Guess Who Can Pee Straight Into His Mouth?

Which makes his daddy very proud. I wonder if they make a "My son pees into his mouth" car sticker.

Honey can't believe how big he is now, and "Can you believe he used to be so small when he was in my body?"
I said, "How do you think I feel? He was even smaller when he was in my body."

Went on our first date last night. Saw Daniel Johnston. Now, it was incredible and emotional and all that, but let me for a moment concentrate on the girl in the front who kept shouting, "That's okay, D., that's okay," and, "We love you, D. Play 'Devil Town.'" You condescending whore, who the fuck do you think you are? "Play 'Devil Town'"--You are the devil.

A lot of people ask me how to make a soundtrack for a horror movie. Here you go:

The First Time I Bought a Book (My London Roommates, Part One. Or is it Part Two?)

A while ago, I wrote a short post about my roommates in London. Someone suggested dedicating a post to each of these people. I don’t know about all of them, but here’s one post about my time in West London, a land of cricket and garage sales.

It took me a while to find this tiny place. During my search, I read The Loot every day and looked for ads. One of them seemed interesting. It was a cheap room in a nice neighborhood. The ad said “Men only.”

When I reached the house, the landlord showed me around. Here was where my room would be, and here was the common area where I would probably end up drinking Foster’s and watching Rugby with Australian dudes. Seemed good enough. “Just out of curiosity,” I said, “why ‘Men only?’” And the landlord, with no sense of concern, said, “First of all, men keep the house in better shape. And, you know how it is…you put a group of men and women together there’s bound to be problems and fights. That’s why I never let black people live here anymore.”

Anyway, so I kept looking until I ended up in Perivale with a born again landlord, a Christian South Korean guy, and a spiritual Polish woman (I wrote a little bit about them in that earlier post). It took me an hour and a half on the Tube to get to London for band practice, and I got sick of looking at sad commuters, so I went into an Oxfam store and bought a second-hand book. This was the first time I bought a book rather than have one given to me with an official recommendation, usually by my sister. It was Closing Time, and it included the sentence “Mere happiness was not enough,” which made me think about the meaning of life, and still does.

Meanwhile, there’s not much I can add about these three. I made the Polish woman cry. She was talking about the Holocaust and about how Polish people helped the Jews. I guess that’s what they teach them at school over there. And smart-ass me had to argue. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut the hell up.

There will be other roommates with better stories, I swear. Imagine Melrose Place on acid.

The Presidential Elections (Time-Travel Edition)

Just wanted to say I might be busy for a while with the baby and all, and when it comes time to comment on the results of the elections, I possibly will not have time to write a post. So I think that now, while the baby is asleep, might be the perfect time to link to three possible commentaries. Of course, only open the link if and when it applies.

• In case Hillary wins the Democratic nomination

• In case Obama wins the Democratic nomination

• In case a Republican wins the elections

Thanks again. And God bless America.

A Story About My Grandfather

My grandfather had this big white beard that made words disappear.

Our family would go to visit my grandparents, my father's parents, and at first it was fine, even fun. We would pray and eat and pray and walk to the synagogue and pray and shake hands with the neighbors, and go home and eat some more, and pray just a little bit more. But then he would call me into his room, close the door behind us, sit me down beside him, and begin talking.

God, I wish I had been able to get what he was saying. I mean, I got a few words here and there, to be sure. Some words did penetrate that beard. I know the basic subject was religious philosophy. I know he sometimes talked about the wonderful service we were both a part of, even though for me synagogue meant staring at the walls, occasionally bending my body like the others to avoid embarrassing him and myself.

In short, my grandfather was this happy Orthodox Jew who liked to discuss philosophy and I was a kid who didn't care. Same old story everywhere you go in the world, pretty much.

But this one was different. I was living in England when I got the late night phone call, telling me he died, that he fell and held his wife's hand before she called the ambulance; that he peacefully asked her to stay a moment with him because he knew he would soon be dead.

Late night phone calls always mean someone is dead.

My mother was on holiday with her sister in Europe when he died, and when she returned, she talked to one of her old friends and told her that when she was away, her husband's father died. In turn, my mother's friend told my mom someone else died that week, a holy man who healed her broken arm.

It's still impossible for me to imagine that all these people saw my grandfather as a holy man. He immigrated to Israel illegally to escape the Nazis, spent some time in British jail, was a cook, a milkman, he got married and had children and grandchildren and great grandchildren, he had a big white beard that held on to bits of food like it knew something we didn't. He loved religion and philosophy. Apparently, he was also a holy man; a healer. Fancy that.