Magic Jewball

Yesterday, when I was filming in Columbus Circle, the oddest thing happened. A homeless man who had been standing near me, somewhere in my peripheral vision, watched me frame my shot, wait till a couple of arm-wavey tourists got out of the way, and hit record before deciding to ask me for money. I mean, he literally stepped into my frame to ask me. If you have come to know me over the last few weeks, you already know I have some theories on this. I can’t disappoint you, here they are:

1. Wanted 15 minutes of fame as “Homeless Man #1” in my film. Will later demand union scale and perhaps a share of the profits.
2. Was gauging shininess of camera before deciding exactly how much change to ask for.
3. Sent by record company of band who wrote song that will be used in eventual finished film to demand the money up front.

In any event, I managed to give the “No way, not you, not today” shake of the head while still filming. Let’s hope the image stabilization kicked in!

But while we’re on the topic of homeless people, let me explain. I have my own homeless to support, right in my neighborhood. I can’t be giving to the people in Columbus Circle too! My favorite is the guy who sells the “Street News” newspaper and has this pitch: he looks right at you and says “YOU want to help the homeless!” Well, when you put it that way, I can’t really argue. You have my number. I never take the paper, though. Listen, I’ll give you money but I’m not recycling your rag too.

And now, a few follow-ups.

*Matisyahu.
It turns out that my favorite faux-reggae “artist” played my high school’s dinner dance fundraiser a few weeks ago. His wife is an alumna (a few years younger than me). Yet another reason I am pleased I was in Baltimore that weekend.

*Passover
Continues tonight on through Thursday. So no updates till Friday. I’ll be too busy eating raspberry jell rings and catching up on 5 days of newspapers.

*Meredith Vieira
I guess I misspelled her name. Don’t cry, I corrected it. Blogger.com is magic!

*Pat Kiernan/NY1
It seems I had a visitor from NY1 searching for blogs mentioning my favorite newscaster (How do I know? I looked in the Jewball, you see). Welcome! If you know Pat, please tell him that I have noticed that he also thinks Roger Clark is a doofus. The visible snarkiness is a turn-on, really.

If you are Pat, well, you rock my world, you badass Canadian. Don’t forget me when you start that “In the Blogs” segment. And try to get the parenting report lady into rehab, would you?

Am I becoming tiresome? This one’s a little different, I swear.

Sometimes when I wake up and the TV or radio is on (that is, pretty much always), the media and my dream will become enmeshed, sort of like those storybooks they used to advertise where you could get the book customized for your child. “Then the train conductor said to Timmy….”

This morning it seemed like a news segment about the biggest nuisance fines charged to companies in NYC was about my company. Oh ha! Then I realized I was fully awake and Pat Kiernan had actually mentioned my company. Oops. Yay!

Did you see Pearl Jam on SNL this week? No? You have a better social life than I do, clearly. Anyway, while I was watching, I couldn’t help thinking how much respect I have for those guys and how they used to be on top of the world but threw it all away in the name of cred. But then I thought, wait a minute! What exactly is the difference between a band that “decided” not to be successful anymore and a band who just stiffed? Maybe Candlebox just decided not to sell millions of records too! If you don’t remember Candlebox, be sure to substitute some other Pearl Jam rip-off band no one remembers. Say, Seven Mary Three. Don’t remember them either? Duh, that’s the point.

But really, Pearl Jam could have been a lot more successful or at least maintained a certain level of rock-godliness. Instead, they took concrete steps to lower the volume of popularity bit by bit. First, they stopped appearing in their own videos. No more flannel-clad-guy jumps into crowd for you! Then they stopped doing videos at all. They did just a few interviews and their albums became decidedly more, shall we say, experimental. Each album sold less than the last one. If I could share with you the frenzy that greeted their second album, Vs., which sold 950,000 copies in its first week, well, this very page would be on fire.

I know because I worked at a record store at the time. The album was rushed out so quickly that the first batch we got didn’t even have the name of the CD on it because they hadn’t decided in time.

Soon, they all started to seem so grouchy. “This is not for you,” their next album said. They looked kind of mad and hounded all the time. They ranted about Ticketmaster and then ended up playing in a muddy field that was impossible to get to and had no parking. Then they got philosophical and wrote about being up in a tree and God’s hands pushing paint. Eventually, you started to get their drift. “Hey! Why are these guys popular?” Pretty soon you forgot they were even putting out albums.

When I watched their performance, I wondered, “Are they pushing a new album or are they just playing for fun? Do I care? Why did Jeremy speak in class that day?” But then I remembered driving to the city each day, the wind flying in my windows and through my hair, my stereo blasting “Black.” No one sang with as much feeling as Eddie except me singing along with Eddie. And oh yeah, I was wearing plaid flannel.

While channel-surfing those morning shows I hate this a.m. in search of some real news, I chanced upon this teaser on CBS’ The Early Show: “After the break, Prince Harry reaches a milestone in his life.”

Was it to much to hope that it would be this?

Nope, it was his graduation from military academy. They did manage to get in a mention of the better story towards the end of the piece, though. After this earth-shattering lead item they got to the other, duller news.

Due to holidays beyond my control, the blog will be taking a hiatus until Sunday. Unless I get a burst of creativity (i.e. something happens that I need to rant about) in which case I might post something short tomorrow.

But let me take a moment to explain the intricacies of Jewish holiday-making. There are three central activities:

1. Eating
2. Praying
3. Sleeping

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is in tandem with the reasons behind any particular Jewish holiday:

1. They tried to kill us.
2. We won!
3. Let’s eat.

Some may think Passover is a little like Atkins, what with the lack of bread and all, but this is a misconception. For complicated reasons that would put you to sleep, crushed matzah in various textures is used to replace all starches other than potatoes. You’ve got your matzah bits (farfel), pulverized matzah (mel), and cardboard masquerading as food (shmurah). Yes, there are an infinite variety of matzah by-products, none of which taste like anything but matzah no matter what sauce or spice is involved. This morning at the grocery store I saw “Organic Spelt Matzah.” Raise your hand if you think that’s going to taste any better.

It does seem cruel to have a holiday all about eating while simultaneously subtracting half the things you can eat, but hell, since life was so easy for the Jews already, why not? No, we Jews don’t do anything half-assed and so I’ve spent the last week or so cleaning every nook and cranny of my apartment to make sure no Entenmann’s crumb remains. Just as an aside, Passover’s a lot more demanding for people who eat in bed, not that I’d, uh, know anything about that.

But at any rate, no one knows how to turn a celebration of freedom into weeks of hard work like we do, so please feel free to have a beer and think of us. Because we can’t have beer this week. Par-tay!