Magic Jewball

People think you run into celebrities all the time in NY, and I won’t lie to you, you do. It just depends on what your definition of “celebrity” is. Many years ago, many being “greater than ten,” I used to watch a cable access show each week that was on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, MNN being “home for wackadoos before websites were so easy to create.” And this woman was one freaky wackadoo. I mean, she had a lot of thoughts on her mind and she wanted to share them: about open-mindedness, about the power of myth, about loving oneself and others. If you are wondering what the fuck I was doing watching that sort of thing, I ask you to imagine all that said in the most hypnotic and soothing voice possible, like honey, at exactly the time you were trying to fall asleep at night. She was like a drug, a crazy, crazy dose of Ambien.

But then she disappeared off of MNN and ever since then I’ve been trying to find out where she went, albeit in a half-assed way. I’ve missed her long extemporaneous diatribes couched in the most earnest and sincere manner. “I’m a mystic!” she would say. “I am a healer.” And I miss the way she would go from tangent to tangent and never make it back to her original point. But that was OK because she never really had one or at least it wasn’t one that you or I could understand. All that mattered is that she lulled me into blissful sleep. She has a website but it hasn’t been updated in forever. I kind of gave up and turned to the real Ambien. Which you wouldn’t know from the time my posts tend to appear but whatever.

Anyway, I was at a local shop, a big shop, with an information desk, and I went to ask where the item I needed might be. And there she was, the MNN Wackadoo Lady. I felt like I was in a dream, the kind you have when you actually sleep at night. But she was real. Right in front of me. In the most mundane job in the universe. I did what I always do when I’m face-to-face with a famous person (yeah, yeah, she’s not Angelina Jolie, but she’s famous to me): I give them a little “I know who you are” eyebrow waggle and see if they return it with a “yep, I’m ____ !” look. She kind of did. And then I decided to just go for it and say, “Linda?” She was surprisingly unfazed that I knew who she was (I mean, did I mention? She’s not Angelina Jolie) but seemed pleased that I remembered her and that I told her I wished she were back on the air. She had a lot of reasons, “I lost my producer, these things take money, I lost my web designer, blah blah blah.”

If you’re wondering why I haven’t mentioned her name it’s because I told her a lot of nice, uh, less than truthful things about herself, like that she had significant things to say and added meaning to people’s lives. I don’t want her to Google herself and find that the chick who said those things actually just thought she was a nutjob with a smooth, smooth voice. But of course, if you watched MNN at a certain point in time, you may know who I’m talking about. And the truth is, she did mean a lot to me. I searched for her for years! Sometimes you just have to go to the shop down the street and ask at the information desk.

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey

You may have heard that recently, the Doc Martens shoe people got into trouble for producing ads which featured dead rock stars wearing Doc Martens. Dead rock stars with living, litigious relatives. I followed this story kind of tepidly (that is, it caught my brief attention via feed reader before I scrolled merrily along). But that all changed when I read this statement from Joey Ramone’s brother:

Obviously, we are in the same position as Courtney Love, as well as the Estates of the others depicted. We were never consulted about this ad. We were never asked for permission to use Joey’s image, or paid for the use of it. As Executor of my brother’s estate I never would have approved this ad as Joey never wore these shoes. And, not that my brother was terribly religious, but the fact that he was Jewish, and this ad is not exactly Kosher, makes it that much more inappropriate, inconsiderate and contemptible.

(via Gothamist)

Huh? Let’s parse this. Kosher in the strict sense means permissible according to Jewish law. The common form mostly relates to food, as you’d know if you were a regular reader of this blog or resided in the Kosher food nexus of New York City. Neither of these explanations seems to make sense. If you work on the basis that Mickey Leigh (Joey’s brother; the real kind, not the fake Ramone kind) meant Kosher in the sense of “correct” and “permissible” then it doesn’t really have much to do with Judaism and then his whole “but he’s Jewish so how could you do this to him?” argument kind of falls apart. If you stretch to understand his meaning as “OK by Jewish law,” I’m afraid that there’s nothing more verboten about stealing someone’s image by Jewish law than in the more secular, American kind, so that doesn’t work either. The food idea is completely off the chart.

Is it because Joey’s kind of dressed like an angel in the ad (you can see it yourself in the Gothamist link above)? We have angels in Judaism too. Or maybe Mickey thinks the figure is kind of Jesus-like? I’m not really seeing that either, especially because I’m told that Jesus wore sandals. Everything in the ad itself, aside from the shoes, could totally be from Judaism (heaven, light shining through hole in the clouds, etc.). So what’s he on about?

So basically, Joey Ramone was Jewish, everyone. And that means you can’t dress him like an angel in heaven and have him shill your shoes. Oh yeah, and he didn’t even wear Doc Martens, so there.

This is the only Ramones song I could ever stand.

The Ramones - We Want The Airwaves

…the use of this phrase to describe something involving a woman who drove 900 miles wearing diapers. Now that my energy is turned away from Lost (I’m too slow to get it unless I focus every iota of my being upon it, and even then I can’t totally follow what’s going on), I can fully express my outrage. Shame on you, news media, shame on you!

Listening to the song is helping, though. A little.

New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle

This morning, and when I say this morning, I mean morning, i.e. 4:30am I heard that Becks is coming to America. For anyone who isn’t as global as I am, that’s David Beckham, the British then Spanish soccer star. You may remember him from such cutesy films as Bend It Like Beckham, although I don’t think he was actually in that. The reason I’m fascinated by this news is hard to sort out. But for you, dear reader, I’m going to try.

I think Posh & Becks are the perfect storm of things that go over well in Europe (I’m sorry to my Britfriends but I’m including the UK in Europe here) but here not so much.

1. Metrosexual, fashionable guys

2. Soccer

3. Posh & Becks as the ultimate celebrity couple

4. Soccer

According to the news bite I saw this morning, Becks is coming here because this is the only place on the planet that isn’t into soccer (he used the word soccer! really!) and he wants to change that. The NY Times says it’s because he’s old and over and oh yeah, the money’s good. I think we all know that LA is more Posh & Becks than Madrid anyway. But I seriously doubt that this will change anything. Speaking as someone who actually watched the World Cup from various bars (if you don’t remember those posts, use the handy search function, I’m too lazy to link you) I have to say, this is truly the world’s most boring game. And if anyone thinks that someone who moisturizes is going to get men into soccer, you clearly come from some other country.

But what about women? Women love soccer! They play soccer! Yes, yes, it’s all fun & games when your kid or Mia Hamm is playing, but in between those things there just isn’t going to be a fanbase there. Unlike Europe, women in the US actually give birth to children and they’re busy.

So let me just say to Becks, the LA Whatevers who have signed him, and the rest of the world: WE ARE DIFFERENT FROM YOU. Not better, not worse, just different. Yes, we like different things. Our clothes are different. Our music is different. And we don’t do soccer, except as a funky, niche product. But it’s going to be a lot of fun watching Becks trying to prove me wrong. I believe either way it’s going to be highly amusing.

New Order - World In Motion

Is there any cheerier subject to start the new year with than death? I mean, I’m not really the one who started it. If you’re one of the 96% of my visitors who are American you will have no doubt noticed that there’s been a wee bit of that on TV these past couple of weeks. Naturally, the first thing you will have surmised is that Gerald Ford was the most important president in American history and that his funeral will be visiting your town soon. Also, that James Brown no longer feels so good and that Saddam Hussein should have had the Madison Square Garden security staff search people for camera phones before entering.

But actually, I just came from a funeral and so even without all that I would have been thinking about birth and death, rather than my last post which was about the stuff that comes in between. It’s Jewish tradition for the mourners to all help bury the deceased and so once at the cemetery I pitched in. Either those shovels are really heavy or I need to increase my strength training. The birth part comes in because the wife of the friend who passed actually delivered me when my Mom couldn’t make it to the hospital. If you enjoy reading JBall, you should thank her. Not that I wouldn’t have made it out anyway but I could have been even more brain damaged.

In any case, between TV and real life, I’m getting tired of death. Except Saddam, I could probably stand to see him die a few more times. No, I kid, I haven’t seen it, don’t link me, I won’t go. You can tell the news people are getting tired of it as well because I have seldom seen a story reported with such glee as the dude who saved the other dude in the subway station. You can see it on their faces. “A story about someone not dying! YaY!” I mean, kudos to the guy, because I can’t see myself ever throwing myself on the tracks to save someone else’s life. There are rats down there! And used condoms! I know, because I stare down moodily each morning as I listen to the Deftones on my iPod and avoid looking at the untalented whistling Spanish guitar guy who plays at my station.

Anyhoo, I’m looking forward to watching the Flava of Love spin-off, “I Love New York,” not only because I can’t stand any more dead people on TV but because this way I’ll just wish death on a bunch of people.

The following song comes with an anecdote (I know you love those!). When I worked at the record store in high school, I would always put Depeche Mode on and the manager would always take it off. He told me it sounded like a funeral march and scared off the customers. Once, when I was busy arguing, “no they’re not depressing,” the following song started with its first morose line, “Death is everywhere…..” I didn’t win the argument.

Depeche Mode – Fly On The Windscreen