Kosher Confessions

Holding down the Fort!

2006-06-19T10:26:00.000-07:00

And by Fort, I mean FF int'l headquarters! Jordan is officially done with work, even though we both know his days from advising and helping us are far from over! Thanks Jordan for all your hard work! In other happy news, Logan is also bouncing this week, but he'll still be in SB, livin' the life! And finally, the Network for Social Change is taking shape. We'll be hiring 4 more applicants in the first round, with our retreat in December. It'll be easier to manage with less Directors, and we'll also have the ability to experiment and see what works. Mistakes will be made along the way, and do I look forward to them! Just more lessons to be learned...

-Aaron

over it.

2006-06-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

i blog on myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/whatjewexpect

it seems only fair...

2006-05-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

where life takes us, this twisted abyss tack it up up on the list, consists OF the unknown road, ahead of us, keeping us on our toes through highs and lows bows and arrows sifting through darkness running through sunshine from these pages of word canvas shattering everything it touches-we were stealing people's lunches in twos and threes, from all da da da crazies at the zoo.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. cookies.

the blog is back. im feeeling it. this tangeringe color is pretty ugly, dont you think? who reads this page anymore? not me. maybe rabbi yonah. i met him again at jewish college night. he is one slick rabbi! let me assure you.

im staying in santa barbara, working here with the foundation another year. it will be sweet, for as long as it lasts. i got into this fight with a friend. it is not fun. i made out with her friend. oh. we were sort of together? for a while. its a confusing situation. i feel so accomplished today. besides for the whole fight thing. crap. im listening to so much animal collective as of late. it is such trippy, tribalistic atmospheric stuff...bloody good.

gotta shower. it is tuesday! till next time.

air-in

back from the dead

2006-03-31T00:15:00.000-08:00

Hi. i am aaron. i used to write.

now its march, the first post in a month, the first good post in well over a year, at least, right? so much has happened i dont know where to begin: the good, the bad, the not so bad. oh, and then the great, wherever that may lie. but ill try.

march march march. work is going, going well. finally doing a lot more graphic design and artwok which really rocks. im designing the poster for a jewish festival thatll go all over town, a new marketing packet for the foundation, cell sheets, flyers, our newsletter...im really into the study of how eyes move. literally. i like working on flow, so that whatever piece im working on has the unique ability to really control the focus, gaze, and direction of your eyes.

im doing good here. work is fulfilling, perhaps more emotionally than professionally. it feels good. but its time for me to go, and thus ive decided to leave after this quarter and just head out, east coast, somewhere, new york hopefully. im dying for change. i can feel it in my bones. or australia for some reason. but that ozone layer is gonna destroy my skin, so on second thought, "go where other pale jews are!" so i guess NY is the key. i shall keep you all posted.

what else? the tipping point is a good book. i started making cards. just cards. and i write stuff in them. then i send them out to ppl i love.

im hanging out with my boy now, on this marketing thing...we get along nicely. we see eye to eye on so many things...music, work, life, philosophy. sometimes i feel like im slipping, my friendships disappearing. im fiercely introverted but at the same time love people. isnt that fucked up? or maybe just the antithesis of one another. i grew up in a pack of 4 tight guys...one im friends with, the other is engaged, the other went crazy. it sad. it is. it really is sad sometimes the way some things turn out. sometimes im led to believe, NO, that's the way its supposed to work out, but fuck, i neevr thought it would end like this, a tight circle broken in shambles. or maybe im justt exaggerating, and im the sole guy left on the outskirts.

tomorrow i go to this conference of jewish people. leaders. professional leaders. the PLP conference....they, the foundations and money men of our times, our jewish times, feel it necessary to charge us with leading the jewish people in generations to come. wierd how im part of that, shouldering some of that responsibility, but in some ways, it seems only approriate, and completely logical that id somehow be a part of that group. its honorable. and intimidating...but more exciting that anything else.

be good.

confession #2

2006-02-28T00:29:00.000-08:00

Here I am confessing what you’ve always known, that life is nothing but a series of random chance events and we have the privilege of driving, no, wait, steering in one general direction over the other-we make choices, eat chocolate, go to the gym, buy new phones and talk to the best friend about the friend we don’t like, watch sunsets that let us disappear into falling suns, make love in expensive hotels where you can keep the towels and they won’t even care, move, move again, play the harp, and dance to rachmaninov on ice skates.

It’s the only crutch we have, sustaining us so life doesn’t slip out of our control.

who's really calling the shots? let me write.

giorno di valentino

2006-02-13T18:18:00.000-08:00

"dear blowfish"

the blue dove, with bittersweets in tow
swooping lush lush to see her, that ever busy busybody
"it's over, i can't anymore," she wrote me via carrier pigeon
(the pigeon never made it back)
"i love you."
"what?"
"i said i love you."
"stop being so unprecise."
(and give me back my underwear)
love, sweet heart of the bitter onion that makes one cry
-----japanese blowfish sitting in your bed-you're naked, too.
-----you're kiss trapped in ice cubes
and i'm already melted water.

you beautiful bastard

2006-02-05T01:17:00.000-08:00

can you believe that a fucking ferry sunk a few days ago? 1000 people, dead, perhaps. its almost comical. one would hypothesize that the days of sunken ships were long forgotten, a mishap that just doesn't happen anymore. i guess not. Is it just me or have there been way more plane crashes lately?

why is it that we live in this fantastic age of instant communication but its still so fucking hard to get a hold of somebody? no one picks up their phone, email is inconsistent...the more advances we have the more we attempt to resist. im cool with that. i hate the mobile. little machines are attached to our ears, all day, every day, without fail. somedays- i just let it ring, and ring, and ring-fuck you, i'm not picking up, no matter who the fuck you are.

im angry. im anxious. im exhausted. im quickly approaching my maximum limit of santa barbara, what ill dub a phony bubble of white liberal america content with sameness and resistant to change. i cant understand how minorities live here. seriously. everyone is fucking white white WHITE, wearing the sickening perspective of disgusting contentment at the status quo--i cannot stand the deadness in this wasteland of wine, sex, and work, watching the malleable conform more to some sad generic standard of indifference. i am who i am, a disparate soul, socially awkward to such an extent it may be called revulsion, and i've lived out my term here, approaching a level of discomfort too soon, hungry for something more. high school sucked, college rocked, and i finished both sequences, but im still here, working in my uni town, figuring shit out, abhorring that tricky situation where ppl i havent seen in months begin investigating. "so youre still here man?" "yea, i guess." "that's cool man, im still here too, shit, 3 more classes and im done" "no im working" "no, moron. i fucking graduated, ON TIME. i just work here. Why? I don't know why. that's just the way things worked out i guess."

my room is so cold. i light candles to heat it up, but come on now, you and i both know they don't do shit. i like the smell though. paraffin wax.

ive come to terms with the fact that im just anxious, and in reflecting back on the past, convinced that i always have been, as long as i can remember, but definitely as far back as the 4th grade-a vivid memory of hitting my pelvic bone, then in 5th grade, running through math problems like some asylum inmate who's just been put into a straightjacket and finds that talking incessantly becomes his only form of resistance. im sick of it, but moreso, im sick of not knowing why im this way. im expending too much energy trying to discover what kicked it off, if some event or action triggered my behavior, but i cant find any. maybe im not looking hard enough, or maybe thats just the way i am and holy shit, maybe thats the way i'll always be. i find i difficult to subscribe to the theory that "life is just about trying to figure everything out" because some people are already there, and im moving, im moving, wondering if im coming any closer to the truth.

i gotta get out of here.

life, and a little bit more

2006-01-24T00:23:00.000-08:00

I'm gonna shower. Be right back.

Playing music tonight with my friend Jared. We wrote this song, ill post lyrics soon once I write them..its a song that induces this feeling of honesty, in what I'm writing, and magically carries across to the listener. very ani difranco. i don't know. when we get together and jam its inspiring...i walk out of there thinking 'damn, we could make something out of this', forget about it for a week, comeback, do it all over again. we set plans to actually get down and try and make something out of this..keep you posted loves.

i designed my company's e-newsletter. it took me a few days. lately im this machine, kranking shit out to an almost workaholic level. ive been making logos, letterheads, the newsletters, heavy marketing shit thats leading me to think that this job is making more sense in the long run, that i am experiencing and doing things i didn't think possible beforehand...sometimes we only see the good long after we sign up for something.

ive been struggling with this question as of late: whether having too much freedom in a workplace is a good thing. i mean, the opposite extreme is godawful--having a boss breathing down your neck, his breath like onions, hovering over your shoulder watching your every step move twitch. but at the other hand, you have totally free reign, freedom to take risks, achieve, but definitely enough room for fuckups. true, we learn from our mistakes, but what happens when there is just a vacuum in leadership? i don't know.

i really liked israel. i liked the food. the people. the ppl screaming in the shuk selling pirated DVDs and oranges from the farms down south, and the chicks dude, the chicks. i fell in love so many times.

im making lentils now. fiber is so, dareisay, nourishing. eat some hi fiber food. take a dump. it happens on its own! i swear. then eat some chips. notice how unsatisfied you are? moral: up with fiber, down with chips.

i dontknowwhatiwant.idontknowwhatiwantidontknowwhatiwantidontknowwhatiwant
goodnight.

I don't know what I want I don't know what IwantI d on't knowwhatiwantIdon'tknowwhatiwantwhatIwant.

jet lag is a bitch part 2

2006-01-15T16:51:00.000-08:00

The essential artsy Western Wall photo. In Italian the wall is called La Mure dei Pianti, the Wall fo Tears. Who's crying? Who's crying now? My shout out to Ariel Sharon...Keep on fighting my friend. You're really good at that. And once you're out, no more Snickers.

Botanical garden tour with Michael from Jewlicious
He's a good guy, wears a beanie in the heat, and knows the bus routes, likes walking in his sandals more than he should, and is vegetarian.
My Iraqi mom with her Iraqi cousin, whom at my cousin's bar mitzvah screamed a good fifteen minutes of "I'm Iraqi, you got that! Holmes!" Apparently he used to kick it with my grandfather in Baghdad...They were both ladies men. Like Leon Phelps, but much darker, and probably hairer, as well. And didn't drink Courvesoir. Only Arak.
More Oranges. My camera kicks your camera's ass so hard, so much, so very, very much.Smoking cigarettes will fucking kill you. And if they don't, you'll have to read this oversized "Smoking will kill you" ads on every pack you buy.

jet-lag is my bitch part 1

2006-01-10T21:53:00.000-08:00

How do you denote a yawn. I'm ready to crash, burn, sleep...all those things, together, right now. I'm making aliyah. Jewspeak for moving to israel, at least for a while, this summer. I am tired, but I shall post. The first half of all my pictures, stupid me, didn't get downloaded to my USB jumpdrive, so we're starting from day 8 and working our way backasswards. I present to you: my trip: to the Holy Land.

Welcome to Israel Juice Man. I forgot that Tel-Aviv has experienced an influx of Juice Shops. But they're not yuppie Jamba juice places, with smoothies given monikers like Blueberry Boat Bonanza and razzmatazzbabs and Super Guava Suprise. Just Orange and Carrot Juice. In Yafo. We bought Tarboukes here for 70 sheks. I think its a good deal but we probably got ripped off.

With the mom in Tel-Aviv Yafo.
She's a great bargainer.
Or at least she used to be one.

Here we have my brother and I
getting warm
by the menorah in Jerusalem.
My rabbi told me in 5th grade that
in Israel, everyone's got their
menorahs out.
Hers was the only one
on her entire block. My rabbi is a liar.

Underground tour of the Western Wall with our friend. He has a kid now. (And a wife)

Spice market in the Arab quarter. Some of the shopkeepers wouldn't let me take pictures of the racks. Crazy. I am not an occupier. S'allam.

israel

2005-12-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

It seems I'm always leaving the country.

I'm going to Israel with my older brother.

Our flight is in less than 14 hours.

Much love to my bloggers, my friends, my homies, compadres.

Aye, kemosabe.

i could see a lot of bright in you

2005-12-20T20:58:00.000-08:00

there is so much i will say right now. I hope you're ready.

today the headache forces waged war on aaron. he took heavy losses at around one o'clock, his right flank quickly destroyed by a kesselshlact by the enemy. reinforcements came in the form of Advil, which laid down a heavy base of fire on the headache.

I like bowling. I bowled a 160 a few weeks ago. My highest score ever. They get progressively worse with beer. Fat Tire till I die.

Sufjan Stevens is some manifestation of God. If he started a religion I'd join. I know he's Christian, but hopefully he'll start his own cult based on a banjo and campfires and hiking naked. then I'd definitely join.

a new friend mentioned that she coldn't believe i went out with my ex-girlfriend. that was a long time ago. why can't you see us together? thinking. because you're more hippie, and she's...she's very LA? Exactly. Now is not the time to discuss the ex, or if celery acutally causes you to lose calories, but to talk about me, and how I am SUCH a hippie. Was admitting that self-defeating? Wait, no, that's hipsters. Hipsters aren't real hipsters if they say they're hipsters. Hippies were too stoned to label themselves. I have this growing desire to just get away, away away away and escape and live in the jungle run naked in the grass and eat berries and rice and eggplant and green beans, chanting in Sanskrit with a tribe who have disavowed everything. I could deal with no phone, no Internet, no news, no car, no computer, no iPod. I've done it before.

that friend reads this blog, says I'm onto something, I'm humorous, but that I'm definitely working on something. I don't know what gave her that impression. I haven't written anything in weeks, unless kosher confessions counts. I've raised objections towards the name of this blog. very little of what i say or do is kosher by any standards. but whatever, I'll assume that you're thinking what I'm thinking, that is, that I'm recreating its definition.

No. I really want to live on the beach by myself.

And Yes, a piece of me wants to further the career, get started. but for what? Logan mentioned that he told a friend that he wants to make a lot of money.

well, what do you need all that money for? what do you want to buy with it?

i got no idea, actually. Nothing in particular. I just want it.

I just want it, I just want it I justwant it I justwantitIjustwantitwantwantwantwanti want it i want i want it. We want things. Do we really need them? really need them? My housemate bought a hi-powered flashlight. It's cool. Nonetheless, there's no fucking way anybody needs a flashlight that produces a light visible for miles, a flashlight that helicopters and the fucking COAST GUARD uses for search and rescue operations. It's the light on top of the Luxor. It's visible from Space. It's totally worthless to him. He bought it anyways. Why do we have want we don't need? Why do we insist on keeping those things? I've given it thought. I want the ability to send my kids to Jewish school, travel once in a while and eat organic food, maybe start a small vegetable garden, pay for music lessons and buy violins and clarinets for the little ones, and get massages once every few months. i want the financial ability to learn how to sustain myself. it's sad I need money for that.

I'm running to the forest now.

exaltation, las vegas

2005-12-13T19:11:00.000-08:00

health update: my chronic sore throat, which is either a severe aaron-killing virus or strep throat which has only infected one tonsil, is going to die soon. I went to see a doc and he prescribed zithromax, (quite possibly coolest sounding antibiotic) which comes in packs of 3. 3 pills, 3 days. my mouth will soon be in heaven.

two and a half weeks ago.....my throat started hurting
two weeks ago.....i started gargling with salt water
one and half weeks ago....i bought slippery elm bark lozenges, elm tea, and throat coat tea
a week ago...it started getting better
4 days ago....it started getting worse
last night....it got so bad i had to take a tylenol with codine

I got my glasses' lens replaced by costco. it is so damn exciting! now i can wear my glasses at night, and not be afraid I'm gonna crash into trees or something. the old ones hurt my eyes, and in turn, my brain, and in turn, my head. god bless costco.

i went to las vegas this past weekend. my friend tobin was getting ready, trying on this red corduroy jacket.."it's vegas! this is so vegas!!!" you're going to vegas? yeah fool. wanna come? live a little. when are you leaving? in 45 minutes. okay. okay. okay. i love you. what? i'll meet you at the airport.

vegas. debauchery. excess. x-e-s. drinking. expensive. margaritaville. singing opera at the venetian, italia. the bellagio. synchronized fountains. hundreds, no thousands of them. how much do those engineers get paid?. blackjack=losing $$$. german house music. i saw billy idol at the hard rock cafe. [no, really i did.] eating pancakes at 5 am at new york new york. pastrami pastrami!. i want some corned beef. come with us! hollerin at the scrubs in the benzido. winning / stealing money from catholic kids fo r getting bible questions right. getting pamphlets from moishe, the jews for jesus guy. ripping up those pamphlets in front of his face. getting 9 hours of sleep in 48 hours. still feeling tired. going to sleep. goodnight.

we want moshiach now

2005-12-07T21:08:00.000-08:00

Dina, Muffti, and I are embroiled in a war against the Messiah.

read about the madness here. big ups to michael for doing the post, which gets crazier every hour. holla.

The Blizzard of '02

2005-12-04T23:10:00.000-08:00

In California, rain is a natural disaster
Drizzles are blizzards, gusts tornadoes,
Do you remember? The house was caving in
The roof collapsing-Anna and Erin crying-the power went out-china destroyed
Escaped to the attic, we ate cookies and tuna by flashlight
touched hands for the first time since I left last June
And don’t come back! you screamed that day,
Now I’m fixing the power, sandwiches for the little ones, telling you
It’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay,
my fingers caressing the bottom of your neck
knowing this is only temporary
but for tonight-
Everybody wants Daddy again

I'm moving to germany

2005-12-01T00:57:00.000-08:00

At least the health care doesn't suck BALLS over in the duestchland. I swear. Today I realized why Americans hate the health care system in this country. I'm not talking about plans, prices, drugs -recreational or legal- but today I had to go through 6, yes SIX dermatologists to book an appointment. all conversations went like this:

"Hi. I have insurance. Blue Cross PPO. Yes, I'll hold. Holding. Blue Cross, Yes. I'd like to book a appointment with Dr. Rosen.

And I swear to you, here were the responses. I'll never forget them.

We have an opening Dec 23rd.
I can get you in the middle of January.
Our earliest available appointment is January 25th.
We're not accepting new patients until June.

Okay fuckers: What if I have some skin tumor or infection? I lump I can't identify? What if, what if, it's God forbid C-A-N-C- I don't even wanna WRITE the rest, what if it's that?!?! You still gonna push it off?

Thank god it's just a rash. And no, I won't tell you where. But it's not there, praise be the Lord.

In other news, my throat really hurts. If it's strep I am so screwed. Stay mental, it's all in your head, I keep telling myself. What else. Oh, what do you make of this? I just got a random text message. The perks of being first in everyones phone directory.

Oh my god i an so nice looking
when i an in blue underwear
i hope your CHAIr is ready for my hot ass

Poetry at its finest. Wierd this is, I think I know who sent it to me. And I'm also pretty sure she was an employee of mine for a while. So now what?

666 to kiss you

2005-11-26T18:07:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving. the holidays. god, i hate them. its so nice to be a jew. we give all year round, we share all year round, not for solely 2 weeks out of the year.

new years, i shall be spending this year in israel. i hate new years hype. its ridiculous. it always makes me feel depressed. were one year closer, closer to the end. no no, stop being so pessimistic. every new years I've had has fallen way way short, we're talking midget short, of expectations. last year, i think i was, oh yeah! last year was pretty rad. i went to this lame-o party, a friend of my brothers, got trashed off of long islands, but as I was walking towards the car I found two thousand dollars. drug money. i used it to go europe last summer. the year before, NY, we were freezing our asses off watching this green dot move a couple inches-it looked like inches from where we were standing-and some jerk sprayed champagne over everyone. on new years, everyone is supposed to be out in huge groups, find the best party, the good looking girl who want to kiss right at new years jesus christ this fucking pressure! to have fun, = (equals) = no fun...just worying that you'll meet your expectations for the evening, and as we all know, nothing ever goes according to plan.

thanksgiving is a jewish holiday. we eat eat eat eat eat go out for 2 hours get hungry but feel guilty about eating out so we come home for leftover and eat eat eat go to the bathroom eat some more eat eat eat eat eat fight turtles eat eat eat. then youre too tired and bloated to move, so you have to sit at home and play board games like monopoly and scrabble and truth or dare with your crazy uncle. always a hit.

my head hurts. not a headache. it feels like ive been headbanging like in the old concert days and my skulls is snapping off its own hinges to my neck.

i saw animal collective. i want to start a tribalistic jewish indie reggae rock band.

my friend jeremie got married. morroccan style. he was under the chupah, praying, i think. sometimes i wish that wouldve been me up there.

and the winner is...

2005-11-15T10:44:00.000-08:00

New York [I think].

skipping rocks, prophetic coffeeshops

2005-11-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

the Hillel @ Longbeach blogsite, aptly called Surphology Headquarters, has me listed in their links. If you hover, yes hover, over kosher confessions, it'll say "funny, straightfoward, and local." it's nice, and reaffirming to know that i'm writing something of value, though lately i feel that my posts have become too self-indulgent to reach anyone else but you few dedicated readers out there, as if i'm constantly searching for reinforcement of my decisions and opening the window to my soul wider and wider, letting everyone in but never venturing further outward than the comfort zone of my apartment in goleta.

thus, i give you some personal insight into my current situation and reflections on life, and where it's taken and taking me, in earnest hopes that it just might resonate with you.

i bought asics gel shoes last week, and started running. 3 miles, 5 miles, today i ran an even six i believe, driving to the beach then running near my house, strangely. i stopped for a second, staring at the marvelous santa barbarian ocean, skipped some rocks...soft ones barely made a dent, medium sized ones that skipped quite nicely, and huge mommas and poppas that landed with a sad, thick crash onto the seabed. and in epiphanic fashion I realized that I don't want to be a big rock, don't want to be handcuffed to some job, some destination, some thing that I don't enjoy. I want to be mobile. i want to make a few dents, no, more than a few, a lot of serious dents and ripples in the ocean, and rest on the sand until another wave comes, when i can find a new home, then get picked up and float on, just like a modest mouse. that's who i am, a mighty modest mouse, ready to kick ass. or a a grizzly bear=aggressive, yet charming, smooth, but will rip your balls off. and maybe tear your heart out.

i met this guy in a coffeeshop. an old man. my ability to meet and connect immediately with ppl sometimes scares ppl..its funny. it's not uncommon for me to go get food or coffee or the market with a friend, say 'i'll be right out', then need to get pulled away from said friend because im talking to the mexican stockman about where he's from and how italian and spanish are the same, or the liquor store owner and his experience immigrating from tehran, or the girl (it comes in handy, this skill, oh wise one) who is wearing pink socks and finding out she knows so and so who knows so and so from santa barbara and then we make plans to go the getty.

again, we are sidetracked. =)

so this fool, dressed in a cardigan, gives me half his paper...we start talkin, he worked as a PE teacher, volleyball, and incorporated japanese teknique in his classrooms. tells me i should become a teacher. or do business and teach on the side. [[[ god, i am confused. really god, if you're out there, listening, shed some light or open a window that's been closed and help me find what i'm looking for, because its dark and i don't have the right kind of batteries for my flashlight. ]]]

i get up to leave. teddy shakes my hand. "it's an honor" he says. "no, the honor is mine." i leave, pondering. was it really? who was that, some therisias, telling me that i'm on the right track, or on the right platform and need to get on the train because it's leaving? what? what is an "honor?" why was it an honor? it felt good, but no way did i earn it. it seemed uniquely prophetic, like we were meant to meet and maybe i AM supposed to earn his honor, his judgement, his approval.

i'm trying. i'm trying. im trying im trying imtryingimtryingimtrying isweartoyou i am trying to be a better man. just look.

VOTE and SEND AARON AWAY!!!

2005-11-08T01:35:00.000-08:00

Where.to.go.next. You pick the place.

NYC
Miami
Chicago
San Francisco
Texas
Wisconsin
Michigan
India/Thailand/Malaysia/China

And if you're thinking Israel, I'm going twice this school year.

After all the votes are complete, and that means, after the 7 commentators get down to business, then I'll pick the place. Pretty ingenious huh? You have the power to send me to Thailand. Choose wisely.

attention photoshoppers

2005-11-05T17:50:00.000-08:00

Malibu birds careen thru town, mutant beer drinkers frolic in brown, the sibling awash in pigeon poop, italian plastic wrap, love and marvel at his italian speaking brother, red peach clay buildings islands crumble and descend into the windstripped canals of venezia, the man in the stairs, the men in the stairs eyeing over everyone waiting cigar in mouth deep in contemplation, waiting waiting the lot of them just waiting to make their move.

Yawning

2005-11-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

lately ive been spending time alone balancing stretching from introverted aaron it started with coffeeshops writing about jews feeling accomplished to reading political reviews at borders to now camping no not camping what am i saying but the park going to the park next door to my house so lovely, bringing a blanket and godzilla-my ipod-and falling asleep hypnosis by the clouds and at that opposite end of the life spectrum i will be inside everyone talking munching on mucho nothing shooting the shit over beers does anyone ever say the words "chewing the fat" anymore like in jd salinger stories? those were so great - i started writing again, or reading a lot, and been unhappy with it if i can be frank [and you can be shirley] books are murderous poison i get engrossed in them and then realize damn fool i will no write like that and i know that thats pessimism for ya but hey i'm being realiztic with my work-i taught a class on yehoshua thats joshua for all the non
yiddin out there and it was just me brother brothers friend going over the first chapter and it kicked ASS i tell ya hoo hoo hoooooo hooooo i love teaching i love guiding and nurturting and hearing other people's opinions and not being afraid when they conflict with your own, but giving lessons and making progress and and and and making people more informed and more educated and more better than before they met me so there.

hallow's eve

2005-10-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

There were a dozen smurfs, painted in blue, singing LaLaLaLaLa-LaLaLa-LaLa alongside the Chasidic Rebbe and the Bar-Mitzvah bachur, a jellyfish, a shower, a 25 c kissing booth that catered only to women, 3 Mr. T's, whores, victoria's secret angels, rockstars, a floating table and chairs, and lion tamer and her beast on a chain, cop sluts on the beat, jack kerouac, creepy as fuck doctors offering free (imagine!) breast exams, a guy wearing only saran wrap, ace frehley, 4 napolean dynamites, ww2 battle of the bulge veterans, mormons, more whores, a feminist, tito jackson, antonio banderas, hugh hefner, a turn me on lightswitch dude, lisa and marge simpson, and me, a cereal killer.

pictures to follow. i love halloween. why do people leave isla vista during halloween? what, what bitch? more important stuff to see, more important people to do?

so what if i got a piercing ? I always had this dream of piercing my left eyebrow. This is the dream of the new Jew: driving spikes through our skin and placing metal strips and loops through the aperture. what is wrong with you people? See, the problem is it takes a bit of deviance to pull it off, a bit of deviance which i do not possess. Can you imagine, me, the superjew, rising star of the J community, with a piercing?

Nice piercing Small! Looks great!

Some possible scenarios:

(a) God, this hurts like a mother. I think that that tattoo schmuck of an artist liked watching me bleed. I cried the whole way through. Cost me an arm and an elbow, this stupid eyebrow ring. And apparently I can't sweat for 30 days lest I want an infection. Pathetic.
(b) It's coming off tomorrow.
(c) Shityea, you know I'm hardcore. Don't talk to me.

What seems most likely? (C)? Do guys with piercings immediately complain about how much they cost? As you can see, I'm remain equivocal on the issue. I need to go write. My roommate is cooking me Indian food. And yes, he is Indian.

this is light years

2005-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

please don't hesitate
to give me
that feeling
of vulnerability
a killer countenance, a mouth to die for
your parents really got away with murder
and i stand innocent
frozen like white wine, amazed
at you, of you, in you
my heart kidnapped
sailing at speeds unseen
gliding, running, moving moving
pay attention! if you listen closely,
you can hear it
you can hear my heart
laughing
now she's laughing

Coming Back to Normal

2005-10-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

It's late, im workin the iron & wine, I got the scented candle burning on my desk, I shut my lamp off, my hair is still wet from the shower, I won the Jewlicious photo contes t, my face is on the internet [exciting, since i never win anything] and im getting a bunch of safran foer shit. maybe i can meet him and he can tell me why I have a severe tendency to start so many new projects and never complete them? i mean, the poetry is there, it's just the longer short stories i have trouble nailing. its disappointing, really. time time time, why did i do to you that keeps you running away from me?

im exhausted...today, simchat torah, was super tough, super fulfilling, super intense. It was one of those days where you're expecting things to occur in a certain, predisposed way, and it all just falls apart as the clock moves from 1 to 2 to 5 to 6:30 to 10. I took a walk today with my friend Tobin. I love getting closer with once-strangers--for me it's like a treasure hunt, and I'm discovering that enticing clue after clue, always searching, my eye on the gold. he's a sweetheart, plain and simple, and you know, these days, you can't say that about too many people with a straight face. im friends again with someone i kinda broke up with for a while, due to reasons i won't get into. she's noticeably happier, and part of me is making a desperate attempt to investigate why, the other half content to just let things be and accept things the way they are. its a delicate situation, where saying things might do better than good. ah, workwise, things were just hectic, busy, and sad in a way. ive become so attached to the people that work with me it really is a family, me the parent them the children, and im understanding now why my mom didn't have a problem with blood or injury in general, but couldn't stand seeing us bleed.

it troubles me that I don't have the band aids for some of them. :(

---im dancing tonight with the torah vodka shots in my left hand bouncing on the mud floor jews surrounding encamping happiness glow from the center of this sweaty circle cakes pink laffy taffy on tables with the god in me and you and you and me and and and he's just smiling, and thinking, always thinking---

i wanna know what's he's thinking

i wanna know what's he's thinking

i wanna know what's he's thinking

Dead or Alive!

2005-10-22T01:36:00.000-07:00

That little button at the bottom of my blog that says SiteMeter--which oddly enough meters my site--tells me how people are accessing kosher confessions, and apparently, the most recurring google search which lands people to keepingkosher is--and you can check this yourself!--that post i wrote a long time ago, where I wrote the lyric "you spin me right round baby right round" over and over and over again. It was totally pointless, strange....a sort of diarrhea of the keyboard. You can blame it on the drugs, I can blame it on the 80s.

What is it that's causing the decade's resurgence? notice how resurgence kinds sounds like Iraqi insurgents? they're probably related, in some way. I'll throw money down on that. Maybe like 2 or 3 bucks. Million bucks. The zip ups, the tight jeans, the headbands, Bloc Party, Joy Division--it's like everything that we thought was bad is suddenly cool, and all the cool kids are playing the Napolean Dynamite soundtrack at their parties. Shit, fool. I grew up on Nirvana and Soundgarden and NoFx and baggy jeans and flannel and hawaiian shirts (just for a year) and Cactus Cooler [not this Jones soda crap, which to make matters even more confusing, tastes realy fucking good] and gigapets and AOL, not AIM, and chat rooms and Sim City Original version and then the later 2000. And Nintendo and Contra and Double Dribble and MeTroiD and the Three Amigos. Dude, there's no escape. I guess I'm a child of the 90s, and perhaps I'm regretting adaptation.

I'm gonna go download Oregon Trail and leave Independence without food. I'm buying 99 boxes of ammo to go fuck up some cattle and buffalo and then we'll see who wins. You spin me right round, baby. Right round.

so...tired...i...write...poems...

2005-10-19T01:10:00.000-07:00

I am so tired. My eyes actually hurt. The girl has not called back yet. I miss home.

MITOSIS ATTEMPT #22

i am sin
wallowing behind thick framed eyeglasses, laptops, mileage
that curd my brain into pieces of exhaustion
i brrreak one by one, the cells of life
which fail to regenerate this tired man
from the boy he once was
in the cold, trapped in Scylla's suffocating grip with GROW UP tattoed on her forehead
as Charybdis sinisterly smiles through a mouth of gold teeth
i stand, barely, swaying on disintegrated knees and cartilage
nodding
praying
changing
living
then all over again.

mondays, beach dates, japanese parties, chlorophyll

2005-10-18T00:52:00.000-07:00

First let me get dressed.

thanks. now, let's get down to business.

I had an amazing day, possibly the best, most fulfilling day of work in my life. How you ask? Well, my jewish readers (and lone Taiwanese one-yes, I know about you) I had FIVE meetings with my program directors, and each one went better than the previous. But first, a little explanation: I work as a sort of program director for a non-profit, and because all my workers are college students, I set meetings, or forest hours, or office hours, or whateveryouwanttocallthem hours every Monday and Thursday, for about 3 hours. The first was long, a good 40 minutes, but effective. were planning [and already booked] a sushi singles night event, replete with cheesy but now sleazy bar mitzvah games, like spin the bottle, naked twister, pass the marshmallow from lip to lip, and a mandatory CPR training course. the second meeting was with an all-business, bissel of work senior with a chronic case of absenteeism, but the A-bomb straightened everything out, got him out of my coffeeshop corner office in 25 minutes! The third also kicked ass, and I got her seriously motivated to working with cancer afflicted children. The fourth was that orgasmic climax all you ladies are desperately searching for--the one I'm looking to give--was under 12 minutes. I refused to answer a question regarding another person, since it wasn't relevant and terribly bad for business, and got people committed and energized.

Today I was like this huge ball of chlorophyll giving chloroplasts to everyone within reach. If you're not motivated about life, about career, about your job, that message transfers to those surrounding faster than the disappearance of my former housemates sex life. [Seriously, he's still looking for it, as am I, but I think I'm closer, since I believe he's 99% gay and bleaches his hair and wears white on white to work everyday. Love you, man!]

It's this wonderful state I'm in. Preposition #4! :) A friend mentioned that she is constantly planning out the next stages of her life, always thinking of the future. Why not try to apply that all the time, every day? What if we set goals, personal / professional that we intended to achieve? Lately I've been going to bed at night with work and people on my mind, cataloging the day and crudely itemizing what went right, what went wrong, what I could've done better, what I should keep doing. Whatever it is, it's the little things that count, that small text message to those you you love, a phone call, an email, a real, handwritten letter, and ice cream.

I went out on a few dates this past weekend. If you're sensing that the self-righteousness is just too much bear, then please, keep reading because you know you want to. I'll admit that it's odd how I can divulge a bunch of personal information to the world, but shit,QUESTO E IL MIO BLOG. What's even wierder is that most people don't know this much about me. :) All right! SO where to start?

One was an ice cream date: I think it went well, I walked off with both hands still attached to my arms, a tell tale sign that SHE had a decent time and didn't want to murder me, but beyond that, no sparks. I had no inclination whatsoever to play smooth operator, and I'm still not quite so sure why. Was it me? Was it her? Blame it on the averse, sedative effects of my anti poison ivy Cortisone shots? We played tic tac toe on the sand, compared signatures, [I stole her A]...There's a buddhist, and jewish thought that stresses the importance of intellectual connection and how the physical tarnishes our opinion of others. well, many not tarnishes, but definitely confused our genuine perspective of the other person. I mean, come on, sex feels good. Perhaps that was running through my mind--regardless, I spent the night contemplating celibacy, and whether for the time being, it might be a good thing.

"Fuck that," I told myself the next morning. because the night before at a japanese party, i met a great woman, a woman--she's 28--that I feel I made some sort of romantic connection with, which happens superfically but never like that. Our conversation was some sort of precursor to falling in love, though admittingly, that is light years away. Still though, it's nice to start something post college, with a girl who is post-college, and show some sort of potential. I called her to go out for sushi a few hours ago. Got no response. No worries though. I shouldn't be worried though, right? tell me I shouldn't be worried. Do I looked worried? Stop saying don't worry!" Oh. And the best part? She's half jewish.

And speaks Italian.

Have a great day. Try meditation at some point. It'll change your life. It's changing mine. And now, I am not in a cult. Well, but that's a whole different story...

update

2005-10-16T01:42:00.000-07:00

update: i forced myself to hurl a lil bit. the hiccups have gone. i am happy.

did i just write hurl?

HURL HURL HURL.

Stay up. Be safe. Big day tomorrow. Shit. It's always a big day tomorrow.

2005-10-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

soon.

that says everything.

i drank too much sake tonight. i have the hiccups. im in love too.

The housemate, Pav, rockin the cigar

2005-10-14T00:42:00.000-07:00

2005-10-14T00:41:00.000-07:00

This would be me, doin the same. And yes, we are gangsters. Kindly do not fuck with us.

2005-10-14T00:39:00.000-07:00

the cousin and I, trying hats at Puma. Is this picture Jdate worthy?

don't eat!

2005-10-12T15:25:00.000-07:00

For the next 25 hours, you should feel like an angel.

Because you are one.

Have a great day of "cleansing." keep thinking. and smile. and stay positive. and don't think about the non kosher pizza you're gonna eat as soon as the fast is over, because just thinking about food induces hunger.

how many people would i kill jsut to see God's book of life...One of these days, one of these days. For all those I've wrong, please forgive me, in your hearts and in and your minds. And trust, I'm doing the same.

I'll see you on the beach.

i need your help, help.

2005-10-12T00:06:00.000-07:00

so im plagued by this weight of making a decision that i think will have serious, long-standing consequences. i hate the fact that were forced to plan for the future always, like the present is never good enough for us.

im juggling working in the following sectors for next year::

jewish community
business/non profit sector
getting a teaching credential
going for my masters in education
going for the masters in public administration and jewish studies
teaching, doing teach for america
graduate school in creative writing
journalism

And my brothers still think I should pursue writing, as if that's still an option. i spend more time writing on this blog than anything else. oh, and I still need to take the GRE, which if I'm assuming is anything like the SATs, is going to hurt me in ways i can't imagine. square roots and equations and factoring and "how many push pins will fit on a european sized dartboard?" and shaded concentric circles (the area of, of course)

any advice any of you people would give me would be greatly appreciated. i duly apologize for the lack of inspiring material and in its place, a coming of age rant from yours truly, but i need your help.

confession

2005-10-11T00:12:00.000-07:00

My brother Edahn is smart, caring, a great drummer, and very aware. He thinks we're always in a constant state of introversion and extroversion, and lately I'm swinging relentlessly between both. It's quite nice, actually, to spend time with friends, work, people, then step back and sink into myself for a few hours. Because time is quite literally rushing past me at light speed, and sometimes, only sometimes, I feel as if I've got very little to show for it. On some ways, I feel that I'm a different person than I was 2 months ago, who has gone through so much, with work/life/choices/communication/music/poetry/cooking/roomates, and that those all stack up pretty high, yet some sort of impending doom grabs me when I glance at that tiny calender icon at the bottom right of my Italian version Toshiba laptop.

October 10th. Damn you September, when did you change? Undoubtedly, the High Holiday clutter is contributing to my anxious feelings that I'm not accomplished everything I should, or that I'm putting off planning for this year, and the next and the next, and marriage, and babies, and potential wives (who, without warning, have already started sneakily humdrumming through various channels, read: mom, cell phone, email, friends of friends--suddenly I'm at that age) and perhaps the inspring brilliance of Yom Kippur will motivate me to get down to business, so to speak. I'm actually looking forward to the Day of Judgement, the [potential juice] fast, and am fidgeting for the oppurtunity to just sit and meditate, with a hollow stomach and hypoglycemic eyes focused on nothing but my life and where it will take me and where I will take it.

October 10th I'm starting to really despise you. Granted, I am busy, and I have accomplished much, but with a job that teeters on busy and slow, with most of the organization content to remain unmotivated, my sense of meaning is quickly diluting and leaving me searching once again. True, our purpose changes daily, but I am convinced that something is missing. I don't know what it is--a serious relationship, an occupation in the tyrannical, efficient workforce, or more lucidity for my personal wishes while I'm alive.

My favorite story from the Torah involves Esau and Jacob, and their first meeting after Jacob stole the birthright. Good stuff m'man. The encounter runs along these lines:

"Sup fool."
"Hey J."
"What up?"
"Nothing. I have a lot. You?"
"Just kicking ass since I took the birthright. Oh, and I have everything."

It's a small difference: much and everything. It's anti-materialism at it's Jewish best, or it's Buddhist best? It's a have what you want /// want what you have attitude, and it's what I live towards. And perhaps I'm a bit like Esav, wanting more and not seeing the good I'm doing. Maybe I'm dishonest. Maybe. I'm happy with what I have, but still looking for more.

Or maybe I'm still stuck with Peter Pan Syndrome, and continue to sabotage myself subconciously, because I don't want to grow up. (Though I do want kids) I looked at the GMAT Math section today and almost threw up. i fucking hate mathematics. I'm terrible at it. It's principles are organization, numbers, fitting things together, and order, and I'm just like, LET'S BURN THIS MOTHERFUCKER DOWN! Art, music, writing, kids...Everything I'm passionate about is against math.

It's so simple, is it not?

Breathe In, Breathe In

2005-10-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

So much to blog, so little time...

So I'm done with the Dalai Lama. Not done as in, "I'm through with you, get the hell out of my house, and don't forget your sandals," but I've finished his book. One of them. And I've learned a lot.

Time is precious. We're all human. Life is suffering, and the goal of eradicating that suffering. Don't waste time thinking about the negative, and by looking at things from other perspectives, even problems can be opportunities to succeed. Sleep a lot. Be vegetarian. Find meaning.

Sounds a bit cultish? I don't know. Idon'tknow.

You know those people who are just, good people? That wasn't intended to sound elementary, but I've met a few people in my lifetime who are truly radiant, and radiate this sensation of happiness, goodness, kindness, positivity. They're the type you just want to be around, the kind everyone else wants to around, because their existence brings joy to others. Thinking about them makes you smile, or laugh.

I wanna be that person. And not for selfish reasons-not because I want to become "that guy, Aaron Small," the guy who makes or breaks the party, or to be liked by as many people as possible, but my goal is fairly altruistic. Can you imagine what the world would be like, if everyone had that quality, everyone just made everyone else happier just by living? I guess, on some scale of selfishness, yes, it would give me great joy and benefit to know I was having that effect on people, but I don't know I could actually measure that, or if I would want to. Just knowing that it's possible would be enough.

Hope you are doing great, life is treating you well, and you're treating your life well, and that happiness is spinning around you at titanic levels. And thanks for reading my blog. I love you.

Arrows, or Why my Phone Bill was so high last month

2005-10-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

"Oh, I just love watermelon!" she shrieks
I laugh, falling
onto the bed, touch her knee
"and soap, and watches" she says with sweetness,
now I'm melted water, the heart exposed
to the deadly son of Venus, who sneaks nearby
as I watch her, paralyzed, already infected

----

twenty four hours thirty seven minutes eighteen seconds
I am alone
sitting in my apartment
alone
Did you ever notice how
even the window panes have company?
light bulbs always come in pairs of two?
the nightstand drawer, with it's partner underneath,
where I keep the envelope that your tongue licked shut
"it was so beautiful" you wrote on the inside.

-----

And now we talk across oceans
Your voice something tiny jammed into my unbitten neglected ear
I kiss you in photos, sniff sweaters you wore to the gym, rub pebbles of sand from beaches we made love on
I write poetry on yellowed parchment
cram into bottles like these
in hopes you might find them one day

On Stuff

2005-09-27T22:46:00.000-07:00

And now, a personal story.

When I was backpacking through Spain a few years back during my year abroad in Italia, I met a girl in Granada--home of the Alhambra--who was also traveling through that wonderful Spanish country of ham, fried ham, fried piglets, and falafel. Her name is Iris Marble, dunno if she's out there, reading this post from some humid hostel in Costa Rica--but if you are, holla!--but she taught me an important lesson while we were overlooking the Moorish city from the Bumblebee patio.

She had been traveling for almost a year, through New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia...When suddenly her overstuffed backpack frame just completely broke apart. She had been carrying mementos, gifts, clothes, clothes, more clothes, STUFF, to be exact...And had to throw so much of it away. And she found it to be quite a cathartic, liberating experience...

Why the hell do we have so much stuff? My room has a bed, a nightstand, some clothes, a broken lamp, a baseball and baseball glove, 2 blue crates, 4 pairs of shoes, and an alarm clock. Oh, and water bottles. (I'm getting a rug because I'm seriously concerned that another few nights at this temp and my testicles are gonna fall right off, seriously diminishing my chances at procreation.)

But STUFF. Do we really need it? Do you really need all the things you own? The shit on your desk, the superchic cell phone you might be reading this from, that book even, expensive highliters? I hope I'm not sounding too pretentious, because then I'd be forced to commit suicide if Rugelach didn't kill me first, b/c obviously I made needless expenditures, but I'm talking more from a humanistic point of view, I think. Our tendency to collect, to gather and to save, thinking that one day this will come in handy, or I really am going to use this when I get home. Maybe I'm just quibbling about a friend of mine, who in his twenties, owns: a hot tub, 2 barbecues, 2 laptops, 3 computer monitors, an aquarium, 2 sofas, a Laz-E-Boy, 2 tables, a washer and dryer, a queen size bed, and not one, but TWO motorcycles, AND a car. Jesus. That's a lot of crap.

My theory? We should all live in our own teepees, go back to the barter system, and hunt wild buffalo. Come on! the sex would be stupendous, we'd become men by starting real fires, fashion would be nil, and Jews could finally look hot in leather. Not like Ross from friends, that freakazoid.

Who wants to be in my teepee? What? No one? Alright fuck you then. More room for me. I'm a big hairy Jew and I need it...

jewlicious is lovely...and so are you

2005-09-25T20:14:00.000-07:00

Check out jewlicious!

My face hurts. I'm smiling too much. Is this a problem?

tzipi i hope your house didn't blow away. and i hope your kittens arent wet.

rosh hashanah is days away! i need to make amends. to all the people i've offended: i probably did it on purpose. im kinda sorry, but don't worry, im sure it will develop into full onjewish guilt by friday, right before the sabbath, which i dont keep anymore, or really ever did, but im with that.

there's nothing worse than a pretentious writer. (i might be one of them [i probably am (but i just don't want to admit it [for some reason])]) i was talking with one of them today. man. conversation is like driving a car with almost no gas, where youre desperate for a way out, the gas pump looming up ahead.

Do you any of you readers dig that stream of conciousness stuff I've done a couple of inches below?

i do.

spread the love, buddhadharma style! and stay jewlicious!

love, me

S is for Everything

2005-09-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

"cashflow" - hiking- dogs - pogs - blogging - boo! - apple cheesecake samples - hurricanes and how i wish they'd go away - the big battle of richard III vs. richard the lionhearted - guys named mortimer and their sex lives - broken, leaky faucets with limestone forming along the lower lip - jd salinger and why he's still a hermit and whether he's written anything good lately and how we might never know whether he did - "thinking out of the box" - playing arcade games in the city of arcadia, and how metaexistential that is - what Socrates's hemlock tasted like and whether it came in different flavors - "let's make sure we're on the same page" - Jane's addiction, who is jane, and what is she addicted to - throwing a baseball hurts my arm, a lot - the thing that keeps me going most of all is my unborne children, and their fifth birthday - who knows after that, my wife maybe - honest mechanics who won't charge you shit if they didn't really do that much work on your car - that honest mechanic's name is Jimmy and he works at the Honda dealership in Goleta - "let's get the ball rolling and move forward" - why obese people can't see that they are actively murdering themselves, and that that they should be convicted of a crime against the self - the dalai lama's words should be flown across plane banners worldwide, in every language, so that everyone can be happy at once, at the same time - the feeling of stagnation and the desire to get away away away from everything sometimes and just sink into myself, and then the equally strong desire to come back and back and back and kiss everyone - "you're gonna call it a day?" "i'm gonna call it a day" "sounds good. see ya around."

and we walked along me you and billie jean remember? when the house was fallinng apart the house was a mess the dishes were everywhere and chrissy was down making snow angels on the hardwood floor and lucy laughed like a baby and said 'this is just exactly, no, how i want to live the rest of my life' smiling soundly like an angel, a real angel, young still but so what? it was beautiful to see you and you andyou andyouandyouandyou there in october, making little sense at that time, but we didn't care it was one great big nothing, silence, everything, noise, noise, noise serenity through your eyes my love

woof woof

2005-09-21T14:51:00.000-07:00

That's my dog, yo.

I think I'm sick of this Jewish stuff.

I need a hobby.

This blog sucks.

The way of the Cyclops

2005-09-17T11:45:00.000-07:00

So the official results are in, and it's quite clear that I've become what I've always feared I would: a man with one eye. Brownsville, Hannah, you're absolutely right, there's no way around it: I am a cyclops. It's time I learn to harness my powers, and take each difficulty in stride. What I realized though, is that there are some benefits to having one eye.

Ability to look into a microscope, and not have to close an eye--because I only have one.
Ability to look into binoculars, for the same reason mentioned above.
When I get punched and get a black eye, it won't look that weird, because there won't be another eye to compare it to.
When I wink at the pretty barista at Borders---she'll know.
Only one box of contact lenses---forever! (And half the amount of Visine bottles I'd normally buy)
When my boss says, "Aaron, give it an eye-over," I'll be like, "Okay," and totally mean it.
Now I can eye-ball olive oil, curry powder, cumin, and salt, and stop feeling dishonest like I did before.
My friends will say, "Damn, my eye hurts," and I'll say, "Yeah. I hate it when that happens."

There are, of course, some challenges posed by being a Cyclops. But with Buddhadharma, I can't see any of them.

terse

2005-09-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

BananaHannah1986 (4:03:57 PM): I know what you are thinking
NotKosherSB (4:06:36 PM): no, what am i thinking?
BananaHannah1986 (4:06:46 PM): oh that Im stupid
NotKosherSB (4:07:39 PM): ah
BananaHannah1986 (4:08:09 PM): you were huh?
NotKosherSB (4:08:22 PM): well
NotKosherSB (4:08:28 PM): like these one word answers?
BananaHannah1986 (4:08:35 PM): no, you know they drive me insane
NotKosherSB (4:08:43 PM): oh
BananaHannah1986 (4:08:48 PM): you are doing it just to annoy me
NotKosherSB (4:09:02 PM): maybe
NotKosherSB (4:09:28 PM): but
BananaHannah1986 (4:09:38 PM): >:o
NotKosherSB (4:09:51 PM): ?
BananaHannah1986 (4:10:09 PM): that was my angry face
BananaHannah1986 (4:10:11 PM): but what?
NotKosherSB (4:10:30 PM): well...
NotKosherSB (4:10:50 PM): check blog

Question

2005-09-14T21:13:00.000-07:00

Look at my profile picture. Expand it to full size per favore.

Does it look like I'm missing an eye?

Fuck Myspace.com

The Dalai Lama is my Dog

2005-09-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

Pleasure is temporary.
Displeasure is temporary.
Happiness is permanent.
Unhappiness can be remedied.

People tend to harbor emotions of pain, anguish, hate, jealousy. Why? Is it easy to retain dark feelings than happier ones? Why don't we laugh enough?

Why do I wake up congested in my apartment room every day?
Why didn't the landlord fuckers put in insulation?
Why do I hate shaving?
Why do I get headaches when I talk on my cell phone for more than 10 minutes?
Why do I fear I'm getting brain cancer from this fucking thing?
Why don't I have an endless supply of hummus in my refrigerator?
Why purpose do alligators serve? [in the grand scheme of things]
Why don't people have more casual sex?
Why don't the people who are having more casual sex give me a call, so I can properly say no?
Why did gigapets ever go out of style?
Why am I dead tired but still writing?
Why are you reading this?
Why did I write an entry that had the lyrics from you spin me right round baby right round?
Why am I so hairy?
Why am I so afraid to get anything waxed?
Why is my 22 year old friend a virgin?
Why doesn't he just admit he's gay?
Why doesn't he?
Why can't he just stop?

why are you here?

2005-09-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

I don't know the lyrics to this song, nor do I know who wrote it. You are the millionth person who accessed my blog through this random post of mine. Please leave a comment at the bottom. thanks!

you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round you spin me right round baby right round like a record player round round round round

aaron is tired.

untitled

2005-09-10T00:34:00.000-07:00

!!! we danced in dharamsala destroying inequities,
me and you and the Her that was there (but wasn't)
recounting past lives like they were lollipops
my hands were dripping with sage that smiled as we walked through waist high waters, grass, parting the head-high stalks with our heads
like floating swans in Dakota ponds
the sunflowers swaying like stand-alone children
against the graying skyline of
planes, skyscrapers, complexes, buildings, machine, locomotive cars gasoline diesel land
so you turned the other cheek to find the man the man the man in me
and then?
and that's how we lived for the next 50 years

still a grizzly man

2005-09-06T20:59:00.000-07:00

I'm taking this Grizzly idea to an entirely different perspective.

As you can tell, I am a hairy, hairy beast. And I've come to terms with that, just like you should come to terms with your murderous tendencies, especially those of yours directed at small, crippled children, homoerotic clowns, chasidic rabbis who have less than 8 kids, and "guys" named Bernie.

But alas I've come to terms with the human rug, the magic carpet, the Aaron Small shag..It's part of my personality, gives me that extra oomph of testoserone when I need it most (during sex, stupid.)

Man, you're so hairy!
Ha. Yeah. Thanks.
It's just like, hair everywhere!
I know. I don't mind. I kinda like it, in a weird sort of way, you know.
No, I don't know. How do you live like this? Aren't your arms hot?
No, not really. Are we still on for sushi, or what?
Jesus. That's really-A LOT.
Yeah. Wanna touch it?

And so she does, and the night ends up wonderfully, a hicky on my cheek, my arm under her head and a hand on her haunches. We drink Naked BerryBlast the next morning. I'm not wearing a shirt, and neither is she.

Q: You know why?

(a) 'Cause I'm the mothafuckin' Grizzly Man
(b) 'Cause I'm the mothafuckin' Grizzly Man
(c) 'Cause I'm the mothafuckin' Grizzly Man
(d) 'Cause I'm the mothafuckin' Grizzly Man

New Poems

2005-09-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

"safe"

Six fever dreams later I shrug to her
My arm still in a sling, bent against my mouth, wretched
a shadow suspended in the doorway, speaking to me
Are you coming or going?
I stare at her glossy eyed, eyes dry weathered from tears
tired of crying-unable to sleep until she hears our son is okay and
Yes, yes he is he'll be okay OK
I assure her and myself, butterflies in my right foot kicking the elft
Traffic accident. What??? He's okayy...
Like a whisper the precint captain says.
One of the lucky ones. You should see the others.
A mangled body voyaged thru Satan's dishwasher
my boy my boy mybody and my boy.
The shadow moves, from hospital to kindergarten to kitchen to bedroom to car to highway to hospital to x-ray machine to CAT scan.
Listen to my son sleep.
He's been sleeping for four years, six months, and 17 days.

Prayers for Rain (a Woman)

I prayed for rain and found a woman
who had pieces of earth between her toes
hummingbird tattoos engraved in her palms,
a fingerprinted history of cynicism and grace
a kiss of wine-lavenders nestled in her hair so everyone knew it was her

I prayed for rain and found a woman
a white gown, with turquoise pendants all around her waist
dancing under the attentive avocado trees who bowed their heads as if to say
"Dear lady, to what do owe this pleasure?"
Her pink sun umbrella twirls
as do her lips
which smile to the joke only she understands

I prayed for rain and found a woman
We rode motorcyles to Michigan [she drove]
then tasted fine wine in Hungary
our heads nodding ludicrously to reds, whites, and all things in between
When the waiter wasn't looking I stole a kiss and you laughed and said stop and kissed me again and that's when I knew

The Killer Grizzles-I am alone in Encino

2005-09-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

I've found a newfound appreciation for all things Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens-anything that's slow, mellow, at the brink of Elliot Smith styled depression but just a few inches away from the line of suicide. Fever Dream by I & W evokes this feeling of simultaneous hopelessness and hopefulness, where anguish has dipped in and left happiness a lurking shadow that's there, visible, within your midst but disappearing and reappearing further and further like a fleeting mirage.

I saw Grizzly Man tonight. Alone. It's a documentary about a documentarian, Tim Treadwell who spends 3 months every year living with and studying bears-but not doing much studying, besides giving them random titles like Chocolate, Tabitha, the Grinch, Rowdy, Mickey-and essentially loses his sanity and human quality over 13 years. He loses touch with reality, grows frustrated and inable to continue interpersonal relationships, preferring to frolic with man-eating killer grizzly bears.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. He got killed by a bear 2 years ago. A recovered alcoholic, his continual profession of his love for the bored bears is sad yet sweet at the same time: his neverending quest for a life of quasi-normalcy is dependent on saying "I love you I love you Iloveyou Iloveyoubears" every 10 minutes, or else he'll slip further into an even deeper spiral than the previous one. The physical proximity to the bears isn't so shocking, it's his dissatisfaction with the human world and conviction that he is bear, the bears see him as a bear, and because he "works" as their magical protector, he's somehow above everyone else. His disillusionment with civilization led him to an unrequited relationship with animals, where a farfetched solution to personal crisis begot him an untouchable life. Maybe he was crazier than before.

I can't believe I'm still thinking about it, this movie. I guess it really resonates with me, maybe it's 'cause I'm lonely, yet happy to be lonely. Maybe not exactly happy, but not complaining. I don't think I've ever seen a movie by myself. Is that pathetic? I'm wierd. I'm a fucking Grizzly Man. My bears are guitars, books, journals, diaries, the ipod, this computer screen, the untouchable reader (you). We're all Grizzlies, dedicated, awkward, introverted, able to hold our own and take the road less traveled because shit, life is just more interesting when you've got a body full of fur.

Safe Travels to all you..Tovah, Sarah, the New Orleans Refugees, Me, my brothers, all the Grizzlies OUT THERE.

Oh, and check out the new links, yo.

Currently Listening to: "Breakthrough" by MoDest MouSe.

Katrina prediction...

2005-09-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

You have got to read this article. Here's proof that prophets exist. It's quite scary, and it's about the Hurricane. Check this out.

Purpose

2005-08-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

so lousiana and mississipi got hit with the biggest water balloon ever. it's not funny. it never was.

watching the tv, for what little time i do, reminds me of sept 11th in a cinematic way, like this whole thing is just one awesome disaster movie where the good guys never win. and maybe its like that, this war in iraq that our idiot president is waging--a Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid fight till the finish, because in the end, the good guy is supposed to win. the good guy always wins.

Been doing quite a bit of nonstop thinking, brain jogging about purpose, life, actions. Hopefully this won't sound too metaphysical or out there, but I've come to realize that the things we care most passionately about are really things we can't live without, or can't live without doing. And perhaps anger is that truly motivating force that pushes us to act the way we are, and do the things we do, to do good or in some cases, to do evil. This is sounding very Star-Wars is it not? True, I think most people are good, thanks Anne Frank, but what's really pushing people to do good? A kind heart? What's stronger? The kind heart or the angry soul that turns even more upset when injustice goes on this world?

Take a friend of mine: Let's call her Shauna. Works with the homeless...Noble, right? But what if we dig deeper down the surface, to find out why she's really getting up early on saturdays and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches: Is it because it makes her feel good, and it's the right thing to do? Or is there a stronger, more intense undercurrent of anger inside her, that says : IT IS FUCKED UP THE WAY THE STATE DEALS WITH THE HOMELESS ? People who go into the law purely for the money are gonna wind up depressed, confused, and without purpose. Careers should go beyond materialistic desire, personal gain, or pleasure, whatever the hell that is. It has to be a calling, an unrelenting force that grabs hold of you, shakes you the fuck up and doesn't let you go, because it shouldn't, because you didn't choose to become an actress, or a doctor, or a paramedic- no, the theatre chose you, the hospital chose you, that ambulance has a seat reserved just for you.

And if all you wanna do is turn on that annoying siren to get people out of your way, then that's fine.

So what can't you live without?

The Valley

2005-08-29T18:08:00.000-07:00

On Moorpark-The businesspeople walk in twos or threes
to eat sushi and submarine sandwiches with no tomato
Dogs grow tired running with half naked children
throwing black matted sticks in Libbit Park
Squirrels chatter over chain link fences
Too busy to count their acorn bounties
Israelis shawarma with amateur psychics
telling my mother when she’ll lose her hair

On Moorpark-Daniel Geft and his soon to be ex-girlfriend smoke joints
watch Japanese anime until she gets a message from another, turns “I’ve got to go” “Where?” “Away” [from you]
Four lawyers discuss evicting their client’s son. He will win the settlement. His co- worker will file papers and bring in 943 Hindis to this country.
Moses gets a stiff neck when Rachel Stark throws a candy too hard during
her cousin’s Bar-Mitzvah reading and there will be a lot of ow ow ows. Her
mother will die of bone cancer the next year.
She is thirteen. [The girl, not the mother]
My grandfather watches Matlock eats green pea soup and misses his son, who doesn’t
speak Hungarian, sadly.
I play with Legos until my spaceship is built, with seats for eight. After dinner I’m
going to Mars. You’re coming with me, whether you'd like to or not.

God into God, Orgies

2005-08-28T02:09:00.000-07:00

Blogging from the new pad, aphex twin in hand
thru the stereo, lone headphones buzzin through my brain
like a psychedelic train changing lanes direction<-> misdirection
searching for substance- the borderless connection

There's this line in Teddy, a short story in JD Salinger's Nine Stories, it's the one about the prodigy wunderkid who predicts his own upcoming death, a prophet of some sort who writes in his diary: It will happen today or in 1963. It is not worth mentioning even. Interesting how Salinger used the youth, kids, as his heroes. They were always devoid of corruption, selfishness, judgemental attitudes...Lovely. Anyways, Teddy tells this observer/journalist fellow that at age 5: "I saw that everything was God, and my sister was pouring cereal and it was like she was pouring God into God."

To make matters worse, or perhaps more confusing, there's my old Rabbi O, whose name I won't mention since he suffered jail time due to oral copulation on a minor (Guess Who? It's Maria!) who told me that God is love and love is God and God is involved in love and you can't have love without God. I'm beginning to wonder if that's true. I don't know. Maybe I need to have kids in order to find out. Can you imagine that? Holding your newborn baby, straight from the womb, in your arms-knowing that this being, this thing, for the next 15 seconds, is totally yours?-Maybe I'm hanging out with my cousins from Israel too much, playing American Uncle Aaron whose Hebrew skills have deteriorated to those of an assimilated Jew in Santa Barbara, but Geez Louise, that's got to be a totally religious, Godly experience. What the hell's it like for women, that I want to know.

I employed that whole giving/receiving thing today at Dinner downtown. My Israeli aunt, Sigalit, hasn't been able to pay for anything since she got here 2 weeks ago. I think she COULD if she wanted to, but when the bill comes, my parents wallets are open faster than a Jewish camp girl's legs. And still, when she fronted the bill like a true gangta, my mom still wanted to throw down! It was ridiculous. See, here's a great fucking example: when she paid, she felt appreciated, needed. And that's all there is too it. Let her pay Ma, let her pay.

Got this picnic activites to run tomorrow. Should be cool. I'll update later how it goes.

I need an extra-curricular activity, minusing the fact that I'm no longer in school. Job, eating, sleeping, coffee, reading, writing a bit. Though I have to say the poetry is on full throttle right now which makes me super :) but I need something else. Sailing, karate, dancing, painting, learning how to do websites, since thats still all the rage...Let me digress::: Tonight I danced swing on State Street with my mom outside this Irish bar, blocking and bumping into ppl. It was great. Shes a great dancer. Really short. That's not what makes her great. There's also a lack of massaging in this world. Why the hell are we so goddamn conservative and afraid to touch each other? I think we should all just jump in a giant pudding pool naked.

Fed Ex Relationship

2005-08-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

You ever see those unconditional givers who just give, give, give?

There's something wrong with that? I've been thinking, as it applies to jobs, life, love--there must be some art to receiving, letting our guard down, exposing our vulnerability that's just so lovable. Telling your particular Jew (or person) of interest that you need them, you actually need them, and not to staple stuff or take you to the airport, but instead on an emotional, deeper level. Deeper...What the hell that does that mean? I mean, I get That's deep yo, or What's the deeper meaning? but when it comes to love, you can't really explain it, can you? It's a feeling, a sensation, beyond words-It goes past anything else in the world.

Anyways, getting back to the matter at hand...Taking/receiving, shows appreciation, it shows humility, shows that you don't have all the answers and you require assitance, my assistance, which makes me happy, makes me feel useful, appreciated. So it's like Fed Ex essentially: the shipping company will go bankrupt if they've got nothing to send, and we'll go bankrupt if we can't get anything sent. see, um, what I mean?

brain----> jelly

2005-08-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

What happens when the brain decides to continue operating auxilary power without end waves determined to flood passages chrning and burrowing further into deep recesses and ohmygod its pain actual pain i sweartogod by three im dead dead dead abyss of papers staples staplers mousepads crawling spiders on walls grinning because they have amoresubstantial salary of flies and grasshopers. so we continue, contrived with a mediocre post about mediocre posts when the greatest wish is some sleep, sex, and spaghetti

Gaza, Altoids, Air Conditioners

2005-08-23T17:24:00.000-07:00

So we left Gaza. Weird how Jews use 'we,' not they, not the IDF, not the settlers, not Israel. It's we. Maybe just the religious ones, who knows. I'm in the dark. As if we're one embodiment, one massive entity of guilty skullcap wearing gangstas.

We won the Six Day War. We did.
Who did?
We. Me and my Jewish homies in the Middle East.
You weren't even born then!
So what? We still did it.

My aunt believes Sharon left in haste to deflect a possible corruption scandal from erupting even further, but I'm privy to think the 73-year-old PM finally realized it was over, that they had to get out, that a soldier for every man, woman, and child on a 400 km coastal strip in the desert wasn't feasible, smart, or assisting Israel's overgouged moral reputation any longer. Though there is that whole security issue, that to my knowledge has been overlooked and ignored by most: What the hell are you gonna do now if they fire shells into Ashkelon? Tel-Aviv? It's a given truth that the Palestinians have tried to sneak in weapons beforehand, so what's stopping them now? If Sharon thinks he's leaving with some sort of Get-Into-Gaza-and-Kick-Ass-for-Free Card, he's buried himself even deeper into his own trench. A week ago, Gaza was a wasteland. Today, it's still a wasteland, but the Arabs' wasteland. He had the high ground before; soldiers protecting religious settlers were also a line of defence, albeit an unjustifiable one. But now, there's nothing keeping them there. So what, just invade a small, premature country? Right...Then you start another one of these.

On a more serious note, I've noticed that Altoids make me sneeze. The cinnamon flavor produces a mild reaction, peppermint and I explode with much violence. And it's not just me. The same thing happens to my mother.

Air conditioners make me tired. It might just be mine, I don't know. But whenever I make the drive from SB to LA, after about an hour (and this is on a good night's sleep) I can barely keep my eyelids open. Man. If you think about it, eyelids are pretty slimy.

Anyone have any good ideas for mushy foods? Say, one you'd want to have in an eating contest?

barbecues

2005-08-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

We were at nurits house for a bit of iraqi cholent, tibit it's called rice and brisket and spices my cousins were all there, some 24 of them eating drinking amber ale and pacificos it was great until not until when barak and ruben pulled me out they needed to make a minyan-10 men don't ask my why not women orthodox ruin-for my great grandfather baba yitzchayik from baghdad rich textile businessman businesspeople the family he died how many years ago? yartzheit we said kadish it was my cousin ruben israeli doesn't speakeddahebrew too well and barak who didnt visit the holy land since 85 that's nineteen to ya buddy and my other ido, 9 nine years old only speaks hebrew but didnt know how to pray, odd in america, americans know more then chabad rabbi chanting his beard moving like fibers with each sway and sway and muscle movement of legs and me confused jew praying but my lips weren't moving fast enough for the times and neither is my head and then havdalah came and we smelled the cloves and drove home and no one said a word.

Allergens, Armenians, Armen, the Zoo

2005-08-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

I think I'm allergic to Santa Barbara. The combination of mechanized mold, a well organized dust infantry unit, and reconnaissance ocean particles have proved a formidable force that pushes my nose to surrender every morning. Chapped lips, cant breathe, headaches--these are my nights.

I got some stories to tell.

My family's here from Israel, and by that I mean the overseas family we're still in contact with. Sigalit and her two kids, age 9 and 4, arrived here last Friday night. We're busy doing touristy stuff, and I never realized Universal Studios was so much fun, and that walking around 3rd street promenade with a three year old on your shoulders really gets the chicks to flock like hot sheep. We cut lines, using the 'switch pass' and went on Jurassic Park thrice. It's super fun. The camera snapped my mom's face right before the drop--imagine having a plate of cholent or a shawarma in a pita slip out of your grip after slaving for hours in the kitchen. Times that by 10--that was her. If you don't get the metaphor, then I'[m sorry, but, this blog isn't for you.

They all went to the LA zoo today, and I just couldn't make it. First off, I went there, a few months ago, and wasn't that impressed. It's not like it used to be--it looks smaller, there are less aminals, the monkeys aren't cute, just annoying. But the main reason was because I got in LATE last nite.

Went out for sushi at Miyagi's on Sunset--with girls!--did some sake bombing, got a little hammered but could've still operated light scale machinery I sweardagod, then we bounced across the street to Standard for drinks. Sorry if this sounding self-indulgent, but hey, it's my blog. I really need to stop apologizing, now. A whiskey sour, vodka tonic, and two champagne/peach drinks that sounded like bulemia between the four of us, and after the club decided to stop serving alcohol, we left.

Only Joey didn't have his fucking keys.

Sunset Strip. 2:30 a.m., rapidly closing in on three, and we're stranded, with two Jewish girls.
What do we do?

"Uh, hi. Is the bathroom open? It's locked? Fuck, I mean, can you open it?"
"Yes, we open it. Julio! The bathroom!"
"Oh, and, how much is a room here?"
"We're booked solid," says friendly Korean hotel night-time manager.
"Solid? You mean, no rooms?"
"Yes. No rooms. Go to Hyatt."
"How much is that, man?"
"Start at 245."
"Dollars or yen?"
"Dollars. You want I call for you?"
"Dollars? Two hundred and forty five dollars?"
"Yes. Where you going?"

I run into 2 Napoletan right outside the club. We exchange numbers. We take a taxi. Our driver is this asshole Armenian named Armin, (good title for a movie?) and the fare was around $65. Joey dropped 40, but altogether the night was one of his most expensive, since he covered drinks, dropped around 30 for dinner, and now this. BUT, THE NIGHT DID NOT END THERE MY FRIENDS. Because he was facing an $80 ticket if he didn't retrieve his BMW by 8 am, we drove right back to the city, spare keys in hand, to get his damn car. We had 4 hours till the deadline. We made it there and back in 45 minutes. I crashed at 5.15 after reading a bit of Foer.

And that's why I didn't go to the zoo at 8:15 today.

the good times are killin' me

2005-08-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

So I love my job.

I just finished SuperStaff SuperVision by this UberCounselor named Michael Brandwein, and it has to be one of, if not the best, book I've ever read on interpersonal communication, relationships, and problem solving. Written for camp supervisors to help them deal with camp staff, it's perfectly applicable to my job, which is sort of the same thing, except that my counselors are better looking that the examples he uses in the book. I sweardagod I'll marry this guy's daughter neice if she's even one tenth as smart as he is. If you're looking for a book that'll help you grow as a person, pick it up. I realize I'm goin overboard with the PR, but really, I can't recommend it any higher. And neither can the camp freaks on the inside pages.

Why is trader joe's so damn expensive? And why is it that everytime I come home I feel like I didn't get anything?

I have a seriously unattractive farmer's tan, a nice 'fuck you' from the sunburn I got in pasadena. I used aloe vera so my skin wouldn't peel, and for the first time in my life, I actually have color. Pigment! Time to pray to the god(s), and ask them What the hell took you so damn long?

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. Hilarious. Jewish. Not too Jewish. HYSTERICAL, laugh out loud funny. He's 26, and jesus, what a literary RISKTAKER this boy is. It has to be something in the matzoh balls. Or maybe his matzah balls. If only I could get some of those...

I need new music. If anybody knows of anything, let me know, hit the comment button, write a band, a song title, your phone number, Swiss bank accounts, sister's phone number (only if she's hot), and also a detailed explanation as to why I suck at math, and when that disturbing spiral plunged downwards. We're talkin the day here, folks.

Oh yeah, and girlfriend! Where do I find her?

if you're wondering

2005-08-07T19:41:00.000-07:00

Weidmanart.com has got cool posters. I saw some at the Pasadena swap meet, but were still overpriced at $25. "They're a steal" he says. "Steal my ass," I replied. I got a cool dresser than I'm gonna repaint a slew of colors: blue and green. too bad I have no house to put it in. Did I just end that sentence with a preposition?

Friends come and go...And lately more going than coming. That's been my motto lately. To let you in on a little secret, I'm from a pack of 5 guys in the valley that grew up together in the sandbox. we lives within 5 miles of one another. . One of em, one of the dannys, yeah, the crack of his ass would show a little bit of itself when we made sandcastles and dug our way to indonesia, because where else do you want to go when you're four? He's got a girlfriend now, living in Manhattan, making him nearly unreachable at all times. The other, Joe, is going to London in 10 days. The other is stayin here, but we're not that close at all anymore, so no big loss there. And the last one is becoming a rabbi I think. He called me today for the first time in months. He's got one of those needlessly super-aggressive personalities that doesn't let you get a word in because he's analyzing outloud his opinions on goddamn everything, and if you DO, by sheer luck have a counter opinion of your own, you'll need to either shout over him or just cut him off by cracking your hand through the air. Now that's conversation.

the summer is ending. and it's still 110 in the Valley. I like it. Today at the swap meet, saw some old guy with clear air tubes coming out of his nose, running into a knapsack slung across his shoulder. This was probably the oxygen bottle, I guess. He was breathing heavy, even though he was skinny which made him even more odd, but during my grotesque stares, I couldn't help but empathize with the geezer. "Yeah, me too, brother. We all can't breathe in this damn heat." Which makes it all so nice.

Here's to finding new friends.

this little piggy went to work for the man

2005-08-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

the superjew entered the work force today. i'm tired, exhausted, happy im making some kesef and get to eat at restaurants and not feel bad about the bill...not that i did, ever, wait nevermind, here's what i had to say...

I woke up at 7 a.m., today, because I had to pee, yes, but I think the real reason was bwecause the anxiety in my bloodstream has usurped total control over my jewish body that alarm clocks have ceased to exert any power whatsoever. the night before i made a sack lunch, A SACK LUNCH of a pastrami sandwich with sun dried tomatoes and mayonnaise, a dragon and yellow plum, pita chips but no salsa, and three sticks of trident. A sack lunch...There's some sort of reversal going on here, I can't figure out what. The last time I had sack lunches was when our housekeeper made them for us..And she gave us Hi-Cs and Capri Suns and double layered tuna on bagels.

No news on work. I'm involved in the jewish community, in a way that is yet to be determined. my day was compressed with meetings, trainings, instructions, getting-to-knows, and meeting jewish VIPS of Santa Barbara. It's great-free meals, hopefully get hooked up with someone's granddaughter who's old enough to breed, and I'm surrounded by jewish senior citizens who love to tell tales of escaping nazi germany and killing krauts while in "the services," whatever the hell that means...maybe some sort of jewish mafia.

It's funny. When I was in italy I'd call my ex and recount my menu for the day. She nodded over the phone-somehow a nod will pass thru phone lines-and only when i got back did she tell me she really didn't care...Well... you people have the ability to hit that red X button, but please, stay for the kittens, and for the self-deprecation.

tomorrow? Pasta.

i've got people skillz

2005-08-01T01:05:00.000-07:00

nunchuck skillz, people skills...liger skills. What's wrong with Los Angeles? You can't meet ayone with a brain here in so called 'meeting spots.' Clubs, bar, discoteques-why is it so damn hard to find someone who can actually engage you in substantial conversation? I'm mostly pissed about this one girl I met in CLEAR, a bar in the valley. She was hot, Russian, a writer-read children's books!-, obsessed with harry potter which kinda turned me of but hell at least she was reading...so we're talkin for around 40 minutes, we've got the same drinks, go outside to join the others for a cig and then she decides NOW is the perfect time to tell me how she bought a $150 dollar long sleeve shirt for her boyfriend. Yeah. Thanks. Nice timing. You could've told me that, like, four hours ago. Ass. I don't know what pissed me off more: the fact that she had a boyfriend but was still letting me flirt with her or her purchase of a goddamn shirt for 150 dollars. It's stiched cotton, stupid. Made in China for pennies, while Lucky Brand and DKNY make a fortune.

My expanding list of places I consider kosher to meet chicks. And guys if that's your thing. Feel free to add whatever spots you like...Come on, now, seriously...

Supermarket-Health food section and checkout.
Trader Joes
Borders
Ice Cream parlors...Everyone's licking and slurping something. Makes it a whole lot easier...
The Getty Museum Lawn and Garden
Pool Halls- Hit Balls!
Best Buy---It's like heaven, that's why.
Apple Stores-Nerds, iPods--->The Girl of my Dreams
Gas Stations-Hey where you headed okay cool just come with me okay I'll follow you your friend is cute you're from the valley? No shit! and Jewish cool well let's go swimming and my place and get married.

Any others?

apts part 2

2005-07-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

we lost the apt we wanted. some other group of schmucks offered BNC or BMD or BMG or MGD more money than was listed on the price sheet. how i'm starting to resent capitalism, i can't even explain.

what if we were all communists? and each person had their own private room and shared utilities and private bikes and then the govt would control art and music and burn books. no, wait, that would suck big time.

i'm moving up to SB this weekend. the summer is quasi-ending, and i don't know how i feel about that. it's 107 here every day, all day, in the san fernando valley..that i won't miss...but bumming around, reading and writing a lot, playing tennis with my dad and music with my brothers-that's nice. round here, round here...

A Bris, The Orthodox Dating Circuit, and a Mohel

2005-07-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

So I filled out the app for the rental co. and expecting to hear back from them soon. the place is-why am i tell you this- 12x12, backyard, 2 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, huge garage-that's where the jacuzzi is going-and an enormous dining room in 70s decor. the tile is hideous and i love it. everything is big, big, big-like other things-cept for the rent, which is 600 per person...rental gods please don't screw me over this time...i'll sacrfice myself or a small child or something.

went to fersht's cousin's bris milah. something about a circumcision that always intrigues me. its so primitive, so savage almost, and so healthy at the same time. but it's still something id expect to originate amongst the aborigines, those aussie guys who wear loincloths, with their huge testicles flapping about their inner thighs...makes me shudder...

i've been to 4 of these, and never had i had such great seats! right next to the action! we stared right into the sandak's eyes, he looked terrified. and oy, so much blood! the rabbi was a showman, not only a guy who "cuts dicks all day," as my friend put it. he told people to get out of his way, and rightly so-he's been slashing through foreskin for over 20 years. and i'm proof. yep, he cut me up 22 years ago, the bastard. i still hate him.

the LA dating scene sucks, so i hear. and i hear from my cousins who are still shopping around at age 28 and 30. LA is a great place to meet someone if youre really connected, i.e. religious; the vastness of the city isolates and disillusions everyone else. unless, you play it hollywood and know a friend of a cousin of a surgeon who works in beverly hills and wants to have jewish children. then you're in good shape, chief.

It's ridiculous though. the LA circuit is a scene about being seen, dressing up elegantly so your mother's friends can pinch your cheeks-if you let em get that close-ask what your plans and whether you have a girlfriend, then the proceeding question: Why Aaron? How can you not be with anyone right now? Why? because I know every damn Jewish girl in this city that you do, and i'm not interested, that's why.

Weddings, bar-mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs, kosher restaurants, circumcisions---it's all just a runway show before you take that final, murderous step down the real runway, under the white chupah with all your friends parents standing like salivating businesspeople about to watch the superbowl commercials, (because the game sucks- it's all about the commercials)

im making the move to santa barbara this weekend. better luck there? there the situation is jsut as bad...there are less Jews there, which means everyone knows everyone, so youre bound to be sleeping with your friend's friend's ex-girlfriend. or his current one. who knows. i'm gonna that mohel, leibowitz...maybe HE'S got some good tips.

Why watermelon is God

2005-07-23T00:42:00.000-07:00

Seriously. Watermelon is king. Nothing comes close. Well, maybe a watermelon margarita. Do they have those? Is it possible to make those? Or a watermelon mojito? I'll put money down there are people who can spin margaritas with anything-chocolate, sashimi, babies.

A running joke my cousin has is that in Israel vendors don't sell ice cream. they run around yelling "Avateeyach!,"(That's Hebrew for the greatest fruit in the world) He's a liar, or prone on telling fibs, if you feel me, so I don't know if we can trust him on that one.

Why is the pronoun I capitalized? It's so annoying to have to go back and erase and erase every time you fuck up. i smell. i cook. i am Hungarian. i like Jewish girls who like hiking. Works? You tell me.

I jsut finished my first, full-length short story, if that makes sense. It's just under 5,000 words, and I really, REALLY like it. It's very Rothian, and it revolves around, of course, a Jewish family in Brentwood, CA and how they cope with Yossi, the youngest son who comes back a conservative, brainwashed asshole after studying a year in yeshiva in Israel. More of an asshole than anything else who disagrees with the way jews live in america. then there's the brother, Nathan, who is conflicted and debates going to law school. I sent it to an old prof so he can play literary surgeon and rip the fucking thing apart like Will Hunting does to Sean in that oh so kick ass movie Good Will Hunting. Those punks were like 25 when they wrote that screenplay. Sorry, penned that screenplay. Ridiculous. I need to get crackin.

matinee time, suckers

2005-07-21T02:33:00.000-07:00

Little obnoxious superjew over here has gotten lazy with the blogs, the updates, the goings-on about the town, so here's my valiant attempt to redeem myself, like God redeemed the Jewish people out of Egypt a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away. The land: Egypt. The time: I honestly don't remember.

Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka? Mr. Tim Burton, I commend you on taking up the challenge to replace Gene Wilder, but you should've known you're playing with fire-sweet, chocolate covered fire-and guess what? It burned the shit out of you. Willy Wonka is a creepy, discomforting, Michael Jackson lookalike, and even includes the parallel dream to be a "chocolatier/pop star/child molester" father<--> son conflict. The acting was bad-Depp failing below everyone else-the story was crap, but worst of all, the film contains perhaps, and I'm being generous here, 3 minutes when you feel all warm and gooey inside, when there's something good going on between the characters, and your 7.50 was worth it. But that's about it.

Vince Vaughn rules. Wedding Crashers is funny. My parents disagree. They were pulling out of our driveway as soon as J and I drove up. J(eremy):the old roommate during senior year, good guy, the one who bought me Schindler's List for my birthday. Matinees rock. You're basically alone, an entire theatre to yourself, save for the 4 older citizens, 2 single moms, and security guard who loiters around trying to bust kids who sneak in through the back. Why is movie popcorn so good, so bad a few hours later, and so damn expensive? Candy only comes in super-Deluxe-Ultra-Costco sizes, and that's why they charge you like 50 bucks for a Nestle Crunch. I sweardagod-taking a girl out on a movie sets you back at least, at least 40 bucks. Allow me to do the math.

9.00-Price of Ticket x 2 = 18
5.00-Popcorn = 5
4.00-Drinks = 4
1.75-Water Bottle (she wanted it) = 1.75
1.75-Second water bottle (you want to appear healthy)= 1.75
4.00-Gas (You got lost) = 4
2.00-Anti Gas Pills (Just in case you get lucky) = 2
5.00-Trojan Magnums (In case you get really lucky) 5

Around 42 Dollars! Jesus! I misunderestimated. How idiotic of me.

Hollywood is a great, fake place, and I'm beginning to like it. I need to find an apt right now. Don't forget to use plenty of sunscreen! Love you all. Hope your days are as good as they are supposed to be. And that's from the heart.

Apt

2005-07-18T19:52:00.000-07:00

I am looking for an apt downtown Santa Barbara. yes, this counts as a post. My friends are crazy. I am going to see Willy Wonka tonight and only slightly excited. What is the world coming to?

Hint: If you know of anybody, that's got a place, for cheap, and smells good...contact meee!

2005-07-16T14:15:00.000-07:00

Avateeyach! Anguria, Melone alla spiaggia di ponte cesaro, lecce, giu italia-

2005-07-16T14:14:00.001-07:00

Statue in Budapest castle---a lil color tweaked

2005-07-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

Matera at Night..Just like jerusalem..

2005-07-16T14:13:00.001-07:00

Matera, Italy with Shulie. City where Gibson and his anti-Semite father filmed The Passion

2005-07-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

Suck it McCarthy-With Guiseppe and Rosario-Sono un communisto finche muoio.

2005-07-16T14:11:00.002-07:00

Synagogue in Budapest-2nd biggest in da world

2005-07-16T14:11:00.001-07:00

me fighting a pink cow in Slovak republic

2005-07-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

Paparazzi in Slovakia-Infinite Regress

2005-07-16T14:10:00.001-07:00

Communist housing in Bratislava-Like prisons, right?

2005-07-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Steve checkin out Prague Castle...It is big.

2005-07-16T14:09:00.000-07:00

Prague Cemetary-Jewish Quarter

Need a shower

2005-07-13T23:33:00.000-07:00

Seven plane flights (with a 2 hour delay in Newark-just another reason to hate the state of New Jersey), 5 mosquito bites, 2 rashes (won't tell you where), 10 train rides, dozens of bottles of red wine, and at least 40 gelatos later, I'm back in the United States.

We were made to sit idly for 2 hours on the plane in NJ, with Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality to keep us company. Then afterwards they showed the sequel. God Bless the iPod.
While waiting I composed a list of things to do to ensure you have a safe, exciting flight.

1) Be on the lookout for people trying to light their shoes on fire. Also, dark-skinned, casually dressed businessmen who pull out switchblades and box cutters must be stopped. Stop them.

2) Your chatty neighbor's voice still seping in through your decomposing earplugs? Throw up your dinner all over her, and her loser boyfriend. If you ate the kosher, hold it in as long as you can. If you fly Continental-which, you shouldn't-always buy kosher. Tonight, or Yesterday night, or last week, I can't remember, I ate apple strudel, peaches, fish, chicken, peas and carrots, potatoes, and Water! these jews...they think of everything...

3) Practice your Arabic drumming skills on your tray table if the forward passenger leans too far back. Jesus Christ: I have knees, people! They swell up when you compress them into my chair. Remember though, to lean back as far as possible. If the guy behind you gives you shit, just look him straight in the eye and say "Do you mind!? I haven't slept in 4 days!" Which, if you are like me, you haven't.

I feel like writing. A lot. I've been coming up with new story ideas every hour, on the half hour. I also just finished reading Charbon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It's well written. The Golem of Prague makes an appearance. They're Jewish and eat bacon. Goodnight. Call me if you want to get sushi.

Still Kosher, Still Here

2005-07-10T03:39:00.000-07:00

I'm alive. You can stop worrying. In fact, you shouldn't have worried at all. (Mom)

Local Italian wine we drank at the centro sociale, a sort of anti-religion, procommunist community center-think the opposite of Chabad-has destroyed any previous thoughts I had for the blog, leaving me to fit all the fragmented pieces back together like a puzzle. And not my cousin's 12 piece puzzle. The 1200 Jigsaw of Monet's Bridge you find only in speciality toy stores, the ones where the cashier laughs when you buy it, because she knows and you know it's never gonna be finished.

Madonna Mia. I guess I should start by explaining what happened those first few days in Bologna, and how I managed to have a good time. 2 things I realized after my third day here: I'm not an Italian citizen, nor do I live here. Second, never agree to stay in a house where the only tenants are 2 Southern Italians who broke up five days before. To quote some Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil (don't know who said it first), I was living in the past and wasn't living in the now. Which is to be expected, naturally, but not at all benefical. So instead I'm living the Italian lifestyle, b/c that's all I know how to do. Drinking wine, having exquisite panini made just for me, discussing politics and criticizing the war in Iraq lest I get kicked out of the communist stronghold which is the Bologna Dormitory system, figuring out bus schedules and not giving a shit when everything arrives late (it might be time for another Mussolini, it's so god awful here), old-people watching in the South-you know the type: baby blue short-sleeve shirt, grey trousers hiked up to the chin, and a maximum of 8 teeth in the mouth, with a tendency to discuss what life was like in the old days, the days of the Second World War when the American soldiers were some bravi ragazzi, the Germans were all bastardi, and life was a lot more clear. So I survived the test, and now don't want to leave, giving serious thought to starting an English-speaking school here, though the challenges of the Italian beaucracy are counterbalancing any hopes I have.

I met up with my dear high-school friend Shulie, who studied at Reed College in Portland. A kick ass photographer who's been traveling for over a month in Italy by herself. We met up in Napoli and spent 2 days in the city. It met my expectations of a tight, bustling, traditional city with vendors who yell their prices and the best tasting pizza I've ever had in my life. That's what's great about traveling-after spending some time in a country, you can actually say that "This the best ______ I've ever had." Because it's true. The city is infamous as the pickpocketer's Promised Land, and we kept our wallets in the hostel. Currently a war is being waged between Southern criminal groups in certain quarters of Napoli. 2 old Asians were shot the day we arrived. Napoli is nice, but really spooky at night. It's Italy, I should feel safe, but instead of pursuing a sinister looking alley, we got some beers and then went home, woke up the next day for-

a metro, two buses, a train, ten another bus to reach Matera, a UNESCO Heritage Site now famous for being the location of Mel Gibson's The Passion. We stayed in the Sassi, a Arabesque quarter with stone houses built into the caves, smashed together between churches. It looks like Masada, or Jerusalem. I can't tell you how many times I sang "If I was a rich Man" in Hebrew of course, or the first lines of "yerushalayim shel Zahav." No, wait, I only sang the chorus. I think I'm quickly gaining ground with the Italian but my Hebrew is disappearing at an alarming rate. The residents of the 2 Sassis were all evacuated in the 1950s. You won't believe how these people lived. A family of six lived in one tiny ass room, with a donkey. Chickens lived under the one family bed. Little kids slept in drawers right above the ones which held dung, hay, and chicken feed. Smart.

We also stayed at Lecce, which has fantastic beaches and plenty of guys in way-too-tight Speedos. They really have no shame. You could see their like, balls, and stuff, all the time, just there. Whatever. I think it's a remnant of Puritan America, which is somhow in all of us, that makes a piece of Spandex a serious turn off. Though I guess it is more comfortable, so what the hell. I can also attest that I was the whitest person on a beach of maybe 200, and probably one of 2 Americans. here I'm the odd man out.

Enough narrative. The South is beautiful, traditional, conservative, dangerous, and not poor, just neglected from the State, berlusconi, and most importantly, from tourists. Everything is so cheap here-it was like winning the lottery. The food is incomporable to anywhere else in Italy. The focus on farming and lack of industry makes the food so good but keeps the money so far. The sad part is on the new generation-the lack of funds, and growing up in a place where luxuries were sparse, has affected the Southerners' mentality, keeping them stuck in a life where opportunities are out of reach, where dreams can't be realized and chances shouldn't be taken because the risk is just too much. Usually they don't even get to take that financial risk because most parents are laborers, not lawyers or doctors or businessmen so commonly found in the North. On one hand I feel like I've grown in an American Neverland, where if I wanted to do something, most of the time I could. And I'm not talking about things, because fortunately we didn't get everything we asked for. But on the other hand, every person needs to take that risk, step out of the safety net, find an American and engage in language exchange, apply to schools, get a visa. Sure it's hard, but it's feasible.

The Passion. We ask every Italian to say it. I think i've been at this blog for too long. Guiseppe and Rosario are telling me I should put chapter titles, start it with the day I was born. By the way, did I ever mention I got a massage for a 350 pound Hungarian man? Did I mention I was naked? And that I liked it, just a little bit?

Oh, and screw radical Islam and the terrorist bastards who adhere to the good book, because it is a good book. Screw any fanatic who wants to kill other people in the name of God. My heart is with you, Brits.

Sono cosi felice, Non vi posso spiegare!

2005-07-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

Days can't start so miserably and end more positively than this one. Today, Sunday, I packed up all my stuff from the apt I was staying at, because it was a brutta situazione. My old roommates, after being and living together for 2.5 years, broke up. Then I showed up to italy the next day.

I'm at guiseppe's house, today we had lunch out at la brace, my favorite restaurant in italy-in the world!-had 2 gelati, talked about politics and globalization in piazza santa stefano-my favorite piazza-ordered some pizzas with about 6 neighbors, drank some wine...Then went to the park to hear a percussion dance band and listen to reggae, read some poetry by ani difranco, all before going to sleep and getting shulies email about where shes staying in napoli and how we're gonna meet up. can't wait yo. today i taught the italians the words : it's all G, everything good, its all good, and most importantly (thats not a word i taught them), are you chillin?

im not a tourist. i lived here. i can still enjoy italy. always.

domani vado a napoli, lo sapete ragazzini?? dai v voglio bene, tutti...

Zach Braff knows How I Feel...

2005-07-03T02:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we tend to be overexpectant of the future, and hype up what's coming. I'm here in my old roommate's apartment outside of Bologna, and couldn't a more stronger mix of excitement, confusion, and lonliness as now. It's like coming back to your old hometown during the summer when everyone is gone-the buildings, the parks, the broken streetlamps are right where they should be, but you're not, and neither is anyone else.

It's all here-the heat, the piazza, the overpriced italian clothes with sexually inviting copy written all over people's chests. my favorites are You and Me, Tonight?, Faq You (No no no...Faq YOU), and I am Sexy. I spent most of the day alone while my friend Guiseppe was in recovery from the night before, walking around the city, involuntarily tracing back old memories from the year before. It was nice but excruciatingly painful to realize that something was missing, but I couldn't figure out what. I couldn't find that feeling of home that I possessed so strongly while I was abroad here, no matter how hard I tried. I'm looking for that same sentiment I had- knowing the city, feeling comfortable speaking Italian, having my American friends and my Italian ones, being able to make plans on an instant. I feel like a tourist in my own country, though I've come to the realization that no matter what type of clothes I wear or how much time I spend fixing my accent so I won't ripped off by the street market vendors, I'll always be an a Jewish American 20 something.

I can't stay here. This push and pull of feeling like a regular Bolognese or an American college graduate touring northern Italy has taken its toll and is literally pushing me out the door to continue my travels. Why stop now? I love Italy and don't regret coming here, but maybe it was too early to come to Bologna.

I'm meeting some friends for lunch then heading to Rome. From there, Napoli. From Napoli, who knows?

Lo Shock del Rientro

2005-07-01T02:08:00.000-07:00

Allora. First of all, I think it's quite all right for me to say fuck Vienna, as a city, capital, center of transportation, and a staff and record label. No, I know I can't actually blame a city for screwing up my plans, but I think everything worked out for the best-I'm in Italy.

What happened was me and Mean Gene, aka a Mexican guy named Hugo (the h is silent, so it sounds like Oo-Go) who complied with a dare to not shave or cut his hair for three months, which in turn makes him look like a Colombian terrorist, made our way from Budapest to Vienna, when it started to rain. And rain and rain and began to flood as we went to two different hostels in Vienna. They sent me to another one , but before I made that trip I bought my train ticket for Italy for the next night. When I got to the hostel, some guy from North Carolina took the last spot in the hostel, and as I found out seconds later, in all of Vienna. ALL OF VIENNA. In the city, outside the city, all the hallways-occupied. Hugo and I ran to the train station, a pleasant Turkish woman with two kids at her side let me cut her in line (the wait was 55 minutes) and I changed my ticket. 2 kebabs later I made it on a night train, and arrived in Bologna at 5:30 a.m. I was falling asleep in the train station, and decided my luck would be better indoors, so with my mental map guiding me like a biological GPS on recharged batteries, my eyes barely open, I made it to my friends Stefano and Mario, on Via Strazzacappa.

The city is more beatiful than I remembered. It's quite undescribable to be honest, what I'm feeling right now. LIke nothing has changed, though everything is different. Not because of the anti-smoking laws passed in Italy, but I've grown older, different, graduated, yet the city stays the same, exactly as it was before. We're all just mere blips in one enormous space, competing with each other for everything. The woman who sells dried fruit recognized my face, she promises. I don't know if she was being totally honest, but I'll grant her the benefit of the doubt. I have an urge to go to all the locali I remembered, places where I made more of a deep dent than a shallow impression just to see if Italians remember me. That will be some sort of victory for me I think, but more importantly it'll feel like I'm really at home.

I miss home. I've been away for 8 days but it feels like 6 months. I don't miss the amenities, I can't deal without those. It's family, but what is that exactly? family is affection, and being appreciated by people who understand you, your personality, your flaws-YOU. When I saw Trenitalia, and the graffiti, written on the side of the train cars I knew I was headed home. I can't explain to you how excited I am to just EAT. Tortolloni, gelato, tagliatelle, ragu bolognese...And a shower!! I don't even KNOW how long it's been since I had one of those. Everyone I meet tends to keep their distance, and I haven't double kissed anybody here yet. I don't blame them though. I mean come on.

Alla doccia!!!

leavin the pest

2005-06-30T02:28:00.000-07:00

im on the shittiest keyboard in hungary right now. off to vienna to see the picasso exhibit and paz exorbitant amounts of euros for a hostel full of drunk australians. and i already miss prague. somehow ive manaed to skip services every friday night since ive been here. whatevs. at least i got to see 3 jewish quarters!!! i lost my replacement ipod heaphones and dont have enough fts to buy a new pair. guess ill have to actually talk to someone on the train while reading counterlife by philip roth. i have one more pair of undies for 3 days. the question is not : is it gross since the answer is quite clear. i guess the question is : CAN HE MAKE IT? if anybody has any recs for vienna, now is the time to comment or email me. the time is now. the choice, is yours!!!

HUNGARY- Rude Israelis, Anti-Semitic Kosher Eateries, Chicks

2005-06-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

It just keeps getting better.

After a quick (5 hr) train from Bratislava-->Budapest, we were accosted by a fellow in an orange hate. I'm traveling with 2 girls from mexico city who may or may not think I'm gay because I stared at a male mannequin too long, and we're staying at the mellow mood hostel. We have a 65 year old roomate who snores.

Just like Praha, Budapest is like a pre-made burrito. It gets better the longer you keep at it in the oven. bad analogies aside, the city is great, bustling, and full of history and communist statues which are literally everywhere. go check out some pictures and you'll see what I mean. (I never meant for this to be a descriptive travelogue-just funny instances of what's going on during my trip)

my family is hungarian, specifically on the ukranian border under the carpathian moountains in a town called uzgherod. THIS WILL SOUND WIERD, but for the first time in my life I feel truly at home, at least appearance wise. so many ppl here look like my dad, or my late grandpa, or my grandmother. Wavy hair, blue eyes, and moustaches!!! I think that look passed through the family genes-I get stopped all time from lost tourists, and nobody here will hesitate to speak to me in magyar. I can't understand a word. People are surprised I can't speak it. I don't know. I get the same thing in Italy (its the hair!), so maybe I'm jsut international, like a jewish james bond. My dream scene:

"Brei. Matzoh Brei. And remember, no chometz."

I started my day in the buda castle, which was cool but most of the museums were closed. no worries there. The cathedral is way cool. Kind of oriental inside-the magyarswere actually central asians, deriving from one the many -stans under russia.

next i hit up the synagogue. It was designed by a goy (who else?) and looks like a church with hebrew inscriptions. I got in free and skipped paying the ticket (to a synagogue) by walking in with a group of israelis. they were absolutely hysterical and embarassing at the same time. they all rushed the aron kodesh and started opening up the ark to see the 28 Torah Scrolls. Security came by and yelled "Slichah!!! LO!!!" but they just stayed put ad took pictures. it felt like being in encino.

Next I went to Carmel Cellar, which offers Hungarian-Jewish food. The waiter was a schmuck from the start. I am pretty convinced he's an anti-semite and that the entire staff is out to get me. I find it odd he put ME in the only booth with a picture-a vintage picture of the Western Wall. The chef put mini-vegetables near my goulash, for decoration probably, but I think his ulterior motive was to see if I'd eat them.

I ate them all, you bastard. And the pickles, and the goulash, and the dumplings...Hungarian food is good...But the women are even better. Better looking that is.

OH! One more funny scene in the restaurant: 3 old men and one woman were sitting alongside me. One of them sitting at the end in a blue polo shirt, elbows on the table, his hands in his face, I think said Auschwitz while eating his food. Moments later his son's phone rang. His ringtone? The theme from Schindler's List. There's a Curb your Enthusiasm scene there somewhere.

The plan tonight: Opera/ballet or Turkish Baths. I remain undecided-but leaning towards the Opera. It'll be my second. And in Hungarian! Who could pass that one up?

Pace, Amore, Baci, Besos a Tutti!
From Budapest, this is Aaron ibn Aryeh, signing off...

Bodacious Bratislava

2005-06-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm in Slovakia now. The capital is called Bratislava. I don't think I can say that without letting a snicker go by. Or a chuckle. Say it. BRA. TEES. LAAAAAVAHHHHH. It kinda reminds me of Zangief, a character from Street Fighter II. Now on that, let's name the others: ken ryu guile blanka chun li e.honda balrog, the bad guys: vega, sagat from thailand (who could forget him) and m bison. a baddy so bad his first name is just an initial. Start calling me A.Small

Funny scenario which leads me to believe there is an active God protecting me: The snoring roommate from mexico woke me up again at 5:30 this time. I'm on 4 hours of sleep and I don't mind. Anyways, steve came back from partying the nite bevffore at 5.30 too. after an hour of elliot smith on iPod i decided it was time to go, so i hopped on a tram. In the metro I met another Czecho who kept professing his catholic religion to me, tapping his mini bible with his wrinkled hands and telling me hes gonna study economics in the church. whatta character. anyways, because of him i missed my metro.

luckily i arrived at narazdi stop, and while walking to the international train ticket booth these 5 guys in wooden swords said "bratislava?" i said hell yes and together we shaved 50% off of our ticket to Slovakia. there were in a middle ages role playing game with 330 other czechs and slovaks, fighting war, eating rabbit, and sleeping in tents. we got to talking about americas involvement in world politics, the downward spiral the Eastern Bloc countries are taking because of the EU's mandatory economic and governmental reforms, and communism.

slovakia is a sad place. ppl are still breaking away from communism, but across the river, its a horrible sight: dozens of communist styled buildings line the shoreline, one after another, citizens cramed into prison like tenement buildings that are starting to decompose. theyre hideous looking remnants of Stalin's legacy. in the 1970s the building bulldozed the synagogue to make room for "progress." its such crap-the shul is far away from the shore and the new bridge...its sad that this happened just 30 years ago. so it goes.

in the city square a celtic band is playing. the ppl here dont really know what to do..dance? clap? many left during their set, despite their lack of energy. it seems to have dwindled down to close to zero/as if theyve forgetten what to be happy for. at least you ahve a funny sounding city name!!!!

today, communist devastation. tommorow, boat ride on the danube, the communist river!

Mloovetyeh Language of Love

2005-06-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Alright, alright!!! I know it has been a while, but I am finally here, typing on a defective keyboard in Prague, where the Ys are Zy and the lack of apostrophes has led me to a new found appreciation for anti-conjuctions. oH, and 7 Cyechsters are playing CounterStrike, yelling in the background.

I was thinking about telling you guys about my flight, the treif food I was forced to eat-chicken marsala-so here goes-it was a good idea to break up the flight, houston is full of fat people, and london gatwick airport sucks because the english dont believe in air-conditioning. that was the first urban kvetch of the post.

the boathouse hostel is 20minutes outside staremesto, old town of praha, and didnt lie in the advertisement that they are a backpackers heaven, a nice refuge from the heavilz trafficked areas of town. you walk anywhere in the city and youre liable to hear italian, hebrew, slovak, russian, and english everywhere. and dont get me started on the english. its custom for guy and gals to throw bachelor-ette parties in prague, so they move in groups of 20, harassing women, asking everyone for directions all in a drunken haze. truly lovely!

the old jewish quarter is really something special. i ran into a sicilian couple who after our 3 hour excursion together, where we walked through all 6 synagogues, invited me to their place when i go to italy. i said --va bene, but no funny business when i arrive..and by funny i mean mafia, and by business i mean contract killings--alberto and paola were super nice, really intelligent people-we discussed the fate and current state of modern jewry, israel and zionism, anti-semitism, and the fast of yom kippur...SHIT! shoulda told them about the blog!!! we walked thru the old jewish cemetary, where 12,000 tombstones are jumbled up together, some 500 years old. after putting a rock on the maharals tomb --the golem rabbi--they both did the same. such nachas.

the transit system is easy to use-its fairly recommended to get lost for a few hours and youll figure it all out. im starting to feel like a natural chesky after only a day and a half.

the women here are stunning, in case any of you are wondering. i know my brothers are. as are some other members of mÿ family. some dont speak english that well, and its hard to communicate. otherwise, those that do have first hand knowledge of american guyz and their sexual agenda, so i think they tend to stay away. in all, the czecks arent completely there yet- perhaps theyre still decompressing after communism and pissed about joining the EU since its destroying their economy, but there not as happy as other peoples ive seen. inquisitive, but not yet there. one girl, strangely, couldnt explain what she felt about americans.

im not going to poland. its too out of the way- a big schlep to see the camps. ironic, huh? because it sure as hell wasnt for the germans. one of my roommates arrived, and poland is just the opposite direction from where we want to end up-BUDAPEST- we dont have that much time here, and i dont want to spend 2 or 3 dazs of traveling to see a killing centre for 3 hours. im kinda close by not really, and want to spend more time there. wouldnt you rather party in an underground cave in hungary?? really?? cool. nice to know you agree.

our agenda is bratislava, budapest, eger, then back to italy for a lil fun in the adriatic sun. i cant wait for the food. its literally gonna be just an orgy of tastes- i look forward to eating out in italian ristoranti like my grandparents wanted to come to america.

what else? beer gardens, mirror houses, pastry shops where no one speaks a world of english-gesticulation comes in handy-chilling on the danube and blending in-praha reallz is a magical place. people say its not, but trust me. They are LIARS and they must be shot. the tourists dont bother me. i see them as my bodyguards to the rampant pickpocketers who plunge the lost souls.

4 hours of sleep and a litre of beer and im still standing-well, right now im sitting, but thats not my point- my point is, my friends, is that this little superjew has to go back to his happy hostel. hes tired, his thighs are badly chafed-its burns! it burns!-he smells worse than an israeli from the golan with garlic breath-were talking bad here, people, and he badly needs a shower.

till next time, in budapest. but until then, alway remember that if a half russian-half czech guy named Nicotev takes you to his bar and then to a nightclub, think about it, walk away, and do not look back.

You've made it, I'm bouncing

2005-06-22T00:58:00.000-07:00

My plane leaves in 8 hours, and I'm still up. My brother Gil and I got into a serious discussion over how many pairs of shorts to take, what type, whether A & F shorts are too thick for Euro.

Some things to note: I've never been to Eastern Europe. I've never seen a concentration camp, I love wine and cheese, I am a light sleeper, I plan on visiting the Chabad of Prague and Budapest, there is a shul in Prague that according to superstition (not just plan stition) houses the remains of the Golem.

Wander about, comment if you wish, know that I am in your thoughts.

Yes. You are thinking about me. Right now.
pretty cool? huh? k im tired.

Don't Cry 4 Me Yeshiva

2005-06-20T00:43:00.000-07:00

I'ev never done this before, but I'm involved in this blogging/post/commenting crap on The Rising Cost of Jewish Education at jewlicious. The poster, mentions how parents can't afford a private jewish education anymore because of the bucks. My high school was $15,000, my middle school = $9,000 year. WIth 3 boys, that's almost 50 grand when we're all in high school...then there's uni.

One of the reasons I want to be a rich screenwriter (yeah f*ck off you'll see) is to put my kids in private jewish day school. But it's so goddamn expensive!!! Plus, after thinking about, yeah, it'd be great for my kids to be comfortable learning the Toyrah and remain knowledgable about their culture, but shizzah, for that much? And when the secular education is usually crap? When drugs are being dealt on campus? When juniors h00k up on rooftops? the stories i have, none of you guys wouldn't believe...Some of them are my own too. Being sheltered in such an insular, insulated environment takes top prize as to why private school is falling from rung to lower rung. It took me two years to get fully adjusted. A year in italy also helped. Even now, I don't fully get the public school kids. We're just from different backgrounds. And that's okay, but it sucked feelin' different and sort of out of the main, alcoholic social circle. Thank god I graduated. With honors! suckers!

Heading Out #1

2005-06-18T21:54:00.000-07:00

About to head out. Actually, we're doing some pre-game action here at my place, with the guys before we go out bar hopping down sunset...College slump is starting to set in. I realize now what I miss most is the interaction with everyone, friends, professors, ppl my age or near 22 who are all part of an educational ecosystem. I miss my roommates too. Not all of them, but some of them. It's hard to get ripped away from 5 guys you've known for an entire year. We've danced together, made Jewish and Philipino jokes together, gotten into belt fights (I got the pictures!)

Life is changing drastically for me, for all of us. I'm not getting into politics or religion here, though I could if I wanted to, don't forget that. Been thinking about the paths we choose, whether they choose us or we choose them. Some people I know are living a life without checking and making certain that that life coincides with they really want. I'm done with school, finished the "what I like to call" first 22 years of my life. And now I get to choose where I want to take it. I'm hoping that the path you take is the one you want to, or a step on the way to that which you want. Don't look back on life, 22 years down the road, and think "My life isn't what I wanted it to be." Just remember to keep asking yourself: "Is this what I want?"

Sorry if this is muddled. But in all honesty, it's pouring out. I went to the beach today with the mishpachah (that's family. word), for the first time in only Hashem knows how long. Years. Maybe longer. Longer than years? Possibly a decade. Yeah. The last time we went to the beach as a family could've been when I was twelve. My dad hates sand. My brother hated us. (The whole teenage angst thing which lasted a bit longer than we'd thought)

the sun makes me tired. it feels nice. i wanna try napping from midnight to 3 am just to see what happens. Don't forget to call your pops tomorrow.

Goodbye, dear Friends.

2005-06-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

So after much debate and delays, I bought tickets to Prague two days ago. Never been to Eastern Europe even when I was in Italy, and need to make the trip before it's too late. Or before I die, whichever is first.

The Plan: Home-London0Prague-Krakow-Budapest-
Vienna-Bologna-Napoli-Roma-Home

Problem, or the great thing, is that I leave in 6 days.

SIX DAYS, I repeat. OVER.

I've been out running errands, buying hand sanitizers, deodorant (I'm sick of that aluminum zirconium hydroperoxide crap - whatevers in anti-perspirants. I will sweat, sweat, sweat away until it's no longer cool to do so.), Gold Bond (for my boys, feet, and neck), neutrogena shaving gel (weird how neutrogena and neutron bomb have the same prefix) PUMA shoes (blue and green and kick your ass), Lucky Jeans for 30 bucks!, IPod Battery Charger, and 2 pairs of GAP boxers. I think that's all I'm gonna take. Extra pair of jeans, underwear, and my Ipod. Oh. And my Let's Go Eastern Europe guide book. Where the hell would I be without her.

Anybody got plans this summer? If you're hot (and Jewish) come meet my mom and if she says it's kosher I'll stuff in my suitcase and give you an apple for the plane ride so you don't get hungry oh! and a UCSB sweatshirt cuz it can get really cold in cargo.

What's the Plural Form of Alumnus

2005-06-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Graduation is like old Costco Baguette. It's excessively long, the speeches are stale and dry, and you finish it more or less uninspired. Joyce didn't write Ulysses after a piece of bread. My entire family got sunburned, I'm tired I have an actual headache, I still have to unpack-and I'm slightly sad it's all over.

"It's" refers to UCSB, my undergraduate "career," if it's deserving of that title. College flew by, and besides for a couple of weeks and exam-packed days, it was easy as shit. And we all know how easy shit is. I was cataloging my last 4 years.

Freshman Year is a Waste. I was like a lost sperm trying to find the egg and fertilize something. I didn't know what I was doing, what I was studying, what non-Jewish girls kiss like (now I know enough). I joined AePi for a week because my friends did, then dropped out Pledge Night. And so began Hillel....

Second Year was an improved version of my First Year. I knew where campus was, where the Humanities Building was, and what time to go to gym to avoid body and fraternity traffic. Oh, and I learned why it's not sagacious to live with an obese drug addict who knocks up lesbians, a passive aggressive Korean, and two girls who hate each other like my dad hates Germans yet still have lived together for the past 3 years.

Junior Year-ITALY. Just perfect.

Senior Year-What it all comes down to. I found 5 guys from So Cal, lived with a tortured artist type, a sweet soul with a sweet eye for DVDs, a fashionista, and others I don't care to mention because we're still semi-friends, and like semi-chocolate, the structure is weaking but some shards of friendship still exist, barely. The security deposit holds everything together.

I'm tired. These past 2 months of saying goodbye, finishing school, packing, trying to do everything Santa Barbara has to offer me--minus the pork-- graduating, and making sense of it all. Some people use the line, "Thanks for the ride." Cheesy and obnoxious, it sounds like you're a constant traveler, and that this experience, 4 YEARS, is just a ride. But maybe it is, 'cause I feel so seasick, lifesick, I'm outta Dramamine and I just want to go to bed.

But now life starts. B'hatzlacha. Good luck to you all, and bye to those I didn't see before I left. If we're meant to, I'll see you. I changed my cell phone message. It's funny. So Tovah, Sarah, I'm seding your sorry asses to Voice Mail next time you call. Everyone else, you're playin' too.
And to all the fine Jewlicious people: Stay kosher.

Mazal Tovs for everybody. Especially fellow Alumni.

some kosher and not so kosher news

2005-06-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

For all those who might be wondering, and for those you just happened upon this site:

I think I ate pork last night.

And it was damn good.

=the pictures are from the ostrich farm in solvang. we went wine tasting a few months ago. they look like paintings, not photographs. A few minutes before we bought habanero olives. We each had one and instantly starting sweating, i mean dripping off our foreheads, eyes, eyeballs, pupils. It was getting hard to see and my hearing was starting to fade. something to do with the spicyness clogging up your ear drum. I don't know---apparently everything is connected somehow. anyways, the reason we stopped off at the ostrich farm was because they were selling strawberries. and they had free bathrooms. but the strawberries reeled us in. we bought an entire pack for 10 dollars. When your mouth is that much on fire, money means NOTHING.

Gotta study for finals. Anti-semitism is going to tear me up. You'd think I'd find it easy, right? A class on jew-hatred. not because because I hate Jews, but because I hate those who hate Jews. Make sense?

Off to the library. Oh, and god bless shiksas yet again. It's been a good weekend.

2005-06-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

1: I think this guy has got some feed.
2: Just keep your eyes shut man.

2005-06-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

Solvang Ostriches-Rockin the Suburbs

colore

2005-06-03T00:18:00.000-07:00

LIKE THE NEW COLOR?

Flirting - My Disaster

2005-06-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

I'm on campus all day, sleepwalking from final to final, and I decide TODAY is the day to get Gaucho Deli. Fine sanwiches, great soups, even better salads. Grab a Barcelona Wrap (the rice was bland, not very Barcelona-ish), and Senor Suavemente that I am, find an empty seat next to a pretty blonde girl, who's got "shiksa-no-way-in-hell-we-could-ever-have-kids" written all over her tanned forehead, with a face full of pigment I'd kill for. Can't ya spare any for the SuperJew, m' lady?

She's studying from a gigantic reader. Human Reproduction. Here's the dialogue.

For finals?
Yeah.
Oh, um, what year are you? You a fourth year?
I'm a third. (Goes back to reading. I'm reading notes for Anti-Semitism class, by the by.)
Anything interesting in there?
Well, mostly about malnutrition and Indonesia. Grand. My favorite.
Yeah?
Teen moms getting pregnant, having babies one after the other-
Like in Monty Python?
What's Monty Python?
Nevermind. Go on.
They can't produce enough milk so they babies go hungry, they got potbellies. Like here. Look.
Nice.

Human Reproduction? Can we perform a demonstration? It'd help you for the final. That's what I'm thinking. Baby.

You girls need to grab life by the beitzim. Use both hands. You girls need to say SOMETHING, ANYTHING, that shows us that you're interested. Tell us you hate the food, you hate your life, you hate me, just initiate some form of conversation besides "malnourished babies in the East Indies." Because if not, shit, I'm gonna pass you by. Then you get reduced to nice hair and a pair of tits, a brain-dead that doesn't even compete with my five year old cousin. You can ask him anything. He'll even tell you about cells and blood and the function of the liver.

Girl from Gaucho Deli-You should be a comm major.

Apt Search

2005-05-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

the perks of finding a job means I'm getting the hell out of overpriced Isla Vista, where I've spent roughly three years competing with racoons and skunks for more space and a better smelling environment. But now I got to find a place to live, and have decided to make the move to Downtown.

I'd prefer to live somewhere near State Street. Being able to walk to the very American "commercial" zone reminds me of Italy and Europe (not that europe is better than america. wait, no, IT IS). I found a few places and wrote a short, honest bio about myself. I hinted I like cooking mediterranean food but excluded the whole super jew thing. The goyim don't need to know right away.

Any comments or revisions would be, as always, deserving a big hug and foray the daily kick in your kishkes.

I’m a 22 year old professional graduating this June from UCSB looking for housing for this up coming year. Although I prefer to meet in person, here’s my attempt to write an honest, quick bio about myself, and then hopefully we can meet up.

I’m graduating with a Global Studies major and a Writing minor. I’m not a hippie; I chose the major because of the poli-sci aspects and because it allowed to me to go to Italy and get credits. I studied in Bologna last year, spending 14 months in Europe. I love to travel, see new things, and am very open to new experiences.

I cook. A lot. Mediterranean and Indian are my favorite dishes. I’m used to the Italian style by now, which means cooking in mass quantities, with plenty for everyone.

Next year I’ll be working for a new non-profit Jewish organization based in Santa Barbara, acting as Sub-Director and head of Public Relations. I’ll be out of the house most of the day, and plan to work on short stories and a full length novel most nights, time permitting.

I love pets but don’t own any. I enjoy hiking, the beach, reading, watching DVDs but not television (we don’t have one in my current apt), dinner parties and just hanging out with friends, going salsa dancing-I drink when I go out, which is not that rare but not that often. I don’t smoke or do drugs.

I’m from the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of LA, though it’s very different from city life. We have strawberry farms and swap meets, and I’d rather go gardening or buying plants than go shopping…But hey, when the Gap has underwear sales I can’t pass on those. They’re too damn comfortable.

Did I leave anything out?