"My aunt was a nun, which makes Jesus my uncle! That's church doctrine -- I'm not making that up. She was the bride of Christ. She's my aunt. He's my uncle. I only mention that in Jerusalem for parking! It doesn't get me far, but at the Scottish church, I park like that. I just pull in and say, "I'm the nephew. Please!"

Comedian Yisrael Campbell, formerly known as Chris Campbell, had the audience at the National Jewish Outreach Program benefit in Manhattan roaring in their seats last month. Born and raised in suburban Philadelphia to an Irish-Catholic father and an Italian-Catholic mother, the 45-year-old Jerusalem resident described his journey to Judaism through his comedic monologue, "It's Not in Heaven."Yisrael Campbell: nephew of JC in action (photo by Neal Feinberg)

After struggling with substance abuse at age 16, Campbell’s search for "a higher power" led him to Judaism. At his Reform conversion in suburban Los Angeles in 1994, he was asked, "Do you throw your lot in with the Jewish people?" Here’s how he describes his thought process: “My name was Chris Campbell. I didn't have payos. I didn't have a beard. I didn't wear a hat or a kipah. I didn't wear black and blue [the blue shirt he chooses to wear instead of the traditional white one]. You look like that, your name is Chris Campbell, when they come for the Jews, you say, "They went that way!"

Campbell's ex-wife is Egyptian and was raised Muslim. She took the course on basic Judaism at a Reform temple before she married him.

Fast forward to a Conservative conversion, followed by his growing interest in Orthodoxy. "The Orthodox rabbi said, 'You're going to have to do everything all over again.' And I say, 'I'll do a third circumcision, but three circumcisions is not a religious covenant. It's a fetish!"

Before he changed his name, El Al airline personnel asked Chris Campbell (who looked like he does in the photos) why he converted to Judaism. "They think I just forgot to switch the passport!" he quipped. "El Al is not interested in putting people on airplanes that are struggling to have a relationship with God. They don't even like vegetarian-meal requests!"

He told me that his target audience is "anyone that has ever been on a spiritual search or endeavored to better understand issues of identity." Campbell performs with the Palestinian-Israeli Comedy Troupe. He has done a gig for Trinity College in Dublin.

Campbell's plans to move to New York for a year, beginning late summer or early fall, with hopes of doing an off-Broadway run. His American-born wife, who grew up Modern Orthodox, and whom he met when she was his Talmud teacher in Jerusalem, is considering pursuing a Masters degree at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Of course, their three kids will also join them. Their last name is Campbell-Hochstein, but professionally he sticks with his original name.Three Conversions and One Pair of Shades Later: photo by Neal Feinberg

The 2007 documentary about him, "Circumcise Me!", will be next be seen at the Dallas Jewish Film Festival in September and the East Valley Jewish Film Festival in Arizona in February.

It's not often one hears the innermost thoughts of a convert, both pre- and post-conversion. After all, one isn't supposed to ask the convert about it and make him feel uncomfortable -- he's now a member of the tribe.

Asked why he dressed in the long, black bekeshah/kapata the comedian replied, "I don't really have a good reason. I like the way I look and it's the way I dress on Shabbos and on Yom Tov”—he pronounced it the old-fashioned Yiddish way, Yon Tif—“so I don't feel like it's a costume I put on to do the show. It's not how I dress every day, but I dress enough that way. But the kind of line I've come up is: 'My Conservative conversion upsets the Reform. The Orthodox conversion upsets the Conservative. And the only way I have to upset the Orthodox is to dress haredi!' "

From: Ben Karlin
To: Elizabeth Wurtzel

I’m not sure you are going to get your handbag this way. Go for it! Just put it out there that you want one. Why beat around the bush?

Everything I want is vague and ill-defined. That goes for life goals too. I have no ability whatsoever to look into the future and conjure a picture of what my life will be – or even what I want it to be. Please read this in as un-angsty voice as possible. It does not make me nervous. Just a bitch to shop for.

I am working on a bunch of crap for HBO. Though that is not how I pitched it to them. I presented it in a manner that would make them think it is going to be quite good. I am writing a pilot about the world’s 237th richest man. We have another show, written by someone else, about a UFO alien death cult set in northern Wisconsin, and a third, loosely based on my book, which is a comedy-variety show built around the theme of failed relationships. As much as I loved working on a daily show, there is something about the promise and possibility of developing multiple ideas that thrills me more. Like, even though I ground myself down to a nub running multiple shows, the idea of having multiple shows is still thrilling. This inability to learn from past experience could be labeled either “boundless enthusiasm” or “fatal flaw.”

I really don’t want to get into a New York neighborhood apologia. In the 9 years I have been here I have lived in the West Village, Hell’s Kitchen, Greenpoint, Greenwich Village proper, off the Bowery in Noho, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene. What does that say about me other than settle the fuck down? There were things I loved about each place, though I loved Hell’s Kitchen least. Right now, I do live in Brooklyn, ambivalently. Don’t hate me for it. Hate me for a number of other reasons, which I would be more than happy to elucidate herein.

I am not now, nor have I ever been a birkenstock wearer. Here, however, for the purposes of partial disclosure, are some things I have worn or done that embarrass me in retrospect, though I stop short of regret:

1. Wore an earring briefly in high school, and again in college
   
2. Goatee for about a week, also in college
   
3. Wore a bandana in that hippee-helmet kind of way, though at a summer camp, which makes it slightly less obnoxious.
   
4. Frequently wore white tube socks with sneakers and shorts while not engaging in athletic activity
   
5. Killed a man just to watch him die

One of those things actually does not embarrass me.

Next: What the memoirist and the comedy writer have in common

Kids, stay back: MazoPhil Mazo’s upcoming comedy-album debut, Pervert, drops April 1. Listen as Mazo, a vaguely creepy comic from Jersey, riffs on the "I'm less Jewy than you are" J-Date courtship ritual.

 

 

Ever wondered what the fate of America's knocked-up sweetheart, Juno MacGuff, would have been were she born to liberal New York Jews? Look no further than the "preview" for Jewno, the 92nd Street Y Tribeca's tribute to the Oscar-winning quip-a-thon. Our heroine is reimagined as a Semitic America Ferrera lookalike with a "knish in the oven" and her very own bagel phone. Look for the cameo from Mac MacGuff himself (J.K. Simmons) as "Jewbell's" super-Heeby dad.

Too bad number 18 was already takenToday comedian Billy Crystal fulfilled the fantasy of every short, aging Jewish male in America -- he played baseball before a sold-out stadium during spring training. The Yankees signed Crystal to a two-day contract to celebrate the long time fan's 60th birthday. He joins the ranks of Jewish baseball greats like Shawn Green, Sandy Koufax and Hank Greenberg. "I’m the D.H. — designated Hebrew," Crystal commented in the Times. “It doesn’t matter. I’m so jazzed. It’s the greatest thrill ever.”

Ronna and Beverly are loud, opinionated, and wear too much lipstick. Watch as they harass an innocent bookstore employee while publicizing their new book for Jewish singles, "You'll Do a Little Better Next Time." Yes, these yentas are fictional (yet eerily reminiscent of my mom's friends), and if you love them as much as I do, there are many more chapters in the Ronna and Beverly saga to enjoy. Here is one of the best.

 

 

 

Like Wham! only less British: Good For the JewsFourteen shows and fifteen sets in thirteen cities over eighteen nights. That's the exciting way I'll be spending Hanukkah and Christmas, on tour with my band, Good For The Jews. All thirteen cities have been carefully chosen for their large populations of Jews. Even, in the case of Boca Raton, if those populations are mostly close to death.

By the way, "band" is a grandiose phrase to use here. Good For The Jews is me, Rob Tannenbaum, and David Fagin. We both sing, David plays guitar. (I tried to learn once; I didn't care for the calluses.) I do the P.R., David books the travel; I keep track of the merchandise, David drives. He wears driving gloves in the car and usually drives too fast. When we planned the tour, we budgeted for five speeding tickets.

We are, however, proudly, the greatest Jewish music-comedy duo in the land. For a long time, it was difficult to explain what we do onstage. "You sing? But you also tell jokes?" Yes. So we'd describe ourselves as a cross between Simon & Garfunkel and Martin & Lewis. BLANK STARES. Then we'd say we were like Tenacious D, but thinner and without a movie deal. BLANK STARES. Now, we just say we're like Flight Of The Conchords, but without the cute accents or the HBO deal.

We have songs about the holidays ("It's Good To Be A Jew At Christmas," "They Tried To Kill Us, We Survived, Let's Eat"), songs about visiting the parents ("Going Down To Boca"), songs about being Bar Mitzvahed ("Today I Am A Man"), songs about people we like ("Hot Jewish Chicks") and also people we don't like ("Jews For Jesus").

This tour, these thirteen cities in eighteen days: Okay, it's not Sherman's March to the Sea (which transpired at roughly the same time of year, though Savannah has a nicer climate in December than Milwaukee does), or Stalin's winter offensive (no one will be firing Panzerfausts at us, not even in Milwaukee). But that's a lot of rental cars, a lot of airline connections, many opportunities for things to go wrong. We play L.A. on December 14th (our agent, Morey, says there are many Jews in L.A.), then the next morning we fly to Denver for a show on the 15th. Think there might be some snow on the ground in Colorado, delaying our flight? The risk with rock tours isn't that they turn into This Is Spinal Tap—that would be great. The risk is that they turn into Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Mosh your pants off: Hanukkah is one of the dancier Jewish holidays Mentioning Spinal Tap reminds me of the scene where Harry Shearer shouts "Hello, Cleveland!" while the band is in Chicago. Funny, because it's true. (Though not as funny as when Tony Hendra, the band's manager, says, "Do you know what I do? I prise the rent out of the local Hebrews." Also true.) We can't be the 800th band to shout "Hello, Cleveland" when the tour starts there on Thursday night. What are the alternatives? "Shalom, Cleveland"? "Hello, Shaker Heights"?

I've got a little O.C.D., so packing for the tour has taken a lot of time: eighteen pairs of boxers, eighteen pairs of socks, some road flares, a tourniquet, warm gloves, a mosquito net, Purell, Iodine tablets, a rectal thermometer, some Mebendazole. Touring means meeting people, and meeting people means germs. Taking $20 bills from them when they gratefully buy your CD. Shaking their hands when they thank you for an amazing 80 minutes of entertainment. Deep-kissing them while they complain about their lousy experiences on J-Date. And germs, of course, mean influenza, which can really spoil a tour.

I realize how many home comforts I'm leaving behind. I'll miss my wi-fi connectivity. I'll miss having the Times delivered every morning. I'll miss my memory foam mattress and contoured pillow. I'll miss my Toto Washlet C100. I'll miss my warm-mist humidifier, which doesn't fit into my carry-on luggage. Life on tour can be very unsatisfying, as anyone who's listened to an Allman Brothers song already knows.

As I await my car service to LaGuardia, I have in mind the words of Leonard Cohen, who said that Jews are "the professionals in suffering." He also wrote these lines: "Is there anything emptier / than the drawer where/ you used to store your opium?" I'm hoping for more opium, less suffering.

List of Tour Dates 12/06, Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH 12/08, Miramar Theatre, Milwaukee WI 12/09, Double Door, Chicago IL 12/10, Triple Door, Seattle WA 12/11, Doug Fir Lounge, Portland OR 12/12, Great American Music Hall, San Francisco CA 12/14, Knitting Factory, Los Angeles CA 12/15, Soiled Dove, Denver CO 12/17, The Social, Orlando FL 12/18, New York Comedy Club, Boca Raton, FL 12/20, Recher Theatre, Baltimore MD 12/21, Birchmere Theatre, Washington DC 12/22, Birchmere Theatre 12/23, Highline Ballroom, New York NY

 

[Read the entire Good for the Jews Tour Diary here.]

A new movie showcases the Heras of Jewish comedy:

To remember and to honor the contributions of six famed Jewish women comedians was the goal of the Jewish Women’s Archive, based in Brookline, Mass., in creating their documentary, Making Trouble. The film grew our of plans to host a gala celebration, “So Laugh A Little, An Evening of Jewish Women’s Comedy,” in New York City in March 2005. Contemporary comics Judy Gold and Jackie Hoffman performed at the show and their work, combined with archival footage, got the Archive staff thinking. “We thought, ‘there’s a history here and a tradition that they belong to,” says Gail Reimer, one of the Archive’s founders and its current executive director. “Something had to be done with the material. It was too good. So we decided we should make a film.” Of course the Archive had never taken on such a project, but no matter. The idea perfectly reflected the organization’s mission to research, preserve, and transmit the history of Jewish women.

She's NOT biting the apple ... see? Eve got nothin' on me, bitch!I didn't mean to write pages 170-172 of Wendy Shalit's new book, Girls Gone Mild. It was an accident.

I have never been "mild" in my life. I get paid to tell dirty jokes. I have worked as a professional body double. I won't even eat mild cheddar. Or mild salsa. It's "medium" or bust with me.

Wendy and I are unlikely friends. Although we are close in age and both attended liberal Northeastern universities, Wendy is now Orthodox, married, the mother of a toddler, and, well, way more successful than I am. As a profile in the Toronto Star explains:

Shalit is the author of two thoroughly researched books about "young women reclaiming their self-respect" and rejecting promiscuity and the hypersexuality of popular culture and fashion.

Girls Gone Mild has just arrived on bookshelves. Her previous book, A Return to Modesty, was praised by Salon, The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek, which called her "a prodigy at cracking the codes of culture." Playboy, on the other hand, put it under the heading, A Man's Worst Nightmare.

Wendy Shalit - She's So Modest, This is Virtually the Only Photo of Her on the Entire InternetHere's what happened. About a year and a half ago, I emailed Wendy; we struck up an online friendship, and met once in a West Village diner when she came to New York to visit with her publisher. I started reading the blog Wendy writes in collboration with some twenty other modesty-minded women.

I was sometimes sympathetic (it is hard to find a nice one-piece swimsuit these days), and sometimes turned off by the bloggers' self-righteous attitudes (oh, those grapes are sour!) towards female celebrities including Britney, Paris, and the proudly-hot-at-40 Cindy Margolis.

The bloggers are all, as far as I can tell, Christian or Jewish -- and, of course, obsessed with modesty. I would always laugh -- in my high-school-debater, "gotcha" kind of way -- when they commented on the dress of Muslim women. Comments like "Well, that's just TOO modest." In one discussion of an "interfaith hospital gown" (clearly a paper burqua), one commenter writes "Oh- for heaven's sake--Why not just wrap up in a couple of sheets?"

That, of course, is precisely the remark I would make towards the modesty bloggers' own skirted swimsuits and up-to-the-collarbone wedding gowns.

Oy! Imagine the Tan Lines From THESE Modest Swimsuits!So here's the story. One day, a "modblogger" posted a cry for help: "I've offered to put on a Modest Dressing Fashion Show at my church this spring, and I have no idea (yet) how to run it!"

I imagined a bunch of girls in department-store frills and bows, and clunky, secretarial two-inch pumps, marching through a church basement while awful Christian "praise music" blasted from a boom box and everyone stood around uncomfortably, and then nodded and applauded, saying to one another "See, modesty can be fashionable," all while wondering, each in his or her own head, how that spectacle was just so embarassing, and what is it those secular models have that our girls don't have? I was embarrassed just thinking about it.

So I wrote up a reply. Just a long blog comment, explaining things like "...work out ahead of time who walks, in what order, wearing what, and post the list on a wall right in the place that the models see before they walk down the "runway" ...Arrange things so that the hardest outfits to get into come early in the show, so that a model's switch from first to second outfit can be done very quickly."

Wendy's ModestyZone has featured the Gali Girls, which are like Bratz, minus the makeup, T&A, and implications of casual sexWendy asked if she could excerpt it in her book. I said "sure." She offered me an opportunity to edit the piece, but I was going through a divorce at the time (oh, the irony! score one for Wendy) and never got back to her. Next thing I hear, the book is out, and a signed copy is in the mail to me.

Thus, I have written pages 170-172 of Girls Gone Mild. I have also written fifteen posts for Jewcy over the last five days, and this is me, signing off as your Guest Editor.

You can see more of Wendy here. You can see more of me at Jenisfamous.com, or in Brooklyn at Pete's Candy Store. I've also conducted an interview with Wendy -- an extension of this post -- which you can look forward to on Jewcy in the next few days. And finally, I'll be contributing a post here and there as an erstwhile guest contributor.

As for now -- I never did get around to telling you about that time I spent Passover at my high school boyfriend's family's beach house in Nags Head. It was my first Passover; after three days of sunbathing and chopped liver, I had never been so hungry for bread.

This is the most Jewish I've felt since then.

Thanks, Jewcy.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Dziura
Comedian and Retiring Guest Editor

Claudia CoganIn his notorious Vanity Fair piece, Why Women Aren't Funny, Christopher Hitchens says that, of the few good female comics, most are "hefty or dykey, or Jewish, or some combo of the three."

I figured I'd use my last day on the blogging job to bring you more comedy coverage. Here is a hi-larious interview with Claudia Cogan. I'm not sure if Hitchens has Claudia's number ... but she definitely ain't hefty.

Jen: Claudia, I remember a joke from your performance at Pete's Candy Store about people thinking you're Jewish when you're not. Can you run that by me again?

Claudia: I ran into an old friend of mine. It had been a while and she asked, "How was your Passover?" And I answered truthfully: "Well, it sucked because I'm not Jewish."

Everyone thinks I'm Jewish. I got a Hannukah card from a man I've known my entire life so I called him up. "Dad, you know I'm not Jewish."

Continue reading...

The Black Hawk Helicopter ... of COMEDYThis August 15th to September 5th, I will be in Iraq, Djibouti, and Kuwait entertaining U.S. troops. This is part of an all-women comedy tour (and I've been told there will be rides in Black Hawk helicopters!)

My father served in the U.S. Navy for over 20 years; a few days ago, my concerned mother warned me about military food, specifically a dish entitled "shit on a shingle," which I undertstand to involve, at least, toast.

Also on this tour, my jokes are subject to censorship by the Pentagon. (Note: See Ways to Make News About War in Iraq More Interesting to Average Americans).  This, strangely, I don't mind. As a comedian, it's my job to entertain the audience before me in the circumstances I'm given; I also believe in doing a good job according to my employer so I can feel good about myself when I spend the money on Pat Benatar iTunes tracks and abortions.

Several months ago, I read in Bust magazine about AnySolder.com,

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Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston has invited the Pope to the city in 2008, saying that a visit from Pope Benedict XVI would help to heal the wounds of Boston's clergy abuse scandals.

Because if you were raped by an authority figure in a funny hat, a visit from a bigger authority figure in a bigger, funnier hat will totally make you feel better.

As this week's guest blogger, I will now take it upon myself to answer the question, "Why am I here?"

Not "here," like "on earth," in which case the answer would, I fear, be sadly free of altruistic purpose and meaning-gathering.

I mean, like, on Jewcy.

I would like to begin answering this question by posting this image of me strangling Jewcy editor Michael Weiss in 1998.

(This was part of a poorly-produced humorous video sketch conceived by the staff of our campus humor magazine. I believe it was a parody of Jerry Bruckheimer films).

So, we've covered the "personal connection" angle. If you're wondering, I totally didn't sleep with your editor (more on my sex life later).

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About a year or so ago, I got a call from my mother, which is not uncommon, but this call was particularly memorable. She wanted to know if I knew who Jackie Mason was. Uh, yeah Mom, I think I may have heard of him. 

 I asked her why.   

Her response: “All I’m gonna say, is that if Jackie Mason ran for president, I would vote for him, and I’m not kidding! Have you heard him speak?” 

It turned out that I had actually just watched him perform, for the first time in my life, about a month before my mother called me from California. Apparently she had heard him on some radio show, talking politics, and somehow he emerged, for her, as a big contender in the future race for the presidential slot.Vote For Jackie!: Jackie Mason For President. 

“Does he travel to California? I want to go hear him speak. Can you find out on the internet?” 

Actually, Mom, you don’t go to hear him speak, you go to watch him perform—he’s a comedian, not a political theorist or something; there’s a difference. How did she not know this? The conversation ended with me promising to look online for information about Jackie Mason. I also now, finally, had a great idea for her birthday gift: a Jackie Mason DVD box-set. 

When it comes to Jackie Mason, seeing is believing. I laughed way more than I’m comfortable with admitting. But then there were a few parts of the act where I panicked, internally, because I’m so programmed to beware of racist, sexist, or just downright offensive talk. During those moments, I would look around to see what other people were doing. After a while, I began laughing at things that I thought were just terrible because everyone else was laughing, which meant that it must be okay, that it must be funny, that I was being overly sensitive. I remember frantically scanning the crowd for anyone who appeared to be Indian during one of Mason’s impressions of an Indian man.

 There’s an article in The Jewish Week that talks about the post-Imus plight of Jewish comedians, including Jackie Mason. 

Public debate over Imus has heightened public sensitivity over what may be considered out-of-line attacks on individuals or groups, Mason said. But he said he senses a backlash of support for Imus. Mason said he doesn’t plan to change his Broadway act, which often draws criticism for stereotyped depictions of many groups, especially Jews. “I won’t even consider it for a second,” he told The Jewish Week.

Though the most recent Imus controversy was not at first glance a Jewish issue, the shock jock has made a number of anti-Jewish comments over his long career, like calling a Washington Post reporter a “boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jewboy” and referring to the publisher Simon & Schuster as “thieving Jews.” William F. Buckley observed on National Review Online that “one of his specialties . . . was cracks aimed at Jews.” It has long been the case that a disproportionate number of Jews are prominent arbiters of humor, adding to the perception of Jewish influence in the entertainment industry. The page in the Sunday Times’ Week in Review section that carried a pair of stories about the Imus controversy featured the photographs of three people—Howard Stern, Sarah Silverman and Sacha Baron Cohen—who are clearly Jewish.

Sounds like the ethics of humor is the new big topic, and, while I’m all about discussions of the ethical in all contexts, I fear that censoring comedians or trying to legislate what is acceptable and unacceptable humor is a slope more slippery than we’ve seen in a while.

Dame Edna's alter ego emerged from a different kind of closet in the latest edition or Heat magazine. Barry Humphries aka Dame Edna admitted that he is "partly Jewish." While Damn Edna could be the bastard child of Julia Child and Mike Myer's mother-in-law and frequent SNLer Linda Richman (Child contributing the Y chromosome in this scenario), who would have guessed Humphries was a canasta player?

With my background it was not spoken of, but I could play canaster without anyone teaching me, so I thought ‘well I must be Jewish!’ And I get on very well with North London people. I like the mix of scepticism and humour, and the intelligence of the average Red Sea pedestrian.

Outside of character Humphries, who is also well known for the larger-than-life Les Patterson, has been involved with cultural Jewish events.

For a number of years, he has been a patron of the Jewish Music Institute’s Suppressed Music Project, which focuses on composers who suffered under the Nazi regime.

Hypnosis by Pastie: Brooklyn's tribute to early animation. Photo by Dale HarrisLittle Brooklyn is one of the lights of New York’s burlesque revival. As gifted a comedian as she is a peeler, Brooklyn’s numbers include a stripping Rosie the Riveter, a pre-Hayes code-inspired black and white clown, and a glittering, disco-ball covered tribute to Abba’s Dancing Queen. I catch up with Brooklyn during a very brief gap in her performance schedule.

Molly: By day you're a corporate animator. What led a girl like you into burly-q?

Brooklyn: The original inspirations that peeked my interested in burlesque/vaudeville were: the Muppet show...oh to have my own theater just like Kermit the Little Rascals...all those episodes where the gang decides to "put on a show."

Tex Avery... Had me titillated those early Saturday mornings, from strip teasing shoes to a-peeling lizards.

Benny Hill, Lucille Ball, Pee Wee Herman, MGM, the list goes on. Fast forward 20 some odd years and I started to discover a variety of burlesque related events going on around me in NY: Ducky Doolittle had her weekly "dirty bingo" at what was then barmacy, the show included two go-go gals who sometimes did little striptease skits.

I caught the Pontani sisters doing their thing at Burlesque at the Beach in Coney Island and was immediately taken with the old school charm. And I had the good fortune of seeing the VaVaVoom Room, which included the three biggest modern influences on me... Dirty Martini, Julie Atlas Muz and Tigger. I loved the entertainment at these events, the humor, the body types and the charm. I loved how I felt and I wanted the opportunity to make other people feel the same way.

Yep, I’m a designer by day and I love my day job just as much. I'm quite lucky to have so many creative outlets. I think both jobs teach me problem solving skills that I can relate to each other.

Molly: Despite being extremely un-lucrative, burlesque is a passion (bordering on addiction) for hundreds of women around the world. What do you think makes the lifestyle so popular?
Peewee's Playhouse: Photo by Dale Harris
Brooklyn: In this oversexed day of celebrity-flesh-internet-porn-etc I cant help but think people are attracted to the slow burn, the tease, the wink and nod. Some come for the humor, some come for the glamour, but everyone comes for the cleverly hidden flesh carefully revealed.

Burlesque also gives people permission to look and laugh at ourselves. The opportunity to see real bodies, and by real I mean thin, curvy, flat, tall…freckles, dimples, stretch marks and all. For ladies to see woman who look like themselves and for men to see what happens to a real body when it hasn't been airbrushed.

Molly: Your acts really embody the two meanings of burlesque (comedy and striptease), and I've sometimes heard you describe your performances as funny rather than sexy. Want to talk more about your use of humor?

Brooklyn: Funny is sexy to me.

Molly: There are enough Jewish ladies in burlesque to make a stage show (Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad). Has being Jewish inspired any of your acts? And would you like to talk about the legacy of Jewish dames in burlesque?

Brooklyn: Of course! Who else but a Jewess from New York would do a burlesque routine to a Richard Simmons workout? You can’t help but do what you know.

I have a soft spot for my mechanic act, cause it was written for my grandpappy – also a Brooklyn Jew. And I am sure my mothers cleaning OCD highly inspired my housewife act. Both acts include faux fan dancing (hubcaps and dirty dishes in place of fans)

The second part of this question opened up a Pandora's box filled with glitter and rhinestones. I am aware of the strong influence American Jews have had in the history of burlesque, playing off our stereotypes as quirky and manic. but I did not have a list of female names offhand who I was sure were in fact of Jewish descent and paving the glittery way. I was doing a little research and one in particular stands out, Fanny Brice “One of America's great clowns.”

Born on the Lower East Side of New York in 1891, she appeared in burlesque and vaudeville, drama, film, and musical revues (including nine Ziegfeld Follies between 1910 and 1936)
But get this line...

She refined her craft as a comic artist, describing herself as "a cartoonist working in the flesh." I have said that very same thing about myself, on account of my “day job”. It’s in the blood I tell you!

Molly: Right now you're running two weekly shows, at Riffifi and Lotus, plus performing constantly around town. Do you have any future plans for Little Brooklyn world domination?

Brooklyn: Ha, I just want to get through tomorrow. One day at a time sister.

Molly: Got any shows coming up?

Brooklyn: Come watch me fight off the Plague of Lice as well as my clothes at KOSHER CHIXXX PASSOVER STYLE: GET LIBERATED. Presented by the 14th St. Y. Thu. Mar 29 (9 PM) at Mo Pitkin's House of Satisfaction 34 Avenue A , New York, NY

They can check out info all about me at www.littlebrooklyn.com and the shows I co-produce with Creamy stevens, Starshine Burlesque at Rififi on Thursdays and Gold Rush Burlesque at Lotus on Tuesdays at www.starshineburlesque.com

Hitler's not funnyGermans aren't getting a big kick out of a new comedy that portrays Hitler as a bed-wetting drug addict. Sheesh, these guys have no sense of humor.

Germany's first comedy about Adolf Hitler is being panned by reviewers ahead of its opening this week and has provoked a debate about whether the country should be laughing about the man who ordered the Holocaust.

"Mein Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler" portrays Hitler as bed-wetting drug addict who takes baths with a toy battleship and dresses his Alsatian dog Blondi in an SS uniform. Swiss Jewish director Dani Levy says he wants to follow in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 classic "The Great Dictator."

He also wants to explore the theory that Hitler was taking revenge on the world for being beaten by his father.

What, you're not laughing yet, either?  Is it that you can't laugh at Hitler comedy, or the film is simply not amusing? After all, look at what the Germans think is hilarious about Hitler:

Levy had plenty of material given that the real Hitler offered so much scope for humor with his manner of speaking, his Hitler salute and the huge discrepancy between his own physique and the Nazi ideal of a blonde, blue-eyed master race, writes Welt am Sonntag.

Huh. With comic material like that, how can you miss?

Levy, who won critical claim for his 2004 comedy "Go For Zucker" about two Jewish brothers in post-unification Germany, told SPIEGEL ONLINE he was trying to "demystify" Hitler with scenes such as the one in which pet dog "Blondi" mounts the dictator as he walks on all fours around his giant Chancellery office.

Hey, dogs humping legs is a time-honored comic tradition in film and TV! Obviously, Levi went a step farther. We should honor this advance in cinematic comedy.

So it's not The Producers. And Daniel Levy isn't Mel Brooks. One has to wonder if the film is truly unfunny, or if the Germans aren't at the point where they can laugh about their Nazi past. Whoops, that can't be it. Hogan's Heroes was a long-time cult hit in Germany. Perhaps this movie simply sucks.

Or maybe it's just my problem with Nazi comedies. I didn't get the humor behind "The Bonker," either.

Bad posture, beer breath, the Sprockets catsuit—turns out you can sport despair most any way you like. Perhaps, per genre, you are Waspy and gaunt, wear lots of black, read Thomas Bernhard, shun camaraderie and social events, and, most important, appear to know something about the world the rest of us don’t. Or you’re Jewish. And possibly fat.

Thing is, if you’re Jewish, you’re getting the short end of the stickArt courtesy of Dave Choe. The moody Jew always seems less Sid Vicious, more Larry David; less Robert Smith, more Lou Reed. (Nothing wrong with Lou Reed, though if I had to pick a rocker to sleep with, Vicious is a shoo-in.) These guys, the sexy ones, don’t choose despair, but experience it as a byproduct of being alive. But guys like Larry David and Woody Allen seem to covet despair like a drug. There’s even a certain pride there, like: Tada! I can leech the pleasure from most anything!

To wit, a story: I recently had a facial, a pillaging-of-the-skin experience for which I paid $150. Let it be said I don’t know how to wear makeup, I pronate in high heels, and that aside from the Semitic albatross called big hair, I’m not really the girly type. So when I say I got a facial, it is with the rider that this was bound to be unpleasant. And, in turn, thrilling.

At the spa, it was like this: The staff is obsequious and I hate every one of them. The girl at the desk tells me I look exhausted, then gives me a mesh duffel with flip-flops and an eggshell muumuu. She escorts me to a lounge, which is nice, except for the women in flops and muumuus. I head for a platter of snacks. I spy poppyseed crackers, whose shrapnel will likely end up in my teeth. I eat, like, twenty.

And, oh good, here comes the facialist.

We go to her room. She tells me to unpack the mesh and hang the muumuu; she says I can put my clothes on a chair, that I should lie face-up under a sheet and she’ll be right back. I find these instructions oblique. Am I supposed to get naked? I’m having a facial, why would I get naked? Am I supposed to wear the muumuu under the sheet? But she said hang the muumuu. I realize she’s going to return any second and that I’m still clothed except for my boots because in no scenario does it make sense to wear my boots. But what about socks? I can hear her about to come in, so I grab my cell phone and make like someone called while I was getting ready, hence the delay, sorry, sorry, only once she leaves, I’ve gotten no closer to knowing what to do. Finally I ditch everything but the underwear and get under the sheet hoping she’ll never know what decisions I’ve made. If she ends up between my legs, I guess something will have gone awry.

The facial gets underway. I am told I don’t know how to care for my skin. I am told I cannot continue to act like a child. I am familiar with this refrain, coming, as it does, from my mother and therapist alike.
The facialist massages my arms. I get gooseflesh and worry she’s gonna think I’m aroused. Then she addresses her talents to a region below the ankle. If there are sock bunnies cleaved to the balls of my feet, I will hang myself. The longer she kneads my heels and calves—yep, my calves, good thing I haven’t shaved in two days—the more miserable I get.

Is this fun so far? This is the opposite of fun. But maybe it’s funny. I certainly hope it’s funny because if there’s humor to be wrung from every occasion we’re able to drain of pleasure owing to neuroses, grandiloquent self-abasement, and excess body hair, it’s the silver lining in an otherwise debilitating ethic.

Think big. It’s no secret that Woody Allen—paradigm of Jewish angst—originally titled Annie Hall “Anhedonia.,” which means an inability to enjoy life. Allen’s shlubby, neurotic conduct in the movie seems to question whether the pathology is congenital to Jews, or adopted. Does Allen open a compact of blow just so he can sneeze all over it and despair, or does he sneeze because he’s constitutionally incapable of enjoying the experience that is snorting blow? Affect, instinct?

Depends who you ask. Certainly a hankering for misery butts heads with one of the Socratic dialogues, the Meno, in which Socrates disembowels Meno’s idea that some people desire bad things. His logic goes like this: People who desire bad things know they will be miserable as a result? Yes. And miserable people are unhappy? Yes. Does anyone want to be unhappy? No. Ergo, no one wants bad things. The loony assumption here is, of course, that no one wants to be unhappy. I love this dialogue because it’s fun to watch Socrates dispatch—with élan—the possibility that people are fucked up.

I took this question to my shrink, who, unlike Socrates, is pretty well acquainted with the fuck-ups. Whence a desire for anhedonia, I asked her. Why covet a condition that can only result in misery? Her answer: preemptive despair. Preemptive despair! Since things never work out for the Jews—historically, there’s some truth to this—we’ve learned to steel ourselves against misery by being miserable from the start.

I found this hilarious. It’s just so Jewish. So convoluted. And it collapses the instinct/affect binary by suggesting that our affect is instinctual—i.e., if we can’t help but choose unhappiness, we’re dealing with a choiceless choice. One of these double-bind scenarios into which so many of our tragic heroes are thrust. Macbeth and Bovary, Lear, Raskolnikov, the “can’t help but” phenomenon accounts for at least fifty percent of literary tragedy, if not more. By the same token, if you tweak the phenomenon, you get comedy. Of course you do. Character as fate, a comedy of errors, people who are funny precisely because they can’t help but ruin everything. Yoked to the shrink’s theory, you get the atavism of misery—a Jewish narrative that spans centuries—and the narrative it inspires by way of entertainment.

And that’s why it’s no accident your “miserable Jew” archetype ends up being a funny guy for hire. “Killing your dad so you can marry your mom” isn’t exactly stand-up, but it’s good enough for a chuckle. Stick Smith or Morrissey in the presidential suite and he might fall into the jacuzzi, or lament travesties wrought by our idiot government and the agony of having to wake up each day. Jerry Seinfeld, on the other hand, or Jason Alexander, or Jackie Mason (okay, he’s not funny) will upturn everything in the presidential suite until he finds that used condom hewn to the box frame that ruins the special pleasure of staying in the presidential suite. Then he will lament said travesties and the condom, because it augurs devastating solitude for all his days. It’s the condom as prognosticator, as catalyst for anxious rant that ends up being hilarious. And excruciating. Ever notice how painful Curb Your Enthusiasm is? It’s the fulcrum of tragedy and comedy; of course, the difference is so slight.

Sarah Silverman: Crowd-pleasin'.At Spike's recent video game awards, a little nugget of smart-assed goodness was uttered by one of my favorite comics of all time, Sarah Silverman. According to TV Guide:

Working HIV and AIDS into a comedy routine is always a risky move, but foulmouthed funny lady Sarah Silverman gave it a shot, telling the gaming crowd that they're celibate "g-a-y-mers," and that they should get an award for their "work in AIDS prevention."

See, now I would have ruined that joke with throwing in a dead baby, and a rape joke to boot, but that's why she's the stand-up comedian and I'm the blogger.

At Spike's Video Game Awards: Heroes, Superman and More! [TV Guide]

Salon’s Broadsheet (you’ll have to go through an ad) eviscerates Christopher Hitchen’s essay in this month’s Vanity Fair about why women aren’t funny.  It’s not worth adding to their arguments—or Feministing’s, or Echnide’s—because a) they’ve more than gotten the job done and b) the entire piece is so obviously, patently about provocation that I feel a little guilty even drawing attention to it.  

But!  If you read this and thought “But I’m a woman, and I’m funny,” and if you happen to be a member of the tribe, then you should be aware that Hitch thinks you’re an exception.  To wit:

In any case, my argument doesn't say that there are no decent women comedians. There are more terrible female comedians than there are terrible male comedians, but there are some impressive ladies out there. Most of them, though, when you come to review the situation, are hefty or dykey or Jewish, or some combo of the three. When Roseanne stands up and tells biker jokes and invites people who don't dig her shtick to suck her dick—know what I am saying? And the Sapphic faction may have its own reasons for wanting what I want—the sweet surrender of female laughter. While Jewish humor, boiling as it is with angst and self-deprecation, is almost masculine by definition.

What's curious about this is that his entire argument rests on the idea that women, being the wombier sex, are too close to the seriousness of reproduction to appreciate a good joke.  Does that mean that Jewishness -- with its angst and self-deprecation, two qualities never associated with any women -- somehow negates being a messy, reproducing female?  Because if so, ladies, than perhaps there's a cheaper alternative to Seasonale. 

(Weak joke?  Sorry, I was distracted by my fallopian tubes.)