By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Dec 18, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Just like the swallows returning to Capistrano, or the first lilacs of spring, once a year you can count on a few pundits at Fox to resuscitate their complaints about the “war on Christmas.” Once again, they claim their beloved holiday is under attack because a group of atheists lobby to remove a nativity scene from a city hall, or a school changes its Christmas concert to a Holiday concert. Come on, O’Reilly – for several weeks, starting on Thanksgiving and often before, this entire country is covered in an avalanche of candy canes, Christmas tree decorations, and holiday muzak. You can’t go anywhere without being bombarded by Christmas – if it’s under attack, it’s doing pretty darn well. (As Jon Stewart pointed out, since this year ‘Black Friday’ started on Thanksgiving, Christmas is now eating other holidays!)
Of course there are a few loonies out there, fighting the fact that a vast majority of this country celebrate Christmas. But for most of us non-Christians, we have nothing against the holiday and even accept that there will be tinsel, Christmas lights, and dogs barking Jingle Bells everywhere we go. We simply would prefer not to be bombarded with the more religious aspects of the holiday – sparkling lights and metallic ornaments are a lot more inclusive than crosses or baby Jesuses. And wishing people “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” makes us feel less left out, without taking anything away from Christmas. In fact, we hope you have a lovely holiday (while we eat Chinese food and go to the movies).
This week’s video tries to explain why your non-Christian friends might be getting a little cranky this time of year – so I hope you will please cut them (and me) a little slack!
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Latkes? Schmatkes!
This time of year makes many of us nostalgic for those traditions of our childhood, those Norman Rockwell-esque memories of stringing popcorn, gathering fresh pine boughs, and sharing our plum pudding with the Himmels. (Oh, whoops, that wasn’t my childhood, that was Jo March’s . . . )
Well, anyway, most of the time I’m not exactly the domestic type (I cook adequately, but Martha Stewart’s job is safe), but occasionally I get this uncontrollable urge to create a memorable Hanukkah for my family. Which is pretty silly, when you think of it, since it’s a minor holiday that only gets any attention because it’s close to Christmas, and the traditions associated with it are more appropriate to Las Vegas (gambling and eating fried food). But I still want my boys to have fond memories, so I hang up the dreidl garlands and put out the menorah tea towels and star-of-David potholders, and when I’m really ambitious, I make a batch of latkes. (Which I imagine is akin to my Christian friends deciding to make a Buche de Noel or homemade egg nog, something like that?)
Latkes, for you goyim, are potato pancakes – so just imagine your entire kitchen covered with oil splatters, flour, and bits of burnt hash browns, and you’ll get the general idea. You can find countless articles about how adequate draining or squeezing prevents splatters, tips on utilizing the potato starch left from the draining liquid, and recipes that require using a lab-quality timer, but it still always makes a mess, and I end up resolving never to do it again. But amidst the mess and debris, occasionally one or two come out halfway decently, and there is something almost religious about biting into a crispy patty of fried potato – plus you’ve got to love a holiday where you’re supposed to eat fried food!
Unfortunately, that bliss is short-lived, and the mess takes forever to clean up. (And the worst part is, my kids don’t even like latkes!) But at least this year I captured it on film, which may help remind me next year that the latkes are always crispier in someone else’s kitchen . . . .
PS “Latkes, Shmatkes” is the title track of my album of comedy songs for Hanukkah – available at www.laurenmayer.com, on amazon.com, iTunes, CDBaby, and Picklehead Music.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Bitter Sweet Symphony
I am a sucker for bitter sweet as a prefix for anything.
I admit that.
I think that much of life, even the most beautiful , brilliant, gratifyjng and elegant parts are still —at best — imbued with a bitter sweet quality. And that isn’t a “sad” quality.
Just a human one.
So being the cutting edge music aficionado that I am, I couldn’t resist the title of this song I stumbled across this morning: And absolutely love this song and sound and video.
Note; I use “cutting edge ” loosely.
Meaning plus or minus 15 years. Apparently this song was released in 1997 and received notable acclaim.
But, hey, that’s more cutting edge than, like, 16 years later.
By Nancy Slotnick, on Tue Dec 11, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
“Don’t you know you’re my everything?” Chaka Khan sings in Sweet Thing. She is singing to her lover who is being shady and trying to run away. “I wish you were my lover, but you act so undercover.” Oh shoot- now I am distracted by “Chaka Khan let me rock you, let me rock you Chaka Khan. Let me rock you.” That’s all I want to do. Rock you. I feel for you. Chaka. I really do. But I also feel for me. Waiting for you is really hard. Chaka.
The waiting is always the hardest part. Waiting in line especially. I was waiting in line in the Ladies Room of the Empire Hotel Lobby recently and a stubborn-looking older woman was in front of me when I walked in. There were a few stalls there and one looked vacant to me, even though the door was closed. I attempted to check to see if it was available and the woman cockblocked me. Well, not literally because this was the Ladies Room but she did it in her own feminine way—by standing in front of me and blocking me!
Then in a very faux helpful voice she said “there’s someone in there.” I had fully intended to let her go in first if it was free, but being the good girl that I am, I backed off, fuming. (She did have about 50 lbs on me.) As soon as she went into her stall, I breezed into the stall that was supposedly occupied and of course it was vacant. (I do know how to peek under and look for feet!) The dilemma was that there was no move for me to make that would bring me justice. Should I wait for her to come out of the bathroom just to say: “man, were you wrong, lady!”? It would defeat the purpose. But it’s still bugging me two months later.
Don’t blow my high, that’s all I’m sayin’. Chaka. (sorry it’s going to keep coming out of me like a hiccup now.) I feel for you, and if you want to wait in line in the Ladies Room, that’s your prerogative. But don’t stand in my way, please.
Now, in a love relationship, this dilemma gets even trickier. There are times when you’re waiting in line together, driving in the same car, planning timing for your future or making big purchases together and you can’t just push Betty White out of the way. I actually like Betty White. She stays relevant for her age so that’s a bad example. But I think you know what I mean. You can’t push your girlfriend out of the car just because she’s telling you to drive slower. At least not when you’re driving over 25mph. Chaka.
So here’s what I do. Or I should say what I try to do when I’m having more than my usual patience and confidence. I rock you. I wink at Betty White and make a “shhh” symbol. I tiptoe over to the door, slowly swing it open and make a grand gesture, just like a Manhattan doorman right before Christmas bonuses. Then I usher her into that stall like the queen that she believes she is. She’ll be thanking me and I’ll be in the next stall in no time. That’s on my good day.
Or I sneak past her so fast that she doesn’t even see what happened and I pee before she has a chance to stop me. In that case, I rock me. I haven’t tried that one but I may be about to try it. Either way works though, and there are a million other creative ways to self-actualize. The fun is in the figuring them out. Chaka.
The words I say they may sound funny, but whoa sweet thing, don’t you know you’re my everything?
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Dec 10, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
As Jews around the county join with their families to celebrate the Festival of Lights, I wrote an essay for The Times of Israel celebrating the song that made Chanukah cool, and saved American Jewry (sort of…). Here’s an excerpt:
It was easy to understand why so many U.S. Jews – particularly our youngest – took refuge by fading into the multi-colored fabric of secularized Christianity that enveloped American culture. With Gentile discrimination so diffuse and subtle, the only remaining strident enemy in the 3,000-year battle for Jewish survival was, in fact, ourselves.
But then the 1990s brought forth a modern-day Judah Maccabee: Adam Sandler.
OK, I exaggerate just a little.
What the ’90s did bring was an army of modern Maccabees, in the form of prominent, familiar, likable Jews thrust into the pop media spotlight: Jews that were both clearly identifiable and proud of being both American and Jewish.
This helped produce a sea change in Christian Americans’ acceptance of their Jewish neighbors. In the vast center of the country where few Jews lived, ignorance previously had bred distrust and suspicion. Now, through the magic of television – and shows such as Northern Exposure,Beverly Hills 90210, Friends, and most prominently, Seinfeld – Jewish comedians, actors, and characters entered the living rooms of middle America. Rural citizens who’d never met a Jew before now “knew” dozens, and understood that “they were just like us” – maybe a bit wackier.
Just as significant was the impact on Jewish Americans. We could now hold our heads up a bit higher, feel a little more comfortable to publicly pronounce our faith. We were now the tellers of Jewish jokes, alternatively wry and self-deprecating, instead of divisive and mean-spirited.
It was a phenomenon that Jonathan Alter – in his famous 2000Newsweek cover piece heralding Joe Lieberman’s history-making Vice-Presidential candidacy – labeled the “Seinfeldizing of America.”
And at its epicenter in 1994 was a hastily produced, three-and-a-half minute musical segment on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update.”
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Dec 6, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Take me out to the ball game. Take me out to the crowd. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack. I don’t care if I never get back.
The immortal words of the time honored “7th Inning Stretch” –a moment of pause to stretch, relax, refocus and retool for the final two innings of the game.
And it’s for the fans more than the players.
So….I propose the healthful benefits of the few minute long 7th Inning Stretch be extended to Corporate America.
Of course, we’ll need a catchy tune with easy to remember lyrics. But I’ve already thought about that. Every weekday at 3:15 I propose everyone in every business organization, profit and non-profit, be encouraged to stand, stretch, peel away that glaze over their eyes as they get ready to bring the day home. And the anthem should be “Boogie Nights” by Heatwave.
This could work. And insurance companies can even sponsor personal service announcements encouraging participation.
I mean, c’mon, who doesn’t like the song “Boogie Nights,” and knows the words, and feels a little bit more hopeful and energized after hearing?
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Dec 6, 2012 at 9:15 AM ET
Must read book review by Ashley Fetters at Atlantic.com about what’s bound to be my next Kindle purchase: Alan Light’s The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah.” Here’s an excerpt:
Click here to review/purchase book
Pop standards don’t really get written anymore. Most of the best-known standards were composed before the arrival of rock and roll; perhaps something about the new brand of mass-marketed, Ed Sullivan-fueled stardom just didn’t quite jive with the generous old-world tradition of passing songs around the circuit, offering to share.
So when an obscure Leonard Cohen song from 1984 was resurrected in the ’90s, then repurposed and reinvented by other artists so many times it became a latter-day secular hymn—well, that was kind of like a pop-music unicorn sighting.
Alan Light’s new book The Holy or the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley, and the Unlikely Ascent of “Hallelujah” traces the bizarre cultural history of that very unicorn: “Hallelujah,” a song that lay dormant in Cohen’s vast repertoire for more than a decade before its popularity surged up again with a posthumous Jeff Buckley single. “Hallelujah” has metamorphosed over the years from a cheesy, reverb-heavy B-side oddity on an album Cohen’s label rejected to a mystical, soul-stirring pop canticle that’s played today at just as many weddings as funerals. Light reverentially details every stage in the evolution—and along the way, he reveals the compelling stories behind some of its most iconic interpretations.
So what’s your favorite version? The original Leonard Cohen? The Jeff Buckley masterpiece that made it famous? The mournful use of the song in Shrek 2 or the third season of The O.C.?
I will go first: As I reluctantly admitted in my column last year, Top 5 Pretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire, I’m a closet J.T. fan, and his gritty collaboration with Matt Morris at the 2010 “Hope for Haiti Now” benefit concert is my second favorite performance in the Timberlake portfolio. (Behind, of course, his globally significantwork on The Barry Gibb Talk Show.)
Please share your favorite in the comments section. And to guide your selection, we’ve posted some videos below of the most popular renditions:
Read the rest of… What’s Your Favorite “Hallelujah”? Listen & Vote Here
When you think of incongruities, Jews plus country music is right up there with pickles & ice cream or Paris Hilton & Wallace Shawn – a pair that just don’t seem right together. (Although there is one colorful exception, Kinky Friedman, who fronts a band known as The Texas Jewboys and who came in 4th in the 2006 Texas gubernatorial race, and who inspires me with his mix of politics and comedic music.) (Not that I’m considering running for governor in the near future!)
The lack of Jews in country music is actually surprising – Jewish songwriters are responsible for many of our classic Christmas songs, and given country music’s tradition of chronicling pain and suffering, it would seem to be a perfect fit. I like to say I’m from in the south – southern California, to be precise, but growing up in Orange County (where there were even fewer Jews than Democrats) did make me feel as much of an outsider as many country singers lament. But I hadn’t really made the connection until I heard Peter Sagal, the host of “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” on NPR, crack a joke about an upcoming appearance in Nashville. Suddenly it seemed like a match made in heaven (and now I feel like Melanie Griffith’s character in “Working Girl,” in that climactic elevator scene where she explains to Mr. Trask how she connected his company to radio, or something along those lines).
Chanukah/Hanukkah/etc (choose your favorite spelling) is really the ultimate country holiday – muscular heros, old fashioned candles, and fried food, so this week’s video is what may be the first country Chanukah song – enjoy!
(And remember, there are only 4 shopping days left til the first night of Chanukah, but copies of my Chanukah comedy CD, “Latkes, Shmatkes,” are available on iTunes, at amazon.com, and at www.laurenmayer.com!)
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Nov 27, 2012 at 1:30 PM ET
There will probably never be a shortage of inspiring antics in the political arena, between the fiscal cliff and assorted sex scandals. But for the next few weeks I’ll be tackling the subject of interfaith acceptance, inspired by our host’s No Labels approach to bipartisanship, and illustrating the challenges of being in a religious minority.
Even if you’re not Jewish (or a member of another religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas), you may be a little bothered by the fact that we’re already surrounded by Christmas decorations, signs and music, plenty of it before Thanksgiving.
So try to put yourself in our shoes – and since it’s probably impossible to imagine being surrounded by tacky Chanukah decor, what about other times you might have felt like you were an isolated minority? Any liberals in red states, or conservatives in blue states, or vegetarians in a family of carnivores? I’ve had a few of those moments, like being the only girl on the math team in jr. high, or being the only actual female pianist in a gay bar (and constantly having to tell the guys that I wasn’t just in underdone drag). That sense of being different gets particularly strong during this time of year.
Please don’t get me wrong – I think Christmas is a beautiful holiday, and as an entertainer I’m extremely grateful for the extra work (as well as the infinitely superior music – I’d hate to do a gig playing 3 hours of Chanukah music!) But just try to remember that not everyone celebrates it, and even a totally secular ‘Merry Christmas’ still is etymologically derived from the religious basis of the holiday, so if you can occasionally wish your jewish friends “Happy Holidays” instead, they’ll appreciate it.
In this spirt of interfaith bipartisanship, I’ve enlisted some friends & relatives to create our own version of those ’80s ‘videos-for-a-cause’, “Don’t They Know (Not Everyone Does Christmas).”
Note: While I am unfortunately not able to use this space to plug my upcoming appearance on The Daily Show (since they haven’t invited me on yet), I can let readers know that the song is from my album, “Latkes Shmatkes – Comedy Songs for Chanukah and Beyond”, available at this link, and on iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, and Picklehead Music, among others. It’s a great gift for any of your friends who are Jewish, or who will be flattered by receiving something that implies you think they have a good sense of humor!
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Nov 20, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
General David Petraeus is just the latest in a seemingly endless stream of powerful men brought down (or at least dented a bit) by their sexual escapades. You can find articles about what motivates them, about how their power gives them an entitled sense of hubris, about the specifics of their sordid activities, and of course plenty of jokes about Appalachian Trails and sexting – but does anyone else wonder why we never read about a powerful woman brought down by scandal? (Mind you, there are plenty of married women involved in these soap operas – and don’t you love that the Petraeus saga even includes twins? – but the women are not the power players, and we wouldn’t even know their names if they hadn’t slept with someone famous and then spilled the beans.)
While the obvious answer is that there are far fewer powerful women, there are still enough that proportionally there should be at least a couple of publicly humiliating affairs. And it’s not just that highly placed women tend to be way past the ‘babe’ stage – attractiveness certainly isn’t an issue with the guys who cheat, many of whom are downright homely. So my theory is that women who have ‘made it’ had to work twice as hard as men to get to their lofty positions, and even if they felt attracted to an aide or a gushing biographer, they’re too busy, and too exhausted, to start anything.
I’m not in any kind of power job, and yet I can swear that I have never cheated on either of my husbands (I’m not a reverse Mormon, it was one spouse at a time) – but this has nothing to do with my moral purity. Like most working mothers, I barely have time to brush my hair – so when that hunky boxboy at Safeway gives me a leering eye, I’m flattered, but not tempted (it just sounds like too much additional work).
However, I did summon up enough energy to have fun with the rhyming potential of some of these scandalous characters’ names . . . . .
