. The fact that some no-name, limited-rights Jews who don't talk too loudly, aren't bothered too badly, and are left alone so they can sell their dusty antiques in narrow alleys and go pray in their little synagogues, doesn't say anything about Iran's regime and the regime's intentions for the future. The chants of "Death to Israel," the claims of wiping Israel off the map, all of these are excused and forgotten because, well, Iran is good to its Jews! There we have the true face!

It's BS and we all know it. I give Iran's Jews a total of 30 seconds of safety if Iran ever gets into a real war with Israel and you have to be a fool to think otherwise. I'm all about saying that you're criticizing Israel and that your separating your political criticism of a political entity from the hatred of the people who make up a vast majority of that entity. That's all well and good. But then maybe we should be fair about this, right? Iran is just out to protect the world's Muslims, right? Which explains why there's so much animosity towards Israel because, shit, I mean if you look at how awful they are and what they did in Gaza, then you know that we have to hate Israel for that. So let's stage rallies and call for jihad and hate them because they deserved to be hated. But wait, so what happened to the rallies against deaths in Iraq? Where are the anti-Taliban rallies? Where is the cry of injustice against the Serbs and the Russians for their military actions? When will Iran stop supplying weapons to the terrorists around the world who kill the more Muslims than anybody else?

Sorry, maybe I just spoke out of turn, but I still find it a little odd, this seemingly "justifiable" rhetoric that is downplayed by people as not such a big deal, as just some silly displeasure with all things West. The point is that Iran's regime doesn't just criticize Israel - it calls for its annihilation. This to me is a step in the genocidal direction, the same way that if I said I wanted to wipe Iran off the map, that would be me saying "I want to kill most of the world's Persians." But hey, no one would tolerate that, would they? But hey, there are no double-standards in this world, are there?

As an oft-quoted Holocaust survivor once said - "One thing I've learned is that if someone tells you they want to kill you, you should believe them."

Dry

2009-02-16T02:50:00.000-05:00

Look at me - I haven't had anything to say since February 6th? Doesn't seem right. I mean, hear I am, 2:30 in the morning, and I have a hell of a lot to say, but for whatever reason, I haven't been saying it. And it's not just because it's been 10 days. If you look back over the last two months you'll see...that there's been very little word from me. Yes that rhymes, and no, it was not intentional, and yes that absolutely means that I have mad poetic skills.

I think about what it is that makes my writing dry out. Well, first, I can blame the fact that a lot of stuff has been happening, stuff that keeps me away from my keyboard and the opportunity to wonder about the rest of society.

Second, and this maybe makes it a little sick even - things haven't been that bad. I hate to admit it but being a little down, having stuff going on that makes you upset or angry or, for me, contemplative in a brooding sort of way, makes you write more. And better. Shit! Yes! Better too. At least that's how it works for me. I know that it totally sucks, that you have to be suffering or tortured in some way in order to express yourself better, but I can't help that it's true. There's something terribly wrong with that. Or maybe I'm just having a little cause-effect mix-up here; perhaps because things are OK/good, I probably end up spending less time at home and in front of the keyboard, which means I write less, and so, in a way, the writing less is directly effected by the lack of keyboard-access time rather than by the emotional state of my psyche.

Whatever, maybe it doesn't matter either way, but what does matter is that whenever I write less I get PISSED OFF. It's the strangest thing. It's not like I'm a prolific writer anyway. It's not like this is my job and I've been published and now without a steady stream of content I'm suddenly broke or have a reason to get depressed because my life-blood is sapped. But at the same time, it's important enough to me that when I do it less I feel crappy about it. I wonder - where is that Ruvym I know and love who has so much to say about so little? I don't know! I don't know! Bring him back! And then when I finally do get the chance to sit down and work on something then I have the next stage of having to deal with the quality of what I produce. I was talking about this earlier today, but it's like writing, more than anything else in the world, has the ability to bring me rally high and to drop me really low. If I put time and effort into something and after a few hours I look at it and think it's crap, I feel totally awful, like a complete failure, like I'll never write anything decent ever again. But then if I manage to create something that's not too bad, that I'm kind of happy with, then I get this crazy feeling of having conquered the world, all from some silly little short story or scene I wrote. The extremes sort of don't really make sense to me, but that's just how it is.

I really don't know what that says about me. Maybe that I'm neurotic? Or I'm bipolar? Maybe both. Maybe neither. But rest assured, I don't have nearly as extreme a set of feelings when it comes to blog writing. I just think this strange Internet place is detached enough for me that I'm able to just have a good time with it and not judge myself based on whether or not I like what I wrote. For that, I appreciate this space. That still doesn't address my "problem" of not having the time/desire to write, but I just thought I should put it all on the table.

Copyrighting Obama

2009-02-06T13:59:00.056-05:00

You might have read this story about how the artist who created the now "iconic" HOPE poster with Obama sort of, kind of, maybe took the photo from an AP archive and never asked anybody for permission to use it. As soon as I saw it, my law school days as a lad seriously interested in all things copyright came bubbling back to the surface, and I found, contrary to my belief for a while now, that there were still aspects of legal analysis that I actually care about.

So my copyright memory is beginning to fade, but I think that legally, the artist has a hard case to make. I mean he took this photo, in its entirety, and changed it into a multi-hued, art deco thing, really only switching the colors and adding the word "HOPE" to the bottom. That changed it around, changed the context somewhat, but the underlying photo is still a photo and its still exactly as it was. Additionally he's making money off this thing, maybe not directly but the use is definitely commercial. The thing with commercial/non-commercial is that if it's commercial, it hurts you, but if it's non-commercial, it doesn't help you all that much if you've otherwise taken an image in its entirety, and not tranformed its use in any way.

There's more to it, but those are the very general basics. What'll probably end up happening is that he'll pay out a license fee or royalties and that'll be the end of it. AP will not want to be associated with enjoining all use of what has become a pop-culture phenomenon. At the same time, you look at something like this and you think that he probably should be allowed to do what he did with it, legality aside. I have major issues with copyright law, and what exactly it protects. I mean here you have a news photo that's relatively unremarkable and happens to be one of probably thousands of photos of Obama taken on just one day. An artist grabbed it and changed it into something that's more than just a news photo, albeit without altering the photo in any way. I mean, I wonder how many other photos taken that same day, taken any day, have Obama in pretty much the same contemplative pose but from a slightly different angle or different lighting. What are we protecting here? Maybe it's one thing if someone took the photo and started showing it as-is and saying its their photo. That's obviously bullshit. But this guy took an otherwise unremarkable photo from a massive archive of photos and made it into something more and maybe he should be allowed to do something like that without having to secure licensing rights.

The news aspect of copyright is another issue. Imagine you have an event that occurs and only one news station is there to capture the event. Technically they own the copyright to the footage and if they choose never to show it to anyone, they technically have that right (unless it needs to be subpoenaed in court or something). But is this proper? I mean on the one hand we want to encourage news stations to take photos and film and to be able to own the rights to their stuff. But can we comfortably say that this filming of news should garner the same level of protection as, say, a film developed out of the creativity of a group of people? Is there a creative element that comes into play if someone is standing at the right place and at the right time with a camera that he uses to capture something?

Food for thought.

Venezuela Seethes

2009-02-03T10:14:00.060-05:00

A couple of days ago armed men in Venezuela entered a major synagogue and vandalized the place, spray-painting the walls and breaking religious relics. A friend of mine sent me some of the aftermath pictures, and while it's not as bad as it could have been (i.e. it doesn't look like they destroyed the torahs), it's a scary sign of what seems to be brewing in many parts of the world, especially following Israel's Gaza campaign. I mean this kind of stuff always happens when tensions rise in Israel, but I don't ever remember it getting this bad. And it's not just Venezuela. All over South America and Europe, Antisemitism has seen a sharp rise. Part of it is most definitely related to better hate-crime identification and reporting, but part of it is just the continued global dislike of Jews. If we're honest with ourselves, we know that people pointing at Israel and expressing their outrage as being "directed towards Israel, but not towards Jews" as total bullshit. I would never say that being critical of Israel automatically makes you an Antisemite, but the kind of criticism of Israel that's brewing out there crosses the line into clear Antisemitism. Attend any of these "Pro-Palestinian" rallies and you'll see plenty of signs and many expressed opinions that repeat the same refrain - "Death to the Jews," "Liberate Palestine," "Jews Back to the Ovens." It happened during the Lebanon campaign of 2006 and its happening again now. And don't mistake the otherwise "innocuous" line to "Liberate Palestine" or to "End the Occupation" as just some political opinion expressed regarding Israel's continued presence in the West Bank and, now to a larger extent again, Gaza. While some are clearly concerned only about these areas and seek a lasting peace with a two-state (or whatever) solution, a lot of these people who speak of "liberation" and "occupation" seek the total liberation of Palestine, via a Hamas-esque rhetoric, that says that Israel has no right to exist and that its presence anywhere in the Middle East constitutes an occupation. It's not about peace or compromise or finding a way to live together. It's about any sort of continued Jewish/Western presence in that area of the world.

Now what do any of these douchbags in Venezuela have to do with any of this? Are they really concerned about their Palestinian brothers in Gaza? As hateful and Antisemetic as I think "Pro-Palestinian" rallies get, this is yet another step removed, the expression of pure Antisemitism devoid of any viable claim to be supporting Palestinians or angry at Israel "just as a state." When Israel does something that involves people dying, or when the "Jewish-controlled" financial systems of the world teeter, this is high-time for world's trash to come out and to blame the Jews. The Jewish community in Venezuela has nothing to do with the state of Israel other than probably seeing it as a homeland for the Jews and having respect for the state, believing in its continued right to exist. And yet they're no safer in Venezuela, halfway across the world from Israel, because of the fact that they are and always will be Jews. The Jew is the problem to all of these people, not Israel, not the suffering of the Palestinian people, not any sense of alleged justice or morality or ethics that infuses the anti-Israel propoganda that circulates around the world.

What's In A Name?

2009-01-28T18:04:00.061-05:00

Apparently, because my name is what it is, I want to kill you. That's right. This Ruvym wants to go on a crazy criminal rampage because, well, that's what you'd expect of someone like me, someone with this crazy name I have, a name that lacks explanation. I mean seriously, what's up with this "u" "v" "y" combo? Where have you seen that before? And "u" and "y" don't even make the sounds they when you pronounce my name. You really say "Roovim" but the spelling should have you saying "Ruvyum." Thanks mom and dad. Thanks for picking a name that's going to make it more likely that I end up being a total psycho.

I say all this because according to a "landmark" study on the correlation between "unpopular" names and criminal activity, boys with messed up names like mine are more likely to be total douchebags. One set of factors show that the person with the unpopular name tends to come from a "disadvantaged home environment," has "residence in a county with a low socioeconomic status," or comes from a "household run by one parent." So this is more of the chicken-egg situation where, because I have a messed up life and my neighborhood sucks and I have no dad, I'm also likely to get a shitty name. That blows, I mean, what a let-down, like all this stuff is crap already and now they gotta go and give me this stupid name so of course I'm going to turn into an asshole.

This of course isn't really about me since I grew up with two parents, my family was working class but I had a decent life, and although I was raised across from a crack house in Queens, the neighborhood wasn't terrible and got cleaned up a lot before my family moved us to the big LI where it was a hell of a lot better.

The other set of factors say that, regardless of where I come from or what home is like, because I have an unpopular name, I will be more "prone to crime" because I will probably be "treated differently by [my] peers" which will make it "more difficult for [me] to form relationships." Plus, "juveniles with unpopular names may also act out because they consciously or unconsciously dislike their names." So now the name is what's turning me into a jerk and I have only my parents to blame.

I look at this analysis and I gotta say that it's spot-on. I remember being at school and having to deal with the taunts from other kids who found a million ways to make fun of my unpopular name. They called me "Ruby Tuesday" (I was also chubby), "Ruvy-Q," "Groovum," "Russian Ruvym," etc. This made it difficult for me to form relationships with others because the taunts turned me into a babbling moron who resorted to torture on small animals and the occasional Satanic ritual. It was around the same time that I stole a Garfield joke book from the Solomon Schechter book fair, a crime which dropped the first domino in the chain that eventually lead me towards bootlegging and prostitution.

And to think, all of this stems from my name. Years later, and thousands of dollars in debt, after all that therapy I spent my time and money on, that's the conclusion I come to from reading a stupid Yahoo! article. Ah! This name!

Missing Tel Aviv

2009-01-27T01:38:00.005-05:00

On a night like tonight, when I sit envious of a friend who's off in Jerusalem, I find that I miss Tel Aviv. This is somewhat out of context because you have to understand it in relation to the whole thing, but it touches on part of what goes through my head when I think of it. An excerpt to a larger piece:

Even though I’ve only ever spent a night in Tel Aviv before (not long enough to see much of anything) I want him to be wrong. He’s close-minded, I tell myself, incapable of giving a fair trial to anything in the secular world.

But Tel Aviv just can’t seem to keep it’s mouth shut. The 70s-style hotels that line the coast, the smell of sunscreen that sits like a thick fog rolled in from the water, make the city seem like nothing more than a sad Middle Eastern version of Miami Beach. A few generations of pasty Ashkenazic immigrants have given way to firm, tanned bodies. Bronze Gods, new idols of worship.

I stare up at the sleek new skyscrapers, those symbols of Israeli progress and modernity, but have a hard time reconciling them with the squat, abandoned Bauhaus structures that still litter most of the landscape, chipped paint and weeds and trash spilling out from boarded-up windows and doors that have long been propped open. I’m embarrassed when I see Independence Hall with its dilapidated exterior, a makeshift flagstaff at the top, leaning off to one side at a slight five degree tilt, a tattered flag sputtering alongside it. This is where a state was formed? I missed Washington’s white-washed Roman architecture, forgetting for a moment that I’d never actually spent enough time in Philadelphia to see where

America

was born.

The southern part of the city, away from the water and tourists, is crammed with very non-Jewish-looking people of African, South Asian, and Indian origins. Most are workers, living in purgatory, ready to be tossed back home if their jobs suddenly come to an end - if Shlomi, who runs the laundry service, sees a drop-off in demand for talis dry cleaning, or Mrs. Gittleman decides she doesn’t want her house cleaned twice a week anymore. Lights flicker along the edges of the streets, tacky bright bulbs announcing whorehouses with graffiti painted accents of exaggerated bodies draped in Flashdance-style underwear tearing at the seams. Peddlers spread dusty sheets, once white, across sidewalks to exhibit their worthless wares – rusted tools, used (“vintage”) clothing, manicure sets slipping out of their open containers, unlabelled VHS tapes with cracked plastic screens. It’s all a caricature of the forgotten, a corner of this country that God must not have noticed.

I try to ignore my disappointment because it’s easier not to deal with it. Instead, with the coaxing of more party-minded individuals than myself, I indulge in the familiar comforts that Tel Aviv has to offer. Life becomes one sleepless night of drinks and hookah on the beach, eyeing bikinis and searching for knowing smiles, the resonating slap of matkot paddles off in the distance as the Friday night sun dips behind the Mediterranean and the prayer book grows sweaty in my hands. Most other things recede into the dark corner, just a shapeless mass casting a long shadow at the passing of a light.

The night before our exodus East, I sit out by the sea with a few other people. Our feet buried in the cold sand, each of us contemplates in silence. I allow myself to realize that I’m ready to leave, happy even. I don’t think I will miss having Tel Aviv behind us.

Someone lets out a deep breath. “This place, it’s amazing isn’t it?”

“Why?” I ask, annoyed at the mere suggestion that there can be anything amazing about it. “It’s so rundown, so seedy. I expected something a little more, I don’t know, developed, advanced.”

“You have to realize,” he says, “it’s still such a young place. All of this was built from nothing, in the middle of a desert, by people who came out of Europe after the Holocaust. And they did it in only sixty years.”

I don’t know that I understand what any of it means. The context, the realities, they seem too far removed from my own life. I don’t have anything to say in response, and so I let his words trail off into the salty air as our conversation devolves back into just the sound of our rising and settling chests, the sleepy lapping of the Mediterranean against the shore.

Inaug

2009-01-21T10:07:00.000-05:00

He emerges from obscurity (not that he has left it, but at least he has peeked out from within it) to provide some thoughts about the inauguration. Not even that many thoughts, maybe just a couple, but a couple that he nevertheless wants to express (and there's a little bit of that ol' poetic flourish that reminds him of the caliber of the poem recited yesterday which may or may not be related to some of the comments he's about to launch into).

First a very general thought - wow. Not wow for the 1 million + people there (and maybe I'm bad with the numbers), or for the particular content of the inauguration speech (although I thought it was close to perfect and with a great delivery), or for all the pomp and circumstance and tradition that swirls around the day (although I love all of it), but rather for the idea of what an inauguration of a new president means.

I think Feinstein mentioned it yesterday, but what got me most was watching the peaceful transition of power. We're talking about two relatively different men with relatively different views of the world and behind each of them, two parties with relatively different approaches. A little more than half the country votes for one party, and a little less than half of it votes for another. One side wins, and one side loses. Passions are high during the election. And then here we are a few months later and everyone's just watching the same thing and everyone feels a part of something greater.

I didn't vote for either party, I didn't really want to commit to either candidate, and yet I can still listen to the inauguration speech and feel good about my country and be optimistic about the future and sit in awe of how the system (as flawed as it is) still seems to work pretty darn well in certain ways. This place is young, but its as if we've created a mature relationship with each other rather quickly. We're comfortable with change and, sometimes, with being wrong. The relationship itself is what's important to us, not the individual pieces which each of us may agree or disagree with. I just think about how rare that is in the world, how many citizens of the world's various countries can claim the privilege of living in place where every four years they get to express their support for something they believe in. Fine, so the specifics of "change" are very hazy and some will question what can really change within this monster of a government that's very set in its ways. And others will wonder whether there's ever really any different between party stances and candidates. And we'll always have the fear of the "ignorant" masses who aren't informed and don't really know what they're doing. Yes, most people will vote based on "feel" and "emotion" and that's something we just have to come to terms with. But whatever the end result, we go on. We wake up the next morning and it's all still there and we try, at times with a lot of effort, to love all of it despite the flaws and the hypocrisies and the irrationalities. There's something about that which makes me proud even if it's all far from perfect.

Now that I got that little bit of "aww, shucks"ness out of the way, I move onto something I happened to pick up in Rick Warren's "speech." Forget for a second that I have a really hard time with a religious invocation during the inauguration for the president of a secular state. I don't really get it, I don't really feel comfortable with hearing someone talking about Jesus to the rest of the world, and I don't necessarily understand how this particular tradition has been around as long as it has. But if I do manage to push aside all of that, I was a little surprised to hear, in the first few seconds of Warren's prayer, what is perhaps one of the most important lines in Jewish prayer. Known as the "Sh'ma" (I spell it that way, deal with it), it's from the Hebrew bible which is also part of the Christian bible but it's still interesting when it's brought up by a non-Jew. The Sh'ma is a recognition of the oneness of God and is said during the most important (if not all) Jewish prayer portions. The text is - "Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one." I happen to love this line a lot because it plays on a non-religious level for me as well - the pride I have about "being Jewish" and the love I have for the land of Israel. Of course I always interpreted the use of "Israel" in the prayer as more of a proclamation to the Jewish people as a people of one land and of one origin rather than a specific reference to Israel itself, but it likely encompasses both meanings. Either way, I only mention it now because I was a little surprised to hear the Sh'ma (in English) said at the inauguration. Maybe I just didn't expect to hear a prayer and there it was. Surely conspiracy theorists will probably like to grab onto this and claim further proof of the Zionist network that controls the world. But to me it was proof of a shared cultural heritage that we often fail to recognize. Here was a Christian pastor mentioning a line that people of different faiths read and absorb during their prayers. It's a line from a bible that, whether we like it or not, offered much inspiration to the founding of America, despite the secularist leanings of the Founders. It's something from the past that still reverberates and inspires today. Without dwelling on it any further, I thought it was pretty awesome.

The last point, and this is me being a little bit of a jerk but maybe sometimes I can't help it - the poem kind of sucked a lot. Check it out here. I mean, it reminds me of something I might have heard in a college writing class, like some disaffected emo kid who wants to express how alone we all are in the world and how we need to seek ways to come together. I don't know. I swear there are stylistic decisions she made which I see from my own poetry from like 10 years ago, and I'm only (almost) 27 so we're talking me at like the end of high school. I'm thinking maybe it's better not to have these poems because they're always going to sound sort of cheesy (maybe it's because they need to be "accessible" by all people) and after a good speech they're not really inspiring at all. There's also something about a poem that makes it silly when its read over a loudspeaker to thousands of people. I've always seen a poem as the sort of thing you read to yourself or recite in an intimate setting. Maybe that's a big part of what ruined it for me. Although, I gotta be honest, that even after rereading it I sort of rolled my eyes. I just don't think it was really what she felt or thought. It read as something artificial that she wrote because she had to. Maybe she could have done a better job of hiding that fact.