Jew Eat Yet?

Support Our Troops™

Here’s what makes me nuts: anyone who publicly questions the so called War on Terror or dares to characterize our involvement in Iraq as a debacle of astronomical proportions is accused by the Right of not supporting our troops. I can’t think of any gesture that is more supportive of the troops than a careful examination of the ever-worsening situation over there and a desire to make sure that the sacrifices of life, limb, and sanity these men and women are making are not in vain. But that has little to do with the yellow-ribboned “Support Our Troops” movement which has become a PR juggernaut worthy of Joseph Goebbels. Who in their right mind is going to disagree with that sentiment even if we all know that the term is not really about the troops at all but is a barely disguised euphemism for “Support the Bush Administration’s Policies That Are Putting Our Troops in Harm’s Way.” The truth is that it is not the people who oppose the war who are failing to support our troops. No, it is the very administration that many of the yellow-ribboned “support our troops” conservatives so revere that is consistently giving a big “fuck you” to our servicemen and women. We’ve seen so many examples of this over the past several years, whether it’s inadequate protective gear, shoddy mental health services, or frequently delayed furloughs, but the story that was in the news this week really takes the cake.

It is a longstanding practice of our volunteer army to offer signing bonuses to new recruits as an incentive to join up. Based on certain skills that the volunteers bring to the table, these bonuses can range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars. Now word comes that many veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan have been asked to repay parts of their signing bonuses after severe war injuries prevented them from completing their tours of duty. Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton, among others, are calling for legislation that will guarantee that such bonuses won’t be reduced, as if common sense and common decency aren’t enough to prevent such an appalling practice. How dare you get your legs blown off over there, young man, now give us our money back!

The embarrassed military is saying that this is all a big mistake and that they won’t make these people pay up, but veterans are popping up all over the country to say this has happened to them. Earlier this month a soldier who was partially blinded by a roadside bomb in Iraq told the press that the Army asked him to repay $2,800 of his $7,500 enlistment bonus because he had only completed a year of his three-year service. The 21-year-old New Yorker received the bill in late October and a week later got a notice that he would be charged interest if he didn't make a payment within 30 days. A 20-year-old medically discharged soldier in Washington State got a threatening letter a week after she returned home. The letter warned her that if she didn’t repay $2,505.70 of her enlistment bonus, the Army would send a bill collector after her. The Department of Defense said that the amount she owed was considered the “unearned portion” of her bonus.

Are Democrats like Schumer and Clinton making political hay out of this issue? You bet they are—why shouldn’t they? Meanwhile, there's a whole new slew of "Support Our Troops" Christmas ornaments you can order online, many of them featuring snowmen and teddy bears in army fatigues. You gotta buy them, it's the only patriotic thing to do! (Did I mention most of these ornaments were made in China?) Here’s the only slogan that I’d like to see on my Christmas snowman:

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS: BRING THEM THE FUCK HOME!

National Turkey

Here is a photo of this year’s National Thanksgiving Turkey being pardoned by President Bush. They say turkeys are the stupidest animals on the planet but I think Bush gives this one a run for his money. After the Rose Garden ceremony, the turkey was flown first class (I swear!) to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, where he will be the Grand Marshal of today’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Then he will live out his days in the backyard of Mickey’s Country Cabin.

I can’t blame Bush for this inane Thanksgiving custom, it’s been going on at the White House for the past 60 years (or maybe not—see comments below for info on this Turkeygate scam). In fact, John F. Kennedy made his final appearance in the Rose Garden in November 1963 to pardon the national turkey before leaving for Dallas. The Presidents may pardon the national bird, but then they sit down to dinner and eat another turkey. That sounds like Bush—have a ceremony to show the world how compassionate he is and then start the slaughtering behind closed doors! In his Thanksgiving address, he mentioned the men and women of the United States Armed Forces who are “taking risks for our freedom.” He vowed that the sacrifices of the families who have lost a loved one in this fight will not be in vain. Bush will have one more Thanksgiving in office, but there will be a new President-Elect next year at this time. Now that’s something to be thankful for!

Neil Kramer of Citizen of the Month is celebrating his Third Annual “Thank Your First Commenter Day” in which bloggers are to go back to their early archives and give thanks to the first person who ever left a comment on their site. Because he’s been blogging for three years now, he thanks his third commenter. I also started my blog in 2004 (yikes!) so I want to thank my third commenter, Tamar Jacobson of Mining Nuggets. It was on a post called “Are Blogs the New Narcissism?” I was still trying to figure out what blogs were back then—I had only glanced at a few of them before I started my own and I was worried that I was becoming too self-obsessed. Tamar wrote:

Self-expression is not narcissism. It seems like a fine and generous way of sharing yourself with everyone! Not to mention - fun - just plain fun! I am really enjoying reading what you have to share, Danny. Thanks for your blog!

Thank you, Tamar, for that early support! And thanks to everyone who has stopped by over the years, especially those of you who have left a word or two. I admit I’m still a little neurotic when it comes to comments, wondering why I get so few and thinking that this means no one is interested in my ramblings.

As the years go by, my blog has turned into some kind of emotional barometer. Without it I never would have remembered that I was going through some tough times last Thanksgiving and the one before that. I don't feel any of that angst today. We’re having dinner with our friends Tom and Lisa which is always a lot of fun. Tom makes a killer turkey but I can’t help but note my 2005 claim that I would never touch that turkey substitute called “tofurkey” no matter how much actress Shirley Jones railed against the evils of the turkey industry. And now here I am, two years later, bringing tofurkey to our festivities—not for me, but for my now vegetarian almost-teenaged daughter. Another paragraph in that post caught my eye:

It’s been a challenging time for me lately as I come to terms with the fact that my fear-based way of looking at the world is no longer serving me very well, in fact it’s driving me batty. When I first started therapy I thought that awareness was 9/10 of the battle. As soon as I started realizing what I was doing to cause pain to myself and others, I’d be able to stop doing it and all would be resolved, right? Not hardly. Being aware of negative behavior patterns IS a necessary step towards growth, but when you achieve this awareness without yet having the ability to substitute those patterns with something healthier, it actually feels worse (at first) than being unaware of the behaviors to begin with.

Oh crap, I think I’ve grown a lot in the past two years, and I'm feeling really good these days but I still could have written that paragraph this morning! I guess this growth business doesn’t really have an end point, it’s more like an ongoing project.

At least I’ve answered one question: yes, Virginia, blogs are the new narcissism! Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Sammy’s Roumanian

Back in Los Angeles but I’m still digesting our meal from last night. For our final New York feast we went to Sammy’s Roumanian Steakhouse on the Lower East Side. Have you been to this crazy Jewish hangout? I’ve been going to Sammy’s for about 25 years and I love it but I fully understand why many people I know would run screaming from the place if they were forced to eat the food or participate in the nightly festivities.

The décor of Sammy’s evokes your parents’ 1960s rec room. Yellowing photos of overfed patrons line every inch of wall space along with stapled business cards for companies that no longer exist. Crepe paper streamers hung during Golda Meir’s reign as Prime Minister add to the festive fluorescent-lit mood. On every table you’ll find bottles of good old-fashioned seltzer and large pitchers of golden chicken fat, also known as schmaltz. That should give you an indication of the food to come, delicious as hell but truly a lethal cholesterol orgy.

Kendall and I would walk to Sammy’s from L.A. just to get their chopped liver, surely the best in New York (especially after the unfortunate closing last year of the Second Avenue Deli), if not the world. The waiter mixes it up tableside, combining the perfectly cooked chicken livers with slivers of white radish, blackened fried onions as only your great-grandmother could make, and a generous helping of the golden schmaltz. Oy vay iz mir! Other sides included mouth-watering sour pickles and pickled tomatoes, roasted peppers, and an eggplant salad that contained enough garlic to disable the entire population of Transylvania.

Here is my sister Sue, her husband Jeff, and their two kids following the agony and ecstasy of the appetizer course! They may look terrified and ill, but they were in heaven from these delicacies. For our main course, we had garlic-infused skirt steaks that were so huge they hung off the plate on both sides and yummy boiled flanken nestled in a thick mushroom barley sauce. Other specialties of the house include a garlicky sausage called karnatzlach, fried kreplach, latkes, broiled liver with unborn eggs (!), kishke, sweetbreads, lamb chops, and other dishes cooked with copious amounts of chicken fat and onions. Oh God, it hurts so good. Can somebody put the paramedics on speed dial?

The entertainment at Sammy’s is straight out of the Catskills. The same guy has been playing that electric piano for decades and his shtick is so bad it's great. It helped that we came straight from seeing the new Mel Brooks musical based on his film “Young Frankenstein.” The play received lukewarm reviews when it opened last week (what did the critics think they were going to, Strindberg?), but I loved every second of it, especially Andrea Martin as Frau Blücher. That woman is so funny she can walk across the stage without saying a word and slay the crowd. Megan Mullally was a wonderful choice for Dr. Frankenstein’s society girlfriend and she handled Mel’s raunchy lyrics with great aplomb (in one scene she had to sing the word “tits” around 20 times). Sutton Foster was fun as the cheerful sex kitten/lab assistant Inga and Shuler Hensley was the perfect monster. It was only Roger Bart in the lead role that seemed to be having a bit of a hard time but he made the best of it. It can’t be easy being compared to Gene Wilder who was so brilliant in the movie.

The broadness of Mel Brooks was the perfect primer for the frivolity of Sammy’s which included Irish waitresses singing Yiddish ballads and a full hora with happy patrons smashing into tables throughout the packed restaurant. Our goyishe friends Ellen and Greg, who had just gotten married, joined us at Sammy’s before leaving on their honeymoon in South Africa. They were feted by our Catskills comedian who sang a few verses of “Get Me to the Shul on Time” for the couple who then shared their first chicken fat-induced dance as husband and wife. From Poughkeepsie to the Lower East Side in less than 24 hours—quite an accomplishment! The management sent over some warm-from-the-oven rugelach for the bride and groom and we had New York Egg Creams all around, complete with U-Bets chocolate syrup. By the end of the evening, we felt bonded with everyone in the place and like we were all family. Indeed, I left feeling the same way I used to after all family dinners—stuffed to the gills, nauseous, my ears ringing from the din of loud Jews, and my sides aching from laughter. What more could you ask for?

Luckily, Kendall and I were sitting next to some Chasidic men on the plane this morning. I don’t think any Gentiles could have handled the scent of garlic, onions, and chicken fat coming out of our pores.

In a New York State of Mind

Greetings from Poughkeepsie, New York, home of Vassar College, Samuel Morse, and Smith Brothers cough drops. We’re here for the wedding of our Brooklyn-based friends Ellen & Greg which was a fun, raucous, gourmet affair. One of my favorite moments was when their dog Hudson accompanied Greg down the aisle. If Kendall and I were getting married today she’d not only have our dog Henry walk her down the aisle, she’d probably ask him to stand in for the groom! I’ll post some of the photos my sister took at the wedding as soon as I get a chance to download them and weed out the ones of both of us inappropriately kissing the bride. We broke into the wedding suite just before the ceremony last night and left all sorts of obnoxious notes to greet the happy couple. Oh, those crazy Miller kids.

Kendall and I have been in New York for much of the week and I’m struck again by how much I love that city which we return to later this morning. Los Angeles has its good points but compared to Manhattan it seems like nothing more than a backwater hick town. Oh, don’t worry, Angelinos, I’ll defend our fair city once I return, but while I’m on the east coast I feel about as faithful to my adopted town as Rudy Giuliani was to his wives. One of the perks of this trip was attending the annual convention for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and meeting with the amazing educators I’m working with on a project for Scholastic. Kendall and I had also hoped to have another one of our crazy theatre orgies but we were sidelined by the stagehands strike that is entering its second week and has darkened all but a few of the Broadway theatres. Luckily, two of the shows we got tickets for were not affected because they have separate deals with the stagehands union.

On Friday, we saw the brilliant new staging of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” at Lincoln Center starring Michael Cerveris, Phylicia Rashad, John Cullum, Jonathan Cake, and an actress we would happily fly across the country to see in any role, Miss Martha Plimpton. I’m afraid if I rave about Martha one more time on this blog she will finally get that restraining order she’s been threatening, but suffice it to say that she was breathtaking as Imogen, Shakespeare’s last great female role. It was fun to see her in that part just a few months after seeing her Helena in the Shakespeare in the Park version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Is there a harder working, more talented actress in the country today? I don’t think so, and we were delighted to get a chance to see Martha perform this role on her 37th birthday. The whole cast was superb and it was great to have veteran actor John Cullum in the title role. I remember being transfixed by Cullum’s Oscar Jaffee in the 1978 musical “On the Twentieth Century” and I also loved him in “Shenandoah” and “Urinetown.” What a class act.

This afternoon we’re taking my nephews to their very first Broadway show, Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” The show received less raves than Brooks’ earlier film-to-stage transfer (“The Producers”) but it's still the hottest ticket in town (especially this week) and we're so looking forward to it. My first Broadway experience was "No, No, Nanette" in 1972 and while I enjoyed the show (which starred Ruby Keeler, Patsy Kelly, and Bobby Van), I think it's cool that instead of wholesome numbers like "I Want to Be Happy" and "Tea for Two," Spencer and Sam's introduction to the theatre will include Megan Mullally singing a song called “Please Don’t Touch Me!” and Andrea Martin's recounting of Frau Blücher’s long-lost love in “He Vas My Boyfriend.” Can we all be honorary New Yorkers for just one more day?

The Stoner Chasid

I’m in one of the most ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Los Angeles (on La Brea Boulevard just north of Beverly) on Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. As I’m walking to my destination, a coffee shop where I will continue my frantic quest to restore all of the work I lost because of my failed hard drive last week (nothing was recoverable), I am suddenly surrounded by large groups of Chasidic men on their way to synagogue. There are different branches of Chasidism represented in this crowd, as evidenced by their headgear and distinctive clothing. Many of the men I see wear shtreimels, the dramatic fur hats that look like large mink lampshades. Some groups wear more modern-looking hats that resemble the wide-brimmed bowler that Boy George wore during his 1980s heyday. For all their Old World ways, the men in this group give off a surprisingly hip appearance with their tailored black suits, white shirts with no ties, prayer fringes, and leather boots. With their long sidelocks and Boy George hats, they look like they could either be on their way to their crowded little shtibels for Friday night prayers or headed over to east L.A. to see some avant-garde rock band.

As I’ve written about before, there’s something about the closed-knit Chasidic communities that draws me in whenever I’m in their presence. I know that after ten minutes in their strict, pious, rule-based world I’d want to seriously rebel from the party line of what I can and cannot do, and I don’t really feel the calling to join their ranks, but in theory I find their highly structured lifestyle appealing and romantic. I admire their groupness, their uniformity, their rejection of cultural excesses, and their intense focus on family and ritual.

A group of the Boy George Chasids are headed my way in a large pack, walking briskly. “Good Shabbos,” I mutter quietly. “Good Shabbos,” a few of them respond. Some meet my gaze a bit accusingly before looking away. Who is this heathen Jew and what is he doing on a Friday night with that backpack? Maybe even glacing in the direction of an unreligious Jew is some kind of sin for them, especially on Shabbat when they are getting ready for their prayers. But others look at me with interest, and I realize I’m staring right back at them, like we are neighboring exhibits in a cross-cultural zoo. The dark-clothed men separate wordlessly into two single file lines and pass around me on the sidewalk, their black overcoats rustling. What fine material their clothes seem to be made of, I think, as I spot a straggler a few yards behind the pack. He is clearly part of this group, dressed identically and walking with the same determined gait, but there is something different about this guy. What is it? Oh my God—he’s smoking! I don’t remember ever seeing Chasidic men or women smoke, much less on the Sabbath when I know full well it is forbidden. We used to go to my orthodox grandparents on Friday nights and every week my mother and grandmother would escape to my grandmother’s bedroom after dinner and sneak in a few cigarettes. Their ruse never worked. Every single week without fail my grandfather would come in the room and start screaming, “Anita! Judy! Not on Shabbos!” at which point they would snuff out their cigarettes like they were schoolgirls caught by the principal. This went on for around four decades but every Friday my grandfather acted as shocked as if it were the very first time he had discovered such a shameful display.

I can’t for the life of me imagine why this Chasidic guy, who seems to be around 18 or 19, would dare to smoke in public, just a few feet behind his group. As we walk past each other, I get caught in a cloud of the smoke he is exhaling. WHAAAAAAT?! Filling my nostrils is the unmistakable aroma of marijuana. Yep. Pot. Weed. Grass. Dope. Was I being videotaped for the Yiddish version of “Punk’d” or maybe a new reality show called “Chasidic Bloopers and Blunders?” God knows I act like a reality show contestant with my response. I stop dead in my tracks, spin my head around in a whiplash-inducing double-take, and feel my mouth open so wide you could stuff three matzoh balls into it. Surely there has to be an explanation. Maybe the poor guy has severe glaucoma and got a special dispensation from the Rebbe to smoke medical marijuana on Shabbat? I look ahead at the larger group and they don't even turn around to check on their pot-smoking straggler.

I start to think how naïve I am to be so shocked at the idea of religious Jews smoking pot. What fantasies do I carry about these groups that disregards the fact they are human beings with the same dramas and foibles as the rest of us? Do I think they aren’t subject to addictions or urges or even illicit crime because of their group status? I can't help but think of another group that is as closed-knit and family-focused as the Chasids—the MAFIA!

I suddenly remember some lurid reports from a few years back about a few Chasidic rabbis in Brooklyn who were caught laundering drug money and working closely with Columbian drug cartels. Oy! Needless to say, there are bad apples in every group. But what’s the deal with my reefer-toting Chasidic boy? I’ll never know but I start wondering whether there are any connections between pot and ultra-orthodoxy that I know nothing about. While I’m sure there is no official condoning of drug use in this community, I do manage to find a few websites that extoll the use of marijuana in Jewish tradition, most notably an interesting blog called Cannabis Chassidis that purports to reveal the secret Jewish history of cannabis. Who knew? “Don’t blow this site off as sophomoric stoner B.S.,” the Jerusalem-based blogger asks his readers. “This is actually some of the deepest and realest Torah available on the Internet.” I’ll bet, although I think it’s safe to say that it’s not the Torah interpretation that my orthodox grandfather would have embraced.

When I get to my destination, I continue my review of all of the documents I lost in my hideous computer crash. Each time I remember another non-backed-up cache of files, I find myself cringing and shaking my head in disbelief. Besides my important work files, I lost all of the research I had done about my ancestry, including hundreds of documents about my own Chasidic roots in Poland. If anyone ever had the need for some Shabbat mind-altering drugs, it is me. Should I try to find my Chasidic friend and see if I can score some kosher weed?

Notes on a Crash

When’s the last time you backed up your computer? Here’s some advice…do it TODAY. For all my dependence on my trusty MacBook, I hadn’t bothered to back up my files in well over a year. Does that ring a bell? Are you shaking your head at what an idiot I am, or are you realizing that you, too, may be skating on ice that is so thin you can see the piranhas circling underneath?

I was sitting in a Starbucks on Friday afternoon, happily working away, when my screen suddenly froze. No big deal, I thought. I had recently saved the file I was working on, a 287-page manuscript I was almost finished editing, so at the most I’d lose about half an hour of work. I powered down and restarted my computer, only to be met with a series of painful-sounding clicks and whirs. Instead of the friendly blue welcome screen, my monitor emitted a dull gray light, like it was stuck in the dreary black-and-white sequence of “The Wizard of Oz.”

I tried again and again to restart the computer, my anxiety rising, unable even to pay attention to Larry King who was schmoozing his way out of the Starbucks, venti latte in hand. Finally, something else appeared on my screen: a big flashing question mark. That couldn’t be good.

Back at home, I inserted the original system disk into my CD drive, assuming the computer would be able to start up off of that. Nada. I then spent many hours on the phone with the AppleCare technician and some other Mac-savvy experts I know. They all put me through countless keystroke variations and attempted restarts, but nothing worked. All of the experts had scoffed at my worries initially, convinced that a simple fix would restore my digital world to order, but by the end of these conversations they sounded more like the doctor who walks slowly into the waiting room and pauses before speaking to the family members.

“I’m so sorry. We did everything we could. Your hard drive didn’t make it.”

As the realization started to dawn on me that all of my files were gone, I cycled through the seven stages of grief: Shock and Disbelief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Guilt, Depression, and finally, Acceptance. My hyperventilating eventually gave way to a shrug. It’s just a bunch of 0’s and 1’s, what’s the big deal? It’s not like a loved one has fallen ill. I think of my crazy dependency on technology in so many parts of my life and I wonder if this is a message from the universe to chuck it all.

Should I become Amish like my sister and her husband did last week? I've never seen them more content. For the record, that’s an actual Amish dress my sister is wearing, complete with many buttonless, zipperless layers, and that is Jeff’s real beard. I think he grew it while on the road specifically for this one day. They were so worried that it would look like they were making fun of the Amish on Halloween that they told everyone they were pioneers. I don’t think they need to worry about any Amish people seeing this photo unless it appears on the “Amish laptop” I saw a whole website about.

According to the site: “We all know the Amish don't use electricity, and they don't have phones, or anything to do with modern technology. But if you do a search on the web, you will find a ton of Amish websites. Hmmm...how are they getting on the Internet? Up until now that was a mystery.” They then go on to describe the first working Amish computer. “The laptop doesn't really need power...it is just a series of beads controlled by a pulley system, that when arranged in certain patterns can be translated into words or HTML tags. The only source of power needed to run the laptop's pulley system comes from a rather small chicken attached to the laptop by means of a rope.”

Oy, now I’m making fun of the Amish—see what a little trauma can do to a person? But my hard drive crash does make me wonder if I should try to wean myself from technology. Is it time to go back to good ol’ yellow pads and pencils? Especially now that most of my writing projects are lost to cyberspace?

I’m attempting a data recovery on my computer but the place where I brought it was not very optimistic. They told me about some other companies where I might have more luck but that could cost thousands of dollars. Hey, my stuff isn’t that important. I need to see this as an opportunity to start over. New contacts, new photos, new documents—a whole new life to create on my pristine, empty hard drive.