"... a failure to c'municate."

Listening to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. The most well-known movement to this piece is the stirring “O Fortuna,” which anyone who’s ever watched TV would recognize instantly. This music has been the soundtrack to countless curve-hugging sport utilities; repugnant, hateful children watching their spaghetti fall to the floor like so much Italian intestine, only to have mother and her Bounty© scrub away at the mess; and the insides of showers that were apparently the site of numerous gruesome murders, the blood and plaque splattered hither and yon, unable to seep down a drain impossibly clogged by hair (or teenage/middle-aged male sloth), thus facilitating a miraculously powerful new 409 or Lime Away. “I’ll write the most epic music of the 20^th century,” Orff must have said to himself, “so that it may be mutilated and parodied by relentless capitalism.” Ok, maybe he wasn’t that dramatic. But he was German, and born of a German philosophical background: in other words, we’re shocked that the world hasn’t completely gone to pot, but it probably will within 10-15 years. More beer, please.

Today’s entry could have been titled More Fun with Jews, or Pepperoni Pandemonium, or even Kosher Komedy of Errors.

You see, the Symphony recently completed it’s 2005-2006 concert series with a grand production at Hollywood’s Ford Amphitheatre, an atmospheric 2000-seat venue with a lush and dramatic backdrop of cypress, oak, and many other species of Californian botanical treasure. It’s a nice fucking place.

To prepare for this event, my boss decided to stage her rehearsals at the temple. A sort of mall of Judaism, there was more than enough room in the social hall for a large ensemble. Besides, where better to rehearse the Jewish Symphony than a temple? But I digress: this entry is much more about the food brought to the rehearsal, not the event itself. But I thought I’d set the scene.

For this concert, which featured Israeli composers and performers, the Symphony flew a number of Israeli musicians to Los Angeles. These performers were housed in hotels throughout the city, and had arrived an hour early to the rehearsal so that they could get to know one another. I was charged with feeding them. The trouble starts:

“Go ahead and call for pizza,” my boss said. “But you can’t have it delivered—nothing unkosher can be brought into the temple, so you’ll have to go pick it up, and the temple administration will be none the wiser.”

I understood that message in this way: when buying pizza for many people, and these people are unavailable for an in-depth questioning as to their pizzatic preferences, it is customary to order standard, unexciting ingredients. You might go wrong with pineapple or anchovies, so you play it safe and get pepperoni. Now, of course I knew that if we were playing by the kosher rules (which we obviously were not, as evidenced by her “none the wiser” thought line), pepperoni (which is made from the meat of a very slaughtered and very cloven-hoofed pig) would be off-limits. However, I took her message to mean that her feeling was that few Jews are strictly kosher. Ergo, a pepperoni pizza (the gold standard of every childhood pool party), while unkosher, would bother only the temple big-wigs—hide it from them, and everyone’s happy as clams. So I’ll quickly recap, if that was at all tough to follow:

• She says, “Order pizza, but go pick it up so as to hide it from the Kosher Police.”
• I think, “Well yes, of course, as the standard random-group-of-people pizza is Pepperoni, which is made of pork. Most people aren’t strict kosher adherents, though, and won’t care if there’s some cooked swine on their food, so this clever ruse to sneak the pizza in will work just dandy-like.”

Now comes the real meat (no pun intended) of the story. As it turns out, any and all run of the mill pizza joint fare (ie cheese) is ALSO UNKOSHER. So somehow, I, as a goy, was supposed to understand the minutiae of her rule-breaking… another set of bullets, I think, this time fancier (because I like to pretend I’m an aesthete):

v Rule to break: ALL pizza has been tagged by the kosher laws as being unsuitable for Jewish consumption, therefore it may not be permitted to enter temple grounds.

o Supervisor conveniently leaves out the word “ALL,” so that the Catholic-reared intern interprets this to mean “steamy pig flesh is ok so long as no one finds out about it.”

v How supervisor envisioned the rule being broken: Intern will order cheese pizza, because although unkosher, it is somehow less unkosher than pepperoni. Everyone knows this.

And so an incredible chain of misunderstanding leads to this unfortunate and frightening scene:

Although possessed of a circumcised penis, I unwittingly and very un-Jewishly drive to Ameci’s Pizza and pick up my order of 2 large pepperoni pies.

I arrive at the temple with my bounty (or my kill, rather, as the food was covered in FRESHLY MURDERED MEAT PRODUCT!)

I ready the feast in the rehearsal room and then leave to finish some office work in the few minutes before everyone arrives. While walking through the hallway, I encounter my boss.

“Oh,” say I, “I wasn’t sure what everyone would like… I hope pepperoni is ok.”

I’ll pause here to try and decide how best to illustrate the ensuing chaos. You can help me (and yourselves) by envisioning those precious moments when you are sent into shock by unexplained rage.

One would have thought I had said, “I wasn’t sure what everyone would like… I hope human feces and toxic waste product from Lake Michigan is ok.”

She turned on her heels fast enough to make the Temple Donor Tree come off the wall (it didn’t really, but it could have, is all I’m saying. God, have some imagination), and threw her hands into the air. She waved her hair about in anguish, her fingers clutching some unknown horror as she yelled, “NO! Oh my god, no! It’s pork! It’s pork! Take it back take it back! Don’t argue Carl just do it! They’ll KILL me! Quick, before they open the box oh GOD they haven’t opened the box have they?! I don’t care what you do with it GET IT OUT GET IT OUT!!!!!”

By this time she had grabbed both my shoulders and was pushing me back into the tainted room that was now filled with the putrid stench of cured pig muscle. And I was seething. I was so frustrated with what has become indicative of her lack of communication that I grabbed the pizzas and stomped past her without saying a word. (I didn’t march-stomp, just walked deliberately. I’m not 4).

I took the pizzas back into the office and set them down (deliberately) on my desk. My coworker looked shocked. “What’s going on?” she queried.

In response, I dove my hand into the top box and scraped more than a handful of pepperonis into my grasp. Casting a bitter glance towards the door, I glared at the mezuzah (the elongated boxes that adorn Jewish doorjambs… I won’t assume that as goy, you’ll necessarily know this!), so that the temple gods would have to watch my blasphemy, and without blinking or wasting any time, I shoved that entire handful of motherfucking swine into my mouth. Oh, I savored it. Oh! by my troth and my word as a man of honor I tasted every sweet spice and note of smoky flavor. The grease and cheese remains ran down my chin as I greedily broke the law of a whole faith—this being the only way I could think of, in my incredible churning frenzy of anger, to stick it to my boss.

I’m usually ambivalent to pizza. This… this! was the most delicious goddamned pizza I’d ever had the pleasure of wrapping my lips around. And I didn’t even eat the bread or sauce. Only the meat. Only the filthy meat which is somehow more filthy than cheese by itself and I’m supposed to know this by some kind of magical osmosis of living in the city with the largest Jewish population in the western hemisphere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And with that, my story concludes. I have resolved to be more culturally aware from now on.

I’m not listening to anything because in order to relive my outrageous ire, I had to have total silence. But I think I’ll put something soothing on now. Like Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder. Hear Jessye Norman sing them and you’ll never look back. I was going to play Wagner, simply because HIS MUSIC ISN’T ALLOWED IN ISRAEL JUST LIKE THE SEARED AND DELICIOUS FLESH OF THE HOG, but that would only fan the fire, and I wanted calm. Ahh.

L'dor v'dor

My supervisor Maia (pronounced like the ancient South American empire) has put on STAR 98.7, and so currently I'm listening to "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" by Green Day. I'm feeling literal today, so here's a list of what I've decided are some possible candidates for the Boulevard mentioned in the song:

Valencia Boulevard, Santa Clarita, CA: Probably not. The only thing broken on this thoroughly suburban thoroughfare is the occasional 40-something's french tipped nail or heel of a Steve Madden, a casualty whose killer is the loose hem of track suit pants or a Talbot's skirt. From the 5 freeway to City Hall and on through the auto mall, dreams are busy coming true on this V-town artery. True to the "dream" motif, the new Valencia street sign looks like it was jacked from downtown Sesame Street. Somewhere there's a furry muppet who's totally fucking lost.

Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV: Perhaps.... Sin City dreams must be made of the same impenetrable material as the bubble which shields His Holiness the Pope. This is the only place in the world where you can lose thousands of dollars to ephemeral Luck but then walk outside and hire the services of a wanton Lady. Nothing broken here but those persnickety monogomy vows you made when you got married. They need to change that slogan: What happens in Vegas, gets you divorced. What happens in Vegas, means a visit to the free clinic. What happens in Vegas, is really itchy.

Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood, CA: Ding! Dreams aren't broken here, they're absolutely shattered. For the Angeleno, this is the epicenter of Schadenfreude. Some well-known demolished dreams on this road include: the dream of the wide-eyed Starlet; the dream of the moviegoer walking out of the Chinese Theater saying, "That was $15?"; the voyeur’s dream of seeing a celebrity and meeting only wookies and Charlie Chaplin. The best has to be the dream of the tourist: he hops gaily out of his van, pocket-sized digital camera in hand, unable to retain his flood of excitement—“this is Hollywood!” he says, “land of the glamorous première.” When he sees there’s far more glamour in a Tim Burton Gotham than in his idea of Hollywood&Vine, his crestfallen look satisfies the bitterly hypocritical Angeleno like nothing else.

Ok, so people in LA really aren’t that bitter. Well, there are 2 exceptions: those who’ve just had a really bad day (and can you blame them for a little schadenfreude?), and people who didn’t make it as an actor, and found nothing else. Those people are like unsweeted chocolate or bay leaves or something (shit, I don’t know. Think of something bitter. Insert it. Laugh).

So for those of you who’ve read my blog before, I would imagine that you’re quite tired of my little resurrections after too-long hiatuses. I know, I should impose a statute of limitations on myself—if after nearly 8 months of absence, don’t try and be a damn Christ figure thinking he can walk right into Jerusalem and enjoy triumph. PS, I’m not comparing myself to Christ—I am neither a psycho nor a Beatle. Anyways, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’ll vanish again, but I apologize for the times I did.

Speaking of Jerusalem! I have been working for nearly two months now down at a temple (rather, the temple) in the San Fernando Valley (for non-natives, think “oh my god, becky, look at her butt!” and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It’s that valley). I’m interning this summer with the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony, and they are in fact headquartered at this temple (which shall remain nameless, lest someone googles it, finds my page, and I am hated forever) which I’m told is the largest temple west of the Mississippi. Translation: I hang out with tons of the Chosen People all day long.

Now, before I start in on them, a disclaimer: In a diverse setting like, say, a UN Conference, I’m not about to start assigning stereotypes. I won’t think that the colorfully dressed Zimbabwe representative propagates African stereotypes or that the Korean delegate eats rice like it’s going out of style. No, in a setting with many walks of life, like in the day to day happenings of a large city, I’ll not observe behavior and think of it as typical of that race or class. I’ll choose the moral high ground before milking comic possibilities.

But cmon! I work at a TEMPLE, and a damn huge one besides. These people are a gold mine, the same as if I’d walked into the Lesbian Equality Foundation or the Republican Barbecuer’s Convention—any time you put all of the same kind of person in a single place, they can’t help but come together in the spirit of complete predictability! It’s the reason that when you get a bunch of music kids together, they go on and on about Bach, to the frustration of the business major. It’s why when you go to gay clubs, it’s like a veritable parade of the Flavors of Queer: twink, bear, priss, weirdo, idiot, genius, hottie, “oh-dude-is-that-your-real-face?”, etc. So the disclaimer is this: I do not assign the following traits to all Jews, but merely enjoy that when grouped together, you discover that no one has ever been more gifted with comic truth than Fran Drescher.

I’ll start with what is hands down the most fascinating thing about Jews who are always at the temple: no matter where you were born, grew up, or even lived for a period of time, as a Jew you will have a thick New York accent. It’s not just the bagel-shmearers from the Upper West Side—I know three women from Santa Monica who call me Cwawrl and drink cwaffee. And those are just the basics. Here’s a crash course in speaking like a Jew (again, no matter where you’re from):

· When it’s hot, you ask the custodian to turn on the “eh condishionink.”

· Rachel is pronounced with a long “ah” and a gutteral –ch.

· Darfur, or rather the cessation of that nation’s genocide, is a big topic. “Dwaw FUH” is the pronunciation.

Doting parents name their children Micah and Rebecca, Aaron and Abraham.

“Herschel and Joshua! You two need to stop fighting and get your backpacks or you’ll be late for shul.”

The Jews are a people blessed with wonderful music (I’m being serious. To walk down the halls of a religious organization and not hear “How Great Thou Art” or “Unless a Grain of Wheat” is marvelous. Mwaw. Mwawvelussss. Almost). However, the absence of tired old hymns such as those makes for interesting non-religious ceremonies, such as Hebrew School graduation, which includes a performance by the oh-so-darling graduates. The program includes:

“Heal the World,” Michael Jackson

“Hero,” Mariah Carey

and a barrage of your favorite Motown hits!

Now, this next one may be the most sensitive, so I’ll approach it carefully. To begin, I know many Jews who would not be considered “rich.” In fact, most of the Jewish people I know do not enjoy the exorbitant incomes that many a crusty anti-Semite would accuse them of having. That said, the temple is in Encino, sometimes called the “Beverly Hills of the Valley.” At this temple, the Donor is held in the highest regard, and there are quite a few people with the income to make large donations. So what all this wealth (and willingness to donate) means is that you end up with a number of people who need to be thanked and appreciated. This is done in the form of the almighty and omnipresent Plaque. Come, a tour:

When you turn off of Ventura Boulevard onto the temple’s street, you pull into the Beth and Simon Levin Parking Center. You then walk past the Cindy and Howard Liebeskind Security Bungalow and into the Cookie and Mark Leibsohn Synagogue. If you’re tired after a long walk through the hallway, you can rest on the Alisha Reskowitz Bench in the Bob and Sarah Shulman Rest Area. However, the Sandy Makowski Bench is across the hall. The toilet you pee in is given in memory of Daniel Green, and the David Hoffman Paper Towel Dispenser is a battery-operated automatic. Don’t worry if you make a mess, because the custodian (who is not donated, apparently) will clean it using his Rachel and Moses Wichtberg Mop, which he pulled from the Bunny and Merv Eichman Broom Closet.

However, with all of this said, the Jews are not without a sense of humor, even (or perhaps especially) when it comes to themselves. After attending a Shabbat service (my boss asked me to join her choir), the Rabbi encouraged the faithful to go to the back, take “10 Jewish minutes” and enjoy some coffee and cake. Because Jews, he said, should never do anything without coffee and cake. More than any other group I’ve encountered, this is a people who recognizes exactly that—they are a People. Their sense of unity and solidarity with their own is rock solid and incredibly admirable. Family life is the absolute center of existence, and the love shown to one’s neighbor is immense. Perhaps it is the Jews’ devotion to one another which has kept them alive throughout their difficult history.

Sure, “difficult history” is tough to take seriously when 14 year-old Samantha Lichtman walks in with a Prada bag and Jimmy Choos. Ahem, but that’s neither here nor there.

I’m finishing my writing tonight while enjoying the soundtrack from Amélie. It would seem on the surface that Minimalism and Frenchness are two ideas that have nothing to do with one another, but it comes together beautifully.