Shomer Negiah is one of the most talked about topics amongst young orthodox Jews, maybe because it's the closest they can talk openly about sex in groups, or maybe because everyone has a secret. No one really keeps negiah, they all just talk about it.

SUO- Shomer Until Opportunity:
These are the folks who are 100% shomer until they wind up at some after-work party with some hottie hitting on them. The second the women show interest their once fervent stance on keeping negiah is lost to the prospect of some steamy NSA action.

SBD- Shomer By Default:
If they could get some they probably would not be shomer, but since they're too stupid to figure out how to use chat rooms, the casual encounter ads on Craigslist and the poking mechanism on Facebook, they have resigned themselves to a life of free porn and peeking at women over the mechitza. This category is filled up by nerdy or socially inept folks who think they don't have a chance in the world to get some action.

Shomer N'fooling Around:
These folks are shomer when it comes to getting intimate, but when it comes to having folks sit next to them, putting their arms around them, or giving them hugs, they see no problem with this. Also in this crowd are those folks that think sleeping in the same bed with their "good friend" of the opposite sex- is no problem at all and they are just friends. I have spoken to people in relationships with girls who refuse to do anything besides hand holding and cuddling. In modern vernacular we call these people cock-teases.

Continue reading...

I am sitting in a random kosher pizza shop in Brooklyn. I am sitting here, eyebrows furrowed, pissed off at the racket we know as the kosher pizza shop cartel. Three dollars for a slice of pizza. The quality of this one-side-of-a-grilled-cheese-plus-blood-sauce-sandwich hasn't risen in tandem with its escalating price; how can it? My plan to bankrupt the place by loading up on staples from the tables (oregano or crushed red pepper) are hardly shifting the imbalanced weights of the joint's crooked restaurateur. To add insult to injury, there are three little kids staring at me, pointing, as if I am some sort of oddity, some sort of alien dropped from sky, weirdly landing in Brooklyn at a kosher pizza shop.

If I only knew Yiddish, I could tell them to fuck off - nicely of course, they are little kids after all. Maybe I could get fancy and ask them their names and then explain to them that beyond their little world of Williamsburg or Borough Park there lives a whole species of people like me - and guess what, we are just as Jewish as them. But my Yiddish is so poor I can only pretend that I understand what they are saying as they twirl their side locks while pointing at me as they continue to talk in derisive tones about me right in front of my face.

My friend calls the reprehensible gaze of these children "the Borough Park Stare." He used to refer to it as getting the 'BeePS', as if it were some club term. It wasn't, it was merely an annoyance that all people, both Jewish and non-Jewish, get from little Chassidic kids.

My father loves to mess with little Chassidic children in part because it allows him to let his Yiddish (which he loves so much) roll out in spades. I think it scares the shit out of them when some guy in flannel shirt, blue jeans and a baseball cap starts talking in Yiddish to them. So my pop related a story that happened to him in New Square - a sheltered village, a real life modern day Chassidic shtetl - many years ago. He was walking along one of the town's artificially quaint streets and these two kids started debating in Yiddish whether or not this strange humanoid was Jewish. Mind you, he was wearing a yarmulke. Finally my father got so frustrated with their stares that he told them in Yiddish that he was in fact a Jew, simultaneously illustrating this fact by reaching into his fly and pulling out his tzitzit.

Steven Colbert Breaks Down Race Barriers: He exemplifies SWPL #14, while I show off #35 Got an ethnic or sexual identity? If so, then according to the Internet, you probably like stuff. Ever since Stuff White People Like became an overnight sensation, bloggers from all across the identity spectrum have been eager to put in their own two cents about, well, what stuff their people like. Any trendspotter now knows that when a few other people of the same race or sexual orientation like things, a website is the next inevitable phase. Just in case you don’t know how, for instance, your young Jewish adult friend might feel about you inviting her to a game of ultimate frisbee (LOVES it), or are in the mood for some awkward stereotype-based humor, here’s a roundup of some more stuff people like:

• For the temple youth group crowd, there’s Stuff Young Jewish Adults Like: (surprisingly?) similar to white people. Likes include Ironic Jewish Themed t-shirts, Isla Fisher, NPR, Taking Christ’s name in vain. My guess? The name of the blog is too unhip to have been written by a real “young Jewish Adult.” But I sort of want to own that T-shirt.

• Stuff Black People Like is currently under construction and is operating in the meantime in blog form. Visitors to the site can learn about how much Black people love talent shows, Black Jesus, using the word “conversate,” “yo mama” jokes, and revolution, or they can participate in the ongoing discussion about what it means to be “Blaucasian.”

• If you are educated, Black, and feel that Stuff Black People Like does not represent your interests, you might find a cozy pigeon hole over at Stuff Educated Black People Like. This group digs wine and cheese affairs, Oprah, mega churches, jazz, fraternities and sororities, advanced degrees, poetry slams, CNN, and moving to Atlanta.

• Time to take it over to the Asian crowd with Stuff Asian People Like! I’ve got to say, this list reminds me of a lot of non-Asian people I know. According to the site, Asians are heavy into Dance Dance Revolution, higher education, house hunting, cutting in line, nagging, fortune cookies, eye enlargement, white girls, white guys, and peace signs.

SNbL #15 - The "Grocer's Apostrophe": Nobody likes faulty punctuation • If you are of South Asian descent and hate DDR, you are in luck! Thanks to Stuff Desis/Brown People Like, you can finally have a forum to discuss you love of Niagra Falls, chai, Desi-White couples, staring, masters degrees, bargain hunting, friends, and cricket.

• For the LGBTQ crowd, don’t fret: you’ve got a site too! Stuff Queer People Like is the place to share your love of having emotionally unstable childhood best friends, finding excuses to wear short shorts, reading Queer subtext into things that are not actually Queer, and my personal favorite, off color humor as told by awkward white women.

The good news is that the trend seems to have run its course. Introducing the meme-ending Stuff Nobody Likes. Because no matter who you are, you definitely hate herpes, the G train, pedophiles, comic strips that don’t know when to quit, and “e-Mail ~~ FWDs!!!!!!!!!!111!!!”.

The excerpt herein is from my humor book, Oh, the Humanity! A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert, which was published in October by TOW Books. I was interviewed on this very site a few weeks ago, actually. You might find it helpful to read a conversation with a writer you've probably never heard of before diving into his equally obscure book. Sorry for the hard sell.

The portion below deals with tactics for wriggling out of deadly conversations. Some of you will find these bitterly familiar.

People Are Strange
Those lyrics are most commonly associated with Jim Morrison of the Doors, and you probably know the song even if you’re not a fan of classic rock or haven’t seen the ’80s biopic starring Iceman. But people are strange, not to mention frustrating. If we all walked around in sandwich boards that revealed our inner thoughts, we would know from a distance if a woman disliked her sister-in-law or if a man had fulfilled his dream of wearing a sandwich board. Unfortunately, we usually don’t know what we’re in for until we’ve entered into a conversation, and by the time we realize that we’re in the presence of somebody we should have avoided, it’s too late. But that doesn’t mean you’re defenseless. Before we look at specific types of undesirables, let’s touch on some general strategies for extracting yourself from an unpleasant conversation.

Call upon your biological urges. You usually can’t walk away from a conversation without at least some sort of slipshod pretense, and hunger’s a good one. If someone’s wearing you down with their reminiscences of gift certificates they’ve received over the years, you can excuse yourself with, “I think I’ll get myself some of those tasty appetizers” or, “Sounds like they’re slaughtering additional chickens. I’m going back for seconds.” Unfortunately, all the other person has to do is counter with, “Delicious! I think I’ll join you” and you’re stuck. That’s where going to the bathroom comes in. It’s an incontestable excuse that begs no follow-up. It’s rare that someone declares his intention to use the facilities and in response hears, “Really? Are you a fan of toilets?” or, “Delicious! I think I’ll join you.” Of course, people are generally squeamish about bodily functions. They just don’t want to know. If you’re worried that your restroom excuse is too transparent, simply concoct something anatomically obscure and unsettling.

• “Hate to cut you off, but my membranes are lathering.”
• “Sorry, I need to void my pus nodes.”
• “I’ve been coughing up sussudio all week.”

Bring in a third party. Some people are so hungry for closeness that they won’t even let you get your name out before presenting you with your half of a heart locket. They exchange poems with prisoners about things like freedom and incompetent public defenders, and they’re not 100 percent sure, but they think the person who sent them an e-mail regarding “vigara schoolgirlz who wants 2 gag on your best hippo cock” is probably their soul mate. No rhetorical maneuver will detach these needy people. And yet, you’re not really special to them, either. You’re just a human who, for the moment, is keeping them from being dragged away in the undertow of their loneliness. You are easily substituted, and you can swap yourself with someone else. If you’re at a social function, it’s not difficult to find someone else, but you can’t just flag down an acquaintance and say, “Listen, Heather, I have to separate myself from this horrible, horrible person. I propose you talk to him.” The trick is to make the switch seem beneficial to both the person you’ve recruited and the person you’re retreating from. Then, as they explore their common ground, you can bow out with a clear conscience.

ALISSA: Heather, come here for a second. Remember when you studied Celtic folklore for a year in Ireland? Well, it just so happens that Brad here also spends most of his paycheck on masseuses who are willing to “finish the job.” I’ll let you two get acquainted. I’m surprised your paths haven’t crossed already.

Reinforce the positive. Even if you’re with someone who hasn’t made the best impression, it helps to end on a supportive note. You never know when you might need a professional contact or want access to someone who really frightens you. You’ll score extra points if you encourage the person in terms of something he or she mentioned earlier in the conversation:

• “Well, it was nice meeting you! Thanks for all the unsolicited recipes for placenta.”
• “I’ve really enjoyed our chat! Ecoterrorism seems like a dynamic field.”
• “Hey, it’s been a pleasure! I’ll be sure to pick up that DVD you recommended next time I’m in the mood to watch people old enough to be my grandparents fuck people old enough to be their grandparents.”

On that repellent note, I'll thank you for reading. (And what would any excerpt be without an Amazon link?)

 

 

 

From funny writer Jason Roeder comes his debut book, Oh the Humanity: A Gentle Guide to Social Interaction for the Feeble Young Introvert. Roeder is a humor writer, which means he is unemployed. He writes a column for Writer's Digest called "Roeder Report" and has been published in such so-so publications as Salon, The New Yorker, and McSweeney's.

Here's a preview of what you'll encounter in Oh the Humanity.

One valuable section, "Obliterating Yourself With Alcohol-Responsibly," lends advice on how to use the "confidence tonic" to improve upon your usual stammering and awkward self. Another, "Humor: Harnessing Your Inner Wayans Brother," teaches you how to make jokes that don't suck. And, in "Can I Be Too Curious?" Roeder offers such sage advice as: "1. Avoid asking strangers where they like to be nibbled. 2. Avoid asking them to confirm their gender. 3. Avoid asking them to confirm your gender."

Jewcy: Humor writing is vacuous. Do you think so?

Jason Roeder: Spoken like someone who's never read a single word of a "You Might Be a Redneck" desk calendar.

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of publishers who will take a chance on a humor book that doesn't seem to have loud novelty value. The humor sections of most bookstores are clogged with books that are really more like extended greeting cards. If you've ever opened a Shoebox Greeting and thought, "Man, I wish that dismal punch line pertaining to how decrepit I am at age 40 could go on for a hundred more pages," I have some fantastic news for you, my friend.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't exactly written Crime and Punishment myself, but I don't think a humor book has to be literary fake vomit, either.

J: What's the funniest thing you've ever written?

JR: Honestly, I'd say my master's project from journalism school. It was slapdash and superficial and awful. It might have been 20 pages. My advisor said that it wasn't even journalism. I said, "Thank God."

My favorite intentionally funny piece is probably my first: "I Enjoy Taunting Insomniacs." Insomnia used to be a problem for me, a huge one. A few years ago, I was into my third day without sleep. I had either begun to hallucinate, or Technicolor amoebas had moved into my apartment. I sat down and typed out 500 words of verbal abuse from the perspective of someone who just enjoyed a full eight hours and decided to brag about it. It's the only piece I've ever written that provoked more than one email with "You Dick" typed into the subject field.

J: As your book tells us, it turns out that empathy helps in making friends. Here's what you have to say about it: "Sometimes we can draw on our life experiences to empathize with someone. For example, a friend of mine recently described how frustrating it was trying to get through to his uncle with Alzheimer's. Although no one in my family has that terrible disease, I remember an unproductive conversation I had with an L.L. Bean customer-service representative who insisted there were no hunter-green chamois pajamas in stock. On another occasion, I was unable to get a waitress's attention immediately. So, although I couldn't relate to the specifics of my friend's situation, I knew his emotional struggle all too well."

JR: We all have more in common with each other than we think, shared emotional, if not factual, histories. When a homeless person raises his Styrofoam cup, I know the only change he really wants is my two cents' worth! So, I tell him how down-and-out I was when my DSL wasn't operational for seven straight hours before it suddenly just started working again for some reason. The way he hurls garbage at me says, "I'm not so alone, after all."

J: The New Yorker published your writing in a Shouts & Murmurs column last fall. That must've been a shitty day in the life of Jason Roeder.

JR: Oh, certainly. You get the acceptance email, and you spend the rest of the day with a trembling shotgun against your chin, wondering if you're man enough to do what has to be done. Actually, a clip in The New Yorker is a good thing, though any time I hear someone say that the stuff in Shouts just isn't that funny or should be funnier, I realize that I'm now probably part of the complaint. And when critics point out how infrequently women appear in Shouts & Murmurs, I recognize that I contribute to the imbalance. The reason I say that is because I have a penis.

J: You recently moved from Boston to New York. Which is better?

JR: First of all, I have no allegiance to the Yankees or Red Sox. I think I'll side with whichever team switches to football first.

It's hard to choose a favorite because I've only been in New York a couple of months. I'm still contending with the transition and feel like a tourist in many ways. I was on a date a couple of weeks ago, and the woman chided me for not detesting "sanitized" Times Square quite as much as I'm apparently supposed to. I guess I see her point. It took me more than an hour to get a hand job at M&M's World.

J: In regards to gay marriage you write, "What could be more transgressive than wanting to participate, as billions of others have, in one of civilization's most ancient institutions?"

JR: Well, I hope in my lifetime that gay marriage will cease to be a social issue, and I think the longer it exists, the tougher it will be to argue that the institution of marriage is being contaminated by it. Then again, the most recent census reported that 74.3 percent of Americans are credulous dildos, so who can say?

I remember how there'd be some important gay-marriage-related vote at the statehouse in Boston, and you'd see a photo of a righteous busybody evidently not needed in the workforce holding up a sign that read something like, "God Made Adam And Eve, Not Adam And Steve." I would've loved to have held up my own sign that said, "God Didn't Make Adam And Eve, Either, Bitch." Why not bring up evolution while you've got a fundamentalist's attention?

J: What's up next after "Oh the Humanity" tops the Times' Bestseller list?

JR: The second stage of the Apocalypse, I would imagine. And possibly a novel.

J: Besides world peace, what's your hope for the future?

JR: I'm not ready for world peace, not until Cyprus apologizes to me. You know what you did, Cyprus.

A.J. Jacobs spent the past year living according to the Bible as literally as possible. That meant no pork, no sitting on a chair on which a woman has previously perched (you never know if she might be menstruating), and no mixing fibers. In this excerpt from his book, The Year of Living Biblically, he wades gingerly into the world of Biblical punishment.

* * *

Everybody must get stoned: PebblesThey shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon them.
—Leviticus 20:27

The Hebrew scriptures prescribe a tremendous amount of capital punishment. Think Saudi Arabia, multiply by Texas, then triple that. It wasn’t just for murder. You could also be executed for adultery, blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath, perjury, incest, bestiality, and witchcraft, among others. A rebellious son could be sentenced to death. As could a son who is a persistent drunkard and glutton.

The most commonly mentioned punishment method in the Hebrew Bible is stoning. So I figure, as the very least, I should try to stone. But how?

I can’t tell you the number of people who have suggested that I get adulterers and blasphemers stoned in the cannabis sense. Which is an interesting idea. But I haven’t smoked pot since I was at Brown University, when I wrote a paper for my anthropology class on the hidden symbolism of bong hits. (Brown was the type of college where this paper actually earned a B+.)

Instead I figured my loophole would be this: The Bible doesn’t specify the size of the stones. So…pebbles.

A few days ago, I gathered a handful of small white pebbles from Central Park, which I stuffed in my back pants pocket. Now all I needed were some victims. I decided to start with Sabbath breakers. That’s easy enough to find in this workaholic city. I noticed that a potbellied guy at Avis down our block had worked on both Saturday and Sunday. So no matter what, he’s a Sabbath breaker.

Here’s the thing, though: Even with pebbles, it is surprisingly hard to stone people.

My plan had been to walk nonchalantly past the Sabbath violator and chuck the pebbles at the small of his back. But after a couple of failed passes, I realized it was a bad idea. A chucked pebble, no matter how small, does not go unnoticed.

My revised plan: I would pretend to be clumsy and drop the pebble on his shoe. So I did.

And in this way I stoned. But it was probably the most polite stoning in history— I said, “I’m sorry,” and then leaned down to pick up the pebble. And he leaned down at the same time, and we almost butted heads, and then he apologized, then I apologized again.

Highly unsatisfying.

Today I get another chance. I am resting in a small public park on the Upper West Side, the kind where you see retirees eating tuna sandwiches on benches.

“Hey, you’re dressed queer.”

Dreaming of GMILFs: Recent studies confirm that people's sex lives don't end once they hit 70 I look over. The speaker is an elderly man, mid-seventies, I guess. He is tall and thin and wearing one of those caps that cabbies wore in movies from the forties.

“You’re dressed queer,” he snarls. “Why you dressed so queer?”

I have on my usual tassels, and, for good measure, have worn some sandals and am carrying a knotty maple walking stick I bought on the internet for twenty-five dollars.

“I’m trying to live by the rules of the Bible. The Ten Commandments, stoning adulterers…”

“You’re stoning adulterers?”

“Yeah, I’m stoning adulterers.”

“I’m an adulterer.”

“You’re currently an adulterer?”

“Yeah. Tonight, tomorrow, yesterday, two weeks from now. You gonna stone me?”

“If I could, yes, that’d be great.”

“I’ll punch you in the face. I’ll send you to the cemetery.”

He is serious. This isn’t a cutesy grumpy old man. This is an angry old man. This is a man with seven decades of hostility behind him.

I fish out my pebbles from my back pocket.

“I wouldn’t stone you with big stones,” I say. “Just these little guys.”

I open my palm to show him the pebbles. He lunges at me, grabbing one out of my hand, then flinging it at my face. It whizzes by my cheek.

I am stunned for a second. I hadn’t expected this grizzled old man to make the first move. But now there is nothing stopping me from retaliating. An eye for an eye.

I take one of the remaining pebbles and whip it at his chest. It bounces off.

“I’ll punch you right in the kisser,” he says.

“Well, you really shouldn’t commit adultery,” I say.

We stare at each other. My pulse has doubled.

Yes, he is a septuagenarian. Yes, he had just threatened me using corny Honeymooners dialogue. But you could tell: This man has a strong dark side.

Our glaring contest lasts ten seconds, then he walks away, brushing me as he leaves.

Teaching kids that violence doesn't pay since 1971: Meathead and crew When I was a kid, I saw an episode of All in the Family in which Meathead— Rob Reiner’s wussy peacenik character— socked some guy in the jaw. Meathead was very upset about this. But he wasn’t upset that he committed violence; he was upset because it felt so good to commit violence.

I can relate. Even though mine was stoning lite, barely fulfilling the letter of the law, I can’t deny: It felt good to chuck a rock at this nasty old man. It felt primal. It felt like I was getting vengeance on him. This guy wasn’t just an adulterer, he was a bully. I wanted him to feel the pain he’d inflicted on others, even if that pain was a tap on the chest.

Like Meathead, I also knew that that this was a morally stunted way to feel. Stoning is about as indefensible as you can get. It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality? Later that week, I ask my spiritual adviser Yossi about stoning. Yossi was born in Minnesota and calls himself a “Jewtheran”— Jewish guilt and Lutheran repression mesh nicely, he told me. He’s an ordained Orthodox rabbi but never practiced, instead opting for the shmata trade— he sold scarves to, among others, the Amish. He’s tall and broad shouldered with a neatly trimmed beard. In his spare time, Yossi writes wry essays about Jewish life, including a lament about how his favorite snack, Twinkies, recently became nonkosher. I met him through Aish Ha Torah, an Orthodox outreach group.

He isn’t fazed by my question at all.

We don’t stone people today because you need a biblical theocracy to enforce the stoning, he explains. No such society exists today. But even in ancient times, stoning wasn’t barbaric.

“First of all, you didn’t just heave stones,” says Yossi. “The idea was to minimize the suffering. What we call ‘stoning’ was actually pushing the person off the cliff so they would die immediately upon impact. The person getting executed was given strong drink to dull the pain.”

Plus, the stonings were a rare thing. Some rabbis say executions occurred only once every seven years, others say even less often. There had to be two witnesses to the crime. And the adulterer had to be tried by a council of seventy elders. And, weirdly, the verdict of those seventy elders could not be unanimous— that might be a sign of corruption or brainwashing. And so on.

I half-expected Yossi to say they gave the adulterer a massage and a gift bag. He made a compelling case. And yet, I’m not totally sold. Were biblical times really so merciful? I suspect there might be some whitewashing going on. As my year progresses, I’ll need to delve deeper.

* * *

ALSO IN JEWCY

A.J. Jacobs kept a Jewcy blog last week in which he wrote about

• how his project worked
• the Biblical injunction against mixing wool with linen
• visiting a Creationist museum
• observing Shabbat by spending four hours in the bathroom
  

Jon Papernick tried a similar experiment in observance as "The Perfect Jew," in which he embraced Jewish rituals such as

• wearing a kippah for a week
• bathing in a mikvah
• negotiating like a macher
• keeping Shabbat

After finding out that the cutest boy she'd ever seen in real life was sending her dirty text messages from his honeymoon, Tamar Fox looked into Jewish laws around adultery.

Speaking of religious literalism, stoning still happens in some parts of the world. Ali Eteraz discusses America's role in promoting Iraq's new, not-exactly-woman-friendly constitution.

Truth? I enjoy yanking everything out of cupboards and drawers and cleaning my apartment at Rosh HaShanah then again, of course, at Pesach, probably way, way more than I should. I clean, I take care of little nagging errands, and when I sit back, it's a satisfying feeling, to be on top of things.

Shanah Tovah: Whattdya say we knock this crap off a sec and have a little fun, mm?

But, with the clean-a-thon (and errand-a-thon) in full swing probably in many homes, with half the MOTs I know schlepping through airports today, and with the cringe-worthy spectacle I just saw drive past my apartment building (a plumber's van with a PVC missile on top and a sign tied to the side that read Been lookin' for Bin Laden... remember 9/11), I thought we could all use a break and a laugh. Tomorrow, I'll be back with a more of my heavier granola-girl biznass, but today, let's just chill and laugh, yeah? Great.

 

Okay, then, first read President Bush's Rosh HaShanah greeting to us, but read it out loud in his voice. Hilarious! Can you imagine him saying Shanah Tovah? Or shofar?!? I know, I know, it's a nice gesture and we should be menschy and thank him, but c'mon, it's funny. Almost as funny as how totally uncomfortable he looked at the chanukiot lighting at the White House last year.

Check out Rabbi Richard Israel's cute list of using different kind of bread for different types of behavior one wishes to modify at a Taschlich ceremony. (I'd like to add booze-drenched fruitcake and Guacamole Doritos to the list of options on behalf of a particular friend's Very Fun Time In Mexico a few months ago.)

This blows: No, uh, actually it blasts.

 

Lastly, I assume most of you have seen Rosh HaShanah Girl, inspired by Obama Girl. If not, do enjoy. Lyrics and more info can be found here. Since we're watching videos, let us not forget last year's Ro-Ro-Ro-Rosh HaShanah (to My Sharona), Hebrew Crunk and this shofar garage door opener. (Hi, can you imagine how much fun you'd have with a shofar in place of keys and openers? My neighbors would die.)

Anyway, break over. Back to making shalom bayit.

In my first ever Jewcy blog post, I lamented the fact that I didn't have anyone's coattails to ride to fame. It's funny how fast things can change. Not that I am necessarily any closer to fame and fortune, but I have decided which coattails I will be clinging too.

Over the weekend, I played poker with Jennifer Tilly and Ben Affleck. I kicked it wit SNL alum Norm MacDonald. And I got comedy advice from a genius. A comic genius.

I owe it to Jacob Zalewski. One of my best friends and a kid with more heart than John Henry and a mouth that runs like Carl Lewis on a seven day meth binge.

Jacob has cerebral palsy, but that has not stopped him from pursuing his dream of making it in Hollywood. It has, on the other hand, stopped him from being able to walk. But we work around that. That has always been a hallmark of our friendship. He needs to be lifted pretty often. And I am really good at lifting stuff.

And this friendship is what got me an audience with the genius.

Jacob used his considerable networking skills to meet a ton of big-name celebrities at the 2007 World Series of Poker. He told each and every one of them about his intentions of going into film after he gets his degree in Media and Broadcasting from the University of Houston. And guess what? They listened.

And that is what led to my audience with the genius.

One of the many luminaries that Jacob charmed was a dude named Sam Simon. Yeah, that Sam Simon. The guy who is both a creator and executive producer of The Simpsons. A guy that has written, directed or produced for shows like Taxi, Cheers, Friends, The Drew Carey Show...must I go on?

Simon invited Jacob to spend a week at his humble little mansion in Los Angeles. Since Jacob needed someone to carry his bags, I was invited too.

Jacob mentioned to Simon that I was a stand-up comic. Simon asked me to run some of my act past him.

And while I realized that this was like Einstein asking a freshman who just made a C in his Intro to Physics class for his take on relativity, I did my best.

But there was one problem. And his name was Ralph Cirella.

Cirella is the stylist for the Howard Stern Show. He is such a frequent guest at Simon's, that the guest house on Simon's Pacific Palisades property is known as "The Ralph Cirello Suite".

Unfortunately for me, at the time that I went into my act, I had only known the guy for a few minutes. I did not yet know that Cirella was the living embodiment of every obnoxious caller that has ever dialed in to the Howard Stern Show.

In short, he heckled me relentlessly. And I must admit, that it threw me off of my game.

I am usually good with hecklers, but beyond a firm kick in the teeth, I really don't have any good comebacks for repeated catcalls of "douchebag", "faggot" and "you suck!" And a kick in the guy's teeth was out of the question, because no starting fights was one of the promises Jacob made me make before the trip.

The other promise was no pinching his cheeks.

So there I was. Melting down before one of the great comic minds of our time. And he was enjoying every minute of it.

But when the verbal abuse died down, Simon offered me a bit of advice that went straight to my heart. He told me that I was funny. He told me that I seemed driven. And he said that I had great stage presence.

And his advice was this: He told me to use my art to bring people together. He said that love should be the driving force behind humor.

And that makes sense. If the driving force behind your art is to find that which is common within us all, it seems you would only appeal to a wider audience. Ergo, an act that brings people together gives you a shot at the big time instead of making a room full of retards laugh for 20 dollars and a six-pack of Fat Tire.

I think I just dropped the bit about setting up check-points between my front door and bedroom every time my Palestinian ex-girlfriend used to come visit me. I think I'll add in the one about knowing that the Apocalypse is upon us because the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Base is now selling souvenirs made out of panda poop. I think we can all relate to that.

In short, it was a life altering visit.

I got advice from the genius.

I learned that Ben Affleck might be the nicest guy in the world. He went out of his way to stop in and holler at Jacob. He also has the most symmetrical face I have ever seen. Unless that guy runs into a frying pan, I don't see anything keeping him out of the Oval Office if that should ever be his goal.

Jennifer Tilly thinks that I have a sexy accent. Well, she said that I have a southern accent. The sexy is implied, right?

And I can take a beating from one of the harshest hecklers in the world.

But maybe that was just Cirello's way of telling me that he respects my balls.

Or maybe it's just his way of saying that I suck.

Via the Drink-Soaked Trots.

The recent screen-to-stage Broadway debut of Legally Blonde: The Musical might pass, to the untrained eye, for just another piece of Times Square popcorn poop. Count a New York Times critic among the naifs; according to Ben Brantley, the musical “approximates the experience of eating a jumbo box of Gummy Bears in one sitting.” And that’s a bad thing? Its lack of intellectual cachet is just one of several factors at work against my campaign to garner Legally Blonde’s fair heroine, Elle Woods, a footnote ...

Reconavitch-Lubastructionists: Might look something like thisVia Jewschool, I stumble accross this (bit of FICTION) over at the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation:

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported today that leaders from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation and Chabad Lubavitch will be announcing the merger of their movements in a press conference scheduled for this Sunday, March 4, the 15th of Adar.

Sources close to the negotiations were amazed by the exuberance, nay euphoria, expressed by professionals and lay people of the two organizations.

"No one is going to believe this!" giggled JRF's Executive Vice President Dr. Carl Sheingold. Negotiators from Chabad's international headquarters reportedly led all the negotiators in raucous song and dance.

I’ll admit I was shocked when I saw the headline, but because I’m about the most gullible person in the world (Did you know they took the word “gullible” out of the dictionary???) I did NOT assume this was humor, but rather stretched my brain to imagine what the new queer-friendly Chabad was going to look like… I know I’m a dolt.

But in some small part of my brain the merge made a weird kind of sense. Because while Chabad and I have had our differences, I must admit that they want almost EVERYONE to come to Shabbat dinner. Even me. And the Reconstructionists want almost EVERYONE to support social justice and grass-roots projects. Even you. Both groups tend to be (at least officially) inclusive as hell.

So, it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to imagine a bizarro world (the one where we’re all straight I guess, and kosher) in which a lot of Jews get together and wear tefillin while supporting Darfur. Or something like that.

In any case,I was surprised at this bit of scribbling… and I laughed out loud. I’m highly appreciative that the RJF has a sense of humor, and I wonder what Chabad thought of this…

As an Irish Catholic with a German surname from Billings, Montana, I should be red meat for anti-Semitic recruitment drives. Truth be told, I’ve never had strong feelings one way or another about the Jewish people (Elliot Gould and Larry Brown excepted). I did have an awesome time at Adam Weissman’s bar mitzvah party. We got to ride on a green double-decker bus to the Sheraton where we ransacked a make-your-own-sundae bar. And, well, I work in the media. But there is a whole mess of anti-Semitic Web sites out there, all beckoning the dirty-blond, green-eyed Montanan like varieties of grape at the ...

A new book out in Germany chronicles joke-making under the Third Reich. Most of these samples, reprinted in a Der Spiegel article, are hopelessly soft-boiled and don't even yield the ghost of a smile:

Hitler visits a lunatic asylum. The patients give the Hitler salute. As he passes down the line he comes across a man who isn't saluting.
"Why aren't you saluting like the others?" Hitler barks.
"Mein Führer, I'm the nurse," comes the answer. "I'm not crazy!"

Sadly, my favorite bit of Nazi era humor -- which had been adapted by Jews from an old thigh-slapper from tsarist Russia -- goes as follows:

Two Jews in the Warsaw ghetto get word that Hitler himself will be taking a tour of the place tomorrow at noon. They plot to assassinate him. Having procured and stowed an SS officer's misplaced rifle, they agree to meet on the top of a building at noon and await Hitler's motorcade. The next day comes, they take their posts. 11 o'clock passes, no Hitler. 11:30, no Hitler.12:00, still no Hitler. Finally, at 12:30, with still no sign of the Fuhrer, one Jew says to the other, "Gee, I hope nothing happened to him."

Gallows humor the way it was meant to be: ironic and mordant in the face of death. So much better, incidentally, than Chaplin's fluffy farce The Great Dictator.