Magic Jewball

In case you’re not a historian of the Manchester scene, Tony Wilson was a man who truly loved music and the impresario who brought Manchester’s music to the wider world in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. He died this weekend of cancer at the age of 57. I just got home from a weekend away to find this out and I find it terribly depressing. You would think that and the miserable cold I’m experiencing would lead me to make a choice like Joy Division or old New Order but Tony Wilson seemed like too happy a guy for that.

Napster:
Happy Mondays - Step On

Streaming audio available on the iPod Song of the Week page.

I think Friday is now officially the day for pictures & video, i.e., I don’t have to write much. Not only do I never have anything to say but somehow there’s always something extraneous that I want to show you. This weekend I’m off to New Jersey to visit my cousins (if you’re thinking I have a lot of cousins, well, all I can say is, I don’t so much belong to a family as a clan… can I get a witness, Pious B?) and so instead of packing as I should be, I’m editing video. Naturellement. I use that term because, once again, we have (insert ponderous voice) Scenes from the French News.

I had to rewind this first bit twice. I think I wasn’t totally aware that a man could care this much about a sheep.

Bang! Actually, the bear that he’s so deeply stressed about was killed by a car, thus saving this man years of therapy.

And then we have this guy. Now, I’m sure I’m going to hell for making fun of this story but somehow, something about this clip just cracks my shit up. No, sorry, sorry, this man’s love for his cows is, um, special. Very special.

The background is that foot-and-mouth disease in the UK (it sounds better in French, fièvre aphteuse) has caused this man’s herd, which he was apparently very, uh, close to, to have to be destroyed. Including Ned, the lovely old bull.

But this all reminds me of a story of when my Mom came down with some sort of human variation of foot-and-mouth and my Dad said, “oh no, they’re going to have to kill the whole herd!”

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Dear NY1,

Hey! How are you? Remember me? I’m the one who watches you faithfully because you focus on the minutiae of NY life. You talk about Christine Quinn when the other channels are having cooking segments. So naturally I turned to you this morning after being woken up at 6:45 am by a crack of thunder so loud I thought a tree had fallen from the roof through several floors and apartments above mine. I mean, well, first I went back to sleep because I don’t get up before eight, but you know, later. Due to the fact that there was three inches of rain, I was pretty sure our lame-ass transit system would have some issues, and by issues I figured nothing running. I sort of assumed that this would be the most important story in New York this morning and you’d have a list of what was running and where.

Gosh, how stupid of me! Footage of downed trees in Bay Ridge matter to as wide a swath of New Yorkers as subway issues, right? I realize that a tornado hitting Brooklyn is big news, but couldn’t that have been the second story? Couldn’t the first one be “your lifeline - not running?” Sure, we’re all satisfied with a message like “Paul Fleuranges says to stay home for a while.” That’s enough detail for me! And later, hearing Pat Kiernan say, “I keep refreshing the MTA website but it says it’s down,” well, of course I understand. Isn’t that how reporters get their news? I mean, when I turned to Channel 5 and they had an MTA spokesman on the phone talking about which lines had service changes, well, come on, they could have been refreshing the MTA website! What were they thinking?

So when I set out for the IRT and found the #1 running sporadically (when I asked the MTA lady at the station if it was running, she said, “yes, but they’re hot and crowded,” I thought, “so how is today different?”) of course I knew that because you had told me to stay home and that trees were down in Bay Ridge.

Oh, and the conductor who said there was a train directly behind the one I couldn’t get on while sweat poured down my entire body, whereas in fact another one didn’t show for 30 minutes? I know that one wasn’t your fault but I choose to blame you anyway.

You fail as bad as the MTA, NY1. The difference is, I never had any faith in them in the first place.

Sincerely,
New fan of Channel 5

This is what my commute looked like once I got on the train. Apparently, other people’s too. This is from the NY Times, Storms Snarl New York Commute.

Better late than never! I know, you’ll be the judge of that. But here we are, the usual effort on my part to answer the questions of the world’s searchers who come to this site.

paul banks drugs

No! I’m shocked!

jew tv

Isn’t this unfair? Everyone seems to have their own channel but us. And they say we control the media!

really snappy answers to stupid questions

Um, this.

famous people who lost someone dear

It does seem terribly unjust but even the rich and famous cannot buy immortality for their relatives. So I would have to say, all of them.

lyrics to the food emporium theme

Someone built a store just for me
Food Emporium, Food Emporium
Prices to make you faint, we guarantee
Food Emporium, Food Emporium…

the godfather the five families

Let me see…. Corleone, Tattaglia, Barzini and…. Ragu? Prego? Newman’s Own?

cream puffs suck

Loser!

jew buy german mini cooper car

The Mini Cooper is British. Are you thinking of Volkswagen? See here.

locked out apartment how much locksmith charge

A lot, brother, a lot.

real stupid questions about americans

Wow, that’s a tough one. How come they only eat McDonald’s? Why are they all religious freaknuts? Do they enjoy being fat? Must they wear those stupid fanny packs while traveling? Did they really elect that guy?

my neighbors may have a prostitution ring

Mine too! Oh wait, that’s how you found me. That whole Google thing. Right. Carry on.

whole foods bakery department manager salary

I believe they pay them in scones and two-bite brownies.

becca save me

I’m trying!

skim latte in hebrew

Golly, I have no idea; they didn’t teach that in yeshiva. Can this wait till I go to Israel next month?

bar mitzvah good deed theme

That’s an excellent theme. Kudos or, as we say, mazal tov.

kevin youkilis star of david

No, silly, he’s a star of the Red Sox.

famous people who get into trouble with the law

Try here:
The Smoking Gun

reasons why you would love a person more

They could like cream puffs.

what kind of underwear does rafael nadal wear?

The kind that constantly have to be picked out of your ass.

nude women

I could not possibly be near the top of the list when you Google this. No freaking way.

conservadox mean

It means you’re somewhere between the Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism. I wrote a whole post about why I changed my sidebar description to that but it remains unpublished. It wasn’t funny enough. I have standards, I tell you!

ca plane pour moi translation

Wooo-ooo-oooo-ooo, you are the king of the Devon…. Yeah, I only know the English parts.

hebrew labriut

Bless you! No really, it’s what you say when someone sneezes. Although it actually means “to your health.” I mean we’re religious, but only idiots think your soul is coming out your nose, thus requiring the aid of the Lord.

make me pregnant magic

Erm, that’s not magic, my friend. I mean, it could be, I guess, depending on your experience.

federer jewish?

question stupid?

heinrich maneuver lyric meaning interpol

Did you not read the very first item on this list? No, of course you didn’t, I hadn’t written it yet. Anyway, Paul Banks is on drugs and none of his songs have any meaning at all. How are things on the West Coast…. of pretentious, meaningless lyrics.

And our “No one explained to me how Google works” award goes to:
grocery chain store-if there is any website like this plese show me

Top 5 searches after “is Famous Person X Jewish?”
1. oprah six years to live (damn you, Alex!)
2. interpol ticketmaster password
3. simpsons porn
4. jeremy blake
5. laurent delahousse

Sorry, only 30 seconds. No wonder you can’t figure out what it means.
Interpol - The Heinrich Maneuver

I had a fantabulous time in Beantown. It was great seeing Jan after all this time and she and I cracked each other up as much as ever, Mr. Jan and I commiserated about a universe where Barry Bonds could set “records,” and Baby Owen is surely one of the cutest children on this planet. This is not hyperbole; he is seriously beyond adorable. This is to say that I forgot my camera at home. Although Mr. Jan threatened to take a picture of me reading to Baby Owen while he was in his Red Sox outfit. No record exists, I tell you!

The wedding was a foodapalooza (did I mention that the groom is a chef?) and I found that they had one of the best meet-cute stories ever. It turns out they met at the gym where the future groom bribed the staff to feed him info about the future bride (my cousin) so he could then say, “haven’t I met you somewhere? do you live in Brookline? maybe I saw you at ____?” In some states they call that stalking but it seems to work great in the movies as well as here. Aw.

In between, I wasted time at the Boston University bookstore where Brother2 had a credit. Nephew1 and I had fun asking the staff if stuff we liked came in anything besides “BU” and they pretended to not be totally irritated with us. I didn’t get anything besides an iced tea at the Starbucks that was within the store.

Anyhoo, I got home at 2:30am and am utterly useless today. I have pretty much drunk my weight in coffee. And after the wedding of Mr. & Mrs. Chef, that’s a lot.

Hm, they only had the live version. Sorry, Jan!
MC Solaar - Victime De La Mode (Live)