Sunday, June 28, 2009

Gay Yartzeit Pics and Commentary - Thanks Big Gay Ben

So I promised to provide pics from Thursday's Gay Yartzeit. Here they are courtesy of 'Big Gay' Ben Feuer (formerly 'Big' Ben Feuer, aka Benjamin Bluebeard) (Ben's not really gay but he took on this persona for Thursday's event to get an 'inside' view of things). He's actually very much available for any ladies that have loose morals and are looking to party (0527864349).


'Queens on King David Street', where Israelite Kings once ruled.
Two revelers dressed up as border policemen.
Israel has no 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy and as such, lesbians are integral part of our armed forces.

Trannies galore! No LGBT event is complete without 'em.
The sign reads 'I don't tell you how to live!' A religious participant with a pink yarmulke. Big Ben reported that there were several religious gay groups that participated - only in Jerusalem!
Rainbow flag with Israeli flag superimposed in corner. New national flag candidate?
An overview of the procession.

Thanks Ben and good luck with the ladies!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Gay Yartzeit

Happy Gay Yartzeit everyone from Jerusalem! We have two excellent events overlapping today in the holy city: The Lubavitcher Rebbe's Yartzeit and Gay Pride Parade. So I'll be lounging with vodka and midori sours, checking out all the hot guys shuckling back and forth, and marching to the beat of meshichist sexual liberation. I'm talking the Rebbe in a rainbow-colored bekeshe, men's only simcha dancing and pronouncing things with a Yiddish sounding lisp.

Common Sensorium correspondent 'Big' Ben Feuer will be there capturing it all on film. Hopefully I'll have some videos for ya'll early next week. So let your freak (rainbow/mashiach) flag fly, because days like this don't come around very often!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Time to Teach Irresponsible Dog Owners a Lesson!

It happened again on Friday. I stepped in dog shit! This is the 2nd time this has happened in a month. You'd think I'd be used to steering clear of dog poop growing up in Riverdale - the dog shit capital of the world. But no dice. I'm pretty sure my current neighborhood - Jerusalem's East Talpiot is the dog shit capital of Jerusalem. And our street is hands down the dog shit capital of E. Talpiot. So if you ever visit Rechov Mordechai Elkachi, you need to seriously watch out.

Walking home from Shabbat lunch, I bitched about Dog shit and the kind of sociopaths that let an animal relieve itself pretty much where ever it pleases until Simone had to cut me off and say why don't you blog about it - I really don't want to hear any more about dog shit. Plus my almost 3 year old, Erez, was starting to use the term too.

But seriously, what kind of person let's their dog shit in the public domain? Is it just laziness, or is it their way of giving society a big middle finger. And I bet people that let their dogs shit in the middle of the sidewalk never step in it themselves, in the same way a thief is much less likely to get robbed. It's only us poor unsuspecting saps that don't think to look out for it that end up tracking it up 52 stairs across their dining room and kitchen 15 minutes before the guests show up for Mexican Friday night (which by the way was awesome - Ben, Bron and Michal, I want my half a bottle of tequila back ;-).

Anyway, the next time you see a dog shitting mid-sidewalk, owner by its side, not a care in the world, walk up to them and ask them if they were planning on cleaning that up? When they say no, grab the nearest plastic bag, scoop it up and start chasing them down the street with it (not recommended where there is a pit-bull or rottweiler involved). Another alternative is to follow them home and bring your 3 year old to their front door for a potty training session. I guarantee that will be one dog that doesn't shit mid-sidewalk ever again.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A Fascist Iran and Its American Enablers

No surprises here really. After a reasonably worded editorial Sunday slamming Iran's sham elections (Neither Real Nor Free), the Times ended with this brilliant piece of logic:

We know that some in this country and in Israel will say that this election is proof that there can be no dealing with Iran and that military action is the only choice. The last thing the United States or Israel needs is another war with a Muslim state. An attack would only feed Iran’s nuclear ambitions and spur it to take even greater efforts to hide its program.

The only choice is negotiations backed by credible incentives and tough sanctions. Even if the mullahs had allowed Mr. Moussavi to win, that would still be true.
Neville Chamberlain would be proud. If Obama and co. can just find their Sudentenland to mollify the mullahs with, it can be 1938 all over again, Ahmedenijad can be named Time's Man of the Year, and Obama can declare Peace in Our Time for once and all.

The thing is, I like Obama in general. I think he's thoughtful and does genuinely respect other people's opinions. But on certain issues, his moral relativisivism is downright dangerous. He praised the 'vigorous' debate taking place in Iran leading up to Friday's election but as of Monday, he had said nothing condemning the result or to offer support to the defrauded voters - the very people he claims to want to help stand up for freedom. His silence at this moment is downright shameful. Any notion of engagement under this pretext is doomed to fail. All it will do is create a nice photo op for the mullahs and their lackey Ahmedenijad to sound contrite while the centrifuges whirl and they continue to foment Islamist revolution in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Enter Roger Cohen. He offered a worthless apology Sunday for pegging Iran wrong (Iran's Day of Anguish):

I’ve argued for engagement with Iran and I still believe in it, although, in the name of the millions defrauded, President Obama’s outreach must now await a decent interval.

I’ve also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers significant margins of freedom by regional standards. I erred in underestimating the brutality and cynicism of a regime that understands the uses of ruthlessness.
Cohen spent the months leading up to the fraudulent election having a virtual verbal love affair with the Iran and its repressive regime. He even claimed Jews have it well there. And he routinely accused Israel of fear mongering when it came to Iran's nuclear program. In his mind, Israel was far more of a threat to world peace than the mullahs.

Christopher Hitchens penned an excellent piece for Slate Sunday called "Don't Call What Happened in Iran Last Week an Election," in which he built up to this climactic ending:

Mention of the Lebanese elections impels me to pass on what I saw with my own eyes at a recent Hezbollah rally in south Beirut, Lebanon. In a large hall that featured the official attendance of a delegation from the Iranian Embassy, the most luridly displayed poster of the pro-Iranian party was a nuclear mushroom cloud! Underneath this telling symbol was a caption warning the "Zionists" of what lay in store. We sometimes forget that Iran still officially denies any intention of acquiring nuclear weapons. Yet Ahmadinejad recently hailed an Iranian missile launch as a counterpart to Iran's success with nuclear centrifuges, and Hezbollah has certainly been allowed to form the idea that the Iranian reactors may have nonpeaceful applications. This means, among other things, that the vicious manipulation by which the mullahs control Iran can no longer be considered their "internal affair." Fascism at home sooner or later means fascism abroad. Face it now or fight it later. Meanwhile, give it its right name.
It's time for the Times and Obama to call a spade a spade: the Iranians are fascists, and obsessed with Israel's destruction in a Nazi-like way. You can't negotiate with fascists - plain and simple. You can only deal with them through force. It's unfortunate and painful - but ignoring the truth only means you have to confront them down the road when they are stronger and even more brazen. It took Europe too long to learn this painful lesson in the 1930s. The Times and Obama still haven't learnt it - they instead have taken on the role of being Iran's enablers.

The famous saying deserves a mention here: All that is required for evil to flourish in the world is for good men to do nothing. I do believe Obama is a good man and that the people at the NY Times mean well (maybe not Roger Cohen ;-)

And I'm sure after Iran deploys its first nukes, we can all count on a nice sentence-long apology from Roger Cohen and the official editorial in the NY Times. Let's hope Obama wakes up and grows a pair before it comes to that.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

It's not all bad...

Just saw this story in the Jerusalem Post.

Palestinians from the village of Tuqu' on Tuesday helped rescue a Jewish resident of the nearby settlement of Tekoa and her 4-month-old son after their car overturned on the main road of the village...

The man added that he did not hesitate before rushing to the aid of the woman, despite the feelings of enmity between settlers and Arabs.

"The human concern overcame any other feeling, as well as the feelings of enmity and hatred that the settlers arouse in the area," he said.

The village is the site of frequent clashes between Palestinians and IDF soldiers, as well as stoning attacks against Israeli vehicles.

Earlier I had blogged about A Good Deed Repaid with Hate. Just goes to show... there are good people everywhere and some sort of peace between people with little in common and conflicting demands and needs is possible.

Here's to One Love! Jah Bless! Pray we find a way to replace anger with love and acts of hate with loving kindness.

I Heart Tour (and the people that make it so damn great!)

I freekin love tour! We're happy to be back in Jerusalem of course but our 6-night love-in with Phish was as good as could be in every possible way, more than anything because of the people. Old friends and new ones, family and phamily. And of course the music. Sunday night in Camden NJ was the best in terms of that - great setlist, excellent jams (especially Sand!), incredible vibes.

Here's a perfect example of all the people: First of all, our crew was me, Simone, Zohara (her first show - yay!), my brother Hillel and my sister Sara. My brother Mo was on his way down with his friends, all hitting their first show and scoring face value tix no problem (screw you scalpers!). On our way down, we stopped for gas and to feed Zohara and the rest area off the NJ Turnpike was jammed with phans. There we ran into Gorf and Ben Feuer's crew. They thought it was great Ben was staying in our place in Jerusalem at that very moment. Within minutes of getting back on the road, we passed the Hood milk truck ('You can feel good about Hood') - it was a definite sign from above (the truck was about twice the height of our Nissan Quest).

Pulled into the lots and after a hassle finding a good parking spot, hooked up for a killer bbq with Eytan (Bayme), Ruby, Zaki and Fromm. Thanks Mom and Dad - we used their account at riverdale's finest Kosher meat shop (Noah's) - steaks, burgers, spicey sausage, even veggie burgers for Sara and Turkey legs for Hill. Later Ami Foger and my brother Mo met up with us. Ran into Shosh Pincus there too. Great top shelf bar in back of Eytan's trunk ;-)

Once inside we settled in to the back of the lawn and who should we see but our old friends Marla and Mitch there with their baby as well. We proceeded to spend almost the entire show with them. Our section was filled with babies and little kids. At first glance it wouldn't seem like a very family friendly environment but it actually is. People really look out for each other (stranger stopping stranger... wait, wrong band ;-) ) .

Mo loved his first show. So did Zohara (As a first time bonus, she also got a free A Capella/vocal jam from Hillel and Naftali on the ride home). Simone loved her first run. I feared it would be nothing more than a nostalgia trip but it was a whole bag of new and wonderful experiences. I can't wait to do it all again! Maybe next time we'll bring Erez too.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Some Things in Life Are Just Good...

This thought occurred to me during the end of first set of last night's Phish show at Jones Beach - my first in 5 years (and only the band's 5th after a 5 year hiatus) - and stayed with me for the rest of the show. The vibes were fantastic from our arrival at Jones Beach till we got into our car to head home, security didn't hassle people for the most part, and the phans were as friendly as I remember them to have ever been.

Saw Many old friends I haven't seen in years - Andrew K. and his beautiful wife Jennifer, who we met for the first time. Mike P. and his awesome wife Miriam who was at her first show just like Simone. My sister Sara was in the section right next to us and we randomly ran into others we new in a past life (Ari White, Dale, Mayer B-D).

Sitting as high up as we were, we could see the entire crowd swaying and bouncing like a wave to each change in the rhythm or turn in a jam. Harry Hood and If I Could were especially beautiful, Mike's Groove was tight, Timber was a nice surprise and Lovin' Cup summed things up perfectly (What a beautiful buzz what a beautiful buzz). I liked the new song in the first set (Stealing Time From The Faulty Plan) - the chorus was 'There's a blank space where my brain's supposed to me' -nice and introspective.

People right near us brought their 10 month old baby which made us think of bringing Zohara on Thursday - was a bit loud for a baby i fear (there were several other kids Erez's age too). I could see Mike and Miriam grooving in the 2nd row with my binoculars - they were really cute and very into it. Page sounded great all night, Trey's new sobriety fit him well (despite the demi-god camera work on the Hood ambient jam ;-), Mike still wears goofy clothes and Fishman's drumming employed all 4 of his limbs plus that silly dress he now wears with an undershirt underneath.

It was Simone's first show and she had the best time! At one point she turned to me and said 'This is the most fun I've had in as long as I can remember.' And that's what it's really all about - good clean fun and feeling the oneness of everything. Last night was quintessential Phish - the vibes, the scents and subtle sounds, the beautiful surroundings and people. Some things in life are just good I guess...