Everything happens for a reason. A cultural commentary with a lotta rock-n-roll, semitism, and parenting. See our Etsy Shop! Buy HeadyBands, Hoodies and more at www.wholephamily.etsy.com
Phish played the song "Walfredo" the other night, a very rare occurrence from their repetoire, at the Bill Graham Auditorium in San Francisco. It was played based on a fan request. It was played in honor of the memory of phan Adam Berger, who passed away earlier this year.
Is it simply coincidence that they played this tune on the date 10/27?
I doubt highly that any of this was planned.
But I like to think that it's all there for a reason.
Do I think Trey was all like, "let's do Loony a favor and get all whack and play this song as a tribute to a dedicated fallen fan on her favorite number day."
Nah.
I didn't know Adam Berger but his blog is called Walfredo. Clearly he was a huge phan. He loved Walfredo. And Phish, probably the best musical outfit out there today, played it. In San Francisco, the town where he lived for many years. May his memory be a blessing.
And thanks NYCJAMGAL for posting this nice video of the historic happening.
Back to 127...
Despite them not playing in Israel on 12/8 a few years ago (if you read my lengthy post you'll see originally it was to be 12/7, but couldn't be due to various reasons), I keep the dream alive....
#ifyouwillititisnodreamtour
Which is way too long of a hashtag.
That's why ya gotta #hashtagitbagit
But a girl can still dream, right?
Whoa whoa whoa whoa, before you get all, Loony is whack, Phish ain't gonna do no show in Israel, let me alert you to what Jambase reported on this show in the 2nd set, and I quote: "Trey introducted on Fishman as Moses, "here to take you across the Red Sea for "I Didn't Know."
Some may call that Comic Relief, I call it, coming all together. It's just that people don't know it, yet it's *right in front of their eyes!" People may laugh at this idea, but I know that the Nunever won't when he reads this. And that Zaney Laney is on board if she would only read this darn long blog. And of course my dear husband who supports all of my efforts. Do I need anything more? Oh, wait, yeah, I need the guys to decide that it's time to take the living fish into the land "Vayidgu l'rov," but as I'm not a bible thumper, but could possibly be perceived as such, I don't know how that would fly in the greater world, ya know?
And, no, Ariela, (and all my awesome smart friends who like to read this but can't follow the Phish stuff and I don't hold that against them but indeed they're still missing out on tremendous music) this isn't a Phish blog, haven't I said that all along?
Yay for purple girls and little ragers and glitter and sparkly friends and hoopers and curlicues and laughs and soul sisters and birth sisters and bobos and hello kitty and cleaning help and gel manicures and kind veggie burritos and my sweet kinderlach and the moon and for meeting a dude named Stango.
It's a lucky number for my mother.
Her first name is Sarah.
127 is the age when our biblical matriarch Sarah passed away.
It's the number when you add up its digits gets to 10.
And who doesn't love a perfect 10.
J.D. Salinger drawing that appeared on the cover of Time Magazine
I just finished watching the Salinger documentary from last year
All Americans should see this.
We all loved and love Catcher in the Rye.
You may think I am biased, since my college advisor and favorite professor, Stephen J. Whitfield, appears as a commentator in the film.
But I loved this movie even before I saw him in it.
No, I didn't know he was in it.
I do believe strongly that the sporadic release of Salinger's remaining works from 2015-2020, as noted by the film, will play a strong role in creating positive energy in the world.
It is a good thing!
There is no doubt in my mind that larger questions of religion and God existed for Salinger. His Glass family practices a religion, after all. Seymour commits suicide. Salinger's father was Jewish and he helped to liberate the camps. He served as a counterintelligence officer soon after the war. He tried catching Nazis. He married a former Nazi and soon divorced her. I wish I could have had Jerry Salinger over for a shabbes dinner at our house. I think he would have liked my challah. I hope he would have had fun. I just had some popcorn with brewer's yeast on it. Good stuff. But what about warm chocolate babka? That would be good, too.
Forget about the music I love affecting so many Americans for the good. (for the moment, at least!)
J.D. Salinger's books affected so many Americans for the good.
And, disturbingly, as noted in the film, they affected not just one but 3 Americans for the bad in their assassinations or attempted assassinations of famous people. That concerns me but as Salinger said to his fans, he isn't a therapist. He did good for the world by writing what he wrote. And it will be so exciting to read the rest of his goods in the next decade. The Glass and Caulfield families will finally rise to their fullest potentials in American literature.
I imagine little Suzy Greenberg, a girl who said she wants to be a sociologist but it was suggested she should get checked by a neurologist, must've read Catcher and related to Holden just as much as the next girl.
I loved reading about the Glass children (was it Franny or Zooey?) when we lived in New Haven, envisioning myself on the very platform I used to ascend when I commuted to Manhattan from there in 2003.
Thanks, Mr. Salinger.
This blog post comes from a good place and the best of intentions.
I only claim to be an ideas person who wants good in the world.
It has taken his entire career to make it to Israel, but former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart will be playing in Jerusalem this August. He is performing as part of the Jerusalem Sacred Music Festival. He is the only Jewish member of the Grateful Dead.
No doubt, Jewish Deadheads worldwide are kvelling.
I have said it before and I will say it again: changes a' comin'. This gives me hope that one day, my favorite band will make it to Israel. (this isn't the time and place to say how the Grateful Dead leads me to Phish. For just one convo on that topic, go here)
Yet, H. Melvin Ming, the president and chief executive of Sesame Workshop assured the New York Times that, as with the passing of Jim Henson and, this year, the Count, the brand will endure after this incident.
Wait...that Count passed away?
That's right, folks, Jerry Nelson, the man who played Count von Count for nearly 40 years, passed away on August 23, 2012, at the age of 78. That makes me sad, very sad. And, how exactly did I miss that last summer?
(no need to worry about the Count, he lives on via the expertise of Muppeteer Matt Vogel)
And, now...the connections.
Mr. Nelson debuted his character on November 27, 1972. Just two days before my birth!
And he passed away just one day before Concealed Light's birthday.
I'm no brain scientist, Torah scholar or musical prodigy but this is the kinda stuff that pretty much blows me away.
All because a 9 year old boy took some initiative.
built a cardboard arcade.
his dad let him do what he wanted during summer vacation.
a filmmaker/creative DIY guy driving a 1996 Toyota Corolla needed a spare part drove past the arcade Caine built in his dad's auto parts shop,
I love that I am the 127th person to be "talking" about Interconnected on Facebook.
Loving that man named Nirvan who put this together has a company called Interconnected.
Caine is GOING TO COLLEGE! (well, alone, today they have raised $44,000)
A little boy with a family auto parts store in East LA now has a college fund.
My paternal grandparents, Martha and Al, ran a business called Almar Paper and Twine in Brooklyn and then later out of Island Park, NY from the mid '40s until 1972. Growing up and visiting them in Long Beach in my own youth from the late 70s until his passing in the 90s, my Grandpa Al loved telling me what claimed was the story of how the company came to be called Joyva.
But first, some background.
this image belongs to Joyva and I am putting it here simply for some cultural context.
Grandpa Al grew up with the Radutzky brothers in Brooklyn. As boys, they played handball and stickball. When I spoke with my father today to ask how my Grandpa came to barter with them, he said simply, "they were boyhood friends." It doesn't get much more clear as that.
Almar supplied Joyva with kraft paper, gum tape, boxes, and other various packing supplies. In exchange, the Radutzkys told Grandpa Al to take what he'd like: Halva, sesame candies, and, large 50 gallon bags of popcorn produced for wholesale distribution. At the beginning of my parents' marriage, my mother recalls seeing the signature round cylinders of halva in her in-laws fridge in Long Beach
Grandpa Al claimed that the name Joyva came from the heavyness of that huge block of halva. When lifting it, the Radutzkys would say, "Oy-vey" and repeat it over and over until it morphed into Joyva. I mean, who in their right mind would buy a candy whose brand was Oy-vey? Saychel, (intellect, in Yiddish) they had!
Me with Grandma Martha and Grandpa Al, Proprietors of Almar Paper & Twine, Spring 1973
As I was a Journalism student at Brandeis University at the time, I was skeptical about the truth of this story. I had a tremendous thirst for consumer knowledge at that time and was in the habit of writing letters of both praise and criticism to companies whose products I used. I interned in consumer reporting, opened the mail for Joan Hamburg at WOR Radio and covered various consumer stories for Susan Wornick at WCVB-TV in Boston. I wrote a letter to Joyva requesting clarification.
What I received in response to my letter was a very wonderful, friendly phone call from the senior Radutzky family member who was running the business at the time. I do not have the original letter nor his response (my mistake for not being a better archivist) No, he didn't know my Grandpa, didn't recall the family name or business name at all, and no, the company wasn't called Joyva for the reasons I had been told. (This is not surprising). The Joyva name camed from a blend of two names of family members (again, I am forgetting what those names were...perhaps Joy and Valeria? No, surely it was something else.)
Mr. Radutzky was fully entertained by my letter and very appreciative that I reached out. And the swag. Oh the swag. Not only did I get ring jells, but sesame candies, marshmallow twists, and more. What a mentsch this man is, let me tell you!
You would think the story is over, but it is fully alive and has taken on a new chapter.
While at the Phish shows a couple of weeks ago (when will I move past it? Oh no, I will never move past Phish, the best in the music business!), I had a full day in the city alone. Sans children. Just me, myself and I. Naturally, Economy Candy was on my list of places to hit up, in addition to lunch at B & H Dairy and Vegetarian Restaurant located at 127 2nd Avenue (if you have been reading carefully in the last week or so you can see why it was meant to be that I attended that restaurant...the location address of 127 being a very special number for me).
Here is the excellent split pea soup I ate:
I lamented how there exists no longer the most amazing Peppermint Park, which was an ice cream parlor with various locations in Manhattan, including one in front of Madison Square Garden where a Chase Bank currently is located. It is there, before Rangers games, where we would get Joyva ring jells and other candies.
And Gem Spa's prices for ring jells, according to my sister Reba Magdelene, were up to 35 cents a piece! I hoofed it down to Economy Candy to get my beloved candy (which I tried pushing on PurpleGirl, since they were "purplish" in the middle. Instead, I picked up a bag of razzles for her since she was looking for a New Year's outfit that day with a lot of dazzle), which ended up costing an average of .18 cents a piece.
Earlier in the day I was chatting with my jeweler (Stango is buying me a gorgeous ring for our 10th anniversary which just passed) who told me that she is an owner of an Economy Candy t-shirt. I questioned where she might wear said shirt, and she couldn't quite give an answer.
Somewhere along the way, I wondered if anyone would wear a Joyva t-shirt. To my knowledge, they don't exist. Reba said it would be a tight market. I would only do it with permission, after all, they do own the Trademark design. I even mentioned a Joyva t shirt idea to Jerry at Economy, and even though he was so busy with the Xmas week crowd, all he had to say a full shrug off of my idea, "but I have an Economy Candy t-shirt." Like, why would *anyone* want to buy a Joyva shirt?
Because of the iconic image of the Turkish Man With a Moustache! Everyone but everyone knows this image. Iconic for us Jews (and non Jews, too, I would imagine, but really for the Jews, us small numbers we are and yet for whatever reason, call it saychel if you want, we manage time and again to churn out the big time).
But, actually, I am not looking to make a Joyva t-shirt.
Which leads me to putting on my list of things to do: contact Joyva with my proposal which I have not revealed here because I am not putting out my proprietary ideas on the Internet, despite only having 5 followers and therefore I should think no one is going to see this, and yet I still like to keep my ideas close to the vest.
(note to self: this is QUITE the good timing...
Talk to us about hosting 100 Years of Joyva!
The NY Food Museum celebrates a century of Brooklyn’s own halvah and candy manufacturer, still family-owned and run after four generations. See giant pillows of sesame honey crunch, perfect oh’s of chocolate coated jellies, and the magical ways of tahini! Tell us your candy stories.
212-966-0191 e: nyfoodmuse@gmail.com )
Might I put in yet another plug for Jade, which is that on 12/31 she was wearing her Turkish hamsa evil eye (which is fully from the Jewish tradition) which looks like this:
Connected on yet another level to the Turkish segula for me that exists in this Joyva story, as I have a business idea that stems from this, and I hope that this will give me the hizuk to see it through
Anyway, I hope you liked my Oy vey story. Big shout out to Elmont, NY where Beth David Cemetery is located along with Grandpa Al and Grandma Martha buried there with about half of New York's grandparents and ancestors.
Is it strange that I recently shared a shabbat dinner table with a Gutterman? (he is dating my sister-in-law's cousin). No, it isn't a strange design because everything happens for a reason..
From our melava malka on Saturday night (with Stango and Concealed Light and, if you listen closely, the Wolfman or his brother on percussion which was a plastic bottle):
Here is our Concealed Light yesterday afternoon.
And then a coupla minutes later she picks up our new melodica.
Tune written by Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach z'l
Recently, I had the greatest honor to meet the acquaintance of Nigel Savage, founder of Hazon. He has transformed Jewish philanthropy through his organization. Hazon wants you to help "create healthier and more sustainable communities in the Jewish world and beyond." Sue, a new friend of mine who was introduced to the organization through its trademark bike ride, told me that involvement with Hazon has transformed her life. She recently celebrated her Bat Mitzvah, having previously only a minimal knowledge of the alef-beit. I met her last summer through the Hazon CSA, thinking it would be a good way to connect with the Jewish community here in Philadelphia.
I invite you to join us for a shmooze at "Taste of Hazon"
(it is a Tu B'Shevat benefit, and by invite I mean you register for yourself. One day we would love to sponsor a table. We'll get there.)
February 7, 2012
cocktails at 5:45pm
program and dinner at 6:45pm
National Museum of Jewish History Gala Ballroom
101 South Independent Mall East, Philadelphia
At our shabbes lunch table yesterday, our guests brought up the subject of predictions. They spoke of all the talk in the air regarding various doomsday theories, that people are talking about the stars and planets aligning, and of one individual who was "nutty and weird" but able to predict occurances on specific dates.
I decided to speak up.
No, things aren't doomed, things are going to bloom!
I decided to throw out the number about which I have recently blogged: 127.
So, I thought, how could I get a date out of 127? So, I did it like this (in the American date system): 1/27. I said "January 27th!" And the guests somewhat got freaked out, "no, please not then, that is our son's bar mitzvah!"
Still, I got the date right on the mark. And I was saying that my number would point towards a good thing, not a doomsday thing. But perhaps there was miscommunication.
So I then reworked the date. How about 12/7. Something significant will happen on that date.
And this leads me to my Phish prediction.
Let me preface this by stating I never very much got into the statistics element of the Phish scene. In my newbie years I glanced at various different charts, but I often viewed this hobby more of a guy thing, sort of like how a Fantasy sports afficianado would be interested in statistics.
And here is where my reliance on a combination of actual life experience, gematria (Jewish numerology), being open, and intuition gets me to the date of December 7, 2012.
This date on the Jewish calendar is a Friday. Nope, my prediction won't happen on a Friday night. So, in way, you might say, ok, Loony, you are wrong.
Just add the number one to that date and you get to December 8, 2012.
That date is my prediction for when Phish will play a gig in the State of Israel.
Perhaps I should end there, but I would like to take this opportunity to offer some background and why I think they will play in Israel.
You should know about the "Stango-Loony Affair," which is Stango's reference to our courtship and marriage, and still applies to this day.
We were married on the 1st night of Chanukah on December 9, 2001. This holiday is also called the Festival of Lights. It occurs during the darkest period of the year and each night with each additional candle, greater light is brought into the world. That we were married on the first night is significant. I also learned recently that I was born on the day before Chanukah (24 Kislev 5733), which ties into our connection to the light.
This year December 8th is the first night of Chanukah (which as stated above is my Jewish anniversary).
It will our 11th anniversary.
Remember, there is an extra 1 from 127 to 128 (12/7, or December 7th , and 12/8, December 8th)?
Phish is not my religion. Judaism is. I am what Stango calls an "ultra unorthodox" Jew. For all intents and purposes, though, I am pretty well connected to practicing and living traditional Judaism. I observe shabbat, eat kosher food, and follow laws of Jewish family purity just to start. I also love the band Phish. I admire their "remarkable musicianship" which is how Jon Pareles described their talent in last week's NY Times Sunday Arts section.
They are the it band when it comes to rock-n-roll. Among others, I have seen The Who, The Stones, Robert Plant, and Billy Joel. Phish is light years ahead. You just can 't compare. I happen to really like the jamband vibe. I recognize that not everyone does. I feel that Phish plays music amazingly. I like that they are under the radar, and not highly played on the radio. They are fun and upbeat. The music is great.
I recognize communal experience that people love to experience when going to shows, myself included. I have never met any of the band members, but the symbiotic relationship between them and their fans is quite evident when you observe the scene at a live show.
Back to the gematria, I bring your attention, once again, to the School House Rock tune "Three is a Magic Number."
Ok, so keep in mind that 12/8 is my 11th anniversary.
And it is 1 more than a favorite number 127.
So, go to :46 seconds of the above-listed YouTube.
You will see the Roman numeral for 3 , which is III
And who in the band is a III? (Trey)
And III is Roman numerals, and in Israel there is a Roman-built amphitheater
Last year, friends of mine who also like Phish went to Israel for a family trip. I viewed their photos online. At that point the seed was planted that Phish should play in Israel, and what better place than Caesarea.
More gematria:
Add up 1+2+7, you get 10.
Add that answer, 1+0 you get one. And that one leads you back to the extra one that got us there in the first place. And you need that 1 to add to 127 to get to 128 which is the target date I am predicting. Judasim is based on a One source (and not a trinity as referred to in the School House Rock song).
Now, take the word "one" and translate it into Hebrew,
you get the word "echad"
take the numeric value of the alef, chet, and daled
alef 1
Chet: 8
Daled: 4
add those up and you get 13.
Which is the age of Bar mitzvah when most American Jew culminate their Jewish education and, unfortunately, miss out on the opportunity to learn about the richness of our heritage. Don't think standard Hebrew school curriculum includes a unit on gematria.
And there are a lot of those kind of dudes at shows.
There is a famous quotation, "If you will it, it is no dream."
I don't think I am far fetched at all.
When/If Phish plays on the first night of Chanukah such immense light will be distributed there (with the assistance of Chris Kuroda), on a night when in Jewish history light is so powerful and was representative of the saving on the Jewish people from persecution by the Syrian-Greek army. Stango and I would make every effort to be there, since we take very seriously the implications of getting married on that night. And since this is a huge dream of mine, that Phish should play in Israel.
Stango dressed up as The Man in the Red Suit at our wedding 1st night of Hanukah
In a real combination of playfulness and reality and awareness that there is something larger than me working here, I write in complete earnest that this should happen.
Oh, you wanted more wedding photos?
Here ya go!
Stango's got the grooves!
Stango is King of our Wedding, as all Jewish men are at their weddings. And the brides are the Queens. It is a beautiful sight to behold, the traditional Jewish wedding. Learning about it is what inspired me to want to know more about traditional Judaism during college.
After our chuppah wedding ceremony. We both broke a glass. Yep, Ultra UnOrthodox.
And just 18 months ago, the Ultimate Wedding
Phish Shtick (Reba and Phluffhead/P. Zitty also had a traditional Jewish wedding which many pholks there never saw) with the Nunever in a handmade by Loony frock (I had no clue that people were doing this or that the Phish organization was selling stuff like this), me in Reba's old tour days Care Bears dress that was collecting dust in the attic, and Reba herself being completely entertained, as she well should be at her own wedding. What a life-long memory! ~~~Yay yay yay~~~
Lately I have been listening to "New Speedyway Boogie," by the Grateful Dead for which I have Bob Lefsetz to thank for pointing out. (I think his music analysis is top-notch).
This was very much an under-the-radar song for the Dead, and yet the lyrics ring true in relationship to Phish playing in Israel.
"One way or another, this darkness got to give."
Oh, by the by. This Uno card was "randomly" in a junk pile in our house this weekend (I have been in a huge organize/clean-up phase). After the NYE show, PurpleGirl tried pawning off a mini Uno card with the number 8 on it; she was arguing how great it was because it represented infinity. She's onto something.
Because everything is Uno.
n.b.: added 1/9/11 I feel compelled to add that when all of these thoughts were happening was last week it was the weekly Torah portion of Vayechi. I can't go into a full analysis right now, that is what Stango is good for, but in a nutshell: Jacob (Stango's namesake, actually, no this isn't a joke!) blesses each of his twelve sons which become the 12 tribes, he dies and is brought to the Holy Land, buried in the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron. His son Joseph also dies in Egypt [yes, they both died in Egypt...keep the Dead in Egypt and bring the living fish (the Jewish people) to the Holy Land] but isn't buried in Israel until much later.
Like many kids raised in the '80s, Reading Rainbow, the award-winning PBS show that encouraged children to read by mixing in great music, child book-readers, and funky animation, was a staple. More so for my sister, Reba, who was born in 1980, since this show began its run in 1983, and ran through 2006, but I enjoyed particularly the opening sequence. The song, sung so beautifully by an awesome soulful female vocalist, is ingrained in my memory forever.
thank you www.retrojunk.com for allowing me to post that YouTube. You get full credit for posting that on YouTube. It belongs fully to you.
But all ideas going forward regarding why I am blogging about Reading Rainbow are mine.
Further to Mr. Burton: He is great, and yet I must admit I still have never seen Roots, which also made him famous. And I digress.
Back to Reading Rainbow. What does this have to do with the WholePhamily?
The first two nights of Phish's NYE run at MSG last week, December 28 and 29th 2011, I happened to visit one of my favorite tables as of late, the Waterwheel Foundation. Gotta give it to those guys for recognizing the value and need for such an organization within their larger for-profit venture.
I love seeing what products are there. Last summer I saw a fantastic photo from their NYE show at MSG in 1995 when all of the huge white balls came down. I joked with the seller that it was all "about the visuals" (thank you Stango for feeding me those verbal ideas and so humorously, too). He laughed. But the price...$600 or so...I mean, for me personally I am not into Phish memoirbilia, though it was lovely to invoke that real experience I had (Mik the Fish and I sat directly behind the stage I think in section 69 and those huge balls all came rolling back towards us, it was really a sight to see).
Back to last Thursday...
I saw a phantastic sticker that said "Read the Book" with a rainbow underneath it. Clearly, if you didn't know much about Phishisms, you wouldn't get it. When I mentioned this to Stango he had no idea what the reference was. But if you have the cultural background, you know that it is a direct reference to LeVar Burton's Reading Rainbow, and you felt happy because it created a link between a happy childhood memory and the HPB
aka the Helping Phriendly Book.
At this moment I have Lizard's in my brain. Go figure (hamayvin yavin...translated: if you get it, you get it, more literally it means, "those who understand will understand" If I could only say that about the 613, the taryag, then I would be getting somewhere. Which reminds me of how much I LOVE seeing a Phish show at MSG and through the show glancing up about the stage at the Horowitz jersey...613. Stango or Nunever said that this was likely done on purpose...I mean, it ***is*** New York, after all! But at a Phish show, well...kal v'chomer, dude!!!). I won't make you go searching...613 refers to the number of commandments in the Torah. And taryag is the numerical equivalent...so when people refer to the 613 mitzvot, they will often say, "the taryag mitzvot."
Because everything happens for a reason, it is apropos that the particular link that I chose comes from a show that I believe I was at (I only doubt this because I am too lazy to see if they were in Amherst on 10/24/10 for just that one night or two)...by the way, what a terrific venue. Nunever, Stango and I truly had a lovely time at the show. Thanks Nunever for a smooth ride up to Northampton in your beemer station wagon which you know I love driving.
Back to Gamehenge, it is a made up story, which I know indeed was a document written for a college paper (thesis, right?), but it is rooted in great truths (something like being a good person and always looking towards the light).
Speaking of truth, a big shout out to Brandeis University whose motto is "Truth, Even Unto its Innermost Parts." As a Brandeisian, I can safely offer up a thank you to Louis B himself (pronounced Looey...again, hamayvin yavin) for being a Supreme Court Justice in the first place so the Jewish community could have a person after which to name a university. And a phine university it is. With most excellent research phacilities and phaculty.
Emet = truth
Oh, and a hearty mazal tov upon the recent appointment of the school's new president, Frederick Lawrence, and a baruch dayan emet to the family of Evelyn Handler, the school's 5th president who was niftar in a fatal car crash. See, President Handler, despite the fact that you succeded in getting the Hebrew letters that spell emet off of the school's crest in the 1980's (they were later reinstated. I mean, c'mon, even Yale has Hebrew on its crest. It is a classic language!), as Jews we still respect our tradition when you are gone and include that word when acknowledging your passing into the next world (is it olam haba when you die? I do not have the answer to that, but I think not. Not until moshiach comes. Oh, right, yes I forget, t'chiat hamaytim. So, indeed, yes Mrs. Handler you are simply in another place right now. Who knows, maybe you are kvelling over me right now because I am the only person who has chosen to include you in her blog And what a blog this is, all the cool kids who drink yummy juicy beverages and Kool-Aid like to read this. But in Loony's case, it is actually the real Kool-Aid (which I won't drink any more due to food coloring. Actually, that isn't so true. I would still drink it. Just as a special occassion type thing), but not the Timothy Leary type.
Back to the song Lizards, "The trick was to surrender to the flow" always gets a big cheer, but in real life I would say to go with the flow, and just always go with it. That is what the original PurpleGirl encouraged me to do (I say original because you have many women at shows who like to wear purple, which I think is so terrific, but there is only one and one and only original PurpleGirl at Phish shows.
And she is my very, very , very, very, very, very good phriend. Yep, we go wayyyyyyyy back. This is true!
Though I do give a big shout out to Mik the Fish for schooling me in the wonders of The Color Purple.
(not to be confused with the film that Oprah and Whoopi Goldberg star in)
By the time Saturday night rolled around and Stango came to that show, I wanted him to come with me to the Waterwheel table, and lo and behold, no stickers left (I was so willing and ready to purchase one for the Odyssey). They were donated by someone to Waterwheel and were being sold for $5. Great, awesome, but ya know what, I didn't need that anyway.
The WholePhamily's stuff isn't being donated to Waterwheel, sorry folks. But (shameless shameless plug here...) we can trade our swag for laminates (yes, a girl can dream, right? As if! I mean, that is the type of thing for very important people type stuff and who am I if not l'il Loony) for me, Nunever, Stango, Reba and Phluffhead (since they are so central to the WholePhamily despite the fact that Reba thinks I am totally off my rocker for talking on and on about the ganse mishpucha at shows. Actually Stango does, too. And Nunever. ok, ok, yeah, this is all going way too far. Truth be told, I uttered not *once* about this concept during the NYE run, since I really don't want to get into anyone's faces and I know everyone is there just to have a real good time. But for all intents and purposes, that is my real family at the shows. Even though Nunever and I aren't blood, we are like brother/sister. And not like I call Reba and Phluffhead that in real life, and anyone who knows about the Stango-Loony affair knows that when Stango was only Stango it wasn't really a good thing, yet.)
But, as I determined in the middle of the night last night (indeed, I am writing this on less than 2 hours sleep last night, and I realize of course that I am sacrificing my family's needs right now by blogging and not doing the stuff I need to get done, now *that* isn't good, is it?), I would really be super satisfied if my laminate was numbered 127, as that is a very special number to me very near and dear to my heart. I know this is a really tall order so if I am being totally high maintenance right now, I will tone it down a few notches. Okay, okay, it really doesn't have to have that number. But wouldn't that be fun?!
Oooh, which reminds me, did you see me wearing my purple fleece "fun hat" at the show the other night? What a score that was from Amsterdam in 2002 (my 30th birthday/1 year anniversary trip with Stango, and boy, what a trip that was! Life changing in certain ways. That's where we met the Ninja Rebbe. But about him another time...)
Next time you're in Syracuse, go visit 127 Fayette Boulevard. You will start to begin to understand some of the connections. (just remind me that it has to do with sarah imeinu) As well as my own mother Soroh Gittel herself [hi mom! Don't you have mah jongg today, or is that on Tuesdays? I can't really remember your schedule, sorry! ]
I decided last night that when I get together the swag for the WholePhamily, I will be keeping it close to my own ganse mishpucha (though Reba has stated she doesn't wear shirts to a show as a crew, and I agree this is not really my style either; I was never one to want to draw attention to myself), because I must admit, it is a pretty darn good idea.
If you are a Phishhead.
And you are a phamily person.
Who likes to say phantastic and outrageous..
And the Phliers. (ok, ok, I know it is Fliers)
And is philosophical.
And phriendly.
and phirst and phoremost,
an honest and decent human being who wants to do good, be good, follow the derech ha tov (the good path), and be modest while being clear about her point.
Talk about verbosity!
So, here's what I have to say to you, Title 17 of the United States Code: Phishheads have disregard for you in the lot scene/popular culture element of seeing shows. (I really didn't want to have to elaborate here, but to clarify, we are referring to Copyright law.) And that is all good because without that we wouldn't have a forum where the ideas can flow freely and disburse throughout the world.
But not Loony.
My idea I will be carrying out asap and I will own it and wear it proudly. But maybe just around town. Or, even better, if we can lobby Stango and the Nunever to go to Mountain Jam, that would be the place to debut the shirt in public. Cuz me really has been jonesin' to get a karma wash! That looks fun and good for the kinderlach, too!
