Brother Michael, Auntie Gin

What's it called if someone fires a gun at you in shul and you fire back? Give up? Chazarat HaShatz.
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In different minyans I frequent I am fast or slow, not just as chazan but as a simple davener. In one minyan I attend sometimes when it comes to long tachanun I need to put my head down for regular tachanun at the start of the long part to finish with the tzibur. Then there are tzibburs where I'm at the other end of the curve. Recently, in a yeshivish minyan I finished my Shmoneh Esrei (which in some places is one of the last ones to be done) and then wrote this:
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I'm a Jewy Jew

I'm waiting a weighty wait

Chazarat HaShotz
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Two friends recently asked me to pray for them, one big time, and the other said casually in parting, "Say a little prayer for me." That got me thinking of a song, which I thought was called Say A Little Prayer For Me, but it's actually called Dream A Little Dream of Me.
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I don't know the complete lyrics to any song, even my favorites. I make them up, fill them in, it works. Though it's way off, this tune, to me has always been about asking someone to pray for me before sleep. When I was heading to mincha and a friend asked for a little prayer, I wrote this:
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"Say a prayer for me"
And my head plays that old song
"Say a little prayer..."
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Maybe my confusion has something to do with the song I Say A Little Prayer, but that would only be in title. The songs are not similar. I don't care for this one at all, while I find Dream A Little Dream's tune to be hauntingly beautiful (first cousin to magically delicious). (I love free associating to pop culture. On Shabbos someone asked me "What's the word?" I verbalized the first reply that came to my head, "Johanesberg." The asker didn't get it and when I explained he critiqued in a miffed manner that it was quite random.)

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I see that Glee redid I Say A Little Prayer. That means the high school students I teach know the song. Remakes bridge the generation gap. They know Don't Stop Believing because it was on the premiere of Glee. I've been teaching long enough that there are things that they once knew due to remakes, but now the remakes are old - like Bohemian Rhapsody. Sigh. That reminds me of the Billy Crystal line, "My daughter asked me - 'Is it true that Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings?'" Truth be told, Wings are long forgotten but kids today still know the Beatles. How did Let 'Em In become a hit? Jimmy Walker (my mother - OBM - once told me that in a TV interview, when asked who he thought was the funniest person out there. J.J. replied that it was a kid he knew back in elementary school) had a routine in which he said, "Someone's knockin' at the door, do me a favor, open the door and let 'em in" countless times in his life. He found it unfair that McCartney made millions of those words and he didn't. I suspect that wasn't the only thing Jimmy Walker found unfair in this world. Did you know that they did camera tricks to look skinnier and taller on Good Times? That's what my dear friend Matt Okin tells me. My uncle and Jimmy were in the same scene for the same amount of time in "Airplane!" but Jimmy got paid more. I think that's unfair. (By the way, true confession - I liked and still like Let 'Em In, finding it pleasant and enjoyable.)

o

When I was a kid, my father, HSLABW, would lie down with me before we went to sleep. It was one of many moments of quality time we shared. We had a shared catchphrase, I'd say "I'm glad you're my dad," and he'd reply, "I'm glad you're my lad." Or sometimes he started and I responded, but that wasn't pre-sleep. Right before I headed toward sleep sleep (it was an indirect flight, first I'd host my own TV show by making shadows on the wall via Bill and Anne Goldstein's bright side door light next door) we'd chat about my day and then together say Shma. We'd recite it in the Hebrew and then I'd conclude with asking G-d to "bless mommy and daddy and all the people I love." That came to mind the other night as sleep was grabbing at me and with waning strength I wrote a haiku all about the memory.

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Good night and G-d bless
mommy and daddy and all
the people I love