Atonement after Death, various things after atonement
On the 15th, someone I think was really cool died of lung cancer.

The 15th was the first day of Rosh HaShana--the Jewish New Year.

He had been sick for several months, and had been a several packs a day smoker for years. He was quite a guy. A veteran of the Korean war, he was quite a war buff. He played computer war simulation games. He also was quite the professional on several fronts. He never did anything half-assed. He either did it and went FULL into it, or delegated it. And when he delegated it, he wanted it done just so.

He was very exact/precise. He was successful in business, and it was apparent from his approach to things in general, but especially all things artistic

He was a sweetie, and told good (sometimes politically incorrect) jokes. He was such a sweet man. His wife is a celebrity, and he was an important man in his own right.

I went to the wake. I'd never been to a wake before. There were several celebrities there. ..It was very strange. I know about the Jewish version of this ritual. "Shiva" (or "Sitting Shiva") happens after the funeral. Wakes happen before. Wakes have the deceased in an open casket (sometimes). I'd never seen a dead body before. Six Feet Under does NOT prepare you for the real thing.

The deceased being honored at this wake loved golf...There was a little piece of golf green next to the casket, along with his clubs and golf shoes....EKG (Employee)had helped him set up his iPod...That same iPod was plugged into speakers and was playing his favorite music.

I got to meet members of his immediate and extended family. It was quite cool. They all had fond memories of him. I didn't attend the funeral, but I understand it was quite a gathering. There's more. Maybe later.

Today was Yom Kippur. Jon Stewart had a great Yom Kippur quote:
Catholics have Lent...40 days ..to get absolution for your sins.
Yom Kippur: Jewish Day of Atonement. You don't eat for one day, all your sins are gone. Beat THAT! "Lent"! Even in sin you're paying retail! Bargain with The Man. He's a good Man."

Jon was obviously doing what he does best..But..it brings up a serious point.

I read in a synagogue newsletter..that Jews should treat their "High Holy Days" experience as if they were going before the King (they didn't mean Elvis) to plead for their lives. We wouldn't be casual about it..we wouldn't wander off, thinking about many different things....This king controls their fate.

I'm sure that if someone on trial in a monarchy knew he would have the opportunity to talk to the king about his case..he'd prepare very well...Behave as much as he could...And...try and show some effort.

For those (like me) who'd shown no effort all year..to go before the most powerful King and say "God, I know you haven't seen me all year, but..please keep things good for me this year" How disrespectful! Rabbi Irwin Katsof said very well in his book "How To Get Your Prayers Answered". Treat God as a valued friend or relative..someOne you'd welcome to the table....(I'm paraphrasing, of course).

I dunno. It's hard to connect with God on anything but a personal level. The language of prayer says outright that..I have made a committment to God that I clearly haven't....The whole motif of "Have mercy on us..we're trying our best"..would be a disrespectful lie, I think.

There were many reminders of death during this Jewish holiday season....Let's hope we get past it.
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 1:30 AM

 
Shakedown '04
If Tony Soprano were a real person, he would not be impressed with the attempted "shakedown" that was imposed on me yesterday. The term "shakedown" probably dates back not very far, to Mafia traditions. It simply means extortion. (Picture someone being held upside down and shaken till money falls out of their pockets, purses, orifices, whatever).

So..here's the skinny on the shakedown. My lovely trainer, Everton, was told that he was not allowed to train me in the gym at which I just re-upped my membership. However, for $300 a month, he could pay "rent", and have full run of the facilities, solicit clients, and get referrals from the gym. Not a very sweet deal, REALLY. It's a variant of "pay for play". We don't like it.

When I complained, I was given the number of the gym's headquarters, a/k/a Complaints Central. I was told to speak to "Nexus". There aren't that many people in the world NAMED Nexus, so it was very memorable. I told her my tale of woe, and that I didn't appreciate having my trainer shaken down when he had never been to their facilities before, had never heard of ..my gym, even though they have a bunch of locations, and didn't intend to go back there, except to train me.

Nexus was nice enough. She couldn't help me, but took my number, and told me that the Director of Training would get back to me after 4 PM that day. I waited. By 4:25, he still hadn't called, so I showed some initiative and called him.

Not every company in the world *needs* a director of training. A stud farm probably doesn't need such a person. In a gym environment, I suppose it made sense. I had to ask myself what a director of training did. I was about to find out.

The gentleman (and I use the term loosely,) got right on the phone when I called.

I re-told my tale of woe. I told him how the young gentleman who re-enrolled me told me it was fine for me to bring my own trainer. And this was the first I heard of the Tony Soprano-like motif. The Director spoke of the young gentleman "Oh yeah, da kid". It sounded straight outta "Goodfellas".

The Director of Training was unimpressed. He mentioned that all of his trainers (and that IS how he referred to them "my trainers", almost implying that he employed them, or that they were somehow beholden to him, or that they felt like family...) pay it. He tried to help me do the math. A trainer who pays $300 in "rent", he said, could solicit (or be referred) 20 clients at $50/hour, and make $1000...(Of which 30% would go to the gym.)....This rent thing wasn't going away. To paraphrase Eddie Murphy: That shit stays with ya forever, like herpes.

I explained that my trainer was busy enough, and that he didn't need them. He works with people at their homes. My place is just too damn small. He told me I only need room for a mat, but...still, it's a small place. I didn't want to have to buy weights or other workout accountrements. That's why I got a gym membership in the first place.

Here it comes. Wait for it....

The Director told me that sometimes a trainer only pays lesser rent to work with just ONE client at the gym. $50/month. I was..beginning to see where this was going, but I needed it fleshed out better. The math sucked at $50/month. My trainer charges me $50 /hour. So..if he paid his gross of one hour with me to do one hour a week at the gym, he'd....NAH! This could never be equitable for him. And it's really beyond bad to ask him to absorb it. It'd also be undignified to have me pay it, give it to him, and tell him to take care of it.

So I realized if I wanted to have my cake and not have it force-fed to me, I'd best just allow myself to get shaken down. So..I told him I could absorb the $50/month.

Then came the instructions:

"Every munt..on da foist-a-da munt....you'll leave an envelope at da front desk of ya gym. You'll write on da envelope 'For Rick'". He didn't quite sound as smooth as a "made guy". Maybe he sounded like a soldier, or a "kid"...But I digress. He told me that I'd have an envelope waiting for me at my gym. It'd have in it the Director's personal cell phone number on a business card..and that, if I had any problems, I should call him.

This SO sounded like a mini protection-racket. It was almost quaint. I couldn't help but think how I'd seen this in the movies, but that it'd never happened to me before.

So..let's review. We started out at the $300/month shakedown. I balked and told him I'd walk away *and* cancel my membership. We then went to $50/month in one leap. The last thing I remember having said to Herr Director was that "The Sopranos" was one of my favorite shows.

If Tony Soprano had been a real person, he'd be shaking his head as if to say "This kid really hasn't learned the game yet."...This didn't feel quite like a shakedown. It felt more like a light dab. I wonder how many people reading this get THAT reference. Some shake, others dab. A dab is much more polite and feminine. Think about it.
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 5:44 AM

 
We can work it out...
Tonight I had my second experience with a personal trainer. My first was with a nice woman named Linda. She made me break a sweat, which I liked. T'was a real shvitz.

Tonight I had a workout with Everton. Everton is a sweet man who trains a friend of mine. I met him at the wedding I was at on Sunday night. He didn't carry a business card....He's a tall, muscular West Indian man. Very good commercial for his own services. If he had a website, I'd link to it.

I told him that I'd renew my gym membership if I could work out with him there. I told the gym's front desk attendant that too. Turns out they have a "pay for play" scam there. They'll only let a trainer in to work with a gym's client if he, the trainer, pays "rent" there. He pays the gym a kickback of $300 a month, which they call rent. When he pays the $300, he can work with the gym's clients, and he's "free" to solicit them, or bring in his own people. What a scam.

Everton, very reassuringly told me that he can work out with me at my place. All I need, he said, is space for a mat. He would bring weights. Perhaps he'd sell them to me. 8 lb. weights. I thought that, perhaps I wasn't doing enough since I didn't break a tremendous sweat while working with him.

I like the idea that..the human body has been around since LONG before there were stairmasters. A good trainer does NOT need the tools in the gym if he knows what he's doing. Working out the human body is low tech...It must be. It's been around for a long time, and there were buff people 2000 years ago. Either that, or Cecil B. DeMille's portrayal of Moses and Joshua in "The Ten Commandments" was vastly overdone. Joshua was buff.
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 9:23 PM

 
Concentric circles at a Jewish wedding
Last night the daughter of a good friend got married. The bride looked radiant. The wedding was interesting on many fronts. The family business on the bride's side is food and food service. They're damn good at it too. One of the many benefits to knowing someone in the food/food service business is that when they plan a wedding, they can really oversee the caterers for the affair, and ensure that the offerings would be well chosen and well executed.

Jews LOVE to talk about food. At a Jewish wedding, there is always lots of food. At THIS Jewish wedding there was a lot of it, with an amount of variety I hadn't seen before..especially at the smorgasbord, which is typically the first part of the event. A smorgasbord is a good time for people to get into the hall (before the ceremony), mingle a little, and get ready to settle in. By the time the smorgasbord is over (at least an hour after the scheduled beginning time of the affair), the guests are led into the chapel/synagogue for the wedding ceremony.

I knew this was going to be an interesting wedding from the time I got the invitation. The top of the invitation (typically where the parents of the 2 kids say that they are glad to announce the forthcoming marriage of their two children..) They had 7 parents listed for the 2 kids. The mother of the bride; The father of the bride and his new wife; The mother of the groom and her new husband; the father of the groom and his new wife. This offered many possibilities for meeting interesting people.

I did meet a few interesting people. Among them, an art teacher who used to be a showbusiness agent, renowned actor Fyvush Finkel (friend of the family)..I even had my picture taken with Fyvush. If you're not sure who Fyvush is, he won an Emmy for best supporting actor on "Picket Fences". My favorite role of his was as Harvey Lipshultz on Boston Public. Fyvush is 3rd from the left in the faculty list.

Back to the wedding party. The mother of the bride is also out as a lesbian. More specifically, she's an "out", Orthodox Jewish lesbian. Her partner was also there. It was a family event, so of course the mother of her bride, AND her family were there. It was SO cool. Now, because of the religiousness of the (groom's) family, the bride's mother and her partner could not sit at the dais together. That's just a damn shame. The bride's mother's partner got good placement, though.

My table had some interesting people too.

But onto concentric circles. Orthodox Jewish lesbians travel in at least two circles: Orthodox Jewish ones, and lesbian/gay/trans ones. I love watching those circles come together. One Orthodox gay man was there with his partner (who is black and not Jewish). They were discreet, though.

The bride and the bride's two brothers are all cool about their lesbian mom. Their lesbian mom is really cool..so...I'm happy that she and her children are on good terms.

Fyvush Finkel is..just like one would imagine he would be. If you ever saw the TV show Boston public, he seems a bit curmudgeonly..but he's ..a kindly older Jewish man. Such a sweetie. He's the kind of guy you'd like as your grandpa. Fyvush was a child star in the Yiddish Theater. It was really quite cool to meet him. He was in the original company of Fiddler on the Roof. Jerome Robbins' company 40+ years ago.

So again..concentric circles. Fyvush and The Lesbians...sounds like the name of an East Village band...If it isn't, it should be.

The bride is marrying into a very "black hat" family. "Black hat" is a collolquial representing the fact that many of them adhere to Jewish law very strictly, and dress in black--a color which conveys modesty (at least in the Jewish culture. Interestingly enough, black is also the color of goth, and one of the colors most identified with slutwear. Red comes in a close second, I think.

But I digress. I am not casting aspersions on Orthodox Judaism. I think it's quite wonderful, and I have warm fuzzies for it. A rather geeky gentleman was trying to make flirty conversation with me for a good portion of the evening. I almost always feel complimented when someone hits on me. It's just not always comfortable.

All in all, however, it was a beautiful wedding. Mazel Tov to the bride and groom, and their families
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 7:45 AM

 
Shoppin' and Jonesin'
I set a personal record yesterday. I spent 4 hours shopping for two pieces of clothing. I'm going to a(n Orthodox Jewish) wedding (and we're talkin' MEGA Orthdox..at least in terms of its location) this coming Sunday. I have to look reasonable at this ceremony. With weddings come wedding pictures. And now that digital cameras are dirt cheap, and most people don't want to ask the happy couple for copies of pictures, people bring their own. If I'm to be in anyone's pictures at a formal affair, I have to do my best to look decent.

I generally have very good shopping luck. That is...I generally have been able to go to Macy's, find something in which I look okay-to-good, at a very reasonable price, and be out of there within half an hour.

I spent part of Thursday, and a good chunk of Friday trying to "get lucky" again. On my first day out..I found NOTHING. To find nothing at Macy's is, for me, unheard of. I was looking for a simple dress, in summer fabric, that provided decent neck and leg coverage. I didn't think that was asking too much.

Then again, I was coming rather late to the party. That is, I was shopping on (or right before) Labor Day Weekend, the day the Republicans were leaving town, hoping to find SUMMER clothes, for an affair the weekend following the shopping trips. This was poor planning on my part. I must admit that. I've been so overloaded by so many things, that the easy stuff escaped me. However, I can't really blame it all on that. Stupidly, I was counting on my previous shopping luck to pull me through here.

It gets better, though. I typically have my best luck looking for women's suits and separates. So..why should this time be any different? Well, there were several reasons. It's early September. Fall fashions are in. Summer clearance stuff is either not there at all, or is SUCH slim pickin's, that I would be lucky to find a scarf in my size. Macy's (normally my guaranteed, sure-fire winner) turned up NOTHIN'..at first. People recommended various other places. Among the stores to which I was referred are: Loehmann's, H&M, Zara, Bergdorf Goodman, and Lord and Taylor.

Loehmann's has been reduced to having only one Manhattan store. That store is not in midtown.

I have been told by several people that Zara would be good. Zara specializes in "knock offs". My understanding of the term "knock off" is that big name clothing designers create expensive, original products every season, and put them out in the retail fashion world. Zara and its ilk, in turn, steal the intellectual property of these designers, and manufacture "look alikes"/"clones"...without compensation to the designer. Now, perhaps the "knock off" designers aren't going for a replica of the original, but rather something that looks comparable to the original. Assuming they take the latter, rather than the former approach,

Regardless of their business practices, they had little to offer me. They, like many others, had little in the way of summer fashions. The average employee seemed to be of an age at which being able to legally purchase alcohol is a long term aspiration. The..umm...load balancing (my euphemism for the weight gain that comes with age, and being too sedentary) factor had not set in yet with these childlets.

I was in and out of H&M (and Jeffrey Cole) so fast, the security guards didn't even bother looking at me. Despite my initial bad luck, I tried Lord and Taylor.

Lord and Taylor is set up very similarly to Macy's. I kinda liked that. But every big store has its own layout and style. Nonetheless, Macy's and Lord and Taylor carry many of the same designers' products. I checked out the women's suits and separates areas, and had no luck. The situation there was pretty much the same as at Macy's...Fall stuff was in, so summer stuff was in short supply. The clearance areas on the 3rd floor turned up nothin'.

Then, I went to the 4th floor, at the suggestion of a nice woman who seemed the type who would get more pleasure out of telling everyone to go to tell, as she would telling me to go to the fourth floor. Nonetheless, I figured that since she worked there, she had a clue. It was my first time in L&T in many years. I vaguely remember going with my former sugar daddy, and once before that with my mother. (I think I was about 6 when I went with my mother.)

The fourth floor was the formal gowns and dresses floor. Most of the stuff they had there seemed more appropriate for queens than for princesses. (Whichever meaning of queen or princess you're guessing is right will probably work in the sentence above this one.)

The 4th floor had a significant clearance rack compared to the floors below it. Already I felt a ray of hope.

Burgundy has always been a color I could work with. I have dark brown hair, and olive undertones below my reasonably fair skin. I found a burgundy dress that was the right length, the right size. The only real problem with it was the low neck. Not only would it be inappropriate to go "neckked" to an Orthodox Jewish wedding in a REALLY Orthodox part of Brooklyn. I found a dress that, in the light in which I saw it, seemed to be a dark brown. Turns out it was burgundy, but so what? It seemed worth trying on. As a bonus, it was in the $29.99 clearance rack. The nice saleswoman from the Baltic Republic led me to a fitting room. (We must explore some of the fashion euphemisms some day. Comedian Sabrina Matthews has at least one good joke about that). I tried on the dress, and it did fit. The low neck was too noticeably low...I also noticed a hole in the dress.

Ms.Baltic asked me if I'd take the dress if she could have the hole mended within 15 minutes. I told her that I would take it if she could "Beat The Clock". She went to the alterations department with the dress, and brought it back all nice and unholey.

When she checked me out (that is to say..when she allowed me to pay for the dress), she went to another patron in the store, and asked if she, the saleswoman, could borrow the patron's Lord and Taylor coupon. When one put the coupon near the point of sale barcode scanner, the discount associated with the coupon was applied to the purchase. Additionally, these coupons can be re-used. THat's great. So..My $29.99 dress went down to $23 and some change.

I was now at least minimally committed to Burgundy Brown and her dress of renown. I'd need something to go either underneath or above the low neckline. In the past, I'd gotten away with a silk t-shirt or tank top of of the same color as the dress. I didn't find anything even close at Lord and Taylor. Nice women on various floors tried to help me. I looked for separates, accessories, shawls, even....Nothing worked. Someone even suggested I try the intimate apparel area so that I could find something else that was the right color, crepe-like, with a high neckline. No go. Or as EKG is fond of saying NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN G! (pronounced N G..with an extended N).

A nice Jamaican woman asked me "Have ya tried Macy's?". I had, in fact, started out this particular shopping jaunt with a trip to Macy's the day before. However, the game had changed. I was now only looking for a separate--a jacket, or perhaps something to go under the dress to cover the neckline.

And here's where the subject line comes in. Jones New York had a pretty darn good solution..a cream colored jacket with the perfect neckline..I grabbed it. Now...Jones New York has been dressing me for at least 8 years. They know how to dress women for business. I was shopping too late in the season for them to have helped me on the dress or even a suit this time around..but they came through for me, in the end.

There's more to the story, but I'm tired.
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 4:27 AM

 
How to cure unemployment; How to fix an ailing Jewish business
(This is one of my favorite stories)...I feel the need to blog it.

I've heard several iterations of it, but..for some reason, I find old Jewish people to be the funniest. If there is a known iteration of a joke, and that iteration or version involves old Jewish people, I'll probably like it better than any other version. This is not a bias, really..It's probably just a reflection of my upbringing.

There is a comedian from the 1920s through the 1940s named Barney Bernard. He got famous in his day for the "Cohen" series. "Cohen at the Telephone", "Cohen at the ballgame"....Cohen is a clueless Jewish immigrant. I first heard "Cohen At The Telephone" on the Rhino "American Comedy Box".

Barney Bernard's character reminded me of my paternal grandfather.

But..that's another story for another time.

This is the story of Abie and Sarah--an eighty-something year old couple living on the West Side of Manhattan. They've been married for 53 years...One day, Abie comes home..He'd just been fired from his job. He's distraught, depressed....

Sarah, ever the practical wife, asks the important questions: "How are we going to eat? Can we pay the rent? When are you going to get another job?".

Abie mutters that he's far too upset to even THINK about taking another job. She says "Fine! I'll go out and work."...Abie laughs at her. "You?", he says. "What kind of job are YOU gonna get?". She retorts to him "I've been married to YOU for 53 years. I can be a hooker." ...He laughs at her again. "You? A hooker? Who's gonna want you? You're 80 years old!". She says in a knowing voice "You'll see, Mister!".

With fresh resolve, she wakes up early Tuesday morning..Goes out, spends what savings she has on a new dress, 4" high heels..she gets a makeover....She comes home, gets dressed, puts on her finest jewelry, and her best wig. By about 7PM, she's ready to hit the road, and she's lookin' pretty good. Abie, with a mix of admiration for his wife's transformation, and trying to hold back a laugh at the thought of what she's about to do, wishes her good luck.

And off goes Sarah on Tuesday evening. Abe looks at the clock around midnight. No Sarah. He pays it no mind, and goes to bed.

He wakes up the next morning..STILL No Sarah. A smirk comes to his face, and he figures "Maybe she got lucky". Having doubted his wife's ability to make a buck, Abie goes about his day, contented, a little bit jealous, and a little bit sad.

By 7PM, 24 hours after she'd left, still no Sarah. There's no sign that she'd even been in the house since having left to turn tricks. Abe begins to get worried. One voice deep inside him worries she may be dead, lying in a ditch. Another more calming voice says that perhaps she'd just met a nice elderly gent with a lot of money who wanted to sit and talk with someone his own age...She couldn't very well interrupt a rich, paying customer. This vision of her safe and sound calms him for another few hours.

By 2 AM on Thursday morning, Abe is frantic! He picks up the phone to call the cops. Just as he finishes dialing 911, IN comes Sarah.

The wig is halfway off her head, revealing more than a little bit of scalp. The heel from one of her shoes had broken off, causing her to appear as if she had a limp. She's bloodied and scratched in several places. Her makeup had run causing her to look not unlike The Whore of Babylon meets a Goth Princess. BUT: She has money in her hands.

SHe THROWS it at him. "HERE, You BAStard", she says. "Four hundred and twenty one dollars and ten cents!". Abie, in such shock from ...all that had gone on in the previous 30 seconds, can't really think clearly. He says the first thing that comes to mind. "TEN CENTS? Who gave you ten cents?"

Dejected, and angry, she sobs: "EVERYBODY gave me ten cents!"

Perhaps the language in my written telling of the story was too flowery for a joke about 80 something year old Jewish immigrants. But the vision of a woman who could have been Straight Outta Boro Park, going out to turn tricks is just too...juicy, spicy...Spicy-juicy. Yes.

She starts out as a dignified woman trying to bring home a few bucks to help out her depressed husband, having NO idea what she's walking into, and enters some variety of sexual encounter with 4,210 men in 2 and a half days. On the one hand, she was hoping to be more valuable than the 10 cents she was offered. On the other hand, it takes a certain work ethic to attract 4,210 customers in 2.5 days.
****
So long as we're into this motif of Jewish job woes:
Someone told me this joke just last night. I'll bet it's 50 years old. It really has that old time Jewish joke flavor to it.

Abie (not the same Abie..a different Abie), Hyman, and Moe are sitting around the pool in Palm Springs.

Hyman starts off a conversation about their favorite topic:

Moe, how's business?

Moe responds: "Terrible. December was LOUSY. January was worse. In February, we had a fire."....To cover up his embarrassment, he shoots the same question to Hyman. "Hyman, how's business by you?"

Hyman says: "AWFUL. We had NO sales in December. Nothing. Gournisht. Nada. January, we might as well have not opened the store. We fired half the employees in February. And in March, the store burned down."...So as to forget his troubles, he turns the conversation over to the last of the trio: "Abie!? What about by you? How's business?".

Abie, with a resigned sigh says "Well, by me is not zo good either. December we made no money, January we made no money, and in February, we had a flood".

Puzzled, Hyman and Moe ask the same question practically in unison.
"Abie...HOW do you start a flood?"....
- posted by Dana Friedman @ 8:36 PM