Jeremayakovka

Obama's "Post-Partisanship" Is As Clear As The Raised Middle Finger In Your Face

The number of middle fingers in a "progressive" crowd is directly proportional to the number of Ph.D.s in a ten-block radius.

The First One To Say "I Love You" Loses

Make damn sure you don't just say it, but you both feel it at the same time.
If not....

Nobody has to guess
That Baby can't be blessed
Till she sees finally that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls.

See also: Dennis Prager's thoughts on love.

L'Été Va Bientôt Nous Quitter, Il Faut En Profiter

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"Syrtaki" (or "Zorba's Dance") the theme to the film adaptation of the immortal novel Zorba the Greek, rendered by the mortal Dalida.
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Summer's gonna leave us soon, we better make the most of it.

More Dalida clips: "Never on a Sunday" (English), "Ciao amore" (French), "Gigi l'amoroso" (English), "Born to Sing" (English)
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Or if you prefer, a scene from the original:

(It's a far cry from West Side Story, fortunately.)

Welcome, Thinking Blog Readers

Someone told me I've been named a "Thinking Blogger" -- a blogger who especially makes readers think. If you're visiting for the first time because that's how you heard about this site, welcome. I hope JMK doesn't disappoint.

Please sample (among others) the categories "Burn That MFA!", "Hillary Watch," and "Gay/Lesbian" while you're here.

Your feedback -- good, bad, ugly -- is always appreciated.

(Got to run, for the moment. Will be back w/ 5 further "nominees" over the weekend.)

The Coyote Call And The Howling Winds Wail

You say "potayto," I say "potahto."
They say "Brokeback," I say "The Cowboy Song."

If you don't know Thin Lizzy ... it's time you did.

Welcome, Halliburton Readers!

Hope no one gets in trouble at the office for this one (it's not exactly SFW):

Jeremayakovka Who's On?  Visit Detail Visit 59,576
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Catological Humor

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Caption, anyone?

The 8-Ball Meme: Eight Previously Unknown Facts

Ok, Irina, you asked for it. Eight previously unknown facts about me:

1. While a child, our household had a leatherbound Holy Bible that had been printed in 1876.
2. Also while a child, I was photographed with Mayor Ed Koch in New York.
3. While a young adult I introduced myself to pan-Africanist socialist [euphemism for Black racist, antisemitic] Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) in Berkeley, California to ask him his opinion (his advice, almost) about politics.
4. More than a decade later, returning from my informal political exile, I watched the 2004 Superbowl with Wesley Clark during a break from his presidential campaign in Flagstaff, Arizona.
5. I've spent a day in jail for something I (used to) believe in.
6. I've been to Windows on the World restaurant atop the former World Trade Center (when it was still possible) and have climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty, up to and inside her crown (when it was still permitted).
7. While a teenager, when I went to get Allen Ginsberg's autograph after a public reading, the NAMBLA member lanced a sexually provocative comment at me in front of the tiny crowd that had gathered around him. During my adolescence I had the good fortune to know some consistently (in some ways outstandingly) "appropriate" gay men. (Allen Ginsberg wasn't one of them.)
8. Also while a teenager, I had the good fortune to be introduced to and spend quality time with William Bronk. During our conversations, he offered more than one memorable lesson about poetry, including: ..........................

* * *

Eight other blogs "tagged" to answer this meme: West Bank Mama; Black Belt Mama; Cobb: Strictly Old School; Dancing in Tongues; Gay Patriot West; Right Truth; The Black Kettle; Bookworm Room. In addition to facts about yourself, you may also disclose "habits" (click to Irina's site for clarification).

If You Were A Peanut, What Kind Of Peanut Would You Be?

Me? That's easy. Schroeder -- hands down!

Money!? Who cares about money? This is art! This is great music I'm playing, and playing great music is an art. Do you hear me? An art! Art, art, art, art -- ART!

Life Goes On Without The Koran

Tired of the casual dating scene? Need a little engaging camaraderie and companionship that isn't the same, old same-old? Are you a recent Muslim apostate (or contemplating becoming one)?

Then find -- or start -- an Ex-Muslim Meetup in your area!

(Here's a great conversation starter.)

Have A Great Weekend

Blogiversary's Coming Up!

* Top thread (scroll down for interim posts): *
(04/02) "Cuba Commentary (Passover Sermon)" * Updated *
(04/02) "Chag Sameach Pesach"
(04/01) "True Whit - Part One (Homo Rei Publicae)" * Updated *
(03/31) "'Fear Is A Complete Waste Of Time' - Tony Snow"

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April 3 will be one year since creating Jeremayakovka. My birthpost, quoting Rilke on the worst peril of fame, remains this daring venture's cautionary principle. What I also stated then still remains true, too:

With faint trepidation but firmer determination now I step out of the cage ... and into the arena.

The show goes on, Gentle Reader, with firmer determination than ever. Please show your appreciation by making a PayPal contribution (big white button, left column) -- it'll help!

Here's a little treat to show you my appreciation: a two-minute dance number choreographed by Bob Fosse. (He's quite a cat, part Bob Mitchum, part Nijinsky.)

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Double treat: Ben Vereen, who appeared in the Fosse biopic All That Jazz, discusses dance with Kermit the Frog.

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Triple treat: "Hang Me Up to Dry" tempts me to see the world in just black and white.

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Quadruple treat: Sometimes I wish I were Arab.

(Meanwhile, that PayPal button's waitin' to be pushed. :) )

Ron Carey in "God Loves Rock 'N Roll"

Comic actor Ron Carey, best known for playing Officer Levitt in the 70s sitcom Barney Miller (click <--- to listen to the famous theme in a neverending loop) and for his supporting roles in many a Mel Brooks movie, died of a stroke a couple of months ago. Obit here.
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It seems that the reliable comic sidekick was also a song and dance man. Here he is in a little-known musical short, in priest's get-up smoking and twisting on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in midtown Manhattan. (For JMK-II and Ralph, especially.)

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(Ron Carey (center) in a still from the set of Barney Miller.)

Visitor From Ulan Bator, Mongolia

How 'bout that?

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Dishonorable Mention

In a new feature at The Nation (online), here's a poll for best "progressive" film of 2006.

Live Blogging the Kiddie Concert

* Scroll down for updates! *

I popped in on this irongray overcast morning only to check my email and see what's going on in the world, but lo and behold there's an acoustic kiddie concert in progress. It's the snazzy folk band Hanna Banana -- a mandolin, a banjo, a guitar or two, and a standing bass. My 15" laptop balanced precariously on bunched up knees, I'm nursing a mug of strong black coffee while desperately trying not to be pscyhed out by the inquisitive stares of the toddlers bouncing on their parents' knees and youngins spinning figure 8's around the room, but a neoconservative blogger's gotta do what a neoconservative blogger's gotta do.

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12:23 PM - "Turkey in the Straw" No way! I used to have the sheet music for this one.

I had a little monkey and his name was Tiny Tim
Put him in the tub to see if he could swim....

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12:29 PM - "The City of New Orleans" Heard Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger do this live 20 years ago. Can be melancholy or spirited, depends entirely on the rendition.

Good morning, America. Don't you know me, I'm your native son
I'll be gone 500 miles 'fore the day is done....

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12:37 PM - An environmental "water awareness song" Yeah, sure. At least it doesn't mention global warming.... Hmm, that strong bass rhythm is catchy.

Animals need water, people need it, too....

(12:40 PM - Uh-oh. Written by someone in Santa Cruz, CA, the song has been officially adopted by the UN.)

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12:46 PM - "Big Yellow Taxi" Joni Mitchell's "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot" anti-capitalist anthem, covered and popularized by The Counting Crows.

Hey farmer, farmer, put away your DDT
I don't care about spots on my apples
Leave me the birds and the bees
Please....

The last song was just a set-up for this one -- I knew it! Hey, Joni: DDT actually has good uses ("What the World Needs Now Is DDT," New York Times, April 11, 2004)!

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12:52 PM - "This Land Is Your Land" The signature ballad of Woody Guthrie, whom the singer introduced as "the patron saint" of folk singers. Sing along if you like, it's hard not to (as a child of course I did), but please spare us the encomiums for this patriot of the Soviet Union.

From the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

If you can ditch the impulse for collective or state ownership, and instead focus on how to best exploit (and, when necessary, preserve) our natural resources, it's still a good song.

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* * *

Well, that was the finale. The kids are hopping in the aisles and their parents are protectively following their lead. Someone's breaking out the coloring books and markers as the band breaks down the amps and music stands.

Hey, look at that! The morning clouds are burning off ... and ... here comes the sun. Do-do-dooo-do....

* * *
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2:20 PM - * Final Update *
JMK's rule of thumb for listening to folk music:
When you hear "If I Had A Hammer," think "If I Had Armand Hammer" (Armand Hammer = capitalist enabler of the Soviet Union)

Related: A review of Engineering Communism.

Linky Meme - It Takes Two To Tango

It's a light-hearded blog meme, arrived just in time for the weekend. Tag two blogs you enjoy to tag two blogs they enjoy. And so on, and so on, and so on....

The never-at-a-loss-for-words Ig-Noble Experiment tagged me. And I tag:

The Hill Chronicles
Transterrestrial Musings

Happy surfing.

Don Rickles - Non-Stop Funny

Just for you, Ralph. It's Don Rickles on Letterman: on Sinatra's greatness, how to win a trip to Israel, and calling it a day in Pittsburgh. More on this comedian -- also known as "The Merchant of Venom" -- here.

Actually, Ralph, this isn't for you. This is for the children.

* * *

And because you've been so good, Ralph ... because you've been sooooo good to JMK ... put this in your pipe and smoke it!

Support the Boobs!

* Updated *

Well, at least the jihadists didn't get her. The unenviable Anna Nicole Smith is dead at age 39 of a sobriety underdose. (That's "get" in the sense of "target and kill"; also, Gentle Reader, of "do.")

Yes, even this is what we're killing terrorists over there for: so over here rudderless ships like her can remain free to run aground in whatever way they choose, or stumble upon.

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You know I don't understand why you don't treat yourself better
do the crazy things that you do
'Cause all the debutantes in Houston, baby,
couldn't hold a candle to you.

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Did you do it for love?
Did you do it for money?
Did you do it for spite?
Did you think you had to, honey?
Who is gonna make it?
We'll find out in the long run.
-- The Eagles, "The Long Run"

* * *

From today's (2/9) AP article, "What Drew Us To Anna Nicole":

"Marilyn Monroe was an artist, a real performer, able to evoke in audiences a real empathy and a passion, said Richard Walter, a film professor at UCLA. "There is NO comparison." And yet he sees one strong point in common: the simple beginnings, the climb from total obscurity to fame.

"She came from humble origins and achieved celebrity and wealth, one way or another," Walter said. "And that is an American story."

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* Update (2/27) * I just noticed Baldilocks's empathetic post about ANS.

* * *

(H/T Protein Wisdom)

More Mel

Well, talk about bad taste!

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"Springtime for Hitler" is one of the funniest, most memorable musical numbers Hollywood has ever produced. That's why The Producers won Mel Brooks the 1968 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and thirty-five years later spawned the phenomenally popular revival on Broadway and, once more, in Hollywood. Good for Mel, good for JMK, good for you, Gentle Reader. Yet watching "Springtime for Hitler" again -- thinking of recent posts about of Ahmedinejad in Iran, anti-semitism in the UK, and apathy in the US -- helps me put my finger on a reservation I've always had about that musical number and about political comedy generally.

These promotional materials from The Producers DVD, a couple of on-camera clips of Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder, helped, too. Looking back as old men now on their first smash comic collaboration (Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein are the others), they offer some insight into the uses -- and, inadvertently, the limitations -- of political humor and satire. Says Mel (in Windows Media; in Real Player):

The way to deal with despots like Hitler is not to get on a soapbox and fight [them] with rhetoric, but to fight them with ridicule, to laugh at them. To laugh them into oblivion rather than with philosophy or psychology.... You can't win a debate with those guys, that's what they're born to do, but you can certainly make fun of them and laugh them into eternity. [emphases added]

These are the words of one who, besides protecting some consummate comedian turf, is comfortably removed in space and in time from the threat of Adolf Hitler. Or someone who thinks he is. You do have to get on a soapbox and fight them, you do have to debate them, and you do have to win. Yet we know that it's not, in the end, about debating -- it's a fight to the death. So while in a sense Mel is right -- that you cannot debate with people who categorically deny your humanity -- you still have to brave their threat. Evil can never be laughed into eternity, it can only be airbrushed out of the picture momentarily.

"Mel used to say I was the perfect victim," says Gene Wilder in his interview. That strikes me as more funny (peculiar) than funny (ha-ha). So funny that it's sad. A sadness that no amount of ridicule can laugh into eternity....

"Well, talk about bad taste!" exclaims a disgusted audience member as she quits the theater. Exactly. What Mel Brooks laughed into eternity with "Springtime for Hitler" was not the Third Reich but the "fourth wall" behind which a conventional and often complacent theater-going public comfortably sits. It's a worthy accomplishment for Hollywood in 1968, although nowhere near an antidote for Hamburg in 1938 or Haifa in 2008.

* * *

These jottings were kicked into gear by:

* today's Christians United Against the New Anti-Semitism post on the peaceful German majority;

* last week's Solomonia post about Saturday Night Live's spoof of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto; and

* yesterday's post here about Mel Brooks's spoof of the Spanish Inqusition.

* * *

See also today's post by Fausta quoting Mark Steyn on Muslims in television sitcoms.

What's An Auto Da Fe?

It's what you oughtn't to do, but you do anyway.

Duh! Mayor

"San Francisco shocked at news of heterosexual affair"
"Gavin Newsom prefers homosexual marriage to heterosexual unions"

What next? Don't tell me you're going to take up with a Scientologist?
Oh, NO--!!!

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Related: Duh! Press Secretary

2/14 post: "Is Gavin Gay? No, But He's Not Happy, Either"

The Agony of Defeat

Why I can't stand skiing.

I must have seen the clip featured here a hundred times before I ever stuck my feet into bindings.

Nice frames, Bob.

Extra! In Case You Missed It

The (in)famous Saturday Night Live skit featuring Joe Cocker and John Belushi, interpreted by JMK. Enjoy! I give you "permission" to like it, Gentle Reader: in cyberspace, after all, no one sees you laugh....

What Brings You Here?

Some recent searches which have led visitors to this site:

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"a poem in memory of a person that was murdered a year ago today"
(Toronto, Canada)

"corey lidle jokes"
(Ontario, CA)

"nasrallah man of the century"
(Adana, Turkey)

"iran holocaust nuclear"
(Haifa, Israel)

"games that Islamic people play"
([Maine Libraries/Department of Education] Orono, ME)

"terrorist in your neighborhood"
(Phoenix, AZ)

"jefferson's victory over the muslims lives on today"
("unknown," USA)

Only Nine Weeks To Go

Costello: Well, you know, I'd like to know some of the guys' names on the team so when I meet 'em on the street or in the ball park I'll be able to say hello to those people.

Abbott: Why, sure! I'll introduce you to the boys! They give 'em funny names, though, Lou.

Costello: Oh, I know, they give those ballplayers awfully funny names.

Comedy is like sports: timing is everything.

More People Playing Games

The other day in "Games People Play" I spilled some beans with five previously undisclosed personal facts. ("1. As a child, was carried from a burning building.").

Some of the blogs I tagged have spilled their own beans, too:

Douglas -- a survivor who knows true love
American Princess -- reinventor of the breakfast of champions
Erica -- who wants to be all she can be

Games People Play

Have been "tagged" by Fausta to spill some beans in the little virtual game, "Five Things You Don't Know About Me":

1. As a child, was carried out of a burning building.

2. High school prom was held in Windows on the World restaurant (atop the World Trade Center).

3. As a young man, visited Auschwitz.

4. During that voyage got drunk on New Year's Eve on the Champs Élysées.

5. As a slightly older man, stayed home on another New Year's Eve laboring through The Brothers Karamazov.

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I tag: Erica, Douglas, Ari, American Princess, Daniel.

Eine Kleine Lead-In-To-Valentine's-Day Nacht Musik

* Updated *

Is "Contigo en la distancia" a Christina Aguilera tune? I've only seen her perform once (during the opening ceremoines of the 2002 Winter Olympics). Thanks to Meirene87 -- who posted her own cover of it on YouTube -- I may never get around to doing so again. This amateur version is not entirely polished, of course, but no worries because it's from the heart. Meirene87 is softly trying to pour out all her fullness, trying to extend -- in the end -- to whomever she's contigo-ing with in the distance her fullness, yes, and at the same time her emptiness. Nice.

In her words:

[Update (01/08): Perhaps in response to this post, Meirene87 has recently restricted access to her video so that it is no longer available by clicking below. This is something I do not entirely understand but accept. (When we post anything on the internet, and certainly on YouTube, it becomes fair game for anyone to link to and comment on, is it not? If not, we should simply circulate the cherished material privately.) Since some degree of privacy is a priority for her, I have decided to delete from this post Meirene87's personal comments about why she recorded herself singing "Contigo en la distancia." Their simple sincerity, which (ironically) makes them worth repeating, is perhaps better kept secret. - JMK]

* * *

* Updated w/ lyrics translated in the Comment section *

By MTV generation standards the following tête-à-tête duet between Anna Karina (curious gal, no?) and Serge Gainsbourg, "Ne dis rien," is anything but polished. More substantively, a commitment to song-as-entertainment lands its musical arrangement and video editing on the near side of the the lyrics' hinted gloom. I'd go so far as to say that the arrangement and editing practically mock the lyrics' poetic potential, but by squarely suggesting a content consommation -- a triumphant one, even (note the recurring marchlike tempo, in the drums especially) -- it's hard to stop this tune from getting under your skin. For while the song obviously stops short of pure poetry, still, I find its video true in its intentions and execution. Few, I bet, would venture that a tight, two-step in such a confined space could, ever so gently, be so expansive.

Their subtle facial gestures at least as romantic as an on-camera kiss (and maybe more genuine).

Should either of these, or previously posted, music clips grab and hold you, Gentle Listener, please know that if there's only one thing I want to convey it's never to make you wish you were more like any of those performers, but always to make you wish you were more like you.

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, JMK wishes Bonne chance! and a healthy headstart to all the lonelyhearts out there in the blogosphere.

Happy New Year!

We have a lot to look forward to:
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Pigs are models of sincerity, purity, tolerance, and honor….

Now, this is a cultural pluralism I can work with.

"Palestine Is For Lovers"!?

Bite me.
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Lovers perhaps, but ... of what?
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A Little Jerry Brown Gossip Session

He's making his list, he's checking it twice...

This is neither high-brow nor high-road blogging, but since a rule of thumb in journalism is that three sources make it a fact (or at least reportable as such) I can say that incoming California Attorney General Jerry Brown is less than a model neighbor.

* In an earlier post, I'd reported that someone had reported to me that years ago Brown had said to him, "Israel was a mistake." (I didn't take it lightly since we were, after all, at a pro-Israel demonstration.)

* I can also report that a friend of a friend has said that her friend (who lives in the same downtown Oakland loft complex as Brown) told her that he often parks in front of the tenant storage area, hence blocking his neighbors' access.

* Lastly (for now), I heard from someone else who, during a chance chat with Brown about his own personal dissatisfactions with the state's court system,  said that the soon-to-be attorney general just shrugged him off. A sort of That's-the-way-the-cookie-crumbles attitude. Left him miffed.

He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice...