I Never Did Mind About the Little Things

Apparently, you can't drink beer on Passover.

(Yeast, you know.)

Somebody at work asked me the other day whether or not Jews can drink beer on Passover. The question presupposed a couple things-- one, that I'm Jewish. Anybody who's not blind or stupid or both knows that just by looking at me, so there you go. It also presumes that I drink, and generally speaking, people who suppose this about me suppose that "everybody" drinks, so why shouldn't I?

And, really, why shouldn't I? I mean, I don't-- but there isn't really any reason why I shouldn't. No family history of alcoholism, no history of mental illness that would be exasperated by the presence of alcohol, no past traumatic experiences involving drink-- etcetera etcetera.

At any rate, I don't drink. Why? Probably because I'm holding onto my complete and total sobriety-- not even like a security blanket, but as a quirk. Something that makes me different from you. Something uncanny to remark on during a first date-- not that I'll ever have one of those again.

The question about beer on Passover also supposes something else about me-- not just that I'm Jewish, but that I have sufficient knowledge about and/or interest in the intricacies of Passover and its do-and-do-nots such that I would be able to rattle off an answer that would satisfy the innocent interoffice interrogator on the subject of barley and/or hops during the Passover holiday.

Friend, I do not possess the knowledge or the interest. I don't care. Eat pepperoni-filled garlic knots dipped in motor oil on Passover for all I give a damn. Chew panko-encrusted shards of broken glass. Please, just leave me alone.

Judaism.

God.

I feel like I'm never going to stop writing about it. It's like the girl you're in love with in high school that your brain can't ever let you stop thinking about. It's the pimple inside your nose. It's the goddamn tiddlit of broccoli stuck between your teeth in the back of your mouth-- your fucking miserable tongue just CAN'T STOP PLAYING WITH IT!

I don't know of another religion that is as obsessed with minutia, that loves detail, that wants nothing more than to separate and segregate until the end of time. When I think about Judaism, I picture a matryoshka doll. You know what I'm talking about. If anybody you know has ever been to Russia, that's what they brought back for you as a gift-- because, what the fuck else would they bring back for you-- a turnip with a beard?

Anyway, Judaism is like a matryoshka doll in that, when you look at it in a superficial way (the way lots of people look at things because, hey; who has the time?) it looks like a nice, painted wooden doll. Okay. However, the more you get into Judaism, the more you delve into its history and its ethics and, much more than that-- its thousands and thousands of covenants and rules and regulations, the dolls and the details get smaller and smaller and smaller until they're impossibly small-- until you can't possibly fathom how these crazy little dolls were once living so peacefully and so quietly inside of this big doll.

Can I turn on water in a hotel on Shabbat if less than 50% of the guests are non-Jews? This is a "legitimate" question one of my wife's friends asked once upon a time. Are you fucking kidding me? What does God want you to do-- go to the front desk and check all the last names on the register? Pull down all the pants of the guys staying in all the rooms to scope out their dicks for mushroom caps? Another real question: if a woman is pregnant, and she goes into labor on Shabbat-- can she call an ambulance if the EMTs are non-Jews-- oh, wait-- somebody has to call for her-- a non-Jew, because she can't use the phone on Shabbat. What if the EMT in the back of the ambulance with her is Jewish-- the goy has to drive. But, wait? Isn't it against Jewish custom for a Jew to work on Shabbat-- so an observant Jewish EMT won't work on Shabbat anyway.

Phew! Well, that solves that part of the equation.

It's maddening and it's madness. And we're just talking about the tip of the iceberg (Goldberg? Sorry.) here. The dolls just keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller as the knowledge goes further and further. And all I can say is: not interested. Leave me out of it. This craziness can have its fans and its fanatics, but I will not be one of them. Are we going to raise our children to be Jewish? Sure we are. Are we going to encourage this banana-pants dissection of a faith that originated before shabbat elevators and ambulances and running water-- fuck, no. Because I never did mind about the little things-- and I hope to hell my children don't either.

Oh, Technology: Stop Driving a Wedge Into My Ass Already, Will You?

A couple of years ago, my wife and I and another couple went on a joint vacation to Lancaster County during July 4th weekend. We toured some fucking place-- I don't remember what the hell it was-- and this bitch in a bonnet tour guide tried to lay some smack down on us about how the Amish way of life-- eschewing electronica and whatnot-- is the way to go because, clearly, "technology is driving a wedge between us."

Really, we all know it's about them not paying taxes. But I won't tell anybody if you won't. It can be our little secret.

It's hard to convince a habitual blogger with a 3G cellphone that technology is driving him apart from other people. I mean, really-- I don't need technology to isolate myself; I'm quite adept at doing that on my own. And I was socially awkward before Aspergers became cool, too.

Technology brought me and my wife together on Tuesday night to watch Watson fucking annihilate Ken Jennings and that bearded D who looks like a yacht playboy from the '70s. I have no doubt that the IBM technology that was on display from the 14th-16th of February on Jeopardy! brought a shitload more people "together" than Jeopardy! normally does. Outside of assisted living facilities and minimum security white collar prisons, that is.

While the spectacle was just a big advertising handjob for IBM, I've got to say, I was pretty fucking impressed. And it takes a lot to impress me-- believe me, people have tried and, outside from perfectly performed patter songs or athletic amateur porn flexibility, attempts to impress me generally don't measure up. "Amadeus" at the Walnut-- America's oldest theatre-- left me overcome with the blah's. And we left at intermission, courtesy of my wife's migraine.

(I was all set to ask her if we could go before I knew she was really going through it.)

You know how kids are always like, "Daddy! Look at me! I'm doing a headstand" or some shit? My kid's going to have to be reading the evening news behind a desk in his bedroom with make-up on his eyebrows for me to take notice.

Ironically, though, while being brought together in front of a piece of technology (our flatscreen TV) to behold a piece of technology (Watson) kick the ass of a skeevy guy and a Mormon, the piece of technology that I marveled at the most on Tuesday night had nothing to do with IBM or Mormonism. It had to do with Jefferson University Hospital.

In our viewing area, as those of you who are blessed to live near my zipcode can attest, there was a slick, fancy-pants commercial put together by the super-skilled and probably still virginal A.V. folks at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

(NB: I think it's funny that hospitals have commercials, but that's a post for another day.)

Anyway, this piece focused on the Endoscopy Department and relatively decent-looking physicians whose first language is English were discussing the merits of newly-developed (say it with me now, Amisherkinderlings) TECHNOLOGY that the hospital's researchers have recently developed.

Get this: it's a fucking camera inside a pill. You swallow it, and they follow its path through your intestines and they can diagnose what's wrong with your smacked-up G.I. system.

And then, you poop it out!

Amazing, right?

My wife, who has GERD, (HIPAA VIOLATION!!!!) turned to me after the commercial's conclusion, slackjawed and said,

"Holy shit! That is so fucking cool!"

"I KNOW!" I exclaimed. And then I got hit with a stroke of genius. "What if they could mount a mini camera on a penis--"

"Oh, Jesus," she said. That's right. Here it comes-- too late to stop.

"Yeah! And you get a guy to fuck a chick who's having, like, vag problems! And the doctors are sitting there in the control room watching it zoom in, zoom out. Zoom in. Zoom out! Get it?"

"Oh," she said, "I get it."

"And then you get a gay guy to put the camera on his dick when some other gay guy has prostate cancer, or rectal cancer, and then you fuck him with the Dick Cam 2000. It's GENIUS."

Technology driving us apart-- please. What a crock of shit. I guess no Amish chicks'll be getting their sick pussies fucked by the Dick Cam anytime soon.

Get the Fuck Off My Gravestone, Bitch

If you're a petty, judgmental, insecure motherfuck, then you've come to the right place today, like pretty much any day. In any case, welcome, pull up a bar-stool, Son. The peanut butter M&Ms are on me.

Or, rather, in me.

I'm sure you know by now that I have some, well, issues. I'm never quite sure if my homespun style of emotional instability is charming, or unsettling, or, as my wife likes to say, "WNL" (Within Normal Limits). Some folks are tempted to hide the inappropriate things that they do and say, for fear that they will be judged or critiqued or, worse, shamed.

Me?

Balls, no. Why stay hidden? I've worked tirelessly to create a comfy little cocoon here, insulated by the warm snuggles provided by all's y'alls, my affectionately bewildered and skeptically intrigued readers.

You will not judge me. You will just be glad that we do not share a zipcode or lavatory.

I can remember, back in my burgeoning days of high school, timidly testing the waters of shared experience by tossing out a masturbation joke, to see if it was met with a knowing glance or smirk of a classmate. See, I just wasn't sure if six times a day was inappropriate for a fifteen-year-old of my height and weight proportions and social standing. We always want to know if we are WNL, and so we check ourselves against our peers, against celebrities, (surely Tim Robbins and Bob Hoskins jerked it six times a day when they were fifteen) and against our perceived betters.

I'll bet you check yourself against people, too. I just hope you don't check yourself against the bitch in the red dress who eats "Special K with Berries" in her kitchen to lose weight, because that fucked cunt is already skinny.

And I'll bet she rubs one out six times a day, too.

Anyway, who, you might be asking yourself, does Mr. Apron check himself against?

Why, "Jeopardy!" contestants, of course!

Most people who ride the "J!" Train, I suspect, check their intelligence against that of the three contestants mentally duking it out with each other Monday-Friday night. I wouldn't dare pit my brain against theirs. No, on weeknights from 7:00pm-7:30pm, I bust out the social awkwardness yardstick.

I'm pleased to announce that, most of the time, I measure up. I'm actually kind of smug about it.

Last night was a particularly devastating example of my social awkwardness propensity to be WNL as compared to the average "Jeopardy!" contestant. Alex was conducting the painful contestant interviews (why do they persist with this archaic, awful practice? Can't they just put up a caption that says "Alice, 39, Hausfrau, Appleton, MN. Was once mauled by a rabid Postal Inspector"? That would save everybody a lot of trouble.), and he had just finished with Saad, a nanotechnology sciency dude, and the chick with the impossibly huge breasts that were practically resting on the podium, and Alex sidled up to the returning champion, a complete and utter milquetoast from the depths of Middle America. Alex looked at his little index card, inhaled crisply and said the following:

"And you have a rather interesting hobby-- you take charcoal rubbings of the gravestones of deceased Speakers of the House, is that correct?"

"Yes, it is," answered the contestant, wearing a black dress shirt and a gold necktie, as if he were in the mafia or a waiter at Carrabba's. "It's taken me all over the country, and in graveyards, sometimes to private property-- but I always ask permission."

Of course you do. Look at you.

"Sounds like fun!" Alex said, without a hint of the insincerity such an exchange would require were it performed at an office Christmas party, AA meeting, or basement snuff film premiere.

But with those three little words, "Sounds like fun," Alex Trebek at once validated my small, questionable, eclectic hobbies and pastimes. Finally, shopping in antique malls for vintage eyeglasses, typewriters and telephones, trolling www.ebaymotors.com for forty-year-old VW Beetles and 1970s-era ex-police cars that I will never buy, and enjoying me a good patter or maritime song doesn't seem so crazy anymore.

Charcoal rubbings, indeed. Freak probably does six of them a day.