Thinking 'Bout Jew

From December 17-27, I’ll be in Israel. I’m Jewish, and when I found out that I could go there for free if you’re a Jew between the ages of 18-26, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. It’s called a Birthright trip, and although I’m not a big Jew, in terms of observing the religion and its holidays, I know when to take advantage of a good thing.

Feel free to insert your own joke there.

In middle school and much of high school, I was slightly ashamed of being Jewish because I was one of about 3 or 4 students in the whole school who could be considered the “Chosen People.” But at that time, I didn’t feel so chosen, and would hear anti-Semitic remarks (although they were slightly innocent, if that makes sense) every so often.

But as I got older, I realized how stupid these people making fun of me where, and that I shouldn’t be ashamed. I actually became proud of my religion—although I would never go so far as to say that I’m a “good” Jew.

Originally, my main interest in going to Israel was to travel abroad for the first time in my life…for free. And while that’s still a huge reason, I’ve begun to realize how important this adventure, to borrow Nadia’s word, could be for me.

While I’m not expecting to become an uber-Jew (for lack of a better phrase, and I actually don’t want to become one either), I am hoping to get a better feel for my religion and of its Holy Land.

I’ll be visiting many of the country’s holy sites, while also observing the Shabbat—something that I’ve never really done before, outside of one summer at Jew Camp at the Jewish Community Center.

Sachlav, the group I’m going with, has planned trips through Jerusalem, Tsfat, Tel Chai, Tel Aviv and Eilat, among others, while also visiting the Wailing Wall, Red Sea and the Dead Sea, hiking Mt. Tsfachot and the Arbel and partaking in a disco cruise (!) on the Kinneret.

Another highlight is going to be traveling with an Israeli soldier. I’m looking forward to this because I’m planning to write about my trip for this blog, the New School’s newspaper and possibly even the Brooklyn Rail if I gather enough courage to write for them, and interviewing a soldier would make a great story.

But it’s not all about getting a story; it’s more about being away for 10 days and learning more about a culture that I should know more about already. And until December 17 comes, I’ll be counting down the days.

Until then, I can take pride in my heritage looking at all the Jewish musicians out there. Not all of them are great (as you’ll soon see), many have changed their names to something less-Jewy and even more are only, like myself, half-Jewish (to quote Groucho Marx, “Being only half-Jewish, I promise to get into the swimming pool only up to my waist”), but we’ve got one thing in common: we’re not Catholic.

Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan)

Lewis Allen Reed (Lou Reed)

Robbie Robertson

Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles)

Steven Page (Barenaked Ladies)

Michael Diamond, Adam Yauch, Adam Horovitz (Beastie Boys)

Beck Hansen (Beck)

Michael Bloomfield (Paul Butterfield Blues Band)

Mark Feld (Marc Bolan, T. Rex)

Michael Bolotin (Michael Bolton)

Michael Jones (Mick Jones of The Clash)

Leonard Cohen

Clive Davis

Samuel Davis Jr. (Sammy Davis Jr.)

Neil Diamond

Brian Epstein

Ellen Naomi Cohen (Mama Cass Elliot)

Art Garfunkel (Simon & Garfunkel)

Mickey Hart (The Grateful Dead)

Richard Meyers (Richard Hell)

Janis Eddy Fink (Janis Ian)

William Martin Joel (Billy Joel)

Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group)

Chaim Witz (Gene Simmons of Kiss)

Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits)

Alan Peter Kuperschmidt (Al Kooper)

Barry Alan Pincus (Barry Manilow)

Sylvain Mizrahi (Sylvain Sylvain of New York Dolls)

Randall Stuart Newman (Randy Newman)

Philip Ochs (Phil Ochs)

Stan Lynch, Howie Epstein (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)

Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon (Phish)

Jeffrey Hymen (Joey Ramone)

Jonathan Richman (Modern Lovers)

David Lee Roth (of Van Halen)

Rick Rubin

Paul Simon

Saul Hudson (Slash, of Guns ‘N’ Roses)

Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney)

David Daniel Snider (Dee Snider of Twisted Sister)

Donald Fagen (Steely Dan)

Herbert Khaury (Tiny Tim)

Max Weinberg

Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo)

Warren Zevon

Waiting To Be Found

The way people get to Five Best is quite interesting. I added Google Analytics to my blog in order to track how many people visit daily, what country they’re from, how they get to my site (majority through Google) and also the keywords put in that eventually lead to FB.

Here are some of the better ones:

Five Best…Top Keywords That Lead People to Five Best (numerically)

#5. Goodbye Songs

#4. Cha cha Josh Kurp

#3. Best Goodbye Songs

#2. Songs about Masturbation

#1. Songs about Cleveland

And here are some of the funniest searches:

“Weird Pick-Up Lines”
“Best Songs for Sex”
“Best Burning Songs”
“David Bowie Looks”
“Best Masturbation”
“Best Ugly People”
“Cletus Homer Let’s Stop All the Fussin’ and the Feudin’”
“Baby, I’m Not From Havana”
“Guilty Pleasure Neil Diamond Dry Your Eyes”
“Space Mother Fucker Lyrics”
“Stupid Babies Need the Most Attention”
“Bands I Hate”
“Concert + Found Cum Stains”
“Ginny Weasley Whore”
“Great Songs to Live By”
“Ken Kurp”
“Rufus T Firefly and Ziggy Stardust”
“The Osmonds Crazy Horses Blogspot”
“Top 100 Things to Ask a Girl on a Date ‘Ever Milk a Cow’”
“Wes Anderson Saul Bellow”

And there’s at least 70 searches with Dylan’s name in there somehow

Five Worst...Bands/Artists I Used to Listen to

(Before I begin, I apologize for the picture that was posted along with my entry on Cosmo’s Factory. I had taken a picture of the album cover from some website, and when they found out about it, they instead put a picture of a woman with poop on her face in its place. I guess that second picture is what inspired this posting…)

I don’t mind my having listened to matchbox twenty, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band and John Mayer, and I’m not ashamed of it. It doesn’t have the same quality of the Stones, Kinks or Howlin’ Wolf, but it sounded great to me during high school, and still occasionally does now.

Every so often, I’ll put DMB or Mayer on in the car while I’m driving (which I did during my last visit back home with my friend, Nadia), and it’ll be the perfect choice. Other times, I’ll listen to “Tripping Billies,” and it just sounds terrible.

(The band that escapes this sometimes good/sometimes bad problem is the Counting Crows. I still play them regularly, and songs like “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” and “Round Here” are actually great tracks.)

Having listed all those bands and artists as favorites at some point doesn’t phase me, but some of the other junk I listened to during that time does:

Five Worst…Bands/Artists I Used to Listen to

#5. Backstreet Boys/Britney Spears/NSYNC

Although they might actually be worse than my other selections, I put this trio at #5 because I still sometimes occasionally listen to them. Not on my iPod (although I am a proud owner of No Strings Attached), but rather at parties or with friends. And I know each and every lyric to each and every hit. Oh, and for what it’s worth, Britney’s best song is “Lucky.”

But that doesn’t mean I think they’re good; in fact, I know they suck. People like Dylan or Louis Armstrong or Captain Beefheart force you to think and pay attention while listening to them, and groups like BSB don’t want you to think. If you did, you’d realize how terrible they actually are.

#4. Dashboard Confessional

Another tricky one to explain because although they (well, he because the band is really only one guy, Chris Carrabba) stink, I still occasionally listen to them while I’m bored on YouTube or when I’m with my friend, Kayley. Dashboard is an example of a band that I can remember the first time listening to them (sad, I know) and that terrifies me. Can’t remember my first real exposure to Muddy Waters or John Coltrane, but I can remember watching MTV and “Screaming Infidelities” came on.

#3. Blink 182

A memory of mine: My Mom and I were at the mall, and she said I could get one album from Best Buy because she was getting one too. Our choices? She picked out a two-disc Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers anthology, while I instead went with Blink’s classic live album, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show. Of those two albums, guess which one I still listen to today…

#2. Limp Bizkit

Do I even have to bother?

#1. Nickelback

It isn’t that I owned an album of the worst current band out there, but I did (and still do) know the songs. Whether it was hearing “How You Remind Me” on my friend Kyle’s portable CD player while walking to another friend’s house or “Too Bad” or that horrendous song “Hero” from the Spiderman soundtrack, this band epically sucks. But try telling that to my roommate, who seems to only love generic rock songs, like their more-current hit “Rock Star” or Weezer’s worst song ever, “Beverly Hills.”

I’m ashamed of even knowing a single lyric from Nickelback, and all the good music in the world couldn’t make up for it.

Five Best...Songs from Cosmo's Factory

The fifth album by CCR in less than two years, I think it's there best. Nearly every song on the album is stellar, and really goes to show how great of a lyricist, guitar player and vocalist (not to mention underrated) John Fogerty is.

#5. "Lookin' Out My Back Door"

Forward troubles Illinois,
Lock the front door, oh boy!
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn.
Bother me tomorrow, today, I'll buy no sorrows.
Doo doo doo, lookin' out my back door

#4. "Who'll Stop the Rain"

I went down Virginia seekin' shelter from the storm
Caught up in the fable I watched the tower grow
Five year plans and new deals wrapped in golden chains
And I wonder, still I wonder who'll stop the rain

#3. "Run Through the Jungle"

Thought I heard a rumblin'
Callin' to my name,
Two hundred million guns are loaded
Satan cries, "Take aim!"

#2. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"

Heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Oh I heard it through the grapevine
Oh I'm just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah

(Everyone talks about Hendrix making Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" a better song, but I think CCR taking on Gaye's "Grapevine" is a better example of this--and I mean that as no discredit to Jimi.)

#1. "Long As I Can See the Light"

Guess I've got that old travelin' bone,
'Cause this feeling won't leave me alone.
But I won't, won't be losing my way, no, no
'Long as I can see the light.

Fifteen Worst...Album Covers of All-Time

#15.

#14.

#13.


#12.

#11.

#10.

#9.

#8.

#7.

#6.

#5.

#4.

#3.

#2.

#1.

Early in the Morning, I'm Callin' YouTube, Vol. VI

It took me awhile to come around to Sufjan Stevens (who my friend, Kayley, saw last night at the Brooklyn Acamedy of Music in a concert about the Brooklyn Queens Expressway--it was supposed to be better than it sounds) but lately, I've been listening to him a lot. The reason? Songs like "Casimir Pulaski Day."

I have no interest in rap, except for "Ghost Ride the Whip"--although it's pretty much the worst rap song ever (especially with lines, "Ghost ride, ghost ride/Get out the way, let Casper drive/Ghost ride, go crazy/Who that drivin'? Patrick Swayze." For all those who don't know how to ghost ride, Urban Dictionary describes it as, "When you put your car on cruise control and climb out and dance on the roof." So lame, but a catchy song.

There's a plethora of great Who clips on YouTube, but this, a version of "A Quick One (While He's Away)" from '68's Rock 'N' Roll Circus, might just be the best thing out there.

Here's a pretty good version of "My Back Pages," with help from Roger McGuinn, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, George Harrison and, of course, Bob Dylan, although Dylan does sound terrible in it.

I normally hate videos that consist only of pictures, instead of video, accompanied with music, but in the case of the Everly Brothers' "Take a Message to Mary," the song is so good, I don't really care.

Love Is So Simple, To Quote a Phrase

There are millions of songs about love about there, but only a small fraction of them are worth listening to. Even the best artists can fail when it comes to explaining love. For every “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy),” there’s a “Dancing in the Dark.” For every “Can’t Stand Losing You,” there’s a “Every Breath You Take.” For every “Eight Days a Week,” there’s a, well, maybe The Beatles didn’t quite fail at mastering the love song.

To write a great song about love, it’s crucial to have sentimental lyrics that don’t come across as melodramatic or, worse yet, schmaltzy. This is tough to do because, as mentioned before, there’s countless songs about the same subject. Can you imagine trying to write even 20,000 songs about, let’s say, only boxing or tanning? Even with a low number like that, it’s tough— let alone a number with at least six 0’s at the end of it.

Is it possible to write a song about being in love without acting be in love? I have no idea, but I’d have to guess that it’s a lot tougher. Trying to write a happy song when you’re depressed is like trying to write one about the sun when it’s been gray outside for a month. You can’t go on pure emotions, and you’re left relying to on memory.

There’s also different kinds of love. For instance, saying, “Well, she looked at me and I, I could see/That before too long I’d fall in love with her/She wouldn’t dance with another/When I saw her standin’ there” is miles away from

Down by the Riverside Motel,
It's ten below and falling
By a 99 cent store, she closed her eyes
And started swaying
But it's so hard to dance that way
When it's cold and there's no music
Well, your old hometown is so far away
But inside your head,
There's a record that’s playing a song called:
Hold on, hold on
You really got to hold on
Take my hand, I'm standing right here
And just hold on.

One is juvenile, one is grown-up and complicated—but both are love.

There’s a reason that when you Google “love,” there’s over 1 billion hits; it’s different for every person. When Neil Young sings that “Only love can break your heart,” Ian Curtis thinks that “love will tear us apart,” while Randy Newman swoops in to say that “you’re just a prisoner of the one you love.”

Myself, I’ve only been in love twice in my life (including now—there’s always a selfish for writing posts, isn’t there?), and the kind of love and the songs that I associate it with change. But one artist hasn’t, and I believe he can write about the different forms of love in ways that most only can dream about, or only feel but not able to properly explain.

In love:
My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.

Lost love:
Oh, it's shameful and it's sad,
I lost the only pal I had,
I just could not be what she wanted me to be.
I will turn my head up high
To that dark and rolling sky,
For tonight no light will shine on me.

Craving love:
If today was not an endless highway,
If tonight was not a crooked trail,
If tomorrow wasn't such a long time,
Then lonesome would mean nothing to you at all.
Yes, and only if my own true love was waitin',
Yes, and if I could hear her heart a-softly poundin',
Only if she was lyin' by me,
Then I'd lie in my bed once again.

Simple (but pure) love:
Close your eyes, close the door,
You don't have to worry any more.
I'll be your baby tonight.

Confused love:
Sometimes the silence can be like the thunder
Sometimes I wanna take to the road and plunder
Could you ever be true?
I think of you
And I wonder

I'm sick of love, I wish I'd never met you
I'm sick of love, I'm trying to forget you

Just don't know what to do
I'd give anything, to be with you

Abandoned love:
One more time at midnight, near the wall
Take off your heavy make-up and your shawl.
Won't you descend from the throne, from where you sit?
Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.

Those are all by Bob Dylan, a man not typically thought of in the same category as Elvis or Sinatra (although neither one of them wrote their material), but for one man to have mastered so many different kinds of love (and there’s plenty of other categories that I didn’t list), that’s impressive. And sort of sad too, when you think about it.

As for me, I would do anything for love, but I won’t…quote Meat Loaf.