Magic Jewball

I never really got the whole competitive eating thing, not only does it look horrifically disgusting, but it’s kind of grotesque in a world where so many people are starving. However, I just realized that I spent my entire weekend doing that. Yes, it was a Becca Family Bar Mitzvah.

Let me digress for a moment and say that I think of my blog as sort of like Law & Order. The thing I always liked about that show, besides foxy Chris Noth, is that you never saw the principal characters’ home lives and it only snuck in when it was apropos of a storyline or a good joke. Sure, you knew Briscoe had been married a bunch of times and had a daughter who had a drug problem and then died, but you never really saw much of that. It was just the case of the week and that’s it. So that’s how I see J-Ball, nothing terribly personal, just as far as it fits into the post of the day.

Anyway, since I haven’t done much of anything this weekend besides shmooze with my family and eat copious amounts of food, it’s really hard to keep that all out of this thing. And I especially need to since one of the only members of my family who is allowed to read Magic J is the sister of the Bar Mitzvah boy. But she’s in Argentina for the week, so let’s sneak this in. So, this is what my family does because I have 146 cousins who I am in contact with. We all go away to a hotel for a weekend of gossip and piehole-stuffing. If it gives you an idea of how much food was involved in this weekend’s festivities, the napkins at the Saturday night event had this message, “are you still eating?!” Indeed. Between the four meals a day there was an open tearoom, and here “tea” meant a panini table and “fill your own bag of candy” bar with 85 kinds of candy. It was kind of like a cruise without the water.

But it’s kind of a rude shock to come home from a hotel with marshmallow soft bedding and meals that contain frites bars and make your own sundaes to your own pigsty of an apartment where you are required to cook your own food from a refrigerator that contains condiments and spoiled milk. Luckily there’s another Bar Mitzvah in two weeks. Bring on the elastic waist pants!

PS, the Bar Mitzvah boy did great. Now I’m off to hurl.

Mary J. Blige – Family Affair

If you don’t know that I’m a big Joy Division fan, then you just haven’t been reading my blog enough. But that’s OK. You have your own life, I understand. Even if you knew, maybe you were curious as to what my favorite JD song is. Or maybe you thought “Love Will Tear Us Apart Again” was a fine song and you wondered where to go from there.

I have about eight songs which qualify as my #2 Joy Division track but #1 stands apart and has no competition in my mind. Sure, most of JD’s songs were bleak soundscapes of lyric and music, literally music to commit suicide by. But sometimes you’re just in the mood for that. Anyway, this song is different in that it alternates between hopelessness and despair, Ian Curtis’ voice never sounding deeper. It’s fast/slow/fast, urgent/yearning/urgent. You could pretty much guess that his life and marriage were falling apart, just from these lyrics and the way they were sung.

Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours (not available on Napster, God knows why)

Lyrics:
So this is permanence, love’s shattered pride
What once was innocence, turned on its side
Grey cloud hangs over me, marks every move
Deep in the memory of what once was love

Oh how I realised how I wanted time
Put into perspective, tried so hard to find
Just for one moment I thought I’d found my way
Destiny unfolded – I watched it slip away

Excessive flashpoints, beyond all reach
Solitary demands for all I’d like to keep
Let’s take a ride out, see what we can find
A valueless collection of hopes and past desires

I never realised the lengths I’d have to go
All the darkest corners of a sense I didn’t know
Just for one moment I heard somebody call
Looked beyond the day in hand – there’s nothing there at all

Now that I’ve realised how it’s all gone wrong
Got to find some therapy, this treatment takes too long
Deep in the heart of where sympathy held sway
Got to find my destiny before it gets too late