Does Romance in Movies Spoil Our Love Lives?

That's sort of the question this article asked, but it limited itself to romantic comedies. I'm going to toss a bigger question out there - does romance in movies spoil our love lives? Maybe "spoil" is a strong word, but does it make us disappointed in our own love lives because, well, can our love lives every really live up to what we see on the screen?

I addressed this indirectly a long time ago in writing about "The Notebook" as one of the top 15 date movies of all time (I still stand by that claim). But it's something that I was reminded of yesterday when I was watching "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (which, by the way, is not as good as I thought it was going to be). Fine, so Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchet end up having a romantic relationship that fluctuates over the course of the film. But then there's this one scene where he whisks her away for a few weeks/months on his sailboat and they just hang out around the Gulf of Mexico. This is followed by them living for a few weeks/months in a duplex where they just lie around on a mattress and have lots of sex.

That's a freaking awesome life, but what the heck? I get that it's a movie and they can do whatever they want in it, but damned if it didn't make me feel like a loser for: a) not having a sailboat, and b) not having the financial means to allow myself to be mattress-bound for a few months so that I can just have sex all day.

Movies like "The Notebook" though, take things to a whole other level. People see these relationships composed of undying, intense, crazy, passionate love that last lifetimes, with beautiful lead characters knocking boots in exotic locales, of love triumphing over circumstance and time. It makes you crave that sort of thing for yourself, and it makes you convince yourself that you would be dissatisfied with anything less. But does it also manage to ruin the sort of love you can experience in your life by forcing you to have unusually high expectations?

See, a large part of me thinks that these movies don't do anything that we don't already do to ourselves. What I mean, in more verbose form, is that all love, really, is composed of two prime pieces: a) our rational, logical need/desire/decision to "love" someone because we think they're great, and b) our emotions. Rational love can exist without emotional love, and can take you very far, the same way that emotional love can exist without rational love (which is why there's always the possibility that we can fall in love with someone who sucks as a person). Ideally we want to love someone with both types of love, because that's what makes a relationship both exciting and good for you. But the emotional love is the stronger of the two, and that's the one that Hollywood feeds on only because it knows that, at our core, we all want to "feel" a certain way about someone before we concern ourselves with other questions.

Hollywood can show us extravagant things and maybe this makes us want those specific things, like the exotic locales and the endless passionate love-making. But more often than not it just reminds us that we want to feel a certain way about someone, without regard to the specifics of why we actually feel that way. Some people will feel an intense emotional love for someone because of an odd chemical reaction that can't be explained, or a certain type of psychological stimulation that, for some reason, fires just the right sensors ("oh my God I'm so turned on that you like to read"). Ultimately it makes no difference so long as you can feel the way that you want to feel, the way that everyone wants to feel about the person they're with.

So today I'm letting Hollywood and romantic movies off the hook, I'm giving them a break, because they just tell a particular type of story that all of us can relate to. We relate to the stories, as incredible and unbelievable as they might be, not because of an expectation that exactly what we see will happen to us, but only because we all love to love and to be loved. Hollywood reminds us that we should expect and to want to feel that crazy "in love" feeling and that we shouldn't settle for anything less (even as we might also demand more), and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it's a good thing because all too often people convince themselves that they can get-by without that emotional love simply because someone is "good" for them. But that's bullshit.

Love changes, it evolves and transforms in ways that make it different than it once was (a fact not explored in movies often enough, which is why I'm sort of psyched to see "Revolutionary Road" for that reason), but that's also part of what makes it so exciting. "Evolve" doesn't equal "less passionate" or "mundane." Everything is what you make of it. So go ahead, watch all those damn cheesy romance movies because they're never going to make you expect more for yourself than you already should be expecting.

Hipster

The thickness of his thighs was not being accommodated by the skinny jeans. The proportions were off, rising from the stick ankles and calves - underdeveloped thanks to a decade-long neglect of physical activity, and, possibly, some blame placed square on the shoulders of childhood malnutrition cause by a single-mom who was an outspoken proponent of a Vegan upbringing - to the burgeoning of those meaty drumsticks that now seemed to suffocate behind the fabric.

"My thighs ate my ass," he would sometime joke. But it was true. Head-shakingly true. The back of the jeans was one loose flap of fabric sinking into the tightness around the legs.

But I didn't have the heart to tell him. This was something new, this adoption of the hipster style. First the skinny jeans obsession, then the "vintage" Converse with the pre-worn soles, followed by the tweed jacket with elbow patches. A conglomeration of the mismatched throw-backs.

"These colors, they're all of."

"I know! Isn't it awesome?"

I didn't understand why it was supposed to be this way.

"It's all about randomness dude. Like there's totally a philosophy behind it. I'm valuing the 60s and the 70s for what they meant to this country. But at the same time, I'm a disinterested observer. I recognize but I do not contemplate long enough to bother with coordination."

"That's really philosophical."

"Trust me, it's about more than just buying some old clothes."

I wanted to believe him but the elbow patches just didn't do it for me. I wanted to rip them off that stipid jacket and use them as insoles for my shoes. When you have flat feet insoles is often all you can think about.



"Should I get these?" he asked me once, as we walked down St. Marks. He turned around to show me a pair of Ira Glass-esque black frames.

"You wear glasses?"

"No. But They look cool, don't they?" He put them on and looked at himself in the tiny mirror on the side of the rack. One his ears was lower than the other, which forced him to keep repositioning them in the center of his face.

"I guess."

"I should get them."

"No. No, come on," I said, finally understanding the proposition. "Why would you wear glasses if you don't need them. That's sort of lame."

"People wear sunglasses indoors all the time. That's lame. With this, no one knows whether or not I actually need them. You're just lucky that you need glasses. Really, they're just an accessory."

I touch my own glasses and contemplate the idea of Lasik. Neuroses prevent me from believing that I'd come out of that with better eyesight than I had going in.

"Don't be a tool." I walked away.



"I live in Williamsburg now," he said, "I have to fit in."

He didn't say this to anyone in particular, just sort of to the world, out loud, almost as if he needed to convince himself that his wardrobe was justified.

"A friend of mine, he's a stylist, and he came by and threw away half of my stuff. See this?" He held up a button-down striped shirt. "You want it?"

I decide not to mentiont hat its a few sizes too big.

"Cause I'm probably going to toss it. I can't look like those corporate douchebags here."

It looks a little like a shirt I own.

"No thanks man, I'm cool."

"OK. Suit yourself. Away it goes." He threw it into a pile in the corner of his room. "Flat front only," he added, burrowing deeper into his closet.

"What?"

"For pants," his head emerged from behind a folding door. "Flat front only. No pleats. Never wear anything with pleats. I wish someone had told me this like in college. I probably would have gotten so many more girls."

"Is that one of your friend's style tips?"

"No. That one I read online."

Still, I'm curious to meet this unnamed arbiter of fashion. I wonder what he'd say about what I've gote in my closet.



"I don't get why you have to change everything so drastically just because you moved." That's me being sensible, pragmatic. Let's not get carried away here.

"It's not that simple," he suggests between sips of his espresso, fair trade beans, skinny jeaned legs crossed, his whole body shifted uncomfortably to the side to compensate for the oppressively small table we're at. Our jackets are on the floor. The steamed windows of the coffeeshop remind that there is life here, even asyou can't tell whether it's open, whether there's anyone inside, as you approach it from across the street. "I have to be accepted into this society. It's like a club."

"So you're taken seriously now?" I look him up and down with an expression on my face. I do it without realizing that I'm doing it, and I don't even know exactly what that expression means.

"Almost. I feel like I'm almost there. Baby steps, you know?"

"Right."

"Like yesterday, I felt like I had a breakthrough. I was over in this bar playing baci - did you know they have a whole indoor league for this? It's awesome - and this girl comes up to me and goes like 'sweet pompadour,' because, you know, I had my hair up in this, like, pompadour."

I contemplated the thinning mess on his head, coming down long and stringy onto his face.

"So it was like she got it. I was sort of in the zone."

"How did you get it to look like a pompadour?"

"Palmade. Amazing stuff. Like cement." He ran his hands through his hair and pulled it up and back. "Sort of like this."

I watched a few strands fall onto the table.

"Yeah man, now I just need to get some new friends."

Taking a sip of my coffee, I nodded and smirked politely.



I got off at Bedford and climb up towards the street in a torrent of thrift store-clad bodies. One girl who I almost ran into focuses on me and considers tossing me a smile, but ultimately decides against it. Hands in her beige pea coat pockets, she scurries away, carried by her green tights.

I find the apartment he tells me to meet him at. As I try to open the front door, a crush of people prevents me it from swinging back. I slip in and immediately a woman is towering over me. She's pushing 35, and with at least 4 inches on me, I'm a little intimidated. I wonder if she's really a man, because she has that heavy bone structure, but I decide that she is indeed female, as I originally figured.

"Hey you."

The way she smells, like peppermint schnapps, tells me that clearly the party has been going on for a little while now.

"Hi," I say, confused.

"How've you been!?" She tips onto me and places her hand on my shoulder, pressing me down with a mass I expect from her size but which still surprises me. She looks at me expectantly.

"Good..." I look around for my friend. "How have you been?"

"Oh, you know, so busy!" The pitch of her voice is a little exaggerated, adding an accent of unconvincing girlishness.

"Yeah."

"What do you do again?"

I finally spot the the figure of my friend making his way over to us.

"Hey man."

He gives me a good-natured slap on the shoulder and hands me a half-finished Blue Moon as he opens a new one and takes a swig.

"This is great," he suggests, passing his hand over the room like a magician. He takes in a dramatically deep breath and looks around. "There are my people. I feel like I belong here."

"You guys know each other?" she asks. I had forgotten she was even there.

"Me and this guy," my friend says, with pride, "we go way back. Way back. Like before Giuliani." Then he pulls me away without another word and I follow him into the next room. I shrug back at her innocently.

"You know her?" I ask. "Does she live here?"

"No idea. But she's old!"

"Dude, you're old."

I shouldn't have said that. He's a little sensitive about it these days and he acts like he didn't hear it. I don't say anything for a few moments, watching him drink the beer, when I spot the pin on his lapel.

"Mondale?"

"Yeah man. Ran against Reagan. We hate Reagan."

He spills a little bit of his beer on his draw string linen shirt and dabs at it.

"Shit. This is dry clean only."

The Shame of Madoff

It happens regularly, but never on this scale. There will be times when I see someone who's Jewish doing something stupid or bad and I feel this great sense of shame, like the act is on me, on my shoulders.

A friend told me that the act is called a "chillul hashem." In looking it up, the meaning is not 100% what I thought it was, but it's close enough. The way I've been using it is to describe a bad act by someone who can be identified by the public as Jewish. The public sees what he's doing, sees him as a Jew, and as a result associates the negative act with all Jews.

This is also anti-antisemitism, but it's maybe a little more subconscious or subtle than that. People inevitably form judgments of others, based on their actions. If those people belong to particular, identifiable groups, sometimes the judgments are expanded to encompass the entire group that person is a part of. Stereotypes are born, develop, and evolve.

But negative qualities linger in people's minds for longer. The memories are stronger. And the smaller the group, the more likely that the stereotype will be used to identify that group in its entirety.

Jews have it sort of bad when it comes to stereotypes, and Madoff was a real kick in the ass. Here I am, just minding my own business, and this jerk has to go off and embarrass me like this? There was this article in the NY Times today about the communal shame that Jews are feeling about this thing. We all know that Madoff is the perfect target for Jew-haters everywhere to go "you see! That dude is a Jew! And he likes money! And he stole peoples' money because that's what Jews do! And they control the world!"

It's the same tired refrain but it becomes fresh whenever a Jew gets caught doing something bad. I read the news everyday and everyday there's tons of people who go around murdering and stealing and destroying lives. I don't remember most of them. I don't think twice about their names or their backgrounds. But as soon as I see that a Jew has done something reprehensible, I get furious. Sometimes (albeit rarely) you'll see scenes on the news where a guy who looks like a Rabbi - yarmulke and beard - is getting stuffed into a police car with his hands shackled behind his back, head being pressed down so they can squeeze him in, and I wonder, "if this guy is going to go around being a scumbag, why does he have to be so obviously Jewish when he goes to do it?"

As the article says, Jews are human (surprise!), which means they're as prone to doing bad things as anyone else. But for whatever reason, when it's a Jew who's involved in a serious crime, that's something that more people will think about and remember than when it's someone who isn't Jewish. How lucky we are that we now have to deal with Madoff being maybe the greatest investment defrauder of all-time? What an honor! This is exactly what Jews already are to a whole slew of Jew-haters out there, and now they have their articles to point to, their web links to direct traffic to their hate-sites. And the average guy on the street, he's often thinking the same thing, that "oh, here's this Jew who did this crap" and "are you really surprised he was Jewish?"

The part about him stealing a lot of this money from other Jews doesn't really change the story in my head all that much, and it definitely doesn't affect any of the people who are forming opinions about Jews based on this. But it also makes everything that much more personal for me, because not only do I feel the shame of what he has done, but I feel awful for the individuals, groups, and organizations that have to suffer as a result. Like that guy who slashed his wrists in his Madison Ave office the other day, all because he lost $1.5B in this whole thing and his clients were starting to come after him.

Maybe it all comes down to a sense of self-identification, the understanding of who you are and what your people/culture represent and feeling frustrated that this is being undermined by one person. Here I am wanting the world to see the best things about Jews, and instead they're being treated to the worst parts of a greedy man who brings down the rest of us.

Vote For My Cause

On Cause.org:

http://www.change.org/ideas/view/post-high_school_service_year

You can also click on it in the sidebar. 

Chubs

He hated him because he was fat. It was that simple. His friends tried to convince him otherwise, suggested that maybe "hate" was too strong a word. But it wasn't. Really. This was full on hate. Not just dissatisfaction, or dislike, or distaste. They (his friends) suggested that maybe it had something to do with the man's annoying character, but while it was true - he was a walking nightmare of puns and toilet humor - this alone was not enough to inspire hate. They (his friends, again) even suggested that it had something to do with the portly state of affairs as combined with the conspicuous name, unusually fitting for a fat man - Mr. Nathaniel Bernard Stromboli. But even that wasn't enough to explain the complete and utter, soulful, throbbing hate that he felt for this man.

No, it was as simple as it was seen - he hated him because he was fat.

This otherwise irrational emotional response - "You can't hate somebody just because they're fat. That's crazy!" - would have otherwise been unjustified, even to him, except for the fact that this Mr. Nathaniel Bernard Stromboli, was a complete monster of human proportion. His every rippling fold was an affront to nature. Here was a man who wobbled as he walked, little arms protruding out from his body like snowman twigs, gyrating quickly with every step, as they swung back and forth in a feeble attempt to balance his trampling through the hall. Sometimes it seemed as if he was ready to take flight, gearing up for an explosion of force that would somehow propel him forward and up and away, far enough away so that he wouldn't have to bother with hating him. Because hate is an incredibly taxing burden, particularly for the person doing all the hating, and especially when the hated person doesn't know anything about it.

When Mr. Stromboli sat, the edges of his skin climbed up and over the edges of his chair, cascading down on either side of him with distinction. It gave him an air of permanence, the impression to any individual who might happen by his office that he was indeed here to stay, organically connected with his chair, with the company, with client services that promised to "personalize your experiences to the point of quiet satisfaction. You WILL sleep tonight."

And even with all of this, there might have still been hope for avoiding these feelings of hate, if not for the despairingly predictable poor personal hygiene with which Mr. Stromoli conducted his affairs. What is meant by "affairs" is a general situation that caused the entire office to be involved in the daily struggle of odorous dissent that Mr. Stromboli raged against the janitorial staff and over-the-counter air fresheners they used, neither of which quite knew or understood their opponent.

By some miraculous arrangement, his shirt was always tucked in, even as it slid its way out to the very extremes of its fabric allowance. But this was perhaps the best, the most that could be said in his favor, for even as his shirts remained tucked, they also bore a creative arrangement of stains and blots and streaks of multiple colors and textures. There were the translucent sweat marks that pocked his back and stomach at various points throughout the day, a sundial of sorts that could be read by the greater frequency that occurred around noon and slowly faded to crusty abrasions of bubbled fabric as the day wore on. There were the food smears that Rorschached their way around him, sometimes, somehow, ending up on his shoulders, his side, the back of his bulbous neck.

Everyday at lunch, three massive Subway sandwiches sat around his keyboard and doubled as wrist pads and cleaning wipes. He would bring one up to his mouth, chomp down, and then replace it on the desk. They lay there bare, exposed to the elements, magnets for the off hair or particle that happened to be looming in the area.

"Want some?" Stromboli once asked, holding out a paw with a sandwich spilling out of it, interpreting his incredulous stare as a look of raging hunger rather than one of horrified observation. He walked away without saying anything.

"You can't be like that," a co-worker told him one day by the water cooler because this was the kind of office where people had conversations by water coolers, just as you see in the movies. "You're just so damn obvious about it. Everytime you're around the guy you have a scowl on your face. Or you get these googly eyes. Can that shit."

"I can't help it!" he yelled, throwing his hands up in the air, not as a dance move but simply to physically express his inability to control his instinctual expressions of disgust.

"You gotta try man." The co-worker shifted his weight and the bottle finally gurgled. He took a sip of his water and put his free hand in his pocket. "It's not like his fault he's that fat. Probably got a glandular problem or something. Some bad gene. You can't knock someone for bad genes."

But he didn't care. Genes, choice, whatever. It was all the same to him because the end result was still Stromboli, fat as ever, mustard pouring down his chin onto his pants and a juicy hand sliding across his wet mouth to rub away the excess.

"I have to go," he said finally, and walked away from the water cooler.

A few days later he walked into the elevator on his way out of the office, and just as he let out a sigh, ready for the doors to close and for his work day to end, he saw Stromboli barreling towards him. For a moment he considered hitting the button for the doors to close. A smile crept across his face at the idea of watching Stromboli reach helplessly for the little opening just as it shut him out, his heaving breaths left in the hallway. But his good nature got the better of him, and so he stuck his hand out into the sensors and waited until Stromboli deposited himself in the elevator car, his weight forcing the metal to grumble and creak.

"Thanks," Stromboli said, completely out of oxygen.

He just nodded and forced a smile. Already the waft of Stromboli's odor was growing thick in the space, the doors now closed, he wondered how long he would have to hold his breath.

The elevator proceeded down, each floor pinging to them, asking for attention. Patiently, the "L" waited for their arrival.

And then everything stopped, and the elevator hovered between 4 and 5, the lights of both floors glaring at them.

"Uh oh," said Stromboli, in a way that suited him very well.

"What the..."

An electronic voice came on in the car, scratchy and foreign.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen. We can see you on the camera."

The both of them looked around in unison.

"Behind. Up. To the left. Hello."

They waved and then each, independtly, felt stupid about it.

"The elevator has stopped."

Yes it has.

"The elevator has stopped and we are very sorry for this."

"How long are we going to be here?" he yelled, to nowhere and no one in particular.

"We cannot hear you in the elevator. We can only speak to you."

But if he couldn't hear than how could he-

"I can see your mouth moving. You will need to be patient. Gentlemen, we have called an engineer. We will now wait for him. And he will fix the elevator. Goodbye."

Stromboli shrugged. "Damn foreigners. Never know what the heck they're talking about."

He nodded. He too believed this to be true. And he suddenly found that he no longer hated Stromboli.

The Conversation

The sun reflected off the top of the TV stand at the perfect angle. Perfect enough to make it obvious just how dusty all his stuff had gotten over the last few months of neglect, since the last time her cared enough to put Swiffer to surface. He had contemplated cleaning everything before the move, making it look lustrous just as the moving guys would show up to drape old quilts to make sure nothing got damaged in the truck. But he realized that if he had done this, it would have been more for the show than for anything else, an effort to buy himself support among the observing public.

 

"Oh, how clean he is," they would whisper to each other under the crackle of packing tape being unwound, wrapped around the different pieces to keep the quilts in place. For surely they would notice such a thing. He didn't want to be judged for not cleaning his stuff.

 

Ultimately he let the laziness take over and left it all alone. He tried reading their looks, not that they gave him looks, per se, but they kept tossing glances around the room, to each other, having their Spanish-language communications.

 

"…Mas…"

 

He heard "mas" somewhere in there, sandwiched between words that could make it mean anything. All it took was one or two other perfectly placed words, pushing everything in a certain direction. Good or bad. Indifferent. Him being neurotic. It all depended on the context which he couldn't understand.

"More" what? What were they saying about him?

 

"It's not always about you," she said as she shifted her weight, recrossing her legs in the other direction and making the couch squeak underneath her.

 

He swiped his bare hand over the op of the TV stand, watching it carve a little avenue through the dust. He looked at the edge of his hand, now trimmed with a fuzzy collection of gray that represented the world's deposits into his space. Somewhere it was written that dust is mostly composed of dead skin cells and hair. Or had he seen it somewhere. The show "Nova" came to mind.

 

"Nova."

 

"What?"

 

"Nothing."

 

"Question," she finally restarted after he kept quiet. She thought his silence was a way of not wanting to continue on the vein of conversation she had initiated, of disagreeing with her unqualified use of the word "everything." But he was only distracted by the dust, the gray that was composed mostly of him. He slid it off his hand and started rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, turning it into a little matted ball.

 

"Yeah," he answered absent-mindedly, tongue slightly protruding from between his lips, the look of concentrated contemplation. "Shoot."

 

"What's this about Jewish men liking Asian women? What's that about?"

 

The dust ball drifted towards the floor in a soft decent, buoyed by the exceedingly warm air in the room. He should open a window maybe.

 

"Oh, well, I think it has to do with a common culture? Maybe. Like similar values. Or not. It could just be that a lot of Asian women are demanding and bossy and I think a lot of Jewish guys like that."

 

"We don't take any shit."

 

"I guess."

 

"OK." She paused and looked towards the ceiling without tilting her head back, holding her breath as if she was writing it all down somewhere, a note for future reference. Meanwhile he slid his had across the dust again, widening the path he had just formed. He shoveled this bit right off the edge of the stand.

 

"Also, we need to speak about your quarter-life crisis."

 

"Excuse me? What makes you say that?" She finally managed to capture his attention.

 

"Look, no one changes jobs and moves to a new borough in the course of two months unless they're having a quarter-life crisis. It's fine. Totally normal. But we should probably discuss." She made a little circle in the air with her finger, an effort to establish that "we" meant the two of them.

 

"Interesting," except he didn't really think so.

 

"I'm just saying. I want to know what's going on with you."

 

"Oh." He smiled. Actually, he found himself a little flattered that there was something interesting enough about him that someone else wanted to know more about it.

 

"I'll be back in town in a couple of weeks."

 

"When specifically?"

 

"No idea!" Of course not, how could he be so presumptuous. "You know how I am, I just sort of show up!"

 

"Well if you tell me more specifically, like ahead of time, then I can plan for it." He remembered the last time she was in town when he got a text from her at one in the morning giving him a small window of opportunity to meet her at a bar six avenues and fifty-four blocks from where he was. He opted instead for "Wedding Crashers" on DVD and a chicken fried rice he had ordered in.

 

"That wasn't my fault. I just forgot to call you. And who delivers chicken and rice at one in the morning anyway? Even in New York that's a hard thing to find."

 

"Not the point." Although maybe she was right, maybe he had made that part up. Was it pizza that he ordered in? It bothered him that he couldn't remember. What was this false history he had created for himself? There was something frightening about certainty disappearing so suddenly.

 

"Fine, so if it happens it happens. And if not, you can blame me."

 

He wasn't looking for a reason to blame her, but a part of him was still impressed because she never embraced the idea of blame so openly. She was extremely hostile to such things.

 

"Impressed?"

 

He rolled his eyes, a motion she didn't see because she had now gotten up off the couch and gone over to grab her coat from behind the door. Even with the stiletto boots she was wearing, she still had to raise herself up on her toes to reach it. He took a moment to evaluate her, tracing the contours of her back and sliding down towards the thighs that tensed inside the mini skirt she was wearing.

 

"Just try letting me know ahead of time. OK?"

 

"I'll do my best. Is that sufficient for you? God you're demanding."

 

"Like an Asian woman? Do I remind you of you?"

 

"Bye!" she said quickly and walked out of the room. A moment after she had gone it felt as if she'd never been there in the first place. It was only after he saw her briskly walking past his window that he confirmed that they had actually just had a conversation. Or an exchange; maybe it was more an exchange than a conversation.

 

The sunlight had shifted and taken a new angle in the room, abandoning the TV stand for the wall where it now sat perched above a bookshelf, the shadow of his head suspended in its arms. He thought it rude, that his profile should be borrowed from him like this, without his permission.

 

With spite, he moved out of the way, and the world's impression of him disappeared.

Hanukkah Worldwide

A few weeks back I went to the video shoot for my friend Max's Hanukkah Worldwide video. Produced for Birthright Israel NEXT, it's their annual tribute to the holiday. Max, whose performance name is Max!m!l (which I love because of the upside-down "i"s/exclamation marks) is also in the Birthright Monologues show with me. The video shoot was done mostly outside the New York Public Library on a freaking windy and cold day. We were out there for a few hours on a Sunday and a whole bunch of tourists thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen. Also, at one point some other girl started shooting her own video on the other side of the Library entrance and eventually asked us to be in it with her. What're the chances? Two music videos being filmed in front of the New York Public Library on the same day? Only in this City. I feel like I can say that.

Without further delay, here's the video. I'm the random white dude jumping up at various points. So out of place. I should have worn some x-large basketball jersey or something. Also visit the actual YouTube webpage for more lyrics and more info on Hanukkah Worldwide. And visit Max's group's (Regime Change) webpage.

Jewishness and Goyishness

In honor of this book I'm reading (which is also something to be celebrated in its own right because it's my first "train" book; i.e. the first book I have committed to reading solely as I do the 40+ minute commute to and from work), "The Autograph Man," I thought, "now wouldn't it be fun to make a list of what I consider 'Jewish' and what I consider 'goyish.'" There's a whole subplot of the book that's reserved for the main character's musings about a book he's writing which addresses this exact issue. Sometimes he'll look at something or someone and just have a feeling as to whether it's Jewish or goyish, and being Jewish, this sort of makes sense to me in this weird, "it's just the way it is" sort of vibe.

For those of you who aren't up on the terminology, "goyish" refers to someone who's non-Jewish. So that's basically like one world that encompasses close to 6 billion people. Being Jewish is a very exclusive thing, so I feel like I totally have a right to address the rest of the world as one big non-Jewish pool. Humor me please, and don't get your panties all in a bunch, because this is just me having fun. It's sort of like, if you're really into math, and you belong to your school's mathletes club, the world can be simplified into "mathletes" and "non-mathletes," people who might try to get it, but can't really understand the breadth of what it means to be a mathlete. You know what I'm trying to say.

OK, so now my little list of Jewish and Goyish things based on random stuff I encountered today. Certain friends who shared in this conversation earlier might be a little bored with some of this because it has already been discussed, but it's new to everyone else so they can deal.

Cookies
Oatmeal - Jewish
Chocolate with peanut butter chips - Goyish
Black and White cookies - Goyish

Umbrellas
Basic NYC umbrella that only really keeps your head dry and will break after a few uses - Jewish.
Monster golf umbrella that takes up half the sidewalk and makes it nearly impossible to pass when you enter a scaffolding situation - Goyish
Wooden handles on umbrellas - Goyish
Plastic handles on umbrellas - Jewish

Bread
White Bread - Goyish
Rye Bread - Jewish
Whole Wheat - Jewish
Rolls - Jewish
Heroes - Goyish

Alcohol
Vodka - Jewish
Brandy - Goyish
Jaggermeister - Goyish
Any sort of liqueur - Goyish
Budweiser - Jewish
Coors - Goyish

Non-Jewish Actors/Actresses
Brad Pitt - Goyish
George Clooney - Goyish
Julia Roberts - Jewish
Nike Nolte - Goyish
Sean Penn - Jewish
Tom Hanks - Jewish
Robert Redford - Goyish
Russell Crowe - Goyish
Ethan Hawke - Jewish
Cameron Diaz - Goyish
Toby Maguire - Jewish
Kirsten Dunst - Goyish
Anthony Hopkins - Goyish
Joseph Fiennes - Jewish
Mark Ruffalo - Jewish
Tom Cruise - Goyish
Ewan McGregor - Jewish
Will Smith - Jewish

Past Presidents
JFK - Goyish
Clinton - Jewish
Reagan - Goyish
Eisenhower - Jewish
FDR - Jewish
Nixon - Goyish
Both Bushes - Goyish
Carter - Goyish
Truman - Goyish
Ford - Jewish
Lincoln - Jewish
Washington - Goyish
Franklin Pierce - Goyish
John Quincy Adams - Jewish

Dressings
Ketchup - Jewish
Mustard - Jewish
Mayonnaise - Goyish
Ranch - Goyish
Russian - Jewish
Thousand Islands - Goyish
Oil - Jewish
Vinegar - Goyish

Fabrics
Cotton - Jewish
Silk - Goyish
Cashmere - Goyish
Regular Wool - Jewish

Articles of Clothing
Socks - Jewish
Gloves - Goyish
Ties - Goyish
Hats - Jewish
Sunglasses - Goyish
Headbands - Jewish
Vests - Goyish
Sweaters - Jewish
Turtlenecks - Goyish
Underwear - Jewish
Shirts - Goyish
Pants - Jewish
Shoes - Jewish
Sandals - Goyish
Uggz - Goyish

Clearly I can go on and on. This is just something that you get or you don't get. I haven't provided any reasoning behind any of my choices because there is no reasoning - this is just how the world works.

Writer's Block

The simple fact that he was calling her reinforced the idea that he was getting pretty desperate. The last three days had been just one long line of early wake-ups, coffee, more coffee, a nap despite the coffee, pacing, TV, coffee, some masturbation thrown in for good measure, opening and closing the window as it got either too hot or too cold, sleep. Repeat.

This is what he was, a man of extremes. When the ideas came, they rushed out of him in a torrent, the ferocious scribblings on papers thrown around the room and tacked onto walls, the laptop pulled from one end to the other, stretching the limits of the power cord, exposing it to the errant foot as it lay taut across the room. But then he would enter these phases where nothing would make sense, where every word would cause him to delete a page of others, the tracings of a story that once seemed so clear, that energized him, would become a burden that led, ultimately to the place he had gotten to now - unshowered, unshaven, miserable, for the last three days. And all because of an inability to express himself.

So he called her. Maybe because he really wanted to speak with her, maybe because he missed her. Maybe just because.

"Hello."

"Hi."

"Who is this?"

"You know who it is."

"I just had to make sure. I mean, I erased your number from my phone. This is me going off of memory."

She was chewing something while she was speaking with him and every other word was a chomp into something soft.

"What are you eating?"

"Food. It's no concern of yours."

"Fine. Are we really going to argue about this?"

"Why are you calling now? Do you know what time it is?"

He looked at the little clock on his computer. "Ten."

"Yeah, it's ten. Ten freaking o'clock. Like at night."

"So what?"

"So what, it's late."

"You don't go to sleep at ten."

"How do you know when I go to sleep? Maybe now I go to sleep at ten." She was obviously being difficult. He was forgetting whether she was always like this or whether this was something new she was doing now, given the current state of affairs, a little show she was putting on. "And in any case, I have stuff to do tomorrow."

"What's happening tomorrow?"

"I'm moving. Back."

He stopped, didn't say a word for long enough that she picked up on it.

"Surprised?" There was a certain satisfaction in her voice, a sense of victory after a punch to the gut. She knew the statement would knock the wind out of him a little, and it was his job to recover as quickly as possible, make her think he was fine with the idea.

"I guess. Maybe a little. You've never liked the City, so it makes sense."

He smiled at the thought that he had handled it well, until he realized that her leaving made him incredibly sad and he felt stupid for the pettiness of the conversation, the way it had, in seconds devolved into a slapping match he had no interest in either winning or losing.

"It does make sense." Chomp, chomp, chomp. "And now I have to go. Still some stuff I need to put into boxes."

There was a weight on his chest. This is not how the conversation was supposed to go. The last time they had spoken, perhaps three months earlier, he could still sense that bit of longing in her voice. After they spoke, she waited an hour and then sent him a text, one that was both angry and flirtatious, tepid and suggestive. They texted back and forth most of the rest of the night, toying with the idea of meeting up in-person, with all the realities that such an encounter would carry at what had become 3, 4am. At the end, one of them had just fallen asleep - he couldn't remember which of them it had been; probably her - so that the last text had disappeared into the evening and a response only emerged the next morning, something that completely ignored the lack of consquence that had reigned only hours earlier - "sorry, probably just passed out."

Now three more months had spread themselves over their respective lives. And just like that, now she was moving.

"I can come help you tomorrow." He was getting desperate.

"I hired people. They can do it. That's what I'm paying them for."

"Right," he fumbled, "I mean, maybe I could come just to say 'bye' or something."

"Bye?" She sounded offended.

He went on the offensive. "Look, I think it's kind of crazy that if I hadn't called you right now you would have just left, disappeared, without a word. Isn't that a little fucked up?" But that was her and he knew it, he knew she had nothing to apologize for or explain.

"You have my number. Clearly you didn't erase it from your phone."

"I did erase it, I just can't help remembering it."

"Really, I think I'm alright, but I appreciate the thought. I gotta go."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. Bye."

She hung up. He stared at the flashing minutes indicator that told him how long the call had been, then the phone went dark. He resolved he would just show up the next day anyway. Uninvited, a nuisance.

A moment later, the phone virbated and he looked at the message she had sent - "Since I know you're going to come by despite whatever I say, make it 9 and bring me a coffee and a bagel. You know what to order for me."

Black, two sugars. Cinammon raisin, toasted, with butter.

He looked out of his window across the blackened City towards the direction where she lived. He felt scared, uncertain of what his world would be like without her in it, even if she had already been sitting on the periphery for a very long time. It seemed unreal, that tomorrow would come, and then she would be gone, just like that, just like an afterthought.

Shaking his head, he let out a breath that seemed like it had been lodged inside of him since he had gotten on the phone, maybe since the time he first met her. Then he sat back down at his computer and began to write.

I'm Probably Only as Good as Rankings Say That I am

Last year, around this time, US News released a public high school ranking. My school came in at 58.

This year, the school came in at 62.

What the hell Jericho?

Even while being in the Top 100 schools in the country is definitely an honor, I admit that I felt a little down about it. I'm used to things getter better with age, not worse. And it doesn't make me feel any better that most peoples' schools weren't even on the list at all. You see, it's not about being better than someone else, it's about being good enough for myself. I say this with a straight face.

"Is your high school on the list?"

"No."

"That's OK. It just means I'm smarter than you. But I'm sure you're better than me at other things, like dumbness."

Feeling somethat threatened, I'm sure, the individual with whom I had the exchange went online to try to find a different ranking, something that would shut me up, or elevate them, or maybe both.

But the other ranking that was found in the process put Jericho at 20. That's a little more like it.

In all honesty I have no idea what the school is like these days even as the 10-year reunion now looms a mere 7 months away. 10 freaking years. What have I done with my life? I'm not going to say "oh, this puts everything in perspective" because I'm always trying to keep things in perspective, but it sure as hell gives me a little kick in the pants, even while I don't really know what I'm supposed to do with this kick.

See, I say this all with no specific expectations about where I think I should be in my life. Maybe by default a 10-year high school reunion is just one of those things that makes you feel weird about where you are, no matter where that is. I could be married with kids and be like "oh wow, I'm married with kids, and I never really got to do those things I said I was going to do." Maybe it's the idea of mortality, something that shows you that 10 years of your life have practically flashed away.

Have they really flashed away? That could just be me saying that because that's what people say - "10 years passed in a heartbeat." Actually, it feels like high school was a long time ago, and if anything, the last 2.5 years have gone faster than any of the ones that came before. I could just be digging for a reason to brood.

I also realize that modern technology has significantly reduced the importance of the high school reunion. Here we are with all of these Facebook "friends" who were high school friends, enemies, crushes, and I can see what they're up to. I can see their pictures from their weddings, pictures detailing their vacations, weight gain, hair loss. It's not interesting anymore, there's nothing much new to be found out when you show up to the reunion.

I think about it this way - I've kept in touch with the people who matter to me. So there's really no great value to the reunion other than satifsying curiosity.

I guess that should be enough for me.

Good for the Jews/Bad for the Jews

At this point I don't really remember who came up with the idea, but somehow it started, and so was born "Good for the Jews/Bad for the Jews," a new blog by me, a kid I work with, and maybe his roommate (you'd have to ask him about that, I've only met the guy once). It's what you imagine it is - us telling you what's good for the Jews and what's, well, bad for them.

Because we have no webpage-making skills, we're Bloggering it - http://www.goodforthejewsbadforthejews.blogspot.com

I know, a long-ass web address, but we wanted to get the whole name in there. I hope it's something we post to consistently, but the best I can say for now is "we'll try."

Sorry if we're not funny. That's a genetic thing probably. Blame our parents.

BK-Style

Figured I should give some sort of update about me being out of Manhattan and all, since I wrote about it a couple of times and then was just like "yeah so I'm moving" but then forgot about any sort of follow-up with that.

So yeah, now I'm here, "here" being an undisclosed location in Kings County. Figure that one out non-New Yorkers. I have to admit, that first night, it felt weird. It was just so quiet and strange to be here, in a new place, in what amounts to a new town, and pretty much away from everyone I know. Sure there are a couple of friends that live relatively close, but they're the sort of friends that I barely hang out with so it's not like oh, now that I'm your neighbor, we're just going to be spending all of our time together. And I'm fine with that, because I got shit to do, people to see, blogs to post. You know how it is.

What was actually a big mood lifter was having a couple of close friends come by to chill with me on Sunday, the day after the move. At first the idea of people stopping in and taking up my time kind of annoyed me (shocking!) because I just felt like I had a million things to take care of. But I was a big boy about it, so I sucked it up and spent most of the day chilling with friends. We walked around in the rain, looking for places to grab coffee, to eat, to just check out so I could get a feel for the area. At least one of those friends walked away from that experience psyched about my neighborhood and excited to come back to go out here. Imagine that! Someone actually willing to sacrifice an outing in Manhattan to just spend all night in my borough. I never thought I'd see the day that I would just stay out of Manhattan on a weekend and possibly, just maybe, still have a good time.

It's all pretty ironic really, the way things change without you even noticing until they slap you in the face. There I was, summer of 2006, and a good friend of mine who I had spent time with in LA and San Diego after the bar exam, suggested that I move to Prospect Height with him and another guy I didn't know. I had no interest in leaving Manhattan so I shot that down.

A year went by, and then he moved to what has become my current neighborhood. In fact, from the end of 2007 until a couple of months ago, he and a bunch of his other friends lived a few blocks from where I live now. I'd come in on the weekends to chill out here, and slowly started to like it. Next thing I know, I'm ready to move here a year after everyone else, but as luck should have it, every single one of those people takes off, just completely leaves New York before I get here. The first couple moved back home to Texas, another one took off for I don't know where (maybe Manhattan...not even sure), my friend moved to San Francisco with his fiance, and a fourth couple followed him. Yeah, so they were all couples, and whenever I'd hang out with all of them I felt weird because I was the single dude, the ninth wheel, so it's not like my being here with them would have really been all that organic.


Still, I find it strange, the way I move a few blocks away from one of my best friends literally weeks after he moves to San Francisco. Guess that's how things work sometime. Guess that's also why I felt a little disconnected those first couple of days here. But then having those two friends over actually was the best thing that could have happened because it helped me see that I wasn't actually in the middle of nowhere, that I was still part of a bigger universe even while maybe I was now a little more on the edge of it. All of this is topped off by me reading that article in "New York" from two issues ago that discusses the "myth" of loneliness in NYC. Don't know if I think it's a myth per se, but I got what it was trying to say, how even while we have a high incidence of people living alone, we also have so many social networks and that helps to alleviate those feelings of loneliness. That doesn't necessarily replace how nice it is to live in a dorm or have your friends around the corner, but I guess it's not as bad as it could otherwise be. We are, as it turns out, pretty needy for social interactions. Even me with my reclusive tendencies, needs to feel connected to a greater whole pretty much everyday. Why else do you think I like camping out with a laptop in cafes? Even if I don't know a single damn person in the place, I love the noise, the feeling that life exists outside of my head and that there's a community of stories that I'm a part of.


And there's actually one funny thing that I just learned a few minutes ago. I guess it's not really all that funny, but it's interesting, and also a little ironic. As I started typing this post I got into a conversation with a very old friend of mine, a kid from middle school who I haven't really conversed with in years. As randomness should have it, but then again it is a pretty small world, he lives in my neighborhood. Not around the corner, actually a bit of a trek, but still close enough that I can say that there's someone I know who's nearby.


Now I just need a bike and some closet space and I'll be set. That and someone needs to come by and fix my electrical outlets that are falling into the walls. Ah, the little problems you have when you move into a non-new apartment. I love using the word "charming" to describe stuff like that.

Red Lighting It

"You know what bothers me," he says as we're walking through town.

"Lots of things, I'm sure." That's me being smart.

"My laugh. I feel like my laugh's getting old."

"Getting old?"

"I laugh like an old person. It scares me."

I imitate what I imagine an old person's laugh would sound like and it comes out all ho-ho-hoee, like a Santa laugh, a nice deep guffaw. I think about it though, and even though I don't hear it myself, I know what he means, and I'm scared for him. First the laugh, then the knees, and pretty soon you've got a crooked back, you're walking with a cane, dark hairs winding their way out from your earlobes, and you're always forgetting where you are. Someone told me that your ears and your nose are two things that never stop growing. Live long enough and you become all ears and nose, which explains a lot, and yet not nearly enough.

We creep towards the red light district, pulling coats snugger over our exposed necks and the wet cold that somehow manages to find its way past all the layers. The closer we get, the more we hear whispers directed towards us from faceless African men standing in shadowed alleys - "Cocaine, ecstasy?" Maybe I should be used to this because I'm from New York, but I'm not, because there's something darker going on here, something that makes it more sinister than your average pot pusher pretending like he's telling you a secret as you walk past him in Washington Sq.

The neon lights stretch down an avenue-length street, on either side of the only canal where there seem to be swans at all times of the day. I glance at the tiny cars parked alongside it and bet myself that, if I wanted to, I could probably push them into the water.

It's exactly as people told me it was going to be, all these random women standing in front of windows posing, pointing, puckering their lips. They point at various people that pass in front of the store fronts and motion them to come over, to have a little preliminary business meeting. I notice one girl dressed in jeans and a Rutgers sweatshirt, and I wonder who exactly she's trying to be. Her hands stuffed in her pockets, she leans back a little, hips thrust out, and she stares you glances at you with total disinterest. Maybe she's for the guys who want to live out some sort of fantasy of being with an aloof college student.

Another woman we pass looks middle-aged, homely and sad. She has on a black brassiere and black stockings with a garter. It's a reject from "The Graduate" who somehow made her way to this place. What is she doing here? This time I guess that she might be filling a void for divorced men who miss their wives and want to spend a night with someone who reminds them of the woman who mothered their children, who they spent decades being married to. I don't know, all speculation of course.

Some guys creep upto the doors and peek their heads in. I watch transactions unfold. One guys slips into the house and a blind goes down over the window, like an "out to lunch" sign.

"That man is going to have sex."

"OK..." My friend didn't really notice but it doesn't seem to phase him.

"Isn't it weird that I just saw someone go into a room with someone else who they're going to be messing around with in a few minutes? I feel like you don't usually just see something like that unfolding in front of you."

I'm being too obvious about it. I'm approaching this too much like a tourist and not enough like a cool and collected customer who should be taken seriously. I don't want to be taken seriously, trust me. I have no interest in getting myself scissor-pressed between a stranger's legs. And it's not solely the fear of diseases or the idea that someone can come by and steal all my clothes and money while I'm distracted. But it's also just depressing to me, like I'd feel bad about myself. Maybe my personal expectations are too high. I don't know.

But at the same time that I'm just being curious, I'm also getting a little annoyed that no one is taking me seriously. Whether the women in the windows are picking up on my vibe, I don't know, but I do know that none of them are looking at me the way they're looking at some of these other guys. None of them are motioning to me or mouthing some secret Dutch message from behind the glass.

What the hell? I have a moment where I wonder what it is about me that makes them ignore me as a potential customer. Should I be offended? It seems silly, and yet I can't help but want to be wanted even by them. A few times I make more of an effort, staring one of them down to see if she'll actually make eye contact with me, but then in those instances I'm the one chickening out, and I look away before she even has a chance to notice.

I'm shy. Maybe it's because I know that it's not just one of those passing looks you might get on the street, the little smile you catch when you see someone look up from a book they're reading on the subway. This is a laced look, something that carries the weight of a twenty minute rubber session and a fifty Euro note (or so I'm told).

"Live sex show. Live sex show. See five fantastic acts including the Banana Show and Author's Alley."

My ears perk up. Author's Alley? Sounds...like it's something a writing enthusiast might be into. Sounds like it might be for a more intellectually minded clientele.

"What's that about?"

"Well," he leans in closer, like he's about to tell me something he hasn't told anybody else. "Let's just say she writes something without using her hands."

My mind's doing summersaults trying to decipher this guy. I want to be wowed, but the only things I can come up with don't really impress me enough to spend the money.

"Let's go in," someone suggests. "I mean, we're in Amsterdam. If you're not actually going to end up paying someone for sex, shouldn't we at least pay to see it live?"

No, not really. I don't think that's a necessary a logical conclusion you should be reaching. But I don't say anything, I just thank the "usher" and walk away, cutting down a smaller street and away from the sound of opening and closing doors.

"It's OK to be gay," the usher yells after me.

Yeah whatever.

My friend laughs.

"Dude, you sounded really old just now."