Blame Maayan

Interesting things happen when you post your diary on line. It’s reasonable to expect a paradigm shift when you keep something to yourself for many years and then share it with anyone who can borrow a computer. I wondered who may have stolen a peek into my private journals over the years. But now, it's like legalizing drugs (something that Stanley Crouch supports in a recent column about a new Tommy Chong documentary). It's out here for anyone to see. It brings to mind my relationship with Israel. It was my place that I went to by my own choice on my one way ticket against my parents' wishes. But then I came back - on my own, when I felt like it was up to me to do so.

The private journals exist, poems aplenty, but the blog posts about me and Israel (which for me means Jerusalem) have yet to be written/posted.

Speaking of poetry, Shloimetas has a theory that blogs and poetry don't mix. His comment brought to mind the time that Letterman asked Jerry Garcia if The Grateful Dead never had a hit song (this was before Touch of Grey) because they were a unique talent and taste that could only be appreciated by a select cult following. Garcia’s response was something like: “No man, we just don’t make good albums; if we made good music people would buy our stuff.” Letterman was speechless. Jimmy Walker was once asked who he thought was the funniest person out there. He said the funniest person he'd ever seen was a kid he was in seventh grade with. Is talent defined by fame or success?

One of the saddest things I’ve ever seen ( I just played around with I ever saw VS I’ve ever seen and still don’t know which is right) (which reminds me of a marketing idea I had for the move Saw, which would read simply SEE SAW) was at a Chanukah Extravaganza featuring “The Miami Boys Experience” (sic) at Nassau Coliseum. Andy Statman was the opening act. Andy Statman is known to be one of the greatest clarinet and mandolin players alive. He is today an observant Jew, but that doesn't stop him from being respected and accepted in a wide array of music venues in the world at large. But when he played at this frum event the audience couldn't have been less interested. How sad that the Las Vegas schmaltz that passes for Jewish music is popular, while the talent and soul of a world class musician is lost on his community.

This reminds me of my student who today told me that the cap that I wore at the parade is too different to be popular, so it is by definition weird. She suggested that I get myself a nice baseball cap. When I told her that I have baseball caps aplenty, she said she's seen them and they're no good. The problem with my baseball caps is that they are not the genuine article. While meeting all standards of shape and form, my hats have no insignias. And having something written on it is a baseball cap's sole purpose if it is to make its wearer cool. (This led to a conversation about conformity.)

Doing his own thing is what made Aaron Bulman cool. He was so uncool that he was cool. He wore ski caps and flannel shirts that will never be in. He really didn't care. The beat poet who read a poem of Aaron's at the recent book release will never be half as cool as Aaron was. Some people in their non-conformity are constantly conforming to their click of non-conformists. This guy wears the same multi-colored kippa and has the same affect as too many others. I'm happy that he has friends, but despite all appearances to the contrary he will never be cool.

Hey Jude just came on the radio and it reminds me of something Aaron said. This song really brings it to mind because Paul sounds so wise and weathered in this song. Legend has it that he's giving advice to John's broken son Julian. It is of no interest to me if that's the true story or not, because to me even if it’s not true – it’s true. He'll always sound wise to me here; even if you prove that the story was really about scrambled eggs (which was the original name and topic that accompanied the tune we now call yesterday). Aaron said that there's something profound, profoundly sad that is, in the phenomenon of The Beatles. Imagine, he asked (with no pun intended) peaking in your twenties - then no matter what happens you live the rest of your life in the shadow of your early life.

Which reminds me of a woman I dated a couple of years ago. She was visiting from Israel, where she has lived since she went there after high school. She was influenced at an early age, as I was, by the Merkaz HaRav camp. She still lives very much in an intense settler style mindset. But here's where the straight line curves almost imperceptibly. We spent a day in the city, walking and talking. There was one place that she wanted to go. I had never been there before (although since then I've returned many times). Strawberry Fields.

She carefully photographed the Imagine mosaic (with her disposable camera). And she spoke about how the Beatles and the hippie movement were vaguely meaningful to her. She felt guilty about it and wanted to be sure that I knew that. She had a hard time reconciling it with the more narrow and austere world of thought that she had long ago moved into. And yet, in Strawberry Fields, she found something that fit for her.

Italian Restaurant is just starting on the radio. I recall lying in my little room as a teenager and hearing the introduction of "a bottle of red..." in a pre-release commercial for The Stranger. "Hear Billy Joel as you've never heard him before.” I had heard him once before and most people I knew had never heard him. The time I heard him was when I slept over at Arthur Eckstein’s home on the Upper West Side to study for a ninth grade English final. His sister brought out Piano Man and delicately removed it from its sleeve, treating it like the fine caviar that it was. So when that commercial came along I was interested.

David Brenner now comes to mind. In the middle of jumping from thought to thought he paused and looked out at us with a wink and said “You’re lucky, you have to live with my brain for what - forty five minutes? I have to live with this all the time. Sometimes I think of that quote and I don’t know why.

Which reminds me of this Brenner quote. He said that he is like a jazz musician. His mouth is his instrument. And, he claimed, he goes out without knowing what he’s going to say. And then he riffs like the jazz musician that he is.

I once tried that. And in the middle of my performance I stopped and shared with the audience the one clear thought that I had in my head: “David Brenner is a liar.” Eventually I learned that what David Brenner meant is not that he has no clue what he’ll say but that he has a large pool of routines and is able to mix and match at will, like a jazz musician. As Wynton Marsalis puts it, “there’s no freedom in freedom, there’s only freedom in structure.”

Ein Lechah Ben Chorin Elah Mi SheOseik BeTorah.

All this free associating reminds me of my idea of doing a one man show. It’ll be an audio version of the blog: Torah, and memories, and jokes (and to give people a chance to go out and get snacks: poetry). It’s a no-brainer. The only thing the show needs is to happen. Please G-d. Let me be ready to bring potential into action speedily in my days.