"I'm a Jew, a lonely Jew-I'd be merry but I'm Hebrew-on Chrissssssssstmasssssssss..."
        -Kyle Broflovski, South Park

This won't make me popular in some neurotic circles, but my Hebrew name means "The Bringer of Light" so I am going to illuminate the obvious for you: Hanukkah is bullshit and Christmas is awesome. When it comes to winter holiday enchantment, our Festival of Lights doesn't hold a candle to the Festival of Christ.  There are many reasons why Christmas kicks the royal tar out of Hanukkah, but I didn't fully comprehend them until a few years ago. Unlike many Jewish kids who pine to celebrate the yuletide, I was never ashamed of Hanukkah-I actually took pride in our lackluster, knockoff celebration-and thus remained woefully ignorant of Christmas's manifest superiority. My gentile classmates got to make cookies shaped like trees and Santa hats, but I busied myself in the back of the room with an activity book of Hanukkah-themed crosswords, mazes and connect-the-dots. As the only Jew in my class, growing up in Alaska, I was special! I got to do my own thing! I didn't need Christmas!

(Fun Fact: There are not many Jews in Alaska, mostly because Sarah Palin hunts us from her helicopter.)

The bells and whistles of Christmas seemed worthless because I had menorahs, dreidels, latkes and gelt-chocolate coins that Jews use to teach our young children about the glories of compound interest-to occupy my time; they were just as good, right? (Correct Answer: no, they were not.) As the years passed, I evolved from a child to a college student-my central vice evolved from toys to liquor, although my behavior was still "childish" according to various ignorant females-and Hanukkah became more of a joyless obligation: a holiday marked with a shrug instead of celebratory anticipation. It existed, much like homeless people and God, but was not something I bothered to think about, if I could help it, much like homeless people and God. And then my shikse girlfriend's parents invited me to celebrate Christmas in New England, which changed everything.

At first I nervously turned down their request; I would feel like I were visiting a foreign country without any knowledge of the local customs, such as how to open an advent calendar, or the best way to sit on an old bearded man's lap as I tell him my deepest desires. (Just kidding, I was already familiar with the latter custom... intimately familiar.) My shikse's parents changed my mind, however, when they promised to stifle any discussion of Jesus the Super-Powered Baby, mostly because they are atheists. And guess what? Christmas is FUCKING AMAZING! My family never drank at Hanukkah-everyone knows that Jews can't drink-but Christmas is a friggin' booze-fueled bacchanalia: egg nog spiked with whiskey, apple cider flavored with rum (my girlfriend's grandmother's recipe-you rock my world, Nana!), and wine by the litre/megalitre/gigalitre/tetralitre/yottalitre. Yes, there is such a thing as a yottalitre, and it will get you fucked up.

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Organized religion is full of contradictions-for example, could God create a boulder so heavy that He cannot lift it, and then create a heavier boulder that would outweigh the combined bloat of Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh?-and here is one of them:

"God will accept repentance for all sins except one: giving another man a bad name."

-The Zohar

 "It is a wise man that admits the truth."

-The Mishnah

What if admitting the truth means giving someone a bad name? Should we apologize for hurting others' feelings after exposing their malevolence and hypocrisy? Is it better to speak charitably or honestly? And why do these questions keep me awake at night?

I am a professional asshole. My job (nay, my purpose on earth) is to mercilessly pierce the bullshit-ridden exoskeleton of society with my blazing katana of unfiltered rhetorical justice, decapitate the scum-sucking charlatans of this planet and make sweet, sweet love to their cleanly severed skulls. Somebody has to do it, and yet I feel bad whenever I make somebody else feel bad; the Katana of Truth is a double-edged sword.

I've previously detailed my social ineptitude here on Jewcy, and I haven't changed much with a couple years of age (except that I'm way hotter now whereas you are uglier). Consider my behavior last weekend at a party with law school students whom I'd never met:

• Mocked two brothers because they failed to make it into Harvard like their father

• Told a disheveled guy that he looked like future divorce attorney and his first client would be himself

• Informed a dude that the band on his t-shirt sucks, always a classy and well-liked move

• Laughed in a Texan's face because Alaska, my homeland, is more than twice the size of her shitty redneck state

• To blonde couple: "You look like master race Aryans straight out of a Swiss Miss commercial, did you know that?"

• To Catholic chick: "So you fuck like crazy but don't use condoms because Jesus would send you to hell, right?"

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Perhaps it was a circus act for the gullible and schmaltz-inclined, but the Sen. John McCain of 2000 combined the best characteristics of Superman (a hero who defended Truth, Justice and the American Way), Batman (a zillionaire with a dark past who fought corruption wherever it lurked), and Wolverine (a stocky, grizzled, hard-drinking veteran with berserker rage, but still awesome).

In 2008, however, McCain combines the worst characteristics of Lex Luthor (hollow lust for power, evil henchmen, bald), the Joker (impulsive, belligerent, plays people against one another, unserious) and the X-Men villain Apocalypse (he will bring about the apocalypse).

McCain once made you proud to call yourself an American, and it wasn’t demagogic pride (“with us or against us,” “love it or leave it,” “for the troops or against the troops”) but the real thing. He inspired millions of people with his story of sacrifice and service, and defined himself by his honesty and "maverick" yet moderate positions on the issues. His candidacy derailed when George W. Bush’s goons infamously spread whispers of a brown lovechild whom McCain had actually adopted. As this hideous decade progressed—from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib to Hurricane Katrina to the merciless evisceration of the U.S. Constitution—many of us said to ourselves, “If only McCain were in charge…”

Since 2000, however, McCain has devolved like a post-Atomic Holocaust science-fiction zombie into a grotesque McCarthyite (McCainthyite?) parody. Whereas he once played to centrist Americans—the silent majority who cannot stand “agents of intolerance” whether their names are Farrakhan or Falwell—presently he panders to the most regressive elements of our culture and the most vile aspects of our human nature.

McCain took a bloody shit all over his legacy, and chose to empower the darkest corners of the American Right over the American mainstream. He put all his eggs into the Rabid Mutant Basket, assuming the overzealous radicals would show on Election Day instead of the lazy normal people. If you prefer the Enlightenment over the Dark Ages—Truth over Lies, Hope over Fear, Unity over Hate—the John McCain of 2008 wants you to go fuck yourself.

It hurts me to type this—genuinely hurts—because I once worshipped at the McAltar. (As I make clear in my new book Dumbocracy: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right and Other American Idiots I'm a bit of a maverick myself; in the words of Chris Rock, "Crime? I'm conservative. Prostitution? I'm liberal!") Goddamnit, John McCain, why did you break my heart worse than any woman I’ve ever loved? Why did you fellate George W. Bush more furiously in the past eight years than the First Lady since their wedding day?

Back in April McCain “pledged to conduct a respectful campaign,” promising to focus on the issues instead of questioning the loyalty and character of his opponent as the GOP questioned Sen. John Kerry’s in 2004. McCain took the high road, which Americans shockingly appreciate this year, and then he realized he would lose the election to Sen. Barack Obama, so McCain panicked and made a deviant blood pact with the Lord of the Underworld:

“LUCIFER, HEAR MY PLEA!” McCain bellowed to the Fallen Angel, naked and shivering and covered in his own geriatric spermatozoa. “I NEED A MIRACLE… I NEED A GODSEND… I NEED A YOU-SEND!”

“YES, MCCAIN, I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU,” said the Dark Prince. “MY DEMONIC BRIDE, ALASKA GOV. SARAH PALIN, WHO IS YOURS FOR A SMALL PRICE: YOUR SOUL, MCCAIN, YOUR ETERNAL SOOOOUUUUL…”

And lo, the wretched bargain was sealed, but McCain forgot that deals with the devil tend to backfire, especially when you are covered in Septuagenarian Man Juice.

Palin looked perfect on paper: a young, popular female governor who would appeal to religious conservatives, gun owners, small town residents, soccer/hockey moms, bitter Hillary Clinton supporters (are there any other kind?) and guys who like to jerk off (there are not any other kind). Nobody in D.C. expected McCain to nominate her—nobody had heard of her, other than Alaskans like me—and she caused immediate waves of excitement throughout the country. Pundits declared her selection a political masterstroke. America fell in love with her overnight… and then for some reason she opened her mouth.

Palin could not identify a Supreme Court decision besides Roe v. Wade. She could not name a newspaper or magazine she reads. She recently traveled abroad for the first time. She believes the First Amendment protects politicians from criticism, as opposed to protecting critics from politicians. With a corruption investigation underway, and accusations of censorship, cronyism, religious extremism, and the tendency to fire any public official who disagreed with her, the truth swiftly became apparent: she was Bush with a bush. (Update: I thought this was mildly clever, but "Bush with a bush" gets 1,680 hits on Google. Also, she might wax.)

Her initial approval numbers plunged; she became a liability to McCain and an embarrassment to everyone but the most extreme right-wing diehards who embraced her wholeheartedly as a symbol of their myriad resentments against modernity, the scientific process, proper usage of the English language, etc.

You felt bad for her—she seemed like a normal person who had been picked off the street and expected to master geopolitics overnight—and perhaps you felt guilty for judging her. You might have searched your soul and wondered if you’re a know-it-all snob who looks down on regular folks from your cosmopolitan pedestal. Hey, if you were given a pop quiz on national TV, you would probably fail too; personally I’d rather not reveal my batting average for Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

However, you are not trying to convince hundreds of millions of Americans you are qualified for the second highest office in the land, and Palin is far too malicious to deserve our pity. Just as Bush is a divider, not a “uniter,” Palin exploited the time-tested strategies of the GOP playbook; she made this election about City Moose vs. Country Moose. If you question the Republican Party, you are an “elitist,” but if you never question the Republican Party—even when it shreds the Bill of Rights and amalgamates Church and State—you are “pro-America.”

Palin is the darkness in Plato’s cave, which is a reference she would probably need explained to her. She would have fed the hemlock to Socrates. She would have imprisoned Galileo. She would have prosecuted Scopes. If she were born in Hanoi, she would have mocked the critics of torture who “worried that someone won’t read them their rights,” as she did at the Republican National Convention, only “them” would have a slightly different meaning.

Americans have a tendency to vote for candidates who seem “just like me,” or remind us of our beer-drinking buddies, which explains the (initial) popularity of Bush and Palin. Our electoral narcissism is understandable but ludicrous; the vast majority of us are obviously not qualified for the White House. It is not “elitism” to observe this; it is reality. I have plenty of beer-drinking buddies, none of whom would receive my vote for anything, not even designated driver.

“Someone called me a redneck woman once and you know what I said back?” Palin recently asked a crowd of supporters. “‘Why, thank you.’”

Is this how a potential president of the United States should speak? Like a Hooters Waitress-in-Chief?

Conservatives used to believe in meritocracy; they opposed racial and gender quotas in the workplace on the principle that the most qualified person should get the job, no matter his or her physical characteristics. Modern right-wingers, however, loathe expertise of any kind. Their only concern is propagating their Orgy of Hate: for scientists, for teachers, for journalists, for immigrants, for the poor, for sexuality, for civilization itself.

It’s a vicious circle: the more McCain alienates centrist voters, the more feverishly he must court the extremists, in turn alienating more centrist voters, requiring him to further court the weirdos. McCain and Palin have consequently unleashed a vicious mob mentality which might not expire on November 5^th. When McCain finally tried to calm one of his psychotic xenophobic crowds, the testosterone-filled degenerates booed him for saying Obama is a “decent person…”

According to Palin, Obama “sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists,” “is hiding his real agenda,” “launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist,” and is “not a man who sees America the way you and I see America.” When not insinuating Obama is the Antichrist, the McCain-Palin campaign accuses Obama of supporting sexual education for kindergarteners—as if he were some kind of pervert—even though Obama actually proposed teaching children how to identify and avoid pedophiles. When the hard-hitting journalists at The View asked McCain to disown the ad, the Arizona senator refused. (Perhaps McCan is vying for the North American Man-Boy Love Association demographic? Are they swing voters? They hang around swing sets…)

While Obama has condemned and distanced himself from the left-wing extremists in his party and in his past, McCain spoke at Jerry Falwell’s university and proudly accepted the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee, who declared Hurricane Katrina God’s punishment on New Orleans for its sinful ways. (McCain ultimately rejected the endorsement when it emerged that Hagee claimed Hitler fulfilled God’s plan. Too late, McSellout.)

As the lunatics take over the GOP asylum, conservative intellectuals are fleeing: former Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Review royalty Christopher Buckley, Washington Post columnist George Will, Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan and former Bush speechwriter David Frum… the guy who came up with the nuanced, levelheaded phrase “axis of evil.”

In the politically correct ‘90s conservatives had some legitimate gripes: overzealous speech codes, frivolous lawsuits, Orwellian sensitivity training, punitive vice taxes and other government overreach. Left-wingers were often the angry and scary ones—moderates sympathized with Republicans—but this is no longer the case. The pendulum has swung too far to the right; it must come back to the center. The Republican Party of 2008 loathes freedom of speech, pursuit of happiness, separation of church and state, equality under the law and liberty for all. Wrap yourself in the flag all you want, but voting for the modern GOP is as unpatriotic as it gets.

For the last decade Republicans have equated dissent with treachery, sophistication with subversion and prudence with surrender. They worship the symbols of patriotism—the flag and the anthem and the pledge, as if no other countries have these things—but not the meaning of America. For people who supposedly stand firm against terrorists, Republicans are pathologically terrified; they hunt for communists under the bed as if the 1950s never passed, as if Canadian- and European-style social services are indistinguishable from Stalinism. As a Cheap Penny-Pinching Jew I’m all for balanced budgets and cautious spending, but if “socialist!!!!!!!” market regulations and safety nets are so fiscally dangerous, why are the Canadian and European currencies worth more than ours? (A hamburger in Ireland cost me the equivalent of $20 this summer! And it sucked! The Irish can't cook anything! No wonder a million of them starved!)

The world is an insanely complex place, but True Believers on the Right cannot process concepts deeper than Patriotism vs. Treason, God-Loving vs. God-Hating, Capitalist vs. Communist, Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them. At the final presidential debate McCain referred to the “pro-abortion” stance, as if the majority of our citizenry supports infanticide for supporting Roe v. Wade. This is ridiculous; most of us only support terminating babies when we’re stuck inside a movie theater with one. (McCain opposed overturning Roe in 1999. Was he for abortion before he was against it?)

Facing economic collapse thanks to our voracious greed—have you seen your credit card statement recently?—Americans have rejected the fantasy-based Culture War and finally asked for realistic solutions. Who cares if gay-married transsexuals are unfreezing embryonic stem cells and committing doctor-assisted suicide if nobody can afford bread and we’re cannibalizing one another for protein?

McCain deserved to win the Republican nomination (and perhaps the presidency) in 2000, but it’s no longer 2000. Yes, he is an American hero, but—much like the TV show Heroes—he has become over the top, inconsistent, badly scripted and embarrassing to watch. His Cold War understanding of the world is obsolete; his legendary temper is the last thing America needs right now. After 9/11 Americans got angry—naturally, justifiably—but our blind vengeance and misplaced trust in leaders such as McCain (who promised a swift, painless victory in Iraq), led to colossal mistakes which have jeopardized our status as an economic, military and moral superpower.

I used to believe it didn’t matter what “foreigners” thought of us—our president doesn’t need a permission slip to defend the American people, blah blah blah—but since then I’ve traveled to Europe and Latin America and the Middle East, and I learned something which surprised me: many people in other countries want the U.S. to lead, want us to be Number One, want us to shine as a beacon of justice as we once did. The rest of the human race is begging us to elect Obama not because he will weaken our military or lessen our influence, which is impossible after eight years of Bush (unless we elect McCain); they want us to return to our founding values of freedom and equality. They resent us for betraying our ideals, not because of our ideals.

As our economic institutions crumble, we cannot survive as a nation divided by all-consuming hatred of our elected leaders and fellow citizens, but Hate is the only thing the Republican Party has to offer: unthinking populist ferocity which makes no distinction between civil discourse and civil war; the same blind, menacing frenzy which besieged Italy, Germany, Russia and China in the previous century. We are on the brink of irrelevance as a nation, but miraculously we have one final chance to avoid sinking into oblivion. We have one final chance to not act like a bunch of complete douche bags.

If you vote against Barack Obama, you are on the wrong side of history, just as Nero was on the wrong side of history when the Roman Empire crumbled. Obama has shown far more prescience and judiciousness than his opponent. He is one of the few Americans who did not lose his mind after 9/11. He is a constitutional scholar with the brains to lead us out of this dark, sick, horrible decade of Propaganda and Death and Facial Stubble.

Yes, Obama has inspired a cult of personality, but sometimes such things are deserved; millions of teenyboppers loved the Beatles, forever the greatest band of all time. Obama possesses a top-tier intellect and Herculean self-control, which are qualifications, not disadvantages. And even if he does become the worldwide Islamo-Antichrist who gnaws upon the skulls of the Enslaved White Masses for breakfast, it wouldn’t be that much worse than Bush, right?

No man is perfect, no politician is pure of heart, but in 2008 we are not choosing between the lesser of two evils. The tragedy is that, if John McCain had stayed true to his character—assuming his former self was not a character—we could have chosen between the greater of two goods.

From: Marty Beckerman
To: Matthue Roth
Subject: Iceberg Theory vs. Oedipussy

Matthue,

You make an interesting point: authors are often unaware of what we say on paper, and sometimes our readers know more about us than we know about ourselves. When the chief of my publisher finished reading Dumbocracy, his exact words were: “The manuscript seems preoccupied with sodomy.” So I gave it another look, and discovered he was completely right -- I am preoccupied with sodomy!

A book reviewer friend of mine insists that an author’s life story should not affect our judgment of his or her work -- for example, we should loathe Mein Kampf because it’s logically unsound, not because a mass murderer wrote it. But we are products of our experiences, and our books are products of us, so it seems logical that our books are extensions of our experiences. (Shit, did I accidentally compare us to Hitler? And I thought comparing myself to Socrates was a little much...)

You write about a foreign-born social outcast in Losers, and his insecurities when it comes to prejudice and assimilation; if you denied that your novel is a vicarious examination of your Orthodox convictions, I wouldn’t believe you for a moment. Even if a book is marked "FICTION," it’s the product of a human mind, and Freud’s most enduring observation is that self-expression leads to unforeseen revelation. (Extraneous question for Sigmund scholars: do gay dudes want to slay their mothers and bone their fathers?)

These days, anyone can writePerhaps it’s not a coincidence that social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook -- which allow people to share their humiliating personal lives with others -- became popular concurrently with blogs, which allow everybody to share their (unintentionally) humiliating thoughts with others. The Average Joe suddenly has the ability to write for a large audience, which was impossible ten years ago because of the editorial chain of command. Psychologists will have a voluminous supply of unhinged, self-incriminating bullshit to study for centuries to come.

As I said at the very beginning of our exchange, writers are not exactly well-adjusted people, but thanks to technology, everyone is a writer these days. Whereas authors once spoke for generations, we now speak with generations. And if we want to make our voices heard over the wretched cacophony, we might need to say more about ourselves -- scream more about ourselves -- than anyone wants to know.

Marty Beckerman and Matthue Roth spent the past week guest blogging on Jewcy.   This is their parting post.  Buy Marty's book, Dumbocracy, and Matthue's book, Losers.

From: Matthue Roth
To: Marty Beckerman
Subject:  Chaos and Creation

Marty,

I have the advantage of writing fiction, if we're making it a contest, and the biggest advantage of fiction is that "flaws" don't count. I don't mean flaws in spelling or when characters inexplicably pop up in the middle of scenes -- I'm talking about the emotional rawness and the fundamental awkwardness that authors have, which translates to the perfection of awkwardness and rawness that our characters have.

Case in point: My first novel, Never Mind the Goldbergs, is about a self-assured 17-year-old Orthodox girl who's punk-rock, confident, sassy and in-your-face -- basically, everything that I wanted to be at 17 that I absolutely wasn't. Four years later, I look back at Hava and I'm simultaneously wincing and kvelling. I was never that sure about anything in life -- not my religion, not my music, not even my attitude about myself. And then I started reading the reviews. People said I made her perfectly flawed, that I built up her bubble, and then popped it. The reviews were complimentary, but I was horrified. I was like, She's not egotistical! She's the coolest person I always wanted to fall in love with! It was great. My image of perfection imploded on itself, and apparently I learned how to create a tragic protagonist.

Never Mind the Goldbergs: by Matthue RothMy new novel, Losers, is almost the direct opposite. Jupiter Glazer, the main character, is shy and "gawkward" and insecure. He's Russian, and his English comes out sounding like muddy puddles of glop. In one of the first chapters, this girl teaches him how to flirt by teaching him how to lose his accent, and it's a scene I'm hugely proud of -- not because it's masterful or well-structured or anything, but because, well, Jupiter is so overwhelmingly bad at whatever he does.

"Okay, let me try. Um. Did you hear how you said dropped? You swallowed up the O, you rolled the r, and you squish the p and d together at the end. Listen to the way I said it, just from what you remember."
I said it.
"Now try it slower." She said dropped again, in slow motion. I repeated her. She shook her head no. Then she reached over and took my hands in hers.
She lifted them to her face. I could feel my entire body heating up, the knuckles between my fingers stiffening. She placed them gently on her cheeks and throat.
"Feel the way I say it."
"Say it."
"Dropped."
"Draah-ppeht," I echoed her. I felt ludicrous saying it, being made to say that same word again and again. I felt like a domesticated parakeet. I cleared my head: I couldn't second-guess myself now. I felt like I was on the brink of learning some forbidden knowledge, standing on the precipice of this giant mountain that was going to be the rest of my life.
"Once more," Tonya said, smiling at me. "Say it."
"Again?" I asked.
Tonya nodded.
"When I move, you move," she said. My hand tensed into her cheek. She squeezed my fingers, enthusiastically, supportively. Her mouth convulsed, danced through the word like a ballerina in slow motion, vogueing and pirouetting each step in one one-hundredth of normal speed, slowed down beyond the range of any normal household DVD player, moving and reacting to every microsyllable in the word.
I said it again. The moment felt like hours in my head, every part of every sound. My mouth imitated hers. For the merest fraction of a second, my mouth became hers, more vivid than a 3-D movie, more intimate than making out. And it sounded, it felt, absolutely perfect.
"Just like that?" I asked her.
She smiled. "Just like that."

I did it Elmore Leonard-style: wrote fast and took out whatever parts bored me. Is this imperfection as art? Freezing every moment in time, every mistake, cherishing every potential dorky or inappropriate gesture, word, or facial expression, and saying, Well, I meant it at the time.

I prefer to think of it as "Parker Lewis Syndrome." Parker Lewis, if you don't know, was the protagonist of the early-‘90s comedy Parker Lewis Can't Lose, an exquisitely weird show about this kid who wore paisley button-down shirts and made obtuse references to Twin Peaks episodes, but -- for some wildly improbable reason -- was the most popular kid in the town where he lived. It wasn't that he was rich or smart or talented; he didn't even really have a girlfriend. Instead, it was some indefinable combination of wackiness, iconoclasm, and chutzpah that endeared him to each one of the town's stereotypical teen-groups in a different way, from the jocks (who protected him) to the nerds (who helped him hack into the school computer system, although I seem to remember Parker being an expert hacker on his own) to the indy-rockers who played as the backing band when he finally went on a date.

It was being in the right place at the right time; it was the essence of je ne sais quoi, a phrase that we love to throw around and never think about the fact that it has no meaning. Maybe it's Divine intervention; maybe it's that the girl I'm crushing on is fully confessionally drunk the same night that I am. It's dumb luck.

I always wanted to be a Parker Lewis. Instead I ended up being a Jupiter Glazer: bumbling, fumbling, unapologetically trying to be someone I'm not and failing. When Goldbergs came out, people asked if it was autobiographical. Was it autobiographical? Did I want it to be autobiographical? The truth was probably a bit of both. Losers is a whole other side of me: the frank, tearfully honest, and painfully embarrassing side. The part that tumbles out before you have a chance to think about it or analyze at all, and then everyone's staring at you, and all you can really say is: Yeah, I said it.

What do you think of that?

Marty Beckerman, author of Dumbocracy, and Matthue Roth, author of Losers, are blogging together on Jewcy, and they'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.