Watch Out: It's a Republican (Laff) Riot

In 1982 I attended an event that so traumatized me that I lost my appetite for political stand-up comedy for decades. I took a date to a radical comedy night at Stuyvesant High School in New York. After four or five wretched acts, along the lines, "Hey man, Reagan really sucks, man," we snuck out to comfort ourselves with ice cream and Tab.

Except for one or two nights of improv, I never again had any interest in comedy clubs. The pain of bad political comedy remained raw and unhealed. Then, perhaps soothed by the calm balm of John Roberts as the new Chief Justice, my interest in stand-up comedy perked up. I started to get in touch with my long-suppressed desire for political stand-up by checking out a Margaret Cho CD from the library. While I disagree with her politically, Cho was very amusing and sometimes moving. "Say," I thought, "This political stand-up isn't so bad. Could some of it, left or right, actually be funny? How long should I let one horrid experience keep me away from the potential enjoyment the comic experience?"

Encouraged by my "date" with Margaret Cho, I bravely decided to "come out of the comic closet." My venue of choice: Don't Tell Mama in New York with its "Republican Riot" line-up for Friday Nov. 18. Leaving my office high over swanky Park Avenue, I wandered to West 46th Street. I was shown to a small round table about five minutes before show time, joining about seven other patrons. Hmmm, I thought, New York connoisseurs of Republican humor must be otherwise occupied tonight.

I did see none other than Mr. Ivan Lenin, Russian-born creative soul and driving force behind the group Communists For Kerry (CFK). I'd met Ivan before when photographing CFK at the Aug. 29, 2004 anti-war rally in New York, and later at a CFK street theater event at Union Square before the November election. We chatted after the show, and I'm happy to do some log-rolling for my fellow blognik.

The evening began right on time when MC Julia Gorin, a prolific writer and comic who came to the US from the USSR, headed on stage. The lineup featured Greg Banks, gay GOP comic (on crutches, no less, counting twice on the diversity-o-meter); Jewish marine veteran Dave Rosner (who showed his flat, hairy stomach), Indian-Japanese voiceover master Daniel Nainan, and New York Post editorial writer Robert George, with Gorin hitting the stage between acts with HIGHLY un-PC material regarding certain participants in the War on Terror (hint: they aren't Jews, Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus).

The material and yuk level varied. One comic shouted to the crowd, "Do you want tax cuts?" and we shouted back, "Yeah!" That pretty much rocked the house. Hey, you had to be there.

Naiman tickled the audience with imitations of his Indian father and Japanese mother. I can see him becoming the straight male Indian-Japanese conservative equivalent of Margaret Cho, a high compliment indeed. Robert George, self-described black Catholic West Indian Republican, had a polished delivery and plainly knows how to work a room.

Gorin closed the night with her material, including scabrous comments on Oprah Magazine's interview with the would-be girlfriend of a suicide bomber. She drew on her background an an immigrant to critique the US Jewish community, saying something like, "A lot of American Jews were disappointed when they found out Russian Jews moved to the US and became Republicans. They said, 'If we had known you'd become conservatives, we would have left your ass in Russia!'"

Bottom line: Conservatives can be funny, although, as with anybody, they've got to be funny first and conservative second. Was I snorting and drooling with helpless mirth? Not really, but I stayed amused, most of the time. More important, Republic Riot renewed my faith in political stand-up comedy, whether it comes from the left, the center, the right, the far right, or East Texas. Today, I can dream of the day when Margaret Cho, Oprah Winfrey, and Julia Gorin share a stage and a hug, sisters in arms, declaring their allegiance to truth, justice, and the American way of political comedy.

And then they introduce Oprah Magazine's Man of the Year, Sen. Zell Miller.

Like I said, I'm dreaming.

The Compulsion of Words

Twice in my life a compulsion gripped me to finish a book, to race ahead and be done with it for some reason I didn't understand.

This first happened when I read John Hersey's "Hiroshima," about the atomic bomb attack on Japan. I finished this book late on the night of Sept. 9, 2001.

The second happened today, when I slogged through the last 150 pages of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Ordinarily this type of book would take me two weeks to read; it had a level of mechanical mystery that moved the plot forward, but the writing and concept did not inspire me in the way of, say, "A Conspiracy of Paper" by David Liss. Yet I decided to shorten the reading cycle on an obligation-free Saturday and so I kept pushing forward.

I finished it around 6:15 pm, and a half-hour later I was signing in at the local Jewish Community Center for "Tapestry: A Community Celebration of Jewish Learning." I had no idea what classes I would take. Most were filled, so I selected two from those that remained open. The first was on Kabbalah. The second was on "The Jewish View of Human Sexuality," presented by the rabbi from the local Young Israel.

At the beginning of the session he announced, "I'm going to talk about something from the book 'The Da Vinci Code.'" This stunned me; I had finished the book barely an hour earlier. And I hardly expected an Orthodox rabbi to discuss a book on esoteric practices and the (fictional) hidden history of the Catholic Church.

The rabbi discussed Talmudic passages on sex, dealing with the big preconception (Jews don't have sex through a hole in a sheet), obligations, the commentaries against sex standing up (which reminded me of the joke that Southern Baptists don't have sex standing up because somebody might think they were dancing), and my favorite Talmudic story about the Garden of Eden (before Eve arrived on the scene, Adam had sex with all the animals, and found them lacking).

Near the end of the class the rabbi handed us copies of pages 308-309 and 445-446. I won't give the book away, but the passages indeed connected to the theme of the class. With the book so fresh in my mind, the lesson had a vivid immediacy. Read the book, and you'll never look at the Star of David the same way.

Still, I have to wonder at what strange cosmic force pushed me along on Saturday, page after page, until I finished. Some actions lie beyond rational thought.

The Republicans Attack! Weapon of Choice: Progressive Rock

Going back to at least Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" theme two decades ago, the Republicans have shown a knack for communicating their message. In the past week, they've unleashed another attention-getting message. It caught my attention not just for what it says -- that Democrats saw Saddam Hussein as a threat -- but how it says it. Go here and click on the video link on the home page.

Listen to the soundtrack playing behind the Democratic talking heads. Rather than pull ominous classical music, the GOP marketing mavens selected the bewitching riff from "The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" by Traffic, from 1971. What midnight planning session led to this stroke of genius, I know not, but the choice works incredibly well.

What's the message of the music? I doubt the GOP is taking a subliminal poke at the Democrats with the title of the song (which stops when Pres. Bush speaks at the end of the 3:45-long video). Perhaps it suggests that Republicans know all about great pop-culture references, with "Low Spark" a counter-intuitive choice from a group associated with "square" culture.

Most deliciously, maybe the music is deliberately ambiguous, not meant to chastise or wave flags, but to simply unfold and let the viewers locate their own emotional response.

A Modest Improvement for Sir Eric's Song, "Cocaine"

Over the summer, during a long drive to Washington, D.C., young Shmoikel and I checked out different radio stations. We finally settled on a classic rock station that wowwed me with a broader selection of songs than these tightly formatted stations usually play. Somewhere around the Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore the station played Eric Clapton's version of "Cocaine," by J.J. Cale.

Something clicked in me. I realized that this song cried out for some slight editing. The song resonates, but even the classics benefit from occasional spiffing up -- in the same spirit that generations of grade schoolers have tinkered with the lyrics to the "Star Spangled Banner" (speaking of Fort McHenry . . . )

So here's what I did. As the song played on the radio, the revised -- and, I think, improved -- version of "Cocaine" burst full-fledged into my mind. I simply substituted the word "SpongeBob" whenever Sir Eric mentioned "cocaine." And you know what? The song rocked! Just read the new lyrics below. I'm sure you'll agree with me:

By j. j. cale (revised by Mission2Moscow)

If you wanna hang out you’ve got to take her out; SpongeBob.
If you wanna get down, down on the ground; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; SpongeBob.
When your day is done and you wanna run; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; SpongeBob.
Don’t forget this fact, you can’t get it back; SpongeBob.
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie; SpongeBob.

Now, honestly, isn't that better? Some of you may scoff, and say, "Come on, Mission2Moscow, that's a stupid idea. Eric Clapton was singing about drugs, not a beloved TV cartoon character." That's true, up to a point, but Sir Eric sang about cocaine only because SpongeBob hadn't been invented yet. I think it very likely that Sir Eric may want to re-record the song after he reads this post (if I can get it to him past his manager, lawyer, and security guards).

All I ask is that you give this new version a fair listening. Just get up off your tuchis, go to your CD collection and pull out a Clapton CD with this song. Put it on your CD player. Crank it up loud, now a little louder. And every time Sir Eric sings "cocaine," shout "SpongeBob." You might want to even have your kids in the room to join the fun, since they love SpongeBob, too. Yell loud enough, and your kids won't ask what "cocaine" is.

I'm not ashamed to say I did exactly this on I-95, singing lustily, and the toll collectors really got into the spirit of it, often breaking out in song with me as I handed my money to them. Not once did DEA agents stop me to ask why I was playing this particular song over and over.

Like I said, it rocks. Try it and then I dare you to tell me I'm wrong.

A Pleasure, and Not a Guilty One

In July 1985 I met a woman named Loretta (real name, too) at a New York dance place called Visage, way out on West 56th Street. "I'm a reporter -- I write on computer stuff," I shouted into her ear over the thumping beat, and that caught her attention.

We kept talking. Before long she yelled, "I've taken the EST training and I'm also in therapy." Knowing my interest in Russia, she told me about the great possibilities of EST moving into the USSR.

I think about Loretta and our screwdrivers- and disco-driven night at Visage when I cruise Fairfield County in my fabulous 2004 Hyundai Elantra, radio tuned in to my new fave station, The New Mix 102.7 (technically WNEW, but nobody calls it that) in New York. The concept is simple: disco and dance classics, with long blocks of ad-free music. Over the past two months or so, I have found myself returning again and again to the station as a listening pleasure. To my surprise, I recognize only about half the music, compared to the 100% recognition rate on classic rock stations. "Coming up another big block of the Stones, Billy Joel, Elton John, Bruce, the Eagles, Madonna, Chicago, Cher" zzzzzzzzz. (I dazzle my son, Schmoikel, with my ability to name almost any song on a classic rock station within 5 seconds.)

The music on 102.7 is so compulsively fun, fresh and emotionally connected that I don't mind hearing stuff I know well. For the same reason, I never get tired of listening to the soundtrack to the movie "Carlito's Way," which sure beats listening to the soundtrack of "Schindler's List" (just some of the primo swag I got as a reporter in the home video industry).

Besides reminding me of Loretta, the music takes me back to parties, events, and those intimate moments in life where Barry White or Marvin Gaye were just what the love doctor ordered. Call me a hopeless romantic, but when I hear Tavares singing . . .

Now winter's gonna turn to spring
And you haven't accomplished a thing
So baby can't you make me just a little time
Cause you never know what's on my mind

It only takes a minute girl
To fall in love, to fall in love
It only takes a minute girl
To fall in love, let's fall in love

. . . then I feel a nerve in my brain getting strummed like a guitar string. And I like that feeling. Not to overanalyze dance music, but it connects both musically and lyrically to intense parts of my life.

Even the numbers 102.7 are magic. Mix is the latest incarnation for a station that's struggled to find a workable format for years. Classic rock, talk, one flop after another. After I moved to NYC in 1980, I quickly came to favor 102.7 in its identity as WNEW-FM, "The Place Where Rock Lives." With a great line-up of DJs like Richard Near and Pete Fornatele, it marked the last time I listened to a rock station with any sense of real identification. I even had an 'NEW gym bag and attended a listener event at the Bottom Line. Then tastes changed, ratings tanked, and the search for a winning format began. The DJs adapted, then scattered. I gave up on the station as my own interests moved toward jazz, blues and Latin genres.

But now, the format wheel has spun again and Mix 102.7 is a winner, at least for me. It goes beyond nostalgia to deliver a likable and vibrant sound and message. Maybe Loretta's listening to it right now and remembering that kooky reporter with the Russia fixation. And all I have to do is turn the beat on to remind myself that, really, it only takes a minute.

Here's hoping the special minute has arrived for my new 'NEW friends at 102.7, the sound of the past and the future.

They're All Democrats in France

Question: How do you tell the difference between Democrats, Republicans and Southern Republicans?

The answer can be found by posing the following question:

You’re walking down a deserted street with your wife and two small children. Suddenly, an Islamic Terrorist with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, praises Allah, raises the knife, and charges at you. You are carrying a Glock cal .40, and you are an expert shot. You have mere seconds before he reaches you and your family. What do you do?

Democrat’s Answer:

Well, that’s not enough information to answer the question!
Does the man look poor! Or oppressed?
Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
Could we run away?
What does my wife think?
What about the kids?
Could I possibly swing the gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
What does the law say about this situation?
Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it?
Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society and to my children?
Is it possible he’d be happy with just killing me?
Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
If I were to grab his knees and hold on, could my family get away while he was stabbing me?
Should I call 9-1-1?
Why is this street so deserted?
Why isn’t he happy playing nighttime basketball?
We need to raise taxes, have a paint and weed day and make this happier, healthier street that would discourage such behavior.
This is all so confusing! I need to debate this with some friends for few days and try to come to a consensus.
Can I call Howard Dean or John Kerry and see what they think I should do?

Republican’s Answer:

BANG!

Southern Republican’s Answer:

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! click…..(sounds of reloading).
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!BANG! click
Daughter: “Nice grouping, Daddy! Were those the Winchester Silver Tips or Hollow Points?”

John Fowles, Lord of Flip Value

In addition to Tom Sawyer and biographies of Davy Crockett, my most memorable adolescent reading experience involved The French Lieutenant's Woman, written by John Fowles, who died on Monday. This is remarkable especially because I did not read the entire book until I was in my 40s.

I did, however, read a page or two while a teenager, around 1974. Somehow I got my hands on the paperback edition and, with a hormonal teenage male's unerring instinct for "the good parts," my eye fell on page 313. (that's the hardback I found at the Westport library, end of chapter 40; go ahead and pull the paperback off the shelf and see what I mean; I'll wait for you.)

"She reached then and took his recalcitrant right hand and led it under her robe to . . . " You get the point -- certainly, the male protagonist did.

As you are now experiencing, my heart raced, my puka-bead necklace quivered, my imagination soared, and what seemed like scaldingly erotic prose permanently burned itself into my id. At that moment, Fowles scored at the top of the "flip value" scale. For those unfamiliar with this essential male concept, "flip value" refers to the number of enjoyable parts of a book or publication. So, um, Sports Illustrated has high flip value when you flip through the magazine and finds lots of stories involving teams you want to read about. High flip value equals lots of good sections with fine, insightful writing, or something like that.

I never treated this as secret knowledge. At the town library I once nudged my friend D and said, "Hey, man, take a look at page 313." He did, exclaiming, "Why, Mission2Moscow!"

Fowles' passage lingered in my mind for decades. I finally decided to read the book (I never saw the movie, since Meryl Streep movies by definition have little "flip value"). Reading the scalding passages in context, their meaning changed radically. The 16-year old M2M totally misinterpreted the book and the action. Soon after hands go into robe, the chapter ends, "He was racked by an intolerable spasm. Twisting sideways he began to vomit into the pillow beside her shocked, flungback head." Ewwwwww. That's on page 315.

Still, my mind drifts back to the pure jolt of Fowles' language, the elegance of possibility, a glide rather than a slam into intimacy. For that I'll always be grateful. Skimming The French Lieutenant's Woman yet again, I don't see flip value, but only value.

Dept. of Most Unfortunate Timing

Far be it from me to waste a few minutes of prime page-flipping time at the dentist's office. On Saturday before my semi-annual checkup I perused the November issue of Travel+Leisure. The cover article, titled, "Best of Paris," is in some places unintentionally amusing in light of the current youthful hijinks in France.

Writer Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni starts with an overview of the political potential of prime minister Dominique de Villepin and interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, then writes, "They're just part of the general excitement and optimism of Paris these days." (Both men figure prominently in the excitement of Paris, although the optimism is suddenly subdued.)

Soon, Fraser-Cavassoni uncorks THE best line in the entire issue, "Suddenly, the City of Light is smoldering again."

Let me repeat, just to make sure you don't mis-read it: "Suddenly, the City of Light is smoldering again."

Elsewhere, the article discusses the Hôtel du Petit Moulin, with the wonderful note that the rooms are "a riot of color."

Oui, oui, les French know much these tempestuous days about "a riot of color." Or should be that "riots of color"?

As we used to say in Hidalgo County, oy gevalt.

The Secret Relationship of Jews and Cricket: Who Knew?

Leave the comfortable yet self-tormented shores of American Ashkenazic Jewry and wonders emerge from the fog. Jewish film festivals are a great way to vicariously meet our landsmen of different habits and hues, and actions. See enough films and startling patterns take shape. I had that experience during the Jewish Film Festival of Lower Fairfield County, which finished last night. Out of the three films I saw, two of them involved the deep love of Jews for . . . cricket.

I delighted to see people playing cricket, a game far removed from the mainstream American, and American Jewish, experience. Well, not totally removed; in 2000 I played cricket for the one time in my life, when a team from the Stamford office of Mongoose & Co. (my affectionate pet name for the World's Greatest Consulting Firm, which employed me at the time) squared off against a team from a New Jersey office. Mostly I recall how hard it was to hit the ball, and the little sandwiches we ate on the sidelines.

So the Jews-and-cricket themes resonated with me. First I saw Wondrous Oblivion, set in London in the early 1960s. David Wiseman, 11, is the son of Holocaust survivors. He's a cricket fanatic but not a very good player, as the cruel boys of Slitherin House (oops, wrong movie, right characteristics) remind him. Hope emerges when a cricket-enabled Jamaican family moves in next door. What follows combines elements of "Bend It Like Beckham" with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?"

Last night's closing film, Turn Left at the End of the World, is an exceptionally good Israeli/French film from last year. It deals with Indian and Moroccan immigrants to Israel in 1968. Tensions abound, but the Indians find solace and a way of contributing to their new desert community through cricket. Compared to the green fields of Wondrous Oblivion, Turn Lefts puts cricket in a desert, complete with camels and highly untraditional audience behavior. In another contrast, Turn Left throbs with images of hot and naughty Sephardic girls. This Hebrew-language site has stills from the movie that give a slight sense of the visually delightful cast (and that applies to the guys in the film, too).

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, cricket. Sorry, I got distracted there by Sephardic girls. Other bloggers have thought more deeply about the intense relationship of Jews and cricket, and you can read their informed thinking at Normblog and Adloyada. So the next time you see cricketeers in a park, splendid in white and eating cucumber sandwiches, just remember -- they may include members of the tribe, sticky wicket division.

Bring Me the Aroma of Carlos Santana

Cosmopolitan magazine always amuses and informs me, far more than the lame pages of, say, GQ or Maxim. The October issue alerted me to the dangers of thongs and unhygienic bikini waxes (ouch!). The ads are great, too, for mysterious products I never need, in colors of subtleties I'll never grasp.

Without a doubt the most attention-grabbing ad in the October issue has the simple headling, "Introducing Carlos Santana(TM) fragrances for men and women." The tagline at the bottom purrs, "Arouse Your Senses." Red-themed native-looking artwork shows Santana with his ever-present hat against a background of densely drawn bongos, spirals, hands, eyes-in-hearts, and even a man looking like Carlos putting his hand on the head of a kneeling peon, an ambiguous scene suggesting either a blessing or a plea for oral sex.

Now, celebrity perfumes are common. Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker, Shania Twain have them. I can see the logical connection between fashionable, attractive women and fragrannces. But the connection is much more tenuous with men, as seen in the belly-flop of Donald Trump's fragrance.

Santana's stab at the smell test connects me to a lot of musical memories. Coming of age in the late 1960s in a heavily Hispanic part of the country, I liked his early music with its mix of Latin rhythms and Spanish lyrics and rock instrumentation. Abraxas from 1970 had very heavy (as we used to say then) liner notes. Early Santana had a sound that remains fresh 35 years later; the only other group I can say that about is ZZ Top. The music was so evocative of swirling colors, palm trees, the border experience, the possibilities of music beyond Anglo pop sounds.

I always wondered what Santana (the man, not the band) smelled like. After Woodstock, I figured he was sweaty. After he went off the spiritual deep end and called himself Devadip Carlos Santana, I figured he smelled like an Austin head shop full of black-light posters.

And now Santana is answering the question, at fine retail outlets everywhere. Or, cut out the middleman and buy directly from the Santana website. Santana is sending his message of peace and love to a suffering world with fragrances for both men and women. He must be doing something right in the technical sense, since perfume pros like the stuff.

Like a good marketer, Santana knows the difference between boys and girls. Not for him is a unisexual odor for everybody. Nope, sometimes he smells like a guy, and in those very special moments he wants to smell like a girl. So he made sure his products have just the right appeal for the moment. Note:

For men: "This smooth, woody musk fragrance was inspired by the music and passions of Carlos Santana. The aroma just after rainfall, in combination with the clean notes of Maja soap, is the essence of this timeless creation."

"Carlos Santana For Women blends exotic fruits with subtle florals and rounds out the scent with soft, sensuous musk to create a seductive, warm fragrance."

I have to wonder what smooth-talker got Santana to sign up for this misguided vanity project. (He may not even be that serious about it. The Santana Fragrances site is still under construction, a deadly marketing error.) He already sells hats, shirts, books, CDs, and other tchatchkas on his website, and his record sales over 40 years mean he's not hurting financially. The product just makes no sense; as a man I wouldn't wear the stuff, and if I gave the female fragrance to a Significant Other I'd probably get the bottle cracked over my head (note to self: need to write about the harrowing Mother's Day Tiffany's silver challah knife episode).

Sorry, Charlie: I'm not buying it, literally or figuratively. Now if there were a Santana home hair-weave kit . . .