My Sabbath Elevator, Part II

Remember this post of mine?

I do. (Vaguely.)

Penned in the heady autumn of 2009-- before I was thirty. Before I was a father. Before I could no longer string together a cogent thought or coherent sentence secondary to the exhaustion that comes with becoming a diaper-changing machine.

I read this old post of mine with a mixture of intrigue, apathy, and amusement. Such vitriol spewed forth from me. Such offensively pulchritudinous platitudes.

Such piss. Such vinegar.

Sometimes I think I've mellowed out, now that I'm thirty-one and the father of two ardent squishies. Other times, though, I think I'm probably just getting warmed up.

I thought, when I read the infuriating "New York Times" article about the bizarre concept of the Shabbat elevator three years ago that I would write my blog, express my rage against my upbringing, my faith, my fellow crazies, and that would be that. The "New York Times" would move on, My Masonic Apron would move on, I would move on, the Jews in their insipid, self-congratulatory perpetually-motioned elevator would move up and down and up and down and up and down and the world would keep spinning on its charming little axis.

Unfortunately, as I thumbed around on my Blackberry's trackball on nytimes.com (shitty mobile edition) I realized that we're not really moving at all. We're quite assuredly standing still, though the elevator numbers of life continue to rise and fall with oh such cunning deception. My weary eyes glazed over the headline and my heart fell:

March 6, 2012

"On Jewish Sabbath, Elevators Do All the Work"

And all I could do was shake my head. And, no, I didn't say, "Oy," but thanks for asking.

We're still talking about this? Really? Part of the reason I stopped blogging hyperactively in the first place was because I felt like I was repeating myself, and here is the "New York Times" writing about this subject matter as if they'd just discovered it? Maybe the "New York Times" should throw in the towel, too.

When I last wrote about the Shabbat elevator, I was angry-- angry about hypocrisy and illogical practices and self-righteousness. Three years later, I feel the same way. I'm angry about the same things, I'm angry that Judaism's absurd inanities are fodder to entertain businesspeople on their iPads on their way to work on the subway. I can't imagine the "New York Times" would allow one of its staff writers to pen an article titled,

"On December 25, WASPs Don Ridiculous Sweaters and Sing Cloying Songs in the Cold"

But it's more than that. I'm not really angry at the Times, though I do kind of think they're beating a dead (Jewish) horse, I'm angry at Jews. Yeah, my peeps.

(Yo.)

We're immigrants. Foreigners. Outsiders. We came to this country in droves prior to the turn of the 20th century, and then again after World War II. My father came with a few of his hooligan, Jewfro'd friends in 1972 to get into textiles, never dreaming that it was perhaps an unwise choice. And I remember the line from "Cool Hand Luke", "What we got here is a failure to communicate."

Maybe what we've got here is a failure to assimilate.

Assimilation is often said and viewed as a poisonous word-- the dilution of culture and pride and faith-- but I posit that a little bit of assimilation is necessary for survival. It's healthy, it's normal, it's... well, okay. When I read about Orthodox Jews requiring special elevators to accommodate the Jewish requirement that you "not make spark nor fire" on the Sabbath, I guess that just makes me feel a little hinky. I mean, when you see a bunch of Jews crowding into one elevator and the rest of the world getting into another one, does that... I don't know... remind you of anything in particular?

WHITES ------------------------ COLOREDS

And ne'er the two shall meet.

Segregation is segregation, whether it's mandated from without or within. I think it would benefit the people who utilize these elevators to think about the message it communicates to the rest of the world-- and "the rest of the world" is something that I don't think Orthodox Jews give much thought to on a regular basis-- and that communique might be "we're special", "we're different", "we're... chosen." And I wonder, chosen for what? Chosen to be ostracized? Chosen to be identified and looked at askew and to be regarded as queer or suspicious or funny or weird? Chosen to be pondered over in America's most significant newspaper as an oddity, as something quaint or strange? I wonder about that. And I wonder, too, how the Orthodox Jewish community would feel if their special elevators were identified by a big yellow star, inscribed with the word "JUDEN".

You know, just to make them easier to find.

Why Couldn't It Have Been the Butter Face Lady?

I know I mentioned a while ago on here that, as a child, I routinely read the obituaries in The Philadelphia Inquirer, I would joke, "to see if I'm in there."

I was only half kidding.

Today, I sometimes spend a little time sifting through the obituaries in The New York Times for a slightly less bizarre reason. I like to learn about interesting people. And it's funny how most interesting people, similarly, in fact, to uninteresting people, don't seem to get much attention until after they're dead. Sure, there are heaps of feature articles on Susan Boyle or whatever, but how many in-depth pieces do you remember reading about Peter Falk until recent unfortunate events?

Today, I got to learn a little bit about Norma Lyon and, because I found her interesting enough to read about, and write about, you're going to learn about her, too.

THey called her the "Butter-Cow Lady", and it's not because everything about her was awesome, but her cow. It's because she devoted a significant portion of her life to replicating animate and inanimate objects out of, you guessed it my little honors track student: butter.

The Iowa State Fair was a far creepier and more wonderous place with Ms. Norma around, because she would routinely enter gigantic, often life-sized sculptures in the fair, and I doubt she had much competition.

She was a devoted wife of 61 years, and mothered and raised 9 children, and yet she still had time to make a grade AA salted butter version of "The Last Supper," a full-sized dairy cow, and a 23-pound sculpture of Barack Obama's head to accompany her (solicited) 60 second radio endorsement while Obama was running for office.

"He knows our kids need opportunity here in Iowa so they don’t have to leave home to follow their dreams," she said in the ad. "Even if that dream is 500 pounds of butter shaped like a cow."

Hey, it sounds like some of the dreams I've had after eating chips and salsa too late at night.

It might seem like I'm poking fun at the late Ms. Norma Lyon, but really I have nothing but the purest admiration for not only her talent, and her passion, but for achieving mastery. That's something I've never done-- at anything. Certainly there are things that I'm good at, things at which I can admit I do well, but I've never achieved mastery at an art form, or mastery at a job-- I always leave too soon. Norma Lyon crafted things out of butter, and she was no amateur at doing so, and I respect and admire that.

I used to think that being a professional meant you got paid to do something. I don't know how the Iowa State Fair worked out its arrangement with Norma Lyon, but, whether she got paid or not, she was a goddamned professional. A couple years ago, I was cast in an industrial film to play an insensitive prick doctor to teach medical students how not to be insensitive prick doctors, and I got paid $20-an-hour for a week-long shoot. There was a make-up artist and a costumier, a film crew, a lighting crew, a sound guy and even a director flown in from California.

"I have to split the shoot in two, guys," he told us around the dinner table, "so I can fly to France to shoot Salma Hayek in a perfume commercial."

As I bit into my leaky wrap, I laughed quietly in my head as I pictured this guy shooting Salma Hayek. Then I quietly pictured things I wanted to do to Salma Hayek.

The point I'm trying to make here is that, while I got paid for this film, there was nothing "professional" about it, least of all my performance. I hope that, one day, I will achieve mastery at something. It may be being a husband or a father, I don't think achieving it as a son or a brother is going to pan out by this point, or it may just turn out to be at a craft. We'll have to see.

One thing is for sure-- today I will be thinking about Norma Lyon, aged 81. The Butter Cow Lady.

Norma: this pad's for you.

Macro/Micro

I was talking to an old friend recently about a certain international event that has got everybody all lathered up of late. He mentioned that he had been talking the matter over with his wife for several days, and she brought up the point that this particular incident had potentially dramatic consequences, not just for Pakistan, but for Israel. My friend then asked me for my opinion on the subject. I was quiet for a little while, and I answered,

"Possibly. We'll have to see."

Profound, I know.

The fact of the matter is this: I live in America. I don't live in Pakistan, and I don't live in Israel. My father is from Israel, but we don't live there, and my family doesn't live there. In my world, small as it is, I care about what and whom I emotionally connect with. There are people of Irish descent in this country who've never set foot in Ireland, but belong to organizations (they'd probably spell it "organisations") like "Celtic Connection" (they'd probably spell it "Connexion") and, whenever something happens in Ireland, their ears perk up.

When shit goes down in the Middle East, I am relatively unfazed. Sorry. I just can't help it.

International news in general interests me, of course. Like a good Jewish Volvo driver, I read the NYT online edition every day. And by "read" I mean "scan the headlines of for stories that might potentially interest me." However, I am not someone who gets his rocks particularly off over espousing my views on what's going on in Tibet or the Congo. Do I have views on these subjects?

Sometimes. Not always.

Oftentimes, I feel far too ill-informed to formulate a view or opinion, and I would feel silly discussing something about which I am not grossly informed and/or semi-ambivalent about.

Why would I bother? To sound smart? I kind of think I'm smart already. To hear myself talk? Meh-- kind of nasal.

I guess sometimes I'm just too damned practical-- too fucking micro-- to engage in heated discussions about international affairs. I wish I was the sort of person who enjoyed getting all animated jawing about Egypt or Syria, but I'm just not. The people in these countries are going to do what they do whether or not I offer my view around the chart-room table. I'm not going to impress anybody, or move anybody, or gain anything out of chewing the fat about the value of the euro on a Thursday afternoon. I'd much rather talk about issues surrounding my job, or the challenges we face in every day life.

For me, the smaller the issue, the better. It's something I can conceptualize, something which with I can wrestle and, not only that, something I can (possibly) do something about.

Maybe that's what bothers me so much about fervent discussions about international affairs. What is going to change by talking about it? What is it going to matter what I think? Easy: it's not.

To that end, my wife and I are not the sort of couple that engages each other in spirited debate on matters of politics or happenings in far off places. Sometimes I wish we were that sort of couple but, mostly, I don't.

I think it's great if you're in a relationship where you can fight like James Carville and his wife over politics and then have romper-room-style sex afterwards, but that's just not us. We do our best to figure life out together, and it comes with complexities aplenty, that's for sure. Because we both listen to NPR very frequently, by the time we get home and back into each others' arms where we belong, we're so sick of the daily news anyway, who the hell wants to rehash it all in the dining room or the kitchen.

Besides, we pretty much know how the other one feels about most news stories anyway, even before they happen.

Is Alfa Romeo Still Coming to America in 2012...?

...and 101 other things that no other reasonable person my age gives a fucking tot about.

But, out of the approximately two-hundred-eighty-four headlines contained in Tuesday's e-dition of the New York Times, that was the headline on which I chose to rest my mouse pointer, the story I just had to know more about.

The answers I so hungrily seek.

And, the answer? Because I know how you're all horny to know the truth about Alfa Romeo's intention to come to America...

Not sure.

Thanks, Magic 8-Ball.

By the way, if you broke your Magic 8-Ball when you were eleven because it said, "Outlook not so good" when you asked it if you were going to hit puberty that year, you can go to this website to view and ask questions of a virtual Magic 8-Ball.

Careful, though-- the e-version of the M8-B is just as devastatingly honest as its plastic and water predecessor. For instance, when I asked it if I was going to die tomorrow, it answered, "Maybe." Determined to probe for greater certainty, I inquired if I was going to eat gravel at any point in the next three weeks.

"Outlook not so good."

Damn. Good thing I got my teeth cleaned on Tuesday.

The Virtual Magic 8-Ball is pretty sure, though, that Alfa Romeo is coming to this country in 2012.

"Absolutely!"

I don't remember the regular old Magic 8-Ball ever producing replies with such certainty when I was a child. Maybe it did, I don't know. I was more fond of Lite-Brite anyway. It never gave you any lip or pretended to be Nostrafuckingdamus.

When I read this story, though, in the New York Times about Alfa Romeo and its possible arrival on American shores, I couldn't help but notice something funny about Alfa Romeo's logo.



It's funny because, unless I'm sorely mistaken, the goddamn monster is eating the little red guy.

What?

Even as a long-avowed car nut, someone who has made it his business to memorize and engage himself in the devout study of automotive trivia, I never noticed this before. Even when my sister, in the early nineties, obsessed over, lusted after, and seriously considered purchasing an Alfa Romeo 164, I even accompanied her to the dealership, and I didn't notice.

Apparently, the Alfa Romeo badge depicts a portion of the Visconti family crest. In the 5th century, there was this serpent that, evidently, went around devouring little red people, and this Visconti guy (who obviously was neither little nor red) killed this man-eating motherfucker, and shielded himself from attack with a white shield emblazoned with a red cross.

Now, why you would choose to put that shit on the hood or grille of a car, I'm not quite sure. It's not like you're going to show up to vanquish the goddamned Loch Ness Monster in a 1970 GTV 1750. I mean, there's not even any room to pack a roll of Lifesavers in that car-- let alone a fucking shield.

I've got to say, though: even though I think it's kind of weird that there are people motoring around the world in vehicles depicting a green monster (wearing a crown?!) eating the legs, dick & balls off of some poor red mini bastard, I sure do admire the guts of a company that has the nerve to slap that shit on its cars. I wish my Volvo depicted some crazy Swedish monster ripping the hell out of some dude. Though, I'm not sure there are such things as Swedish monsters-- so I asked the Virtual Magic 8-Ball.

"Absolutely!"

Nicolas Cage Is a Serious Actor

Really?

I hadn't been told.

Until Tuesday, that is.

The New York Times told me, so, therefore, it must be true. It's almost as definitive as being told something by Wikipedia.

See, there was this article, see, about a recent spate of fluff movies in which so-called "serious actors" appear and/or star.

If you doubt me (is it even possible?), the online byline read, "Nicolas Cage Is Among Serious Actors in Lightweight Films."

And that gave me a moment of pause.

I am of the opinion that people, and organizations, and mass-communications entities get away with things, statements, and/or actions because people do not take that critical moment of pause to analyze. We, as humanoid-type-folks are blessed with that ability to reason, to fact-check, to ascertain veracity and evaluate for truth or falsehood. We have this capability but rarely, I think, do we use it.

We should do that more often. Take a letter to that effect, Ms. Johnston. Thank you. And get me some more of those candied pralines. They're positively scrumptious.

Now, I'm not sure what substance A. O. Scott of the Times was enjoying/injecting when he wrote this unfortunate article about Nicolas Cage and his supposed status as a "serious actor," but I ran the statement "Nicolas Cage is a serious actor" through my wheezy little brain, filled as it is with vaginas and pralines and 1958-1967 VW Beetle trivia and airline disaster knowledge and warped humor base, and I came up with the answer:

Really?

Since when?

Since "Moonstruck"?

Oh, no, wait-- it must have been "Con-Air" that solidified Cage's status as an actor with some Olivier-like chops.

Dah! Shit-- stupid blogger. I forgot about "The Rock" where he totally proved he was up to the challenge of sharing not only film but air-space with Sean Connery.

Then again, that saccharine scrap he made with Michelle Pfeiffer about winning the lottery-- whatever the screw that was-- that was pretty serious.

Right?

The A.A.R.P. and the private protection industry got pretty serious about "Guarding Tess." Remember that?

Oh, right. Me neither.

(And that's all I could really muster up without the help of IMDB. Which brings me to the following horsecockery:)

Well, really, if you want to go back into the depths of time, it very well could have been his breakout performance as "Heartbreaker" in the television film, "Industrial Symphony Number 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted."

What?

The Times article did me the favor of pounding out Cage's latest disgraces, which include the "National Treasure" aneurysms, "Ghost Rider," "Knowing," and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

If I am correct, the only two films that Nicolas Cage was involved in that weren't complete and utter ovine emesis were "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Adaptation." I didn't like either of them, but that doesn't mean that they weren't good movies.

HOWEVER:

I'm just not sure that making two decent, or even pretty good movies since your career began in 1981 makes you, or anyone else who has achieved similar heights, a "serious actor." Especially when you are either delivering all of your fucking lines with your eyes half-closed, in a lethargic, hung-over monotone, or you're screaming your goddamn head off.

Last time I checked, that wasn't serious acting. That's acting bipolar, which, apparently every character that Nicolas Cage plays must be. Which is quite an astonishing coincidence, seeing as only 5.7 million adult Americans have the disorder, and there are 307,006,550 people living in the United States, according to the July, 2009 U.S. Census. So, if my reticent calculations (done with my wife's crisp supervision) are correct, that means that, while only 1.8% of the American population suffers from bipolar disorder, 100% of Nicolas Cage's film characters do.

Which is not only serious, it's extraordinary.

Not In Their Backyard

There's a problem in Staten Island.

And, no, it's not the twenty-something party girls sporting fake Louis Vuitton bags still living with their parents over some deli or under some underpass.

And, while the problem may be happening in Staten Island, it isn't just their problem. It's our problem. Ours, as in, Americans.

See, there was this church in Staten Island, called Saint Margaret Mary. As is the case with churches all over the country, St. MM is facing a precipitous decline in the number of its parishioners. How do churches survive without the great, tithing masses? The answer is simple: they do not. They dwindle down to several elderly ladies wearing cute hats and barely perambulating behind walkers bearing wicker baskets, and then, well, they become private houses or condos or are repurposed in some other way, or, they are sold to alternative religions to house and comfort their believers.

When Reverend Keith Fennessey signed an agreement last month to sell the church to the Muslim American Society, well, people freaked.

You know, racists.

In the bad old days, these people shrouded themselves under old Sears & Roebuck bedsheets with little eyehole cutouts and paraded in front of burning crosses, shouting retarded epithets into bullhorns.

Today, they attend Civic Association Meetings in their cargo shorts, flip-flops and "WE REMEMBER 9/11" t-shirts, which they wear as cloaks of self-righteous invincibility.

The New York Times quoted an angry racist as begging the question, "Wouldn’t you agree that every terrorist, past and present, has come out of a mosque?”

Really?

Really?!

Um, hi. How about all of the bazillions of people who pray in mosques every day all over the world who aren't terrorists? Also, forgive me, but I'm pretty sure that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols never entered a mosque, not even to use the bathroom. Same with Ted Kaczynski. Same with-- oh, what the fuck is the difference? You can't argue with racists. You can just hope they kill themselves and/or are infertile.

It's a shattering disappointment to me to know that rabid, ribald racism thrives so palpably and so openly in America today, but what is going on in Staten Island, and in other cities and towns all across America is all the proof you need.

Black President? Big fucking deal. We're still the same old fuckjobs here-- and we don't feel compelled to hide beneath white sheets anymore. We've become quite comfortable displaying our hatred, our ignorance, and our prejudice in front of the bright, white lights of the camera.

And that's scary.

One of the venues in which I perform Gilbert & Sullivan operettas is a United Universalist Unitarian Church. It's a small church, theatrically insignificant but architecturally interesting, in a semi-secluded, wooded spot that's just lovely.

This is a smart church.

They don't have a huge worship-base, so their leadership has gotten creative. There is always something happening in this church. There are Japanese Catholics who use the building some evenings, (one of them plays a mean flute), several choirs practice in the sancturary-- there are lots of different colored robes hanging in the closet, there is a "Rocky Horror" night (you bring the brownies-- and the packets of rice, SLUT!), and, in February, the halls are filled with the jubilant, sprightly music of Sir Arthur Sullivan and the rapier-sharp wit of Sir William Gilbert. Yes, they even accept G&S freaks with open arms, those Unitarians.

Oh, and, downstairs, the Muslims run a daycare.

And we all mill around with each other, say excuse me when we scurry past the Muslim women while we carry an armful of tophats and fake flowers, the Japanese Catholics nod to us as they set up for Mass while we wait for our entrances. And I think to myself, "Not in your backyard?"

Why not?

Call the Coroner: The Coroner's Dead

Ah, let the dead munchkin jokes begin.

"And he's not only merely dead,
He's really most sincerely dead."

They'll probably carve that on Meinhardt Raabe's fucking tombstone, the poor bastard. The Coroner of Munchkinland died on Friday at the Penney Retirement Community, where lots of old bastards go to die, presumably. And Meinhardt Raabe was certainly old-- 94.

It's like the last of the Titanic survivors dying-- kind of. Or the last of the WWI vets dying-- kind of. Or the Holocaust survivors-- kind of. But not. I suspect this is the way I'll feel when all of the Golden Girls die. I mean, I was pretty bummed when Bea Arthur died. Now those "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Bea?" t-shirts just don't seem quite as funny to me anymore.

Anyway, getting back to Meinhardt Raabe, he's dead. And it's funny, because he was the coroner. I wonder if Raabe, who lived a hell of a long time, ever entertained notions that he might somehow be immortal or otherwise invincible because he was perhaps the most famous celebrity coroner of all times, that he would somehow be given a free pass by the Almighty.

I mean-- that hat: n'yah mean? Special.

Death must come as rather a surprise to some morticians and coroners. I mean, it must be rather like being a dog trainer and then coming home to seeing your dog throwing up on itself whilst hate-fucking your throw pillows. Like-- they're thinking to themselves: that's not supposed to happen to me!

But I think Meinhardt Raabe knew the void was coming for him. He seemed like he was a pretty sharp guy, according to his obituary, which I read in the New York Times because I'm so fucking smart. Raabe was smart too: a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, M.B.A. from Drexel University, and a World War II veteran, serving in the Civil Air Patrol.

I'll bet his tiny old uniform would sell for a bitchload on Ebay.

He also served for 30 years as a spokesmidget for Oscar Mayer pigdicks, tooling around in the Weinermobile, hocking stronguls (don't you love it when books & articles italicize foreign-looking words, but never define them? Me too.) to the innard-loving American populous. Was there anything this dude didn't do? He sure packed a lot of living into that little body.

Actually, it wasn't even that little. He was one of the tallest shorties in the film. At his tallest (in his early thirties) he was 4'7". That's a pretty big deal for someone with dwarfism.

Obviously, at 94, he'd probably shrunk quite a bit. Is it wrong of me to wonder (and write about wondering) whether his descendants bought him a kid's coffin? It's probably cheaper. I've got to say, if my dad was a dwarf-- I'd do it.

If you're a human being who's alive today, The Wizard of Oz had a profound effect on you-- and don't even try to comment on here and tell me it didn't, because I can smell bullshit as clearly as I can feel an Oscar Mayer weiner being shoved up my cornhole. My oldest sister was born in 1967, and her favorite movie, to this day, is The Wizard of Oz. If I told her that Meinhardt Raabe was dead, or if she read either The New York Times or my blog (I think, if you consistently read both, you are automatically eligible to participate in any number of medical experiments at local teaching hospitals) she would probably lock herself in her room and not come out for a week.

In 7th grade, she played The Tin Man in her school's production of The Wizard of Oz. She can't sing for shit, so maybe they had her voice dubbed. Meinhardt Raabe claimed, in his autobiography that his voice was dubbed, so anything's possible.

I remember, years ago, for my sister's birthdays, I got her a special, commemorative release of "The Wizard of Oz". It came with this huge booklet of information about the film, and it revealed that many of the munchkins were of German descent, and that a good number of them had a soft-spot for alcohol. I can imagine that someone who stands at under four foot tall might not hold their liqour particularly well, and this suspicion was confirmed by the informational packet that said some of the munchkins took to screaming drunken profanities at the director, and that one of them fell headfirst into a toilet.

It's hard to imagine the dignified, blue-robed, goateed coroner toddling around all beschmoigied on Schnapps, goose-stepping his sloshed way into a shitbowl but, again, I guess anything's possible.

I wonder what Meinhardt Raabe said when he found out that Judy Garland had died. He was seven years older than Judy Garland, and yet he outlived her by 41 years. I wonder if he just couldn't resist saying,

"As coroner,
I must aver,
I thoroughly examined her,
And she's not only merely dead,
She's really most sincerely dead!"

I'll bet he said that-- to somebody at least, maybe his wife. I'm sure he thought it, at least.

My Voice Is My Passport: Verify Me.

If you're an incredible spazz who is stuck blissfully in the not-too-distant past, you will know that the title of this blog post is taken from the super balls-awesome movie "Sneakers," a film that boasted some incredibly cheesy music and a bangdaddy cast that included Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, the late River Phoenix, Dan Aykroyd (whose last fucking name I can never spell right without help), Robert Redford, and Sir Ben Goddamn Kingsley.

It's an incomprehensible combination of technology, humor, thrillerism and snappy dialogue. It was one of the most quotable movies of the 90's, but only if you're a total fucking dork.

"...Well, we could wrap you in a full bodysuit of Neoprene heat-resistant rubber, or we could just raise the temperature in Cosmo's office to 98.6 degrees, which is probably what we're going to have to do because the Neoprene would suffocate you."

And yes, that's not from IMDB. That's from memory.

Go ahead-- un-follow me. Just make it quick.

I was thinking about "Sneakers" today because of an article I barely read in the New York Times (aren't I special?) about passwords people use ostensibly to protect their privileged information online. We've all got approximately ten thousand eight hundred and eleven different passwords to different things-- our Shutterfly accounts and our bank accounts, our online veterinary tech classes as DeVry University, our cellphone companies that have a death-grip on our wallets/genitals, fucking Facebook-- I think I might have written a blog post about passwords a while ago, but I can't remember.

Lily will probably remember, though.

An elephant never forgets.


Anytwee, the article I read claimed that, in 2008, the most common password for chicanery and surfology used by Americans was "12345."

"No shit!" you say. "Shit," I say.

It seems, however, that Americans are, in this age of security-consciousness and identity-theft, smartening up. The most popular password for 2009?

"123456."

Other super-pops passwords were "iloveyou," "Michael," "Ashley," your dog's goddamn birthday, and, the perennial favorite: "password."

I have a great idea for what I feel should be, and hope will, be the most popular online password for 2010:

"stealmyidentitydrainmybankaccountandfuckmeintheasstwice"

I know, it's a little long and unwieldy, but I think it has its merits.

Most of you know that, every morning, almost against my will, I watch "The Today Show" for 1/2-an-hour, scoring some intense cuddle-muffin time with the missus on the sofa, sometimes while she snoozes with her head thrown back and her mouth open. God, I love her. Anyway, in between pretending that TMZ is a reliable source of information and presenting Meredith Vieira as someone you shouldn't want to stab through the neck with a Dixon Ticonderoga product, they love to present stories of down-on-their-luck schlubs from middle America, seated at their kitchen tables, pouring over mountains of bills, tapping on a calculator while an earnest voiceover talks of how they were scammed by hackers and other assorted internet prowlers who "somehow accessed their personal information online, destroying their lives."

Well, that's sad and all. But, seriously-- if your password is "123456" I won't be shedding much of a tear for you.

If you really want to fool hackers, come up with some really weird shit that they'd never think could be the password of some house-marm in Des Moines, or a blogger in suburban Southeastern Pennsylvania. Come on, people-- you've got to work at this-- get really creative. Your online identity is at stake here, and you don't want some industrious, highly-intelligent, high-school drop-out hacker getting his grubby digits on your money. So, you need to think of some pretty crazy passwords to outsmart these fuckers. Here's some ideas to get your brains working in the right direction:

"hackersrgay"

"mythumbsmellslikebutt"

"olivianewtonjohnishot"

"inailedtiger"

"montanaismadeup"

"iwaxmytaint"

"tasemebitch"

"ihavenomoney"

"sirwhoresalot"

"mrapronissexy"

and, your number 1 ticket to online security:

"ihateblackpeople"

Remember: your online identity is precious: protect it like it was your little bitch.

My Sabbath Elevator

I'm thinking of changing my blog's name from "My Masonic Apron" to "My Sabbath Elevator."

Just when you think you belong to a semi-sensible religion, you get kicked, right in the circumcision-arena.

Yes, that's right, kids-- the Big Rabbis have officially outlawed Sabbath elevators.

I'll bet you didn't even know there were such things. Well, there are. And, apparently, all-of-a-sudden, they're not good enough. No-- not kosher enough.

Or whatever.

The bad news came from the pen of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who is described by the New York Times as "a revered 99-year-old scholar" and "one of the most influential voices in the Jewish world" and, if that weren't enough superlatives, why not throw in "widely considered to be one of his generation's greatest authorities on Jewish law."

Well, let me just say this: if you think this crooked, knobby-kneed handbag with nostrils isn't taking an elevator on Shabbat, you're crazy.

The ruling has thrown the Orthodox Jewish world into a tizzy, especially considering that these elevators were constructed solely for the use of Orthodox Jews on Shabbat, so that they can utilize the convenience of an electrical device without actually touching any of the buttons-- thereby allowing them not to violate Sabbath covenants. (The elevators were designed to stop at every single floor and open and close, so that no buttons need be pushed, working on the theory of, "You'll get there... eventually.")

The New York Times article I read quotes 29-year-old Yosef Ball who, with his wife, now has to climb (sorry-- "schlepp") up seven flights of stairs after synagogue on Saturday, with a baby carriage, two toddlers and three other children. Now, does this ruling seem fair to you? Apparently, God wants you to be constantly making Jewish babies, but He won't let you use the fucking Shabbat elevator to get all their crying, tired asses upstairs?

Oh, no, wait-- it's not God-- it's Rabbi McCrustyface.

And therein lies the problem. Well, one of them.

Anytime you have human beings interpreting religious law, you're going to have issues like these. And, yes, they're stupid. You want to use the elevator on Shabbat in order to facilitate your getting to and from synagogue so you can praise God and feel like you're an active participant in something larger? Go ahead. Who gives a shit? Helicopters are falling from the sky in Afghanistan. Children with swollen bellies and flies in their eyes are toppling over in Africa. Preists are fingering little boys in the confessional, and rabbis are doing it in the mikvah. And you really expect me to believe there's a God up there who gives a hot motherfuck if this poor bastard with a wife and five kids uses the goddamn Shabbat elevator on Shabbat or not?

Come on.

In case you couldn't tell, I think this entire issue is laden with stupidity, but I do think that Rabbi Elyashiv is maybe onto something that has possible legitimacy, and I think that's the issue of hypocrisy. Hypocrisy has, I feel, been like a sword of Damocles, hanging over the heads of Jewish people for a long, long time, and maybe Elyashiv is striking a blow for consistency of behavior.

See, the Orthodox community likes to have their cake and eat it, too, and maybe save some for later. Surprised?

"Well, you can't go out and get bagels on Shabbat-- but if they were made by a goy, and the water wasn't boiled on the Sabbath, and somebody else (who's a goy, too, of course) pays for them, well... then it's okay."

"Rabbi-- is having tea on Shabbat permitted? Because isn't dunking the tea bag in the water work, and aren't we to avoid all work on Shabbat?-- Well, if you just put the tea bag in and don't dunk, then it's okay."

"Gee, can I have sex on Shabbat? I mean, sex is exhausting, and shouldn't we avoid exhaustion? Well, as long as she's Jewish and she's fertile, and you've got a good shot at making another Jewish baby-- eh, it's okay. No, not just okay-- it's a mitzvah!"

Oy. You could get a headache from all the horseshit.

And maybe Rabbi Elyashiv just has a horseshit headache. Maybe he realized that stepping inside an elevator that operates on electricity constitutes the use of electricity, even if you're not pushing the fucking buttons with your own fingers, and maybe he felt it was time to strike a blow, with his gnarled, wrinkly, shaky little fist, against Orthodox Jewish hypocrisy. Maybe now the days when Orthodox Jews can benefit from modern conveniences while sliding under the radar are just a little bit gone.

Maybe Elyashiv is just saying no. No more bullshit. You're either using the elevator, or you're not. And, you know what? You're not.

I think it's also a little funny, reading about poor Yosef Ball, who made the choice to get married at 12 or whenever it was, and to have five children by 29 (and I guess that will continue until his wife's uterus falls out while overcooking chicken one night) and then wants to complain that he has to climb seven flights of stairs after synagogue. Well, you know what, pal? In the old, old days, motherfuckers walked through sandstorms in the goddamn desert to congregate to worship God. Even my father, in Israel, in the 1950s, walked eight miles with his father to go to synagogue.

I think Yosef Ball's complaints probably wouldn't hold up too well when compared to those of Job.

Frankly, I don't really care whether or not Orthodox Jews are allowed to take Shabbat elevators or not. I'm not Orthodox, and I'm thrilled about that. You know why? Because I don't have to worry about whether or not nose-picking is permitted on the Sabbath.

(By the way-- it is, as long as no nosehairs are accidentally or purposefully removed in the process, because that violates the Jewish law against cutting hair on the Sabbath.)

Seriously.

Oh, Man-- Not Another One...

I'll be honest, some mornings, I'm just plain out of gas.

I got nothin'.

Those of you who blog (wait-- that's, like, all of you, isn't it?) know what I'm talking about. If you blog every day, chances are, one day or another, you're going to sit at your computer and stare at the monitor and go, "Shit. That's what I've got. Shit."

Bloggerblock. Sounds like a game you can download for your cellphone for $7.00.

When I get bloggerblocked, I tend to turn to newspapers for inspiration. Since I live in the 21st century, I don't actually get the newspaper, so I go to www.nytimes.com because I like to pretend that I'm highbrow, and oftentimes there will be a headline that will pique my interest enough to read a paragraph or two. Today there was a piece in the Automotive section about how, to prevent pedestrian injuries, hybrid vehicles may be fitted with "fake vroom vroom engine noises" so blind people and regular assholes who just aren't paying attention or are listening to their iPods won't get creamed by the next Prius or Insight that comes careening around the block at 60mph-- like hybrid motorists drive like that anyway.

And I thought to myself-- yeah, I could write a blog post about that.

But I didn't feel like it.

That's what writing for no boss and no deadline and no money gets you. Writers who "don't feel like it." What would happen if Andy Rooney just "didn't feel like" doing his 3 minute schtick every Sunday night? Oh, right-- they'd just air one of 7,000 re-run clips. I don't think anybody would notice. I don't think Andy would notice.

If nothing moves me sufficiently in the realm of the New York Times, I will turn my attention to the lesser, local offerings of the Philadelphia Inquirer and, if I'm really wandering the acrid desert, the Philadelphia Daily News. Well, the old DN came to my rescue, and speedily today, for I have struck gold with the following headline:

"Another Hunter Finds a Body in N.J. Woods"

When I read this headline, I read it in kind of a world-weary, exasperated way, as if to say, "Another Hunter Finds a Body in N.J. Woods." I mean, from the tone of the headline, the simple use of that word, "Another" leads one to believe that you can't even go for an hour's hike in New Jersey without stumbling over some human skulls or finding the Brower kid.

I have to say I was very disappointed when I read this article and found that, in the past year, only two hunters have come across bodies in New Jersey's wooded areas. From the tone of the headline, I would have thought this was happening every week. Or more.

I mean, I don't know-- I've never gone hiking in New Jersey, and I've never gone hunting anywhere, but now I'm kind of creeped out about what's lurking in New Jersey's woods. I know Jersey is "Sopranos" land, but they just whack people in the middle of the street and in Italian restaurants and leave them there-- badabing! Two to the head, you're fuckin' dead. They don't take the trouble of dragging the corpses of these poor bastards into the woods for hunters to find.

Who does?

Well, according to this article, in December of last year, some stupid little whore paid her boyfriend to have him kill her father, "because he was mean to her." Honest to God, that's a direct quote from the Daily News article. They tried to economize Daddy's body with a chainsaw, but they abandoned the idea, probably because it was too much work, and they ended up dumping his body "in the woods on opening day of shotgun season for white-tailed deer."

I mean-- who knew, right? God, when you're a murderer, you've got to think of everything!

My mother likes to say that, "everything happens for a reason." I think that, if you're a white female and you've reached the age of sixty, you are required by law to adopt this way of thinking. I think, if she's reading the paper this morning, she would read this article and say just that-- that these idiots dumped that body in the woods on the first day of shoot-em-up season so they could get caught, that this crime happened because this woman and this dude needed to be in jail, removed from society. I think she would also say that these hunters were meant to find these bodies, for whatever reason. She might even go so far as to say that, when you go into the woods to do violence, eventually, you're going to stumble upon violence.

She'd definitely say that about hunters who get iced by other hunters who mistook them for prey.

I probably would, too, if I thought that everything in life happened for a reason.

40 Whacks

People often complain about "Saturday Night Live's" crutch-like reliance on stock or recurring characters for cheap laughs, and I'm one of them. "Saturday Night Live" blows. However, lots of other higher-quality sketch comedy shows employ the well-loved device of the recurring character, even the most lionized of sketch shows, (well, I still lionize it), "Monty Python's Flying Circus" used recurring characters. One of my favorites was Graham Chapman's stodgy, uptight colonel, who frequently interrupted sketches in a low, smooth baritone, curtly commanding,

"Right! You there! Stop that. Stop it. It's silly," chomping down on that last word, as if it is the highest insult Chapman's character could conceive. Silly-- the highest insult to common decency, and the Crown. Chapman famously (well, it's famous to me) recites the following:

"Now then. Nobody likes a good laugh more than I do. Except perhaps my wife. And some of her friends. Oh yes, and Captain Johnson. {Pause.} Come to think of it, most people enjoy a good laugh more than I do, but that's beside the point!"

Oh, Graham... we miss you down here.

I like to think of myself as someone who enjoys a good laugh, too, but sometimes I find myself adopting more of the Colonel's attitude about things, and that worries me a bit. Is becoming disapproving and dour what happens as we age? Probably, and sometimes my sensibilities and my morals quite simply get in the fucking way of me having a good time.

Take, for instance, my reaction when I read on www.nytimes.com that there is a new rock-musical out, based on the case of Lizzie Borden. I was not amused.

In case you're not familiar with old Lizzie, she was a young girl who, in 1892, butchered her mother and her father with an axe. I suppose I should say "suspected of having butchered" because she was actually acquitted at her trial, though popular sentiment still regards her as guilty.

She's about as famous, or infamous, as it gets. There's probably only two women in the late 19th century who are more famous than Lizzie Borden, and their names are Queen Victoria and Clara Barton, and at least the latter two are famous for slightly better reasons than Lizzie. When I was a little boy, I can remember reciting a little poem about Lizzie Borden on the floor of my parent's bedroom. God only knows where I heard it, I have no idea.

"Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks,
And when she thought the job was done,
She gave her father forty-one."

Charming, eh?

The fact that I, in 1985 or whenever the hell it was, even knew who Lizzie Borden was or what she did proves that her grisly act has a long tradition of being celebrated in song and story in this society, and that's kind of what I'm on about today. The thought of making a rock musical out of her case kind of sickens me.

"It sure is hard not to like "Lizzie Borden" a rock musical being presented with wall-rattling glee at-- ah, savor the incongruity-- The Living Theater" writes Neil Genzlinger, of the New York Times. From what he writes, the four actresses involved in the endeavor are unquestionably talented, and I'm not questioning that. What I am questioning is, are they wasting their talents on a musical that maybe shouldn't have been written.

I realize that people will write musicals about anything. I mean, Jesus Christ-- there's an Anne Frank musical, but that's a blog post for another day, I suppose.

It's no secret that we like to glorify crime in this society, but we mostly like to come down on gangsta rappers, who effusively espouse the virtues of doggy-stylin', cop-killin', and bitch-slappin'. And, why not? They're an easy target. If there's one thing America loves more than glorifying violence ourselves, it's picking on young, black men who glorify violence. But aren't we being the least bit hypocritical when our society at large does a pretty bang-up job of making heroes out of violent felons. Hollywood is the biggest perpetrator of this. "Bonnie & Clyde" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The Hollywood machine has also churned out, in true, hallmark excess, four films about notorious bank-robber and cop-killer John Dillinger-- one in 1945, one in 1973, one in 1991, and, of course, Michael Mann's latest romanticized opus, "Public Enemies" starring Johnny Depp, this time in minimal eyeshadow.

There's no musical about Dillinger, though. Yet.

We love to lionize butchers and murderers through music, too. Take Woody Guthrie's legendary song, "Pretty Boy Floyd," another ode to murder and mayhem. And there are those who like to proclaim, in lyrics low, that they're, "Baaaaaaad, like Jesse James."

I don't want to sound like a thin-lipped prig, but sometimes I can't help thinking that there isn't much of an evening's sport to be made out of people who shoot policemen in the head or cut their parent's legs and arms off. I also think that white culture needs to stand up and at least recognize how guilty it is of perpetuating the shameful myth that cold-blooded murder is cool, and worthy of seemingly endless rolls of film. If we don't stand up and ackowledge our obsession with blood and gore, if we just sit back in the dark and laugh and clap at the Borden quartet of talented female singers who belt out the song "Why Are All These Heads Off" then we are living in a most regrettable fantasy world, where we absolve ourselves of the responsibility for perpetuating a culture that celebrates violence and the violent, a world where Graham Chapman's colonel would almost surely have stopped the sketch long ago.

What to Do About Binge Drinking?

On July 1st, the New York Times ran a shitload of letters to the editor about what to do about binge drinking on college campuses. I don't know if they appeared in the print edition of the NYT, because I'm not one of those snobbish Philadelphians who feels the need to pay a ridiculous sum to get some other city's newspaper, but I read these letters online.

You can too!

I was actually pretty surprised that these letters ate up a whole editorial section of the paper. I was surprised that people had so much to say about this particular topic, but I guess it shouldn't really be all that surprising: it's a hot-button issue. Well, I have something to say about it, too. And I guess that's not terribly surprising.

It's a hot-button issue because stupid people love defending their stupid behavior. Once they're sober enough so to do, of course. Once a 20-year-old dies at a frat party with enough alcohol in her system to kill twelve elephants, her mother will pick up flag and carry on the march-- blaming the college, the campus police department, the beer distributor, perhaps even the beer manufacturer. The frat house will be shut down, which probably isn't such a terrible idea, but it's misguided blame. Fraternities are a fucking joke, and the people who continue to justify their existence because they "help charities" are living in a seventy-year-old dream world where college lads slicked their hair back with brylcreme and took their hats off indoors. But that's another blog post.

Here's the cold, hard fact: binge drinking is fucking stupid. Funneling copious amounts of alcohol into the fragile system that is a young human body is fucking stupid. If you do it, then you're fucking stupid. Fucking stupid people need to take responsibility for fucking stupid behavior, even if it kills them.

What to do about binge drinking? Um, how about "nothing?" I don't think we should do anything. I think we should stand back, with our hands clasped behind our backs and do absofuckinglutely nothing. Why? Because there's nothing to do. Why try to protect people who don't want to be protected, who chafe under authority and paternalistic rules? Why bother with them?

I say, if they want to put on tube-tops and black ass-pants and drink themselves until they go into cardiac arrest on some sticky floor in a basement somewhere, and the last thing they see is some thick-necked frat asshole in a sleeveless t-shirt and mesh shorts vomiting on a tye-dyed Bob Marley wall-hanging, then that's just fine with me. And it should be fine with you, too. You know why? Because it's natural selection, folks. You can go cry all you want about peer pressure and social loafing and easy accessibility of alcohol and all that other horseshit, but you can't argue with the fact that stupid people do stupid things and that there are dire consequences, and society at large cannot and should not be responsible for standing in the way of stupid people who want to off themselves by doing stupid things.

Go ahead-- go binge drink. You're only killing yourself. What the fuck do I care? I have to pay my car payment like a real adult. Don't bother me with this horseshit.

The problem, of course, is drunk driving. If you want to go drink yourself into oblivion, awesome. Rock on, step right up. But, if you want to get into a car afterward and mow some poor old grannie-grans who's standing on the corner waiting for the bus with nothing between her and your Daddy's out-of-control Nissan Maxima, well, then we have a problem. Fortunately, most binge-drinkers are too fucking blitzed to even remember they have a car, let alone get out the keys, find their car in a parking lot, get in and drive it anywhere. It's the shitheels who hit the bar and have one-too-many and then try to drive home that need to be body-slammed by The Law.

But, college binge-drinkers? Who gives a shit about them? Let them choke on their own vom. They're only hurting themselves. I would love it if our society spent more time and effort trying to protect people who actually want protection, and can benefit from it.

Like people who are in favor of jumping out of planes buck-ass naked without parachutes over the White Cliffs of Dover. I wonder what kind of laws we can pass to help them.

Small Cars, Big Death

Well, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has once again pooped on the parade.

Thanks, guys.

The New York Times has just reported that the IIHS has just released unfortunate news surrounding the safety of current model-year small cars.

Summary: yergonnadie.

Now, we all know that modern cars are equipped with antilock brakes and enough airbags to cushion everything from your neck to your jaun, but that doesn't seem to matter much when a modern microcar is paired against a midsize vehicle, like a Toyota Camry. The fact is, everybody pretty much understands that, if you're teetalooting around in a Smart ForTwo and you slam into a Hummer, you're basically going to crumple up like a boil-in-a-bag dinner thrown against the kitchen wall, but the recent crashtest videos showing Honda Fits and Toyota Yarii flying up in the air and cushmoigiing up like they're made of tin-foil weren't exactly predictable.

My wife and sister-in-law both are currently lusting after Honda Fits, and I have stood by them. I would now prefer, instead, to drive behind them. In a Chevy Impala.

Because the Editorial/Opinion section of the NYT is an apparently inadequate vehicle for handling reader opinions, it has added a comment page to its storylines. As usual, the commentatortots are at it again in full force. When I last checked, this particular news story rang in at 107 comments. Here's a small sampling from the numbnuts gallery. Please keep in mind that these are New York Times readers who are allegedly of superior intelligence, grammatical fortitude, and possess an unchallenged capacity for rational thought, expertise in logical argumentation, and eloquence of expression:

"THIS IS GROSSLY irresponsible. You have these small cars crashing into medium sized cars.
WHAT you need to test is small cars crashing into small cars - which is what would happeen if everyone tried to save the planet and drove small cars"

"Your adversising in favor of big, voracious cars will certainly not help fighting global warming and saving oil reserves !"

"how ’bout pitting a Harley Road King against the Smart? Surely a lot of these gas-hog owners are out there on the weekend posing as HOGs on their vintage bikes! And are they ALL knuckleheads?!"

"Oh my gosh! This is so surprising! I can’t believe that when something tiny hits something bigger the tiny object sustains more damage! My feeble hippie mind apparently cannot comprehend freshman high school level physics!"

That one, by the way, is my favorite. I'll spare you the tedium of reading any more of this palblum. Suffice it to say, the vast majority of these responses dealt with mention of high school physics, which I took for two days before dropping out in favor of the less mind-expanding world of geology and astronomy. Funny, in spite of my dearth of formal physics training, I still had a reasonably good idea that a freight train hitting a gerbil was not going to bode well for the gerbil.

It would be great if we lived in a society where there were no "big gas hogs" (by the way, they hit these microcars with Honda Accords & Toyota Camrys-- hardly "gas hogs" by any stretch of the imagination, but anyway, dickheads...) but, unfortunately, this country has a long, storied history of building things larger than necessary: take a gander at the skyline of any major American city, or the office of any CEO of repute or the guest bathroom in the average American McMansion if you think I'm full of shit. The plump, commodious living room on wheels was invented here, and I'm pretty sure the fucking motorhome was, too, so don't think, my little greenies, that you can just wave your non-CO2 emitting wands around and all the Ford Crown Vics will just disappear off the face of the earth. See-- we have a little thing in this society called "freedom" and if people want to buy six-seater cars, and they have the available funds, they can. Hell, they can buy them even if they don't have the available funds. That's the other thing we invented in this country: credit.

D'oh!

The onus, friends, is not on the mid-sized & large cars which have existed in this country since the dawn of time to simply go away and never be heard from again-- the onus is on the designers and manufacturers who are busily trying to make a quick buck by churning out small cars that are ill-equipped to face the challenges of co-existing in a society where there are cars of varying sizes. If a car put puts around in Bali or Tokyo with no problem, that's great, but if there's a problem when it comes to America, well, then maybe it doesn't belong here-- or maybe the design needs to be retooled. That's the reality of the situation.

And for all of you patchouli-loving dred-asses (by the way, where's my fucking G.P.S.?) who want to bitch and cry about all the big cars speeding around on the road today: why don't you just go walk in front of one?