National Jew Exchange

I only can hope that someone's making a good deal for Jews these days.

Hear All, Trust Nothing in Gaza

I did a video blog for once. It's about the situation in Israel (Yet again). It's one of those things that I felt was better spoken than written. Unfortunately, the lighting in my computer room was not very good, so all you see is essentially a dark jewey silhouette.

Alan Dershowitz Sez It All

You are being manipulated by the CNN Strategy.

Dershowitz has always been very pro-Israel, but every single thing he says happens to be the truth.

Full of Holiday Fail

x-posted to my LJ

Not Quite the Season, But Funny Nonetheless

What kind of asshole Christian goes to this church?

I know it's true, but they don't have to rub it in our faces.

Found here.

Suck My Matzah Balls

Last night, my wife took me to see a Capitol Fringe Festival show, called, Slash Coleman Has Big Matzah Balls, a one-man show. The playwright/performer is a Jewish guy from Chester, Virginia (outside of Richmond). I figured, "This guy's from Richmond, from a mixed marriage, and grew up around a bunch of rednecks, so he probably has a bunch of funny stories and jokes about growing up."

I even thought that I might like to meet him, swap stories about being Jewish in Richmond and see if we knew any of the same people from Temple-life. Hell, he even went to Radford University like I did.

The show started out with him doing a multi-character bit with himself and a radio announcer, explaining his family background. It wasn't particularly funny or bold, but it at least was fairly well-executed. Then he went for a costume change. That's when it got a bit well, bad...

He came out dressed like this:



I couldn't tell if he was trying to be hipster-ish, funny, edgy or what, but this new character he brought out was a combination of absurdity and obnoxious. I really couldn't figure out what he was trying to accomplish the entire time. Throughout the play, he talked about how his family defined themselves through the two yellow triangles made to form the "Juden" stars during Nazi Germany's rule of Europe. All he could talk about in his show was "searching for his missing triangle." Beyond that, I wasn't really getting the references. Failing any of that, it was just bloody annoying. Judge for yourself:



The worst part was when he tried to get an audience volunteer to come onstage and play a "Fairy GodJewMother." Each and every member of the audience refused to participate and finally he verbally strongarmed a middle-aged lady to come up. The tension and obvious uncomfortableness that this audience member had onstage was staggering and I felt so sorry for her to be that embarrassed. The whole concept of the "Fairy JewGodMother" got even more absurd, when he tried to make it seem like she made him pregnant. It gets better: He then gives birth to a big matzah ball. This didn't make any sense to me either.

At this point, he went back for another costume change and Grace and I left. The only other show we've ever walked out of was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof which was being shown at Radford University when I was there for one of my professor's retirement parties. The show suffered from the thigh-slapping school of acting and we couldn't take it so we booked it and went to see The Departed. Thankfully, after our hasty departure from the Warehouse Theatre, we went straight to the L.A. Bar on Columbia Pike and had half-priced burgers with our awesome friends.

What I don't get is that there is already a positive DCist review of his show, and the guy, according to his myspace is brimming with supporters, and hangers-on, and his website has a bunch of really good reviews as well.

Am I missing something here? Is my sense of humor and authority on what is funny and what isn't so out of touch? Do hipsters have some kind of alternate reality style of humor that completely eludes me? Am I going to be persecuted for still thinking Mel Brooks, Lewis Black and Yidcore are the paragon of Jewish humor?

If this guy is considered funny, then I'll just throw out my Smartassery Certificate right now and become a humorless drone.


One final note: One of the friends that he had brought to the show that were sitting in the front row looked almost exactly like a Ukranian girl (she didn't have much of an accent, but still looked Eastern European) I had gone out on a couple dates with while I was in Richmond between semesters during college. She was the friend of a friend I asked out... we went out, had a good time and she pounced on me. We hooked up and I remember asking her if it was something we'd do again.

She then said, "It's just a booty call."

Yes, I got called a "booty call" by a hot Ukranian girl. *shrug*

This can't be right...

...we always charge!