In 2002, I went on tour with this crazy Australian Jewish punk band called YIDcore. We played a Jewish punk-rock ball at Wesleyan, some New York gigs, possibly Yale?, and one or two other places. I'd always hoped they would pull me on stage to sing "Just One Shabbos" with them (editor's note: this version), which never happened, but just the feeling that it could, that it might, was incredible enough to burst my chest open.
I received this email this morning:
Found an old t shirt of yours :)
Loved it after you left it at Wesleyan and wore it to death, I now think it's time to donate to fabric recycling, unless you want it back?
The Teen Author Festival was last week, and Scholastic held a big reception for all its local and visiting authors. Which basically meant getting a bunch of us in a room and standing back while we plot together and come up with ways to take over the world.
You think I'm joking?
That was part of a little project that the Scholastic online folks had us do, during a break in signing and scarfing down pizza and orange soda (no pizza for me, since it wasn't kosher, which meant twice as much orange soda). They started a sentence and asked us to finish writing it. Here's what we all said:
While I waited my turn, I searched frantically to make whatever I wrote especially relevant to Losers. As a way of promoting my book? Well, yeah, sorta, because I'm so bad at that. Not sure it actually came across. I'm also not sure, in retrospect, that was the best thing for the stereotypical-looking Jew to write. But, hey, I drew a dinosaur too.
Oregon is exactly the kind of place it is in The Goonies: clean and pleasant and charmingly run-down, like a well-lived-in shack or a fraying pillow. I came here to do poetry and ended up falling in love. That 12-year-old adolescent love, just like Goonies, where you'll do anything, just because it's there. I'll tell you all about it.
But first, let's get some mood music. Play this loud:
Ashland is a town of 18,000. It's tiny. Maybe not so small, but I live in New York & can't be trusted.
And it's beautiful. And spooky. Tell me this picture doesn't make you want to dig for hidden treasure & do the Truffle Shuffle:
I landed late Sunday night. It was three hours later for me than anyone else. Rabbi Mark and Claudia picked me up from the airport. Whereupon lots of information was exchanged, but the two most vital things: (a) that Zalman Schachter-Shlomi, the Hasidic rabbi turned Jewish Renewal guru (who's the father of a bunch of my friends and whose books continue to blow me away) was also coming to town tomorrow, and (b) that his wife Catherine was the Log Lady on Twin Peaks. Catherine kindly offered an autographed photo. I never actually said "yes," because no sound would come out of my mouth. I was swooning.
I woke up jetlagged at 4 A.M. By sunrise there were deer on the lawn. Mottel challenged me: "Pic or it didn't happen." Here is the evidence.
Ashland is known as a New Age capital. Here's a Unitarian church (a gay one, I think?) that was having a Purim service.
Wherever in Ashland you are, you're never far from the Rogue Mountains. Here's Claudia and me walking to the corner store.
And here's the corner store's marijuana section. (Pot is legal for medical use in Oregon.)
(I've never smoked, and I still think that pot is dumb, and I realize I'm basically the only one on earth who does, although it is great to have it legalized for medical use. Annyway.)
The room where I stayed was amazing. The whole place was kind of like a shrine.
Next: San Francisco. With special guests Frum Satire and a whole bunch of kids!
Briefly: I'm going to be performing tomorrow at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia! Opening for the retro-Catskills lounge comedy band Good for the Jews, and guest-starring Adam Brodsky.
Matthue Roth’s novel is about the character and the voice, and it rocks. It’s hilarious. It’s more than a little crazy, yet manages to ring true. There are universal life truths in here among Jupiter’s escapades, and you’ll find yourself rooting for Jupiter wholeheartedly. And the writing! Even funnier. Descriptive and gritty and captivating. Matthue Roth can write. I already loved his book Never Mind The Goldbergs, so I expected this to be awesome, and it was. It’s a coming of age story that also falls into the madcap adventure category occasionally, and the result is a lot of amusement minus brain rotting. This is a short novel that packs a lot of punch and will provoke a lot of muffled laughter. Highly recommended.
This one's been putting a mad grin on my face all weekend. As if my sixth-grade English teacher's Xmas party, in which I had beers with a bunch of my former junior-high school teachers and watched this guy (yes, it was late) dislocate his butt...I seriously wonder how I'll ever be able to say that New York is more exciting than Philadelphia.
And there is an amazing roof deck on their house, which looks out on the Schuylkill River and the Center City skyline and a Matrix-like ocean of other rooftops, and I'm already too far into writing the sequel to Losers to decide this, but somewhere in Jupiter Glazer's life, he is going to end up being chased atop this very rooftop deck.
Okay, ixnay on the Long Island action. I know it kind of sucks -- all of a sudden, the person who was going to give me a ride isn't giving me a ride, and it's two hours and a surprisingly expensive train ride.
back from Los Angeles. two red-eye flights in 24 hours can knock a boy unconscious...or at least play havoc with at least three of his five senses. it's weird to rebound from rock stardom right back into a day job (and by "right back," i mean plane, subway, office). los angeles was amazing -- there were the obligatory celeb sightings, a hotel room that i wish i'd remembered to photograph (the entire room was done in pale purple and white, and they'd wrapped 50 old distended books in matching jackets) and C.J. pulled up in his car and we recorded two new Chibi Vision songs in his car outside Steven Spielberg's mother's restaurant when the whole neighborhood went black. I was staring at a giant multicolored neon tower when the power finally went back on.
it was glorious.
I'm not Radiohead's biggest aficionado ever, but this site is doing a bunch to convince me. Perhaps because the mp3s are free (and I could buy several Radiohead albums for the price of the train ticket to Long Island), or it might just be my recent obsession with live albums (roots! mike doughty! i just love listening to people who are being listened to by an entire room of people; it's captivating and almost cultlike).
