Magic Jewball

…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

When I was a kid, I used to imagine that all my favorite rock stars were Jewish. You know, so I could marry them. My mother told me that Simon LeBon could be a Jewish name and I ran with that. But even my pre-adolescent brain could figure out that for those purposes, it didn’t really matter either way whether or not Boy George was Jewish. Still, I was impressed when in the Do You Really Want to Hurt Me video, he showed up wearing a shirt (ok, it was more like a tunic/sweatshirt thing) that said Culture Club in Hebrew. Sure, the words were reversed so they were meaningless. But that was minor.

Now that George has hit the lowest mark a person can achieve in a lifetime, picking up garbage in the streets of New York City (and we have a lot), we get our yearly look at just how horribly a person can age. But this time I noticed something different, as I’m sure you did if you happened to see this picture on Gawker (where I stole it from).

Yes, there’s a big-ass Star of David on George’s giant bald head. Way to out-Esther Madonna! Red string indeed. This guy has a full-size tattoo on his head! But quite frankly, I think he has it all wrong. Look, George, you live in New York now. You can’t have helped noticing that our enemies seem to come at us from above. Do you really want a kind of Jewish identification on the top of your head? Is that smart? Oh right, you’re currently sweeping the streets. But seriously, party Ortho-style and just wear a little kipa. Sure, it’s less fabulous, but your fabulous days are really over, aren’t they?

But I guess this is more convenient and everything. I mean, it must be a pain to be sweeping up trash when your kipa falls into the pile. That’s got to suck.

Title comes from Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like A Hole, of course, but we’ll save that for another day.

Culture Club – Do You Really Want 2 Hurt Me

Just a day or so after writing that last post, a song came on my iPod which was actually more acid and sarcastic than Debonair. But more on this later.

So World Cup Lisa wrote me to say she was pleased I hadn’t wasted my energy writing about Mel Gibson. I dunno, I wasn’t really interested until she said that and so I decided to waste a bit of energy talking about it. Y’know, hearing the news that Mel Gibson is an anti-Semite is akin to hearing the news that Lance Bass is gay. Wow, that came out of left field! Who could have guessed?

But it’s an interesting time to talk about old drunkass Mel because tonight begins a Jewish day of mourning called Tisha B’Av (the ninth of Av – no relation to the fourth of July). In a bizarre coincidence, 98% of the tragic things that happened to the Jewish people all seemed to happen on the same day. Actually, since we fast on this day, maybe it’s a great thing that they all happened on just one day. There’s only so many days you can abstain from food and we already have six.

Anyway, here are just a few of the hit parade of tragedies:

• First Temple in Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE
• Second Temple in Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE
• Expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492

So it isn’t weird to be thinking about Mel Gibson and his anti-Semitic tirade this week. I’m not sure there’s anything in Jewish history about calling a female cop “sugar tits,” however. Either way, I really just feel sorry for people who are this ignorant. It’s 2006, get a clue. Sure, we control Hollywood. That’s why we made sure to put out a movie like “The Passion of the Christ” which inspired a whole new generation to want to kill us!

Anyway, speaking of Hollywood, let’s get back to the song I was talking about. One day, long long ago, on a planet far away, that is, Los Angeles, I was waiting on line at the El Rey to get into a show by one of the bands on my then-label. When I say waiting on line, I mean in my rental car, waiting for the valet parking guy to relieve me of it. While I was doing that, I noticed in the actual line to get in was standing none other than Maynard James Keenan of Tool. He wasn’t with anyone. No one was talking to him. As a matter of fact, through business I have seen Maynard several times and each time he was standing by himself, talking to no one.

But as I said, I had a lot of time to watch him taking in that whole unique LA scene of plastic looking people, music industry weasels, posers, has-beens, wannabes, etc. I mean, he lives there and all so what does he think of it? About a year later this song came out and then I knew.

 

Song not available on Napster.

Should you be the sensitive type, please be warned that like most Tool songs, this one has a truckload of profanity.

Audio to Tool – Aenema removed for space considerations.

Lyrics