Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I Miss The Cold

It sounds crazy, right? But I was watching a clip from today's Today Show and I saw that it was 17 degrees this morning in New York City. Honestly...I kinda got a halfie. Not a "Pamela Anderson circa 1996 when she didn't look like a space prostitute" halfie, but a "hey, I miss that feeling" halfie.

It's actually hard living in 75 and sunny every day. It's like Groundhog Day without the comically amusing premise. It's more of a comically depressing premise. I mean, I've heard of people with Seasonal Affective Disorder (or S.A.D., where the name is actually the saddest part), but I've got something like Hot Environment Revealing a Place of Everlasting Summer disorder, or HERPES. That's right, I've got HERPES and it's driving me nuts! That, or it's making my nuts itch. Either way, I should really see a doctor.

75 and Sunny is for the blond haired ne'er-do-well who wears a winter coat if it dips below 65, 75 and Sunny is for the person who shivers under a blanket if they can see their breath outside, 75 and Sunny is for the half-man, half-pectoral muscle, who is constantly afraid of encountering a thought other than "dude, my tan is totally awesome".

So, I call upon you, Californians United Nationally for Temperature Normality, or C.U.N.T. NORMS, to complain when the weather is "perfect"...because there's no such thing as perfection, and if you think there is, then you really should start watching more television. That should disavow you of that particular notion.

Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Jewish Ramblings (I channel my ancestors)

Rabbi Moshe Bagelwitz sat idly pondering his existence. "Now + here = nowhere", he thought.

Wow, that should be on a teeshirt. Let me etsy that little shmear of insightful intellectualism.

Then he googled the phrase and realized that no one, ever, at any point, has ever thought of anything remotely original.

The idea that any idea is original isn't even original, he thought. Oy...how am I to make a living in a contradictory world that requires original thought, but lacks all original thought? Just look at Hollywood's summer 2011 line up. It's a Quantum Leap-esque folly of reruns, hasbeens and why-evers.

The Rabbi wondered - what can I say to my congregation that will inspire them? What's a Jew to do, to do the Jews true? How can one man inspire dozens when he doesn't feel too inspired himself?

So, the Rabbi got incredibly drunk on Manischewitz. Sadly "Kosher Drunk" just means sitting around complaining about your surroundings in a slightly louder voice than you would normally complain about your surroundings. His realizations were uninspired and frankly, a little too expensive to be spending on wine. $6.99 on a bottle. Why, for the same price at Trader Joe's, a man can get yogurt cheese (for the ulcer), a bar of fine middle-eastern chocolate (for the pain-killing deliciousness), with still $2 left over for the finest Charles Shaw money can by. Oh, the prices are so savory. Better than sex, which the Rabbi never had - not because he's a rabbi, but because his penis looks like an inside out vagina.

Moshe needed something - anything - to get him to inspired. So, he turned to drugs. Not illicit drugs, mind you, but anti-Anxiety medication. He was thinking of doing some of "the weed" or "the grass", or whatever they called it, but then realized that he might get arrested and sent to jail, where skinheads rape Jews. Then his mother, what if his mother found out? She'd probably die, but before she did, she'd tell everyone how Moshe used to dress up in her flower-colored brassiere, put on Neon lipstick and sing Culture Club b-sides when he was 7 years old. How could he take one hit of the pot if it would definitely, without a doubt, lead to this? After he told his therapist these thoughts, she quickly prescribed him anti-anxiety medication. She wasn't an MD, mind you, but simply wrote what he said down verbatim and the pharmacist happily gave him whatever drugs would shut him up.

So Moshe was stuck - his attempts to find inspiration were uninspired. That's when he realized that the only original thought anyone can have is the one that doesn't exist. So, he killed himself to find out what not existing felt like.

In truth, it felt not too shabby. He didn't have to worry about rent, he didn't have to worry about love, and Heaven's got a pretty decent deal on second-hand lox with capers and a fresh garlic bagel. The only thing...the capers are a little too salty. I mean, really? You need to make capers even more salty? It's not enough to have high blood pressure, but the food you eat has to give you cardiovascular disease as well? I mean, I like a little salt, but does my food need to bathe in it? I'm just going to send it back and write a bad review on Yelp. Still going to tip 20% because these people work hard - they've got to send money back to Mexico or wherever they're from - I don't care, I'm sure they need it more than I do. But to be honest, it's been a little tight what with the kids in college and my ex renting that place on the Upper East Side. She needed a balcony like I needed a hole in the head - but she's got a much better lawyer than me. My cousin Richard knows nothing from lawyering, why do I listen to this schmuck's recommendations? Because I'm cheap and stupid, I am. Oy gevalt - I deserve it.