Mishpucha at the Movies

I have some news.

It has taken me quite a while to blog it.

Now the news is so old it's almost retro.

I have a job.  

A full-time, go to the office five days a week job.  

I had heard about these things,  but I never thought it could happen to me.

Farewell FurryCon, and Winkel in my eye, and all the other strange adventures of being self-employed.

The new job is very nice.  Everyone there is very nice.  Welcome to the family, people keep saying.  

Because apparently family is an indication of a warm workplace.  So long as you don't happen to be a Soprano, a Corleone, or have a family like mine.

Most people, upon landing a new job, might take a week off and go on an exotic tropical vacation, perhaps indulge themselves with a major purchase like a fancy new car.

The Macaronimaniac version of this Bermuda and a Beemer indulgence, alas, turned out to be spending the weekend in San Francisco hanging out with my college roommates, and treating myself to a new used Schwinn off Craigslist.

Yes, I am now such a bike geek, I am keeping a spare bike in another city.  

It is a little like having a mistress.

A maroon, ten-speed mistress whose tires could use a little air.

Okay, so maybe it's nothing  like having a mistress. 

It is a lot like having a method of transit to whisk yourself around the city, which is what college roommate Little Orphan Annie and I did, that one glorious Friday of her playing hookie from work and me not having started my new job yet.

We were so wild and out of control, we decided to go see a film right in the middle of the day.

Specifically, the new Coen brothers film.

Only problem, when you go to see a Jewish movie during the day, i.e. when they are not charging full price for the tickets, you are pretty much asking for it.

It being, having two AKs sitting behind you.  

(Note to my goyishe readers:  If you don't know what the AK in the previous sentence means, suffice it to say, 47 is about 20 too short.  If you still have no idea what in the name of Yiddishkeit I'm talking about, read up on it here).

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of amusing lines in the new Coen brothers film.  I just didn't need to hear them in surround sound--first from the screen, then repeated by Siskel and Eberg in the row behind us.

Welcome to the Mishpucha.

Air Show of Force

All work and no play makes Mac a dull blogger.

Most of the time.

But every now and again, work takes me to some fascinating new place, where I have exotic new experiences.

Like accidentally attending a FurryCon.

College friend Nick and I were back on the road this week, this time in San Francisco.
And since our biz travels always seem to coincide with something kinky, perhaps it's no surprise we turned up here to find it's Fleet Week.

It seems a little redundant to have shore leave in a city where everyone is already covered in tattoos, but I guess that's military intelligence for you.

For us, Fleet Week turned out to be more of flyover week:

The thing about the Blue Angels is that they're not as impressive as they used to be, back before movie special effects got so interesting.

Turns out, the actual planes are sort of mediocre by comparison to whatever is playing at the local multiplex. If you look closely enough at the clip above, you can practically see Shatner being tossed sideways in his Naugahyde captain's chair.

Still, it is loud and proud and does attract attention.

Kind of like a Jewish mother at her son's medical school graduation. Since the day he was born, I am telling you, the nurses in the delivery room all looked at him like he was already the one in charge.
Sort of amazing to see the cultured peeps of the City by the eBay getting their Blue Angels on.

Here are my fellow museum goers, in the sculpture garden, anxiously awaiting the next swoop of the jets.

Funny, most places in the world, when the U.S. military is about to fly over, the people beneath them are anxious in a whole other way.

Hebe on the Range

Dateline, 5770

Shanah Tovah I said to my friend Elon.

Not exactly big news (though perhaps big nose), one Jew wishing another a Happy New Year.

Except that it was happening in the VIP room at the Pendleton Round-Up.

Elon expressed some concern that I was going to get us killed, revealing our shared tribal identity.

I tried to reassure him that with any luck, our furrin jibberish would be mistaken for another tribal language entirely.

Not the kind of Princess who attended High Holiday Services at the Dix Hills Jewish Center, back on Long Island

Apparently, in Eastern Oregon, tribal dancing does not refer to the Hora.

Still and all, if you want a reason to say the Shehecheyanu (i.e., the blessing for new experiences) you really can't do better than Jew at a rodeo.

The entire weekend was very educational.

This is not a slick lick banker from the city, come to talk simple farm folk out of their land

This is the Cheez, in his homemade string tie (Recipe: buy string. tie string. good to go.), sitting with Young Joey Smallwood and not-s0-Millie Vannelli, in the lobby of the Balch Hotel in scenic Dufur, Oregon, where our party spent Erev RoundUp.

Half our party had rooms with a Mount Hood view. The other half had rooms with a private bath. Suffice it to say, Mount Hood is breathtaking, but a bit far to hike when you need to take a leak at 2 am.

Nevertheless, I do recommend the Balch Hotel. Especially over the alternative.

Alleyway "Suite," The Dalles, Oregon
No Mount Hood view, but you can pee just about anywhere,
including on the mattress. You probably wouldn't be the first.

I realize rodeo is not without controversy. I mean, just because I'm pro-seal hunt, doesn't mean I can condone a "sport" that involves animals being prodded and herded through a chute.

Oh, wait, those are the patrons.

So if you're wondering how a nice bleeding heart Jewish pescetarian like Macaronimaniac ended up Rounding Up: it was really an act of international diplomacy. Because Little Joey Smallwood had arranged for us to share the event with Hannu Penttila.

Hannu Penttila being not a pineapple-glazed Hawaiian pork dish (so not Rosh Hashana), but rather the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki.

Of course, the Finns being known for their wild and crazy ways, Hannu really taught the otherwise dour and sedate Pendletonians how to cut loose.

When Ken Isley, aka the Rodeo Clown, announced to the thousands of gathered fans that the crowd included a couple who had come all the way from Finland, someone in the stands greeted them with the welcoming shout, "At least they're not from France!"

I am not making that up.

The Finns were not the only ones having trouble crossing the cultural divide. When Cheez went off to the Little Cowpokes room, I asked him to pick me up a vegetarian snack on the way back. Alas, he spent twenty minutes waiting in the Beer Chips line.

Still, plastic beer tokens might have had more culinary appeal than some of the weekend's other offerings.
Of course, any event whose tagline is Let 'Er Buck offers fascinating gender politics as well.




I hadn't seen anything quite so manly since . . .
hmm, well . . . I guess that would have to be, since I lived in West Hollywood.








Seriously, I had no idea that when they announced which bareback rider had won the purse, they would mean it so literally.
Yes, men compete in grueling physical activity, and then the winner rides around the arena with his new handbag and new blanket. How butch is that?

Okay, not very. But I wouldn't mention that in Pendleton, any more than I'd wish them a great big L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu, and a rousing Vive La France.

Spotted at the Performing Arts Festival

Quiz:
What is the most striking element of this picture?

Answer: It's that in the three weeks since I leopardize my bicycle, no one has noticed it.

Well, no one except several homeless people, various of whom have commented positively as I rode by them.

This kind of hurt my pride.

And here I mean the vanity kind of pride, and not the pack of wildcat kind of pride. I'm pretty sure there is not yet a pride of leopard-bike riders in town. But it's Portland, you never know.

I even put in extra miles on the bike, shlepping all over to see TBA events. And by TBA events, I do not mean Traditional Birth Attendant. It's not that I don't know nothin about birthin babies. It's that I know this much about birthin babies: I have no damn desire to be doing it.

I mean Time Based Art, Portland's performing arts festival. Where you can see such inspired creativity as this:

Those are not hip artists doing performance art. It is a bunch of art lovers trying not to drop dead from the heat while sitting in Pioneer Courthouse Square on a ninety degree day, waiting for the performance art to start.

Here are the hip artists:
Or are they here?No, wait, right here! Here is art happening:Not the dude with the Free Hugs sign. He's just a random freak.  Not unlike Bovine of Arabia in the picture above.

The artists are the two short guys, who are part of a theater troupe called Back to Back Theatre (wily buggers, since they are actually pretty much belly to belly in this shot).  Back to Back features actors with disabilities, who perform plays in public spaces.

Spaces that happen to be filled with other people.  And, in this case, with tents, balloons, and free huggers (which now that I think of it are perhaps an inevitable  product of cross-pollination between Portland institution of free box and Portland infestation of tree huggers).  

The point is, none of this stuff was put there by the troupe.  They're just a handful of actors, performing without stage sets or extras.  Or performing with whatever stage sets and extras happen to turn up.

Part of the audience experience for me was watching everyone else in Pioneer Courthouse Square, to see whether they noticed the show.  Which most of them didn't.  Which is a great comment on how much human drama is going on around us all the time, and how oblivious we often are to the emotional struggles and triumphs of our fellow human beings.

Not everyone, of course.  You could see that too:  every so often, someone in the crowd would happen upon the actors and totally notice them.  Go up to them.  Maybe even try to talk to them.

There's a word for these kind of people.

Homeless.

That was my biggest epiphany while watching the play:  we middle class people spend a lot of the time that we are in public space trying to keep our focus as narrow as possible.  Trying not to notice anything that seems a little weird.  Definitely not stopping to soak it up or communicate with the person involved.   Anything too weird might sully us. Or sully our sense of safety.  Or our sense of entitlement.

Homeless people, by contrast, keep their eyes open for anything that might be going down. Might be a boon to them.  Might be a threat to them.  Might just be an animal print-decorated amusement to them.  That's why they're voted Mostly Likely to Notice My Bike.

My second biggest epiphany while watching the play is that their is a reason paper hats have not caught on as a long-term millinery medium.  And it's not just that it's hard to adorn them with cat ears.

The Dog Ate My Cre8ivity. Well, Actually It Was a Cartoon Cat.

According to the snOregonian, my friend Bill is a heavy hitter.

And by that, I do not mean that he is drinking the same juice as Jose Canseco.

Bill is a comedy writer. Just like me!

Except Bill actually gets paid to write comedy.

(I did once try to convince Bill that I, too, could be a paid writer of the television comedies, by pitching him my idea for a new series. And by new, I mean blatantly ripped off from an extant series, which is the way of the Hollywood. My show was just like Early Edition, except that—and here is the comic genius of me at work—instead of getting the whole paper in advance, the protagonist just got the Comics section. Look out, Jon! Garfield is going to steal your sandwich! Why Mr. Heavy Hitter didn't swing at that pitch, I cannot imagine.)

Perhaps the whole selling-the-loaf-instead-of-giving-away-the-slice-for-free thing is why Bill, and not MacaroniManiac, was the one asked to speak at the Portland Cre8ive Conference. A conference so cre8ive, letters alone cannot convey its cr8tivity.

Okay, I am going to stop doing that numbers for letters thing now. It is too annoying for words. Or for numerals, for that matter.

Anyway, Bill has spent the past few weeks procrastinating on the TV scripts he should be writing, to instead write his Cre8— er, I mean Creative Conference presentation, which he gave yesterday.

And then (here is the irony, which, as comedy vocationalists and avocationalists alike all know, is one of the great comic devices) this appeared in today's paper (click on the image and it will appear large enough to read):
If only there had been an Early Edition: Comics Section, Bill could have just used the Get Fuzzy strip for his presentation. And used the squirrels for all his other writing projects.

Then he would have had time to hang with me at the TBA festival, about which I will blog anon (as the Shakespeare-typing monkeys would put it, were they writing this blog).

Walgreen with Envy at Canadian Healthcare

Here's a helpful tip for our fair neighbor to the North (and by that, I mean Canada, and not just the Walgreen's):

Fire the police.

No, I'm not misquoting rap lyrics again. The four-letter F word I meant was indeed Fire.

Why would I suggest such a moronic thing? Not because I have anything against those charming Canuck gendarmes, I assure you.

I'd hate to see them all tossed out on their jodhpur-clad behinds.

I'm just extending the logic of the Republican's anti-health care rhetoric.

See, here in the U.S., we have public policing. And sure, it's good for emergencies. And for off-loading donuts.
But still, some wealthy people feel they have to wait too long or can't get the service they deserve if they rely solely on the "public option." So they choose to pay out-of-pocket for private security guards to keep their personal parking lot, gated community, or shopping mall of choice secure.

And, according to the Republicans,
if anyone anywhere in your country chooses to squander their hard-earned loonies (yes, I know, it's a little, well, luney, that that's what the Canucks call their money, but they do. I guess it's for the picture on the $1 coin. And I do mean the one of the Queen) for private care, then you can bet your maple glazed that no one can possibly benefit from having any public care.

I am quite proud of my rather charming Fire the Police analogy. Indeed, I'm hoping this blog entry will get picked up by all the major news outlets. Because of course I'm ready to weigh in as a leading voice in the whole health care debate. Since I am not a health care provider. Nor am I an economist who specializes in analyzing delivery of care. Not a medical ethicist. Not a . . .

Well, we could go on all day. The point is, I am not especially qualified. And lately it seems like I'm the only person who's not especially qualified who HASN'T weighed in.

For the record, I'm also not especially qualified to care for my squeeze the Cheez's aging parents, who suffer from every disease from diabetes to osteoporosis to cardiopathy to multiple sclerosis.

I am qualified to write a poem, maybe something with a charming ABCB that rhymes osteoporosis to multiple sclerosis, with, if the mood strikes and the meter holds, a possible forced rhyme of diabetes and cardiopathy. But actually caring for the ill, no dice.

Luckily, I don't have to do that. Nor does the Cheez. Nor do we have to go broke to pay those who do. Nor do his parents.

Let me say it, loud and proud. Cheez's parents are not dead thanks to Canada's healthcare system.

They're not even bankrupt over not being dead.

Which, given their lifelong relationship to matters fiduciary, is a freaking miracle.

So really, I don't think the public option is so bad.

Not for health care, and not for cops.

Truth is, I'd hate to see the Mounties go. Because they are so charming and so rich for metaphoric allusion.

As Cheez likes to note, the difference between his native land and mine is that in Canada, the national symbol is the Mountie. Order. Discipline. Abiding by the law.

In the good old U.S. of A, it's the cowboy. Rugged individualist. Romantic. Freedom-loving. All very well and good, but is that really who'd you trust with your long-term healthcare?

But for now, the closest I'm coming to healthcare of the quality enjoyed by our neighbors to the North is a little self-diagnosis and out-of-pocket over-the-countering over at the Walgreen's.

If a Jew Shmears in the Woods, You Know You Will Hear About It

Overheard on the McKenzie River last weekend:

You know how when you're scaling fish . . . began Nate.

I'm a Jewish woman I interrupted, so unless what you mean by scaling fish is "weighing the lox from the deli case to see if you have a quarter pound or maybe closer to a half pound," I have absolutely no idea what you could be talking about.

Yes, it's true.  When I go to the country (as I noted to our hosts before departure, in my tribe "the country" is defined as any place a hot pastrami sandwich cannot readily be purchased, a definition that I hold to even though as a confirmed pescetarian, I last ate pastrami during the Carter presidency), I should be packing a Nature-to-Yiddish dictionary.

Where I'm from, "going for a float" involves root beer, and not a trailer hitch.

Nevertheless, I do have certain skills I bring to the great outdoors.  After all, anyone who was raised at Loehmann's can hunt-and-gather with the best of them.

That's why I hunted up some habanero pepper at the grocery store, then gathered some vodka with which to infuse it, all before leaving Portland.  

Because although this is an inspiring vista, complete with unbelievably rich and beautiful hues:

So is this:

  Not to mention this:

Just be glad you weren't on hand for the raising and lowering of the flag out at Camp Kiltowski.

Anyway, we did have a lovely time, even if I felt very inadequate as hostess-with-the-utmostest Pat was pointing out flora and fauna and all that other nature crap that I can never remember.  

At least anyone who's spent as much time weighing a shmear (aka scaling fish) as I have can tell a bagel . . .

 . . . from A (Flock of) Seagull(s)

(hostess with the utmostest Pat

demonstrating just what damage 

one too many habanero vodkas can do to a lady)