from 12/23/08

You're Not Majoring In Rocket Science, Are You?

Abby, that’s so funny, you ended your set with being Jewish on Christmas, that’s what I’m starting my set with! No, seriously, I’m just gonna touch on a few of these things cause I got other stuff to talk about, but as a Jew on Christmas, I can tell you about the mild undercurrent of Anti-Semetism found in the movie A Christmas Story. Yes, we all remember Schwartz, snotty little rat kid, you know, they didn’t even give him a first name for fuck’s sake! And they gave him the most Jewish sounding name possible. When Ralphie says the word “fuck,” it might has well have been like, “Where did you hear that word?”

“JEW!”

I can also tell you about the mental instability of the doll from Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. That’s right. Everybody asks why the doll is a misfit toy, she seems like a perfectly normal doll, well, she has mental problems. My personal theory is she’s a cutter. Because she fits the cutter profile: young, female, depressed.

Here’s what fits the Holiday Fear theme: Bill O’Reilly’s attempt to exclude all non-Christians from the holiday season by saying that the phrase “Happy Holidays” is an attempt by the political left-wing to destroy the great “American” tradition of Christmas. I wish I was kidding. Never mind that it originates in the Middle East, celebrates the birth of someone who’s Jewish and is essentially the co-opting of the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. Fucking asshole, I fucking hate him.

Now, what I also want to talk about is, one of my favorite shows ended last week: Celebrity Rehab. As a writer, reality TV offends me, but I love Celebrity Rehab. When it started this year there were a few people addicted to painkillers. Now, I work for a pharmaceutical advertising agency, and one of the drugs I work on is Opana, which is a painkiller. An Opiate painkiller, like Vicodin and Oxycodon, very addictive. Unfortunately, none of the cast members were addicted to Opana, so we missed out on that chance for free advertising.

My favorite person on the show is Amber Smith. She a model, very beautiful, and an actress, and I use the term loosely, she basically just sits there and smiles, although, I gotta give her mad props because she was in LA Confidential and that’s one of my favorite movies. She was the hooker cut to look like Rita Hayworth. Anyway, it turned out, on the show, she said that she’d prostituted herself, and as soon as I heard that, I went running for the cash machine. I mean, I probably couldn’t afford a whole session, but I should be able to scrape together fifty dollars, that ought to get me thirty seconds, that’s all I need. Twenty seconds even! Just in, bam, boom, out, there you go. Aw, doesn’t matter, if you have dvr you can freeze frame and take care of business for free. It’s good too, it’s also a good idea to get all your porn online, without magazines you’re saving paper. It’s masturbation gone green. So when you forget to throw out a can and someone hassles you, you can tell them you’re doing your part every day. Sometimes twice, it depends on the person.

Anyway, one of the other people is Gary Busy, because apparently he has nothing better to do than star in anti-American movies from Turkey about the Iraq war. Yeah, he played a Jewish doctor who vivisects Iraqi prisoners to sell their organs to people in New York.

(pause)

I realize that’s not a very happy story, so moving on, one of the things they did on the show was, they thought it would be nice for him to have a screening of The Buddy Holly Story. His defining role, his high point as an actor, Oscar nominated role. So Rod Stewart’s son, who as far as I know has never done anything except be in another reality show about being Rod Stewart’s son, says, “What’s it about?” As if the word, “Story” didn’t tip him off. It’s about dinosaurs. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IT’S ABOUT?! So they told him it’s about Buddy Holly, and he goes, “Who’s Buddy Holly?” And Gary just stands there staring at him like he’s gonna stab him in the head, like he’s gonna punch him in the throat. Then he says,

“BUDDY HOLLY IS ONE OF THE FOREFATHERS OF ROCK AND ROLL.”

Which he is, Buddy Holly’s awesome. How much time do I have left?

“One minute, three seconds.”

Ok, that means I have time to sing a little Buddy Holly. This is my favorite song of his. I had to look up the lyrics on my phone.


(singing)
Dun dun dun dune
Be ne ne, be ne ne, BE NE NE

Blue days, black nights,
Blue tears keep on fallin' for you dear,
Now you're gone

Blue days, black nights,
My heart keeps on callin' for you dear,
And you alone

Memories of you make me sorry
I gave you reason to doubt me

But now you're gone
And I am left here all alone
With blue memories, I think of you

Thanks.

Namaste.

Author's Note:

I realize this rehashes some material from the previous post, but it seemed appropriate, timing wise. The person referred to in the beginning was the previous performer. I know it seems esoteric out of context but I like to transcribe the sets as accurately as memory allows.

from various Decembers over the past five years

Drop The BB Gun And Step Away From The Synagogue, Ralphie:

Answers To Various Christmas Special FAQ's

Q: How do you know so much about Christmas specials when you're Jewish?

I'm very much the pop-culture fan, and they're awesome, plus they virtually define the television experience in December. And there aren't too many Hanukkah specials, except for the Rugrats one. But most importantly, I grew up with Italian relatives. By marriage, my uncle, like a like of Jewish boys from Brooklyn, married an Italian girl, one Marie D'Natalie. We used to go to their house every year on Christmas Day. Then, when I was fifteen, they got divorced, and that was the end of my Christmas celebrations. I think I've been overcompensating ever since.

Q: What's your beef with A Christmas Story?

A Christmas Story is a great movie, and, this is in spite of its mild undercurrent of Anti-Semetism. Yeah I said it. Oh no? When Ralphie says the word "fuck," and his mother asks where he heard it, instead of admitting it's his father, who does he blame? SCHWARTZ. Ralphie blames the jew. And Schwartz, you'll remember, is also best known in that movie as the kid who got Flick to put his tongue on the flagpole so it'd get frozen. They made him a snotty little ratboy, the conniving cheater who jumped from the double-dog dare to the triple-dog dare. And not only him, his parents are so wicked and evil that without proof, they beat him so mercilessly that his screams are audible through the phone. And does Ralphie have any regrets? No, he lies in his bed that night and says that across town, Shwartz was, "getting his," despite the fact that in this instance, he didn't do anything. But he makes the jew the scapegoat. You know who else did that? Hitler. So, am I comparing the film's author Jean Shepherd to Hitler? Yes I am.

And if you want to talk subtle, they fucking named him Schwartz. They don't overtly say he's Jewish, but they not only gave him the most Jewish sounding name possible, they didn't even give him a fucking first name. They would have been more subtle if they'd just named him Christ-killer.

Still, great movie. Directed by Bob Clark, who also directed . . . anyone?

"Porky's."

That's right. Ralphie was played by Peter Billingsly, who's a producer now. He still acts occasionaly, most recently in "Elf." If you're thinking of seeing that, don't bother, it fucking sucks. The kid who played Scott Farkas still acts, he played the brother on Titus and has been in movies like Resident Evil: Apocolypse and Transformers. And Scotty Shwartz, we all know what happened to him.

"From child star to porn star."

That's right. Glad to see things worked out for him too.

Q: What were the Snowmeiser helpers?

I don't know, but those things freaked me the fuck out. They're mini-Snowmeisers or something, but when I was a kid, they gave me nightmares. I had this fucking dream that, not them, but this little creature like them, tiny little things moving around in that freaky stop-motion manner, had grabbed me and immobilized my arms and legs. Snowmeiser was cool but those little ones just looked fucking evil. I think that nightmare is the reason I didn't remember that special with the Heatmeiser and Snowmeiser, "Year Without A Santa Claus," I must have blocked it out of my memory. I didn't see it again until I was in college and when I saw those fucking things dancing with their hats and canes, my fucking jaw dropped.

Snowmeiser was played by Dick Shawn and the cool thing about him is that he died on stage. Not just on stage, he had a heart attack and nobody helped him because they thought it was part of the act. That is punk as fuck.

Q: In Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, is the elf's name Hermy or Herbie?

This is probably the most asked question, and there's a definite answer. It's Hermy. It sounds like the elf nazi taskmaster calls him Herbie at one point, there's a theory that the name was changed mid-production.

Q: On the Island of Misfit Toys, what's wrong with the doll?

This is the biggest mystery of Christmas special lore. The dolly for Sue. Why is she a misfit? She looks like a perfectly fine doll, what exactly is wrong with her? Well, there's an official and an unofficial explanation. The official explanation is that, for whatever reason, she was cast off by her owner and is a misfit by virtue of being a reject.

The unofficial explanation is that she has mental problems. She could be bipolar because she obviously suffers from depression, and it's triggered pretty easily; one minute she's joyously singing, the next she's crying. My personal theory, I think she's a cutter. Because she fits the cutter profile: young, female, depressed. If she was constantly cutting herself and always needing to be stitched up, that'd be a pretty sensible reason to throw something out. Hopefully the child Santa found for her has access to psychiatric medication like Seroquel. That's the stuff Brittney Spears takes and you can see how well it worked for her. Maybe some Ambien too, at one point she says she doesn't have any dreams left. As long as she doesn't start doing any crazy shit in her sleep like climbing into Barbie's car, driving down the fucking stairs and crashing into the basement, she should have a happy existence until the kid grows up. Then she'll get her ass kicked out again and probably feel even worse, but hey, no one ever said sanity wasn't fleeting.