Tuesday

Can anyone name the tune with this line - "let me hear you say everything's alright"? As I write, this singer/songwriting is singing this hit live in a concert broadcast on WFUV. Time flies. Seems like just yesterday he was the young next Dylan. And I was younger too.

Now he's singing a new song with the line "objects in the mirror may be just as they appear." That resonates for me.

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Yesterday someone cited a George Carlin line: We talk about saving the planet, but the planet's gonna be OK. What needs saving are the creatures on the planet. This was mentioned by an up and coming rabbi who quoted this during a Shavuos talk. That reminded me of a speech I once gave about serious issues addressed in comedians' lines.

George Carlin says that he believes that after leaving this world people will go the place that they believe in. He says, you know those people who are always saying "don't pray for me, I'm going to hell" - that's where they're going.

A young Robert Klein said that his jury was still out about if there was a G-d. But he said, he did know that he performed on Yom Kippur and woke up with a giant puss wart the next day.

Richard Pryor has a routine about his heart attack, which starts with his heart telling him to GET DOWN!!! Then his heart asks him if he's thinking about dying and when he says a painful yes his heart jolts him with WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT WHEN YOU WERE EATING ALL THAT PORK!!! After that he tries to make a direct call to G-d...

Ellen DeGeneris' routine that put her on the map was the one about her phone call to G-d. After holding for a long time she asks Him why He created fleas. This was based on her waiting for her room mate to come home one night, listening to ambulance sirens, waiting for company. Then she found out that the sirens were for her friend who was in a terrible car accident and died. Then she had to move to a small basement apartment. It was infested with fleas and she wondered seriously why the fleas lived and her friend died.

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I once took an acting class and at the end of it the teacher made a comment that led to my responding by alluding to the fact that she was harsh on me throughout the class. She looked at me honestly and blankly. I think I was perceiving actions towards me one way and subconsciously assuming that the way I processed those actions was understood by the one who acted - the young teacher...

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My computer just shouted MAIL CHECK!, the earthlink version of YOU'VE GOT MAIL. I checked and found an email with the heading Chumash Qs From Class. I assumed someone was writing me about making up for a low grade or studying for a make up. In fact it was a super mentschlich student who was writing to give rather than take. In class today I wrote some questions on the board. It was improv in a good way. I didn't have the questions written down myself so I asked this student for a copy of his list of my questions. He just emailed it to me -typed up!

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Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to assume that of all the bus riders this morning I was the only one writing a poem. I hate when people are presumptuous in their attitudes to me, and I feel like it happens. Still, here's what I imagine as a bizarro take on this morning:

Bus filled with people

Each one writing a haiku

One sits zoning out

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"It's great being short because it's easier to pick things up"

- a little boy to Tim Finn who later used the line in a song