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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day

And you thought I didn't know my hip hop.  Here, from the 1998 album Swarm, is "Never Again," performed by the  Wu-Tang Killa Bees, an affiliate of Wu Tang Clan.  They should be showing this video to kids in Hebrew schools.  Sure beats my experience with this disturbing photos that they showed me in Hebrew day school.  The pictures of course are powerful, but listening to a group rap about it at the same time brings it to another level.




Always remembering.

My thoughts in Amsterdam more than ten years ago?  Anne Frank:  mein shvester, mein freund.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Raging Diaspora

File this one under original beta-test "hippy charedi"  (since this term was just revealed to us by the Nunever recently):

Check out The Diaspora Yeshiva Band from performing "Pitchu Li" in a 1979 sound check - they are rocking it out!

Banjo player (is that Avraham Rosenblum, because we really don't know!) is rocking it out, and of course the fashion is totally the rage.


 

Where can we get an old-school kibbutznik hat like the chaver on the right?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Caine's Arcade

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.

Didn't ya know that I love the number 127?

No, folks, this wasn't by chance.

Kudos to all the folks involved.

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.

Monday, April 2, 2012

More Positive Vibrations

Along the lines of world peace and unity, Rocker T offers a great guitar lesson a number of years ago to friends at the Rainbow Gathering in 2003.

Thanks, Zev, for uploading this beautiful video.

 

Kind of makes you want to read more carefully the side of a Dr. Bronner's bottle of Castille soap.  Just a point of interest that the Bronner family were originally German Jews.  The family name was Heilbronner, and the "Heil' part was dropped as Hitler rose to power.  The reggae connection is for sure there!

Friday, March 30, 2012

Once In A While You Shown The Light

In the strangest places if you look at it right.  I have a touch of the blues, but when I heard Sublime's "Scarlet Begonias" this morning, my mood was lifted.  I wasn't a 90s garage band fan, but when Jerry's energy comes through with this tune how can things be bad?



I'm gonna be happy with the rings on my fingers and maybe I'll put some bells on my shoes, at least figuratively.  But not the rings.  They are real.  Love rocks are a girl's best friend, didn't you know?  And I will be happy to light Shabbat candles tonight and see the light in a very cozy place:  my home.  With my very own daughter Concealed Light.




Thursday, March 29, 2012

Love Your Children, Pay Attention to Them

That was the message of Eva Sandler last week, who lost her husband and two children in a recent terrorist attack in Toulouse, France.  May we only know happiness and joy going forward.  The irony of this blog post is that currently I am ignoring my children while they eat their supper to watch the media coverage from last week's funeral.

May the victims' memories be a blessing.





I know it isn't the Jewish tradition to play music or give flowers when a person dies, but I still can't help but think towards CSN.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Rachel Dratch: Too Jewish For the Prairie

Check out this interview with Rachel Dratch and Amy Poehler based on Rachel's new autobiography.  So glad I caught her in the late 90s at Upright Citizen's Brigade.

Check out this interview from a few years ago.   Note:  if I could have uploaded her famous Debbie Downer episode where the whole crew is at Disney and is simply laughing away, I would have.  I guess folks want to protect that Intellectual Property.  Is that you, Lorne?  Cuz Rob Reiner has done the same thing when it comes to YouTube videos of "This is Spinal Tap", and it really does a disservice to the bourgeois of the world!




Of course, I like her because she shares the same first name as me.
And spells it the same.

And has the same last name as one of my favorite Judaic studies teachers as a child, Rabbi Mark Dratch.  I learned Baba Metziah using Cabbage Patch Kids as the examples.

We Love You, Iran & Israel & More Rainbows On Earth

I like this...




The world needs more rainbows...


Orthodox and Single? Miami Plastic Surgeon Will Work Pro Bono!

This one spread like wildfire this week.  As if frum Jews have the time to think about this a week before Passover.

In response to Yitta Halberstam's article that single girls get plastic surgery to help land a husband, Dr. Michael Salzhauer has offered it for free to them in Miami.  One caveat:  you have to come recommended through your matchmaker or Rabbi.

Sounds pretty bezerk to me.  Gila Manolson offers her opinion, more eloquently written than mine, here.

Maybe instead of undergoing surgery, they could learn fashion tips from the Hot Chani's of the world (it goes without saying that a subscription to W and V are helpful if you can get past the rampant untznius images...but a personal stylist can't hurt, either).  A lot of people take offense to that term coined by Heshy Fried, but I think it's pretty funny.  Doubt that Gila would like it.  But I like Gila.  She was a teacher of mine a long time ago, and I don't mean to offend.

Personally, I could use some fashion advice.

Even though I am out of the shidduch market, I still like to look good.  And tie-dyes don't always fly.




Now, get back to cleaning!

From one queen (the Jewish woman, referenced above), to another (the witty parody of Freddy Mercury's tune, below)


Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Jerusalem City of Gold: It Is For the Best

"Just nod if you can hear me"  -Pink Floyd

Click to 23:51 on the below video or even this link   for a 1994 Phish performance of Yerushalayim Shel Zahav.  Phish mavens really ate up that one in the 90s whenever they played this old school Israeli song written by Naomi Shemer.  Those days are over, but we can always listen and remember.  And think towards what could be in the future.




Thank you to Phish.net for debuting this video this week.  Quite an intricate jam, though I don't expect most of you to listen to the whole thing.

As far as I know, Phish has never played a show in Israel.  I think they should.

This child might be grown, but the dream is never gone.




"If you will it, it is no dream."  -Theodor Herzl

I try to maintain optimism, but if a show in Israel never happens, I will keep in mind the following:

"When a person knows that everything that happens to him is for the best, this is a taste of the world to come."  -R' Nachman of Breslov