Who I'm Worshiping Now

I've oft been accused of fickle hero worship. Of course that's hogwash. Anyway, here's...

WHO I'M WORSHIPING NOW:
Can you name all seven?



































It's the Greeks, Blacks and Cats edition!


HINTS for people other than Buffy and Brian, who should be able to get a least five each without hints:

1. Proves great work is worth percolating.
2. Cat and Sal would otherwise be awkward.
3. Bm-sh-bm-sh-bm-sh-bm-chicky-chicky: TRENDS.
4. So you think you can...
5. Actually does have motorboat, huge ole house.
6. I forgive the AmEx ad.
7. Seen here worshiping me.


Check out the last edition of Who I'm Worshiping Now.

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Days of "\ ä \"

A Pronunciation Guide for Gentiles

Stephen Colbert's genetic lineage testing gave him a 75% shot of being Jewish. But the 25% must have won, because as he plugs his 1-888-OOPS-JEW Days of Awe atonement line, he says:

R\ä\SH H\ä\SH\ä\N\ä\
(RAH-SHAH-SHAH-NAH)

and

Y\ä\M K\i\P\u\R
(YAHM KIH-POOR)

As do many gentiles, even those with Jew friends like me or Jon Stewart. I understand. It's weird.

We American Jews make this more confusing by our own ambivalence. We vascillate between old-timey Ashkenaziphilic Yiddish and the ancient/modern Sephardiphilic Hebrew.

It is sometimes said (by Brian), that all rappers are either enunciaters or slurrers. If the two great Jewish languages were rappers, let's just say Hebrew would be the enunciater. Thus the more formal, upright Hebrew pronunciations:

R\o\SH H\ [a'] \SH\ [a'] \N\ [a'] \
[ROSH (rhymes with "roach," not "posh") HAH-SHAH NAH]

and

Y\o\M K\E\P\u\R
[YOME (rhymes with "tome," not "Tom") KEY-POOR]


But when I was a kid, everybody I knew used Americanized Yiddish names for the High Holy Days:

R\ə\SH\ə\ SH\ə\N\ə\
[RUSHA SHUNNA]

and

Y\u\M K\i\PR
[YUM KIPPER]

Got it? Is my poor use of diacritical marks helping?

Seems nowadays nobody but old American Jews use the Yiddishized "Yum Kipper," so I've adapted to the Hebraicized "Yome Key-poor." But the Hebrew sounds too formal for me for New Year's. I still say "Rusha Shunna."

Here's one everyone says right:

SHANAH TOVAH!

WOOHOO! 5768!

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Harvest Porn

You know you want it.



In each and every one of my first five seasons of gardening, I tried to grow tomatoes and--to greater and lesser extents--failed.

The first year I planted my pots of sorry-ass Sweet 100s on a balcony in Brooklyn with only morning sun. Needless to say, the maters sucked. The next year, I grew glorious heirloom beefsteaks in a sunny community garden plot--and found the two-pounders smashed on the ground by no-good kids just before they ripened.


In my real garden in Oakland, my first year's tomatoes succumbed to verticillium wilt. The beautiful vines turned yellow and then brown and I watched, hapless, helpless, hopeless. The next year, to avoid the dread disease, I planted in ginormo pots. But in my greed and haste, I put two plants to a pot, and by mid-summer they were starving.







Last year, one plant succeeded: a hybrid of acclaimed Italian sauce variety San Marzano called (SO appropriately) Super Marzano. But I didn't want just a bunch of damn paste tomatoes. I wanted big, pornographic heirlooms to slice into a caprese.

So perhaps you'll pardon a bit of horn tootage; I have journeyed from the edge of despair back to faith.

This year I grew EIGHT MILLION* tomatoes:





*Statement should not be taken literally.



Post Script

This has nothing to do with garden porn (well, not much anyway), but I didn't want to give these pictures their own post. I took them at a car show we somehow ended up at in SanJo. I shouldn't pretend not to know: we ended up there because DJ Big Man 808, of the Bay Area Record Rockers, Brian's crew, got us free passes. His brother is the king of car shows and judged the Car-Hopping Contest, a hydraulic olympics.




But I really want to talk to you about the skanks. These of course are the charming young ladies (the youngest looked fifteen) who pose in hoochie outfits with the cars. I did not photograph them posing, as many guys did, because I wanted to capture their humanity. They are seen here walking, standing around and all too human.







What bothers me so much about the skanks--well, many things--but what bothers me most about them is that cars and skanks have nothing to do with each other other than the fact that men want to ogle both. I find this infuriating.

Why should anyone get to have such absurd fantasies fulfilled? And at the cost of another person's dignity, no less. I would love to have a gardening video narrated by The Game wearing a wifebeater and pulling the red Bloods bandanna out of his back jeans pocket to wipe the sweat off his brow as he transplants seedlings--but I don't expect to have this fantasy provided. It just wouldn't be right.

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