Nearer My God To Thee

Satire:

Holly Randall Arrested For Drunk Driving, Blames The Jews

Returning home from the Temptation Awards Sunday morning, Holly Randall, the director of Love Between the Cheeks (AVN Editor Mike Ramone called it the most anti-Semitic film since Triumph of the Will), was pulled over by an L.A. County sheriff's deputy.

Lukeisback.com has learned that Miss Randall aka The Second Coming of Leni Riefenstahl went on a rampage when she was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, hurling religious epithets. Lukeisback.com has also learned that Adult Video News had the initial report doctored to keep the real story under wraps.

According to the report, Randall became agitated after she was stopped on Pacific Coast Highway and told she was to be detained for drunk driving Sunday morning in Malibu. The director began swearing uncontrollably. Randall repeatedly said, "My life is f****d."

Law enforcement sources say the deputy, worried that Randall might become violent, told the photographer that he was supposed to cuff her but would not, as long as Randall cooperated. As the two stood next to the hood of the patrol car, the deputy asked Randall to get inside. Deputy Mee then walked over to the passenger door and opened it. The report says Randall then said, "I'm not going to get in your car," and bolted to her car. The deputy quickly subdued Randall, cuffed her and put her inside the patrol car.

Lukeisback.com has learned that Deputy Mee audiotaped the entire exchange between himself and Randall, from the time of the traffic stop to the time Randall was put in the patrol car, and that the tape fully corroborates the written report. Once inside the car, a source directly connected with the case says Randall began banging herself against the seat.

The report says Randall told the deputy, "You mother f****r. I'm going to f*** you." The report also says "Randall almost continually [sic] threatened me saying her parents 'own Malibu' and will spend all of their money to 'get even' with me." The report says Randall then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Randall then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

The deputy became alarmed as Randall's tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Randall, who noticed the camera and then said, "What the f*** do you think you're doing?" A law enforcement source says Randall then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

We're told Randall took two blood alcohol tests, which were videotaped, and continued saying how "f****d" she was and how she was going to "f***" Deputy Mee.

Air Supply's song "The one that you love" was the #1 song in the U.S.

It was the summer of 1981 and I was falling in love for the first time (that was requited). I frolicked with my girlfriend at the Pacific Union College pool many afternoons. One day a little black boy wearing goggles surfaced beside us and asked me, "Why is your penis sticking out like a lance?"

I never kissed my love. I was too scared. Over the next nine months, however, away from my love and at public school for the first time, I learned how to french kiss. That next summer, back at P.U.C., I got the nicknames "Hans Ford" and "Romeo." I made out with my love and went to R-rated movies with a college girl four years my senior. For the first time, I learned that women's panties get wet when they're sexually excited.

A friend asks me July 30, 2006: "How are you?"

Luke: In a torpor, perhaps depressed, have a hard time leaving my bed, just exhausted, back hurts, money prospects poor etc. All I do is lie in bed and listen to Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

>It's good that you have enough energy to take part in the shul stuff ... lectures etc. I really wish I could revive myself to the point where I'd go to the fancy aish shul, but that was four years ago already. The formality of it gave me focus.

Luke: I need to go to shul more, it gives me energy, I just hate getting up in the AM.

I Despair About Israel

I'm no political or military expert, but as as many Hezbollah rockets are falling on Israel today (July 30) as they were at the start of the war almost three weeks ago, I can only conclude what I believed when the war began -- that Israel's prime minister, Defense minister and IDF leadership are incompetent.

Nosh n' Drosh On Death

Judaism revolves around eating, praying and leading a holy life.

It's the religion of life.

"We all know that we should have an advanced medical directive that indicates our desires should we, God forbid, become ill and incapable of expressing our desires," said the rabbi. "But the topic doesn't come up often on "date night" (or on the elliptical at 24-hour fitness). The same is true for the disposal of our worldly assists when we're no longer here to enjoy them - and doing so in a manner that will not run into halachik obstacles. And what about that organ donor dot? So come on over. It'll be a laugh a minute!"

"That sounds great," he thought, and as his calendar was empty, he put on his tzitzit Saturday afternoon and his white shirt and black tie and black pants and black jacket and trudged a couple of miles through the humidity to a beautiful home in Beverlywood.

Once inside (5 p.m.), he grunted at the host and went right for the cold water and then for desserts and then for generous helpings of the fruit salad.

Then he found a seat in the back, next to a Holocaust survivor, and listened to the rabbi speak. During the lecture, he watched the kids playing catch in the backyard. He kept imagining that at any moment the ball would come crashing through the window.

He felt his jacket pull down on his weak shoulders. As he moved in his seat, he felt his back spasm. As the room filled up, he felt claustrophobic.

The rabbi referred to rabbis.org where you can make a nifty will. It says: "Jewish religious law does not recognize the validity of a will."

Yet Rav Moshe Feinstein says that a secular will is just fine.

To what extent do you use heroic and invasive measures to sustain the life of the terminally ill?

The rabbi said people should fill out an advanced medical directive making their will known in these matters.

Rav Feinstein provides a lot of room for letting the terminally ill die without resorting to any efforts beyond providing oxygen, food and water.

"I could do with some oxygen, food and water right now," he thought.

It was 6:20 p.m. "No need to resuscitate me," he muttered and made a mad dash for the door, barreling past two dozen cramped but pious souls. "If I don't get out of here right now, I'm going to die. I don't care that I'm being rude. I don't care that I'm leaving while a dozen people want to involve the rabbi in some esoteric discussion. Let me go right now. No heroic measures need to be exerted on my behalf. I can't breathe in here. I want to go home."

HollyRandall: that girl you wrote about sleeping with
HollyRandall: and you tried to tell me later that you made it all up?
HollyRandall: you did f--- her you liar
Luke: OK, I lied.
HollyRandall: lol
HollyRandall: why did you say you made it up?
Luke: because that is what I would've wanted to hear if the situation was reversed.
HollyRandall: if you were trying to make me jealous like you said, wouldn't you stick to the story that you did hook up with her?
HollyRandall: oh Luke
Luke: I was observing the golden rule.
Luke: It was the ethical thing to do to lie.
HollyRandall: oh please
Luke: How did I know I was going to get found out?
HollyRandall: the ethical thing to do would have been not to sleep with her in the first place
HollyRandall: because liars always do
Luke: We were broken up. I had no plans to be with you again.
HollyRandall: even more reason not to have lied about it
HollyRandall: whatever i really don't care that much
HollyRandall: i just wanted to catch you out

That's the title of a short story in Steve Almond's collection, My Life in Heavy Metal:

What Darcy enjoyed most was a good lathering between the thighs. As a lifelong liberal, this was one of my specialties. In some obscure but plausible fashion, I viewed the general neglect of the region as a bedrock of conservatism. The female sex was, in political terms, the equivalent of the inner city: a dark and mysterious zone, vilified by the powerful, derided as incapable of self-improvement, entrenched and smelly. Going down on a woman was a dirty business, humiliating, potentially infectious, best delegated to the sensitivos of the Left.

I relished the act, which I considered to be what Joe Lieberman would have termed, in his phlegmy rabbinical tone, a mitzvah. It required certain sacrifices. The deprivation of oxygen, to begin with.

False Reports On Red Light District

Over the past two days, I've had three separate (and usually reliable sources) tell me that the FBI was at Red Light District poring over their 2257 records. I published two of these reports and then pulled each one. According to David Joseph, RLD owner, the FBI has not visited his business.

Everyone at RLD's warehouse was scrambling on the day Diabolic was visited. Word got around that the FBI was visiting, but it was not accurate. I'm sure it was a case of "telephone." Many took it as fact they were coming, but I think they just wanted to be 100% ready for a visit.

Flaw In Wankernomics

James writes:

Reading Winai Wongsurawat's paper it's a great example of why fundamentally and technically-superb economists are prone to [soiling] the bed on relevancy so often. a paper published in 2006 using 1991 penthouse magazines just doesn't MEAN anything in the post-max era. in terms of concern about material titilating people into sexual violence, a printed copy of penthouse(even more so in that era) is a totally different animal than a movie with real people acting out sexually-violent things. the penthouse is closer to a "maxim" or "fhm" than to captured domestic violence. only the most-conservative people pick up a glossy/artsy mag like that and feel equally as concerned it's something to worry about versus speculums, choking and physical blows to a partner acted out as realistically as possible on film. good technically, but so far removed from the current reality of what people are concerned about.

Prostitution pricing in the U.K.

Ray Guhn’s Arrest and Pending Censorship of the Adult Industry

Andy Craft aka Jim Manley posts on JBM:

If you have anything to do whatsoever with the adult industry, you will want to read this entire post. I am making this post to offer my view and to update our industry on the latest news of the arrest of Ray Guhn and several members of the www.cumonherface.com and www.cashtitans.com team and how it can affect you. For those that are not aware of the arrests, here are the links to those articles http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?i...ing=ray%20guhn and http://www.xbiz.com/news_piece.php?i...ing=ray%20guhn

Most of you know me as Jim Manley or Big Jim. For those of you trying to picture who I am here is the most memorable pic of me brought to you by JFK http://www.fubarwebmasters.com/curre...pbp/z02847.htm now that was a great night and memory that I will cherish forever.

Ok, first, I am not really able to comment on the facts of the case only to say that Ray Guhn’s legal team will be fighting these charges aggressively as long as the money holds out. Ray has retained the legal team of Weston, Garrou, DeWitt & Walters. The well known and respected Larry Walters plans to spearhead a vigorous 1st amendment defense as you can imagine. Now please carefully read this next part. The predicate on which Ray Guhn and associates are charged can seriously impact how YOU as webmasters, producers, hosting companies, affiliates, and pay site owners will be permitted, or not permitted, to conduct your business in the future. The cops are claiming that paying people to perform sexually on camera is prostitution and therefore illegal. If the prosecution wins the Ray Guhn case in Florida it will have the chilling effect of setting precedent of illegalizing porn production throughout Florida which in turn will eagerly be used by other states anxious to squelch free expression to justify filing suits or applying pressure against webmasters, producers, hosters, affiliates and site owners who engage in showing ‘paid performers engaging in sex while being photographed or videotaped or on webcam’.

1) Why the charge of Racketeering? As mentioned, the cops assert that compensating people who perform in, or produce, adult sexual content is prostitution and that any parties earning an income derived from activity based on prostitution is Racketeering (which carries up to 30 years in jail). The 2nd predicate they are using is an Obscenity charge, ie: that COHF content is stronger content than Pensacola community standards allow, even though you can walk into dozens of stores in Pensacola and purchase many different porn mags showing detailed glossy images of group sex, anal sex, triple penetration, bondage sex, dildo sex, lesbian strap on sex, oral sex, cum swapping and oral/facial cumshots. But we all know how vague the obscenity law is, depending on your locale a girl posing nude could be considered obscene by a conservative jury.
2) Don’t believe everything you read in the papers, the guns they seized at Ray’s home were all legally owned along with a weapons permit and the “drugs” were only one medication type legally prescribed by licensed physicians. But it made for a sensational byline in the article.
3) It’s Election year here. So the stronger the headlines, the better, as far as the guys running for reelection are concerned.

I really can’t comment more on the case but after reading some of the posts when this story broke on GFY and other boards I wanted to clear up a few confused posters who poked fun at this situation without understanding how THIS CASE is the landmark case that many in the adult industry have been fearing for years. Grave consequences will occur first in Florida and next industry wide if the prosecution prevails in reclassifying porn performers and actors… as prostitutes. If performers are reclassified as prostitutes, smart money says the law will next move to classify people like YOU who webmaster, produce, host, manage, or resell that ‘illegal’ content as criminals and racketeers. (remember, racketeering carries up to 30 years in jail!).

Attorney Larry Walters has set up a legal defense fund for this fight. I am asking everyone to donate to this fund, not just to help defend Ray and myself, but also to preserve our adult internet industry as we currently know it. This case is already creating expenditures in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and honestly guys we need industry financial help from our friends, associates, fellow businessmen and industry moguls to win this battle... for all of us. Please donate directly to Larry Walter’s firm at: www.RayGuhnDefenseFund.com NONE of the donations go to Ray, myself or COHF.
I can only hope that the generosity (and sense of self preservation) of our industry will shine in this moment of darkness and contributions will flow in to assist defending against these charges. Please read this article concerning this case as it was posted on AVN http://www.avn.com/index.php?Primary...tent_ID=270764 I hope that after reading this you will understand that this is much more than just another case against a few guys in Florida, but rather it is a veiled legal attempt to begin the process of outlawing all porn production not only in Florida, but eventually reaching across the country.

www.RayGuhnDefenseFund.com

On a personal note I wish to thank the industry for their support and emails and phone calls and im’s about this situation. I am truly grateful of everyone’s concern. I now understand what it means to be at the bottom of the barrel as I have lost everything, my job, my income and for the few that knew I had a daughter as of now the state has ended my rights to see her, so again if you don’t think this case is important for those of you who have children, please imagine not being able to see them again simply because you operated or worked for an adult business. If you think for one second it can’t happen to you as I did, WELL IT CAN! I am not sure if I will stay in the adult industry after all this is over. I have to consider the options and what I might have to do to regain custody of my daughter. I would like to talk to anyone that might need a general manager type, employee or sales rep to weigh my options. I will consider all offers as I have stated before I have no income and my savings is almost gone.

I will respond as I can to the replies of this thread I ask that it be bumped quite regularly if possible to keep this subject fresh in the minds of all webmasters.

Thank you in advance for your donations (www.RayGuhnDefenseFund.com) and emotional support and let’s ALL hope that when the sun sets Ray Guhn and his legal team’s fight to preserve our 1st Amendment freedoms for the adult industry are successful. Truth and the 1st amendment are on our side. The best 1st amendment team in the country is on the case, but the effort needs donations now to the legal fund to avoid being railroaded into a defeat that will shake the foundation of the adult industry.

Who's Going To Host The Temptation Awards?

Temptation says 350 people are confirmed to come.

Where Is Mark Carriere?

Does he still run Leisure Time? Does his company still move 200,000 DVDs a month?

Ariana Jollee Slugs Director Roy Karch Saturday On Set Of Sex Z Pictures Tranny Movie

Ariana felt that Roy was directing her too much.

After she punched him, she said, "Now you're my bitch," and walked off the set.

Roy shrugged it off and went back to work.

Whatever Happened To Mason?

Pierre writes:

I would like to know what has happened to the once much talked about porn director Mason. About two years ago now, she was on the cover of AVN and was recognized by her peers, but also created much controversy. Her hard-edge style in movie-making sure wasn't for everyone, but she was quite a big name in the gonzo type of movie.

What bothers me is that in the spring of 2005, at the end of February or May, her site (whish included her journal) went down, in about the same time she started changing companies. Leaving Elegant Angel for a brief stint at Platinum X, and after she is supposedly went with Hustler. They didn't kept her long (her movies probably too extreme for the brand), and since then she kind of disappear. I think her last movie was Mason's Sluts, which came out last year. No others came following that one.

So you see, my problem is that I am very much interested to know what happened to her, but I cannot contact her since I can’t reach her through her site since it is down. I don't know for which company she works, I don't even know if she is still active in the business.

As far as I can tell, Mason's gone into a shell since the Delilah Strong fiasco two years ago. She has/had a directing deal with Chris at Anabolic.

What happened to her? Here are some possibilities:

* Her brutal pornography may scare a lot of distributors.

* She's never been prolific. She produces her scenes and movies very slowly.

* She's bounced through various directing deals and may be out of options.

A source writes: "She blew all the money from the Diabolic deal and is slowly getting that movie done one scene at a time."

The #23 Enigma

A source writes: "The articles online say they are after 10 different studios yet it is 23 films from various studios in question."

FBI Visits Diabolic Video to Check 2257 Records

Paul Fishbein writes on AVN.com:(the last time I saw his byline was June 23 on the sale of Club Jenna to Playboy):

CHATSWORTH, Calif. - FBI agents are currently visiting the offices of Diabolic Video here checking their records in accordance with the 2257 statute, according to Diabolic owner Greg Allan.

“The agent said there are 10 companies on their list and we were the first, but Diabolic, not Anabolic,” Allan told AVN.com exclusively.

This is the first time an adult company was visited to verify compliance with the record keeping requirements of 18USC~2257.

I believe that Anabolic/Diabolic is going to get popped on federal obscenity charges within the next year along with several other (maybe dozens of other) hard-edged gonzo companies. This 2257 investigation is a way for the feds to pile on the charges against the extreme porn companies.

L-Pink writes on GFY: "Let's hope pornotube is one of the next inspected. One of their Japanese, teens dressed as school-girls, gang-banged, no 2257 info provided clips."

2:35 p.m. I return Mary Carey's call . She says: "Legend is right next door to Anabolic/Diabolic. I was supposed to go to Legend to pick up my paycheck. Then they told me not to come today because the FBI was at Diabolic. I started freaking out. I want my paycheck now in case... They say, 'Why don't you wait and get your check tomorrow when we'll know what is going on.'"

Legend is across the street from JM Productions which was busted on federal obscenity charges a few months ago.

Mary: "I'm sitting here trying to figure out who are the other 10 companies. Legend doesn't do those type of movies."

In 2001, Legend stopped distributing Max Hardcore.

Pearl Abraham's Best Interviews

I email her: "I'm sure you've been interviewed over 100x... Who was the best and the brightest?"

She replies:

Dutch journalists are far and away better than American ones, more literary or something, at least the ones I've encountered. Jan Donkers who interviewed me for NRC was very good, not only literarily but also skilled at use of tape, at getting things right, no misquotes, nothing out of context, Really on, and uses the interview form with some panache. He got a full front page, so that may have helped. Also in the Netherlands, even the mags, such as beauty mags, have better educated, smarter, good writers/journalists. Dutch Elle for example has Ilonka Leenheer, who interviewed me and wrote up a really smart piece. And she was given enough space too.

Ehud Havazelet

I phone the author of three books Tuesday afternoon. He lives in Corvallis and teaches creative writing at the University of Oregon.

Luke: "How do you like your name?"

Ehud: "If I didn't like it, I would've changed it. It's always been an issue with pronunciation. Since age four, whenever teachers have stopped and looked confused, I raised my hand and told them.

"My two sons are named Jacob (5) and Michael (18).

"My name bothered me when I was younger because I felt like it stuck out but now it's fine.

"I was a wannabe musician for a few years and this guy told me that if I wanted a chance with Roulette Records, they were going to call me Ed Hazel. My wife and I use that as a joke name."

Luke: "Did your [second] wife [of six years] take your name?"

Ehud: "No."

Luke: "How do you feel about that?"

Ehud: "Fine. Jacob has my last name. I would've been proud if my wife had taken my name..."

"I've been mistaken more often for an Arab than an Israeli."

Luke: "You were never going to be able to assimilate with your name?"

Ehud: "No. And nobody has asked me assimilate with any name."

Ehud moved to Oregon in 1989.

Luke: "When did you break with Orthodox Judaism and why?"

Ehud: "The second semester of college. I didn't have a positive experience growing up Orthodox in New York. I found it closed, vicious and sniping. I didn't know anyone who had spirituality."

Ehud's father Meir just retired at age 78 as a professor of rabbinics at Yeshiva University.

Luke: "At what age did you first smoke pot?"

Ehud: "Fifteen."

Luke: "At what age did you become a rebel?"

Ehud, the eldest of four kids: "I was rebelling all the time. I went to college wearing a yarmulke and a ponytail. The public rebellion came when I stopped keeping kosher and stopped wearing a yarmulke and started having tremendous fights with my father.

"In 1967, I was eleven when the Six Day War happened. My father and I talked excitedly about getting on a plane and going there and seeing what we could do. By the 1973 war, I had seen the other side. I was against the war in Vietnam and against militarization.

"I hated going to yeshiva. I had to get there at 7 a.m. to pray. I left at 5:30 p.m. I had some rabbis who were very traditional and some very troubled. Some were rigid and sadistic. One threw a kid down the stairs and broke his back. I used to get hit.

"I went to Ramaz. It was the most modern yeshiva. I wanted to go to a non-yeshiva school. My parents said no way. You go to a Jewish school but you can pick the one you want."

Luke: "What crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"

Ehud: "There wasn't much of a crowd. There were a few of us getting high and going down to the Philmore [for concerts by the Grateful Dead, etc].

"Somebody at [Ramaz] found out that somebody was getting high so they had the police department come down to this nice Jewish school and had a display of the various types of drugs and all the reasons you shouldn't use them. Winning arguments such as, 'Why do you think they call it dope?'

"With wonderful naiveté, they passed around five joints so we could all get a look at them. At the end, only three of them came back to the stage. The principal got up and said, 'No one is leaving this room until they come back.'"

Luke: "Did you get expelled?"

Ehud: "I was suspended often."

Luke: "Have any Orthodox institutions invited you to give a reading?"

Ehud: "Yeshiva University has. A colleague of my father's likes my stuff. I had dinner with a bunch of students from Stern College [the women's branch of Y.U.]."

Luke: "Did you corrupt the youth?"

Ehud: "No. I was on my best behavior. I had a couple of Scotches before I went to make sure I could take whatever would happen. They were very nice. My impression is that they were hampered by having one reference point. They didn't have a way of approaching my material [except] was it pro or anti-Jewish. That's not what I'm aiming for.

"There's a scene in my short story 'Leah' where Rachel's boyfriend is beaten up. I was accused of condoning anti-Semitism."

Luke: "What emotions did you see on your father's face when you were with the yeshiva crowd?"

Ehud: "He loved it. He co-opted the whole thing. My father can't resist an opportunity to be on stage. We started talking about what he thinks, what he thinks the stories are about... It's like asking a person who's never painted to care about everything in a painting and understand how it was put together. He's not a painter.

"Within that context, he's a wild man He's more provocative, liberal and questioning than most of his students.

"My dad's swung to the left politically without changing his allegiance to Israel. He's for a two-state solution. He's there now. We can't get him to come home."

Luke: "When were you last in Israel?"

Ehud: "My bar mitzvah in 1968."

Luke: "Was there anything you loved about Orthodox Judaism?"

Ehud: "I loved the Torah, the Bible, the stories.

"I loved studying Talmud because of the logical argumentation.

"I had the study habits of a dreyhorse. Anyone who goes to 12 years of yeshiva has great work habits. When I turned on to Marx or Shakespeare or James Joyce, I didn't have to develop the tools to approach it.

"I come from a long line of scholars. I grew up with the notion of memorizing things and showing off what you knew. The emphasis was on accomplishment and competition. We didn't talk about the meaning of the ideas behind them [the texts].

"When I was six, my maternal grandfather bought me a Tanach (Hebrew Bible). I remember sitting up at night and reading it through.

"When I was older, I read the Yiddish writers such as Shalom Aleichem.

"My [Jewish] affiliation is more cultural than philosophical."

Luke: "Are you happy?"

Ehud: "Yeah, I'm very happy."

Luke: "But your writing doesn't have much happiness."

Ehud: "Yeah."

"I don't think happiness is what most people's lives are about most of the time. It's about struggle and loss and strife. To write about life as if it is resolvable is not true."

"I write about characters who work hard to find what they need. I write about characters in a lot of pain, with a lot of weight and baggage, who don't behave well, not because they're bad people, but because they're troubled.

"I don't believe in happy endings in art."

Luke: If I were to talk to the people who knew you best, how many would describe you as happy?

Ehud: "None."

Luke: "Why are you happy?"

Ehud: "Because of the direction my life has gone [in the past decade, since he met his second wife, the only years he'd describe as happy]."

Luke: "What does your father think of your writing?"

Ehud: "I don't know. He loves reading. He especially loves the 19th Century Russians. That was a great connection when I was younger -- we'd read books together. I remember him taking tremendous glee when I was twelve in telling me the end of Anna Karenina. 'It's not the plot that matters,' he said. 'You have to get under the plot.' Thanks.

"I don't know that my father has read enough modern literature to have a real grasp of some of the things I'm trying to do.

"I don't know how deeply he wants to look into some of the things I'm talking about. Some of the things you and I have been talking about -- it is not a happy portrait.

"Some of his more literary friends say to him, 'Look at what he's writing about you.' I think he has the sense to know that is not true.

"He has a traditional view of how writing is put together. He gets hurt by things I have written even when they are not about him. But he's very proud of me.

"The huge push from all my friends and family was to be a rabbi, and if not that, to be a doctor or lawyer.

"My parents never discouraged me from being a writer. They worried about it -- for good reason.

"Parents would like their kids to write happy stories. It means they had a happy life."

Luke: "How much does one need to know before one can appreciate your writing? Does one have to be a smarty pants?"

Ehud: "First, there is a measure of acquaintance with what literature in the Modern period and since has done that might help get a handle on some of what I'm trying--if you're most conversant with fables or morality shows, you'll be less comfortable with open-ended (negatively capable) stories like mine. So yes, a bit of smarty pants I'll admit to. The other, related issue, which has nothing really to do with what you've read (though reading always helps me) is your willingness to confront the emotional substrate of your material. Such as: when I was growing up, the Akeda was presented as a lesson solely in faith -- Abraham heeding god's word. What interests me as a storyteller much more is what the characters might feel -- what father would sacrifice his son, what son could live after being strapped to the slaughter block. To these questions there is no single answer and that's why they're often not asked, or given simplistic answers -- faith, submission, god's inscrutable ways. God, except for Moses who got a direct look, is an idea, even to the devout; I'm interested in people."

Luke: "Your father sounds very much like Rabbi Max Birnbaum in your short story collection, Like Never Before -- a bibliophile, absent-minded professor..."

Ehud: "Yes. Immersed in another world. The restlessness and insecurity of Max. My father was a much more successful scholar than Max.

"Both sides of my family were out of Europe before the Holocaust.

"A lot of the tensions between us are in the relationship between Max and David. The biographical facts are different. Max never wrote anything."

Luke: "What about approachable vs. removed? [Max was removed.]"

Ehud: "It's a mix. My father is charming and openhearted. He will talk to anybody about anything. He'll sit on a bus for two minutes and have three friends. He's constantly meeting people. We constantly had people over at the house. I've never met anybody more approachable.

"He's also circumscribed by his beliefs and background. He's from Mea Shearim [the ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem]. Parts of him are still in Mea Shearim. We have relatives who are [charedi] and have never left that world.

"He'll debate with anybody but we've not had a real discussion about religion since I was a kid because I don't think, and this will upset him to read, that he really wants to know how I feel about it. He wants to convince me I'm wrong. We had so many fights about it that I demanded and he acquiesced to not talk about it. If we kept down that road, we weren't going to see each other any more.

"My father, to his credit, has straddled two worlds [modern scholarship and traditional piety], but not comfortably."

Luke: "Could you discuss the documentary hypothesis with your father?"

Ehud: "Oh sure.

"He's about the most rebellious irreverent person I've ever seen within his circle."

We move on.

"I don't tell people what my stories are about and how they should interpret them. I just hope they read them.

"I don't write stories to make polemical points."

Luke: Orthodox Judaism is largely absent from your first book [What is it Then Between Us?] but fills your second book.

Ehud: "All first books are apprenticeships. There's some abject imitation in there. I was responding too much to what I had read.

"I was not ready to write about [Orthodox Judaism]. I was young. I was angry.

"It kept coming up. In graduate school, my best teacher was Lynn Sharon Schwartz. She said [Orthodox Judaism] was my material. I said, 'No, it isn't. My material is hard-drinking, hard-loving misanthropes.'

"I'm publishing my third book next year -- a novel (Bearing the Body)."

Luke: "Do you keep any mitzvot [divine commandments]?"

Ehud: "I keep in mind the concept of a mitzvah as much as I can. A mitzvah to me is an act of generosity, a good idea. But I don't start with them as an injunction.

"My grandfather (Rabbi Samuel K. Mirsky) had a big shul in New York (at one time, he had the biggest Young Israel in the country, a thousand-member shul). We'd come back from shul on Friday night and all the grandkids would line up and he'd bless us. I give the same blessing to my boys. The older one accepts it readily and the younger one is bored and wants to go back to videogames."

Luke: "Do you eat pork and shellfish?"

Ehud: "Yes.

"The first time I ate non-kosher meat I thought I was going to get sick. Two of my sisters claim that they did get sick."

All fours kids left Orthodoxy.

Ehud: "I can't tell if I'm disappointing you."

Luke: "One advantage of your upbringing is that you always knew who you were."

Ehud: "No. The opposite. That's what was intended but I had an identity handed to me that I was supposed to emulate and I was never allowed to develop by myself. I grew up within a small intense internecine New York Jewish community.

"We had non-Jewish families living on our block but we had nothing to do with them.

"I was proud of my family. I thought we were like the Kennedys. We turned out to have their flaws.

"I wanted to write my own stories, not repeat the ones I was told. I wanted to write about people. I wanted to see the world and find myself. I had to go find my identity."

Luke: "What is your primary identity?"

Ehud: "Father."

"The breaking point between my father and me... As long as I stayed in the same landscape, we could argue about anything. When I said I'm leaving, we didn't have anything to talk about."

Luke: "Has he read your books?"

Ehud: "I'm sure he has. I just don't know how deeply.

"There's a scene in Like Never Before where David Birnbaum gets on the roof of the neighboring shul and dances on the ledge and taunting everybody in front of my father. That was completely made up. I used to go on the roof with friends, anything to get out of shul for a while, but I was terrified of heights. There was no way I would dance on the edge and taunt everybody.

"My father said to me, 'I remember that. I've always felt so guilty you were up there. I should've come up and gotten you but I just stood there and watched.'

"I wanted to say, 'That was the one thing that was completely made up,' but that is the one thing he feels the worst for."

"One of my favorite memories is when my father would tell Bible stories to Michael when he was five, six, seven, eight. It brought back my favorite memories of growing up. But part of modern life is that you don't live in the same village as your family. My mother died last year. I don't think my younger boy will remember her."

Luke: "Do you think your boys will become writers?"

Ehud: "My 18 year old has shown no such inclination. My younger boy, as far as lying and embroidering and wanting to hold everyone's attention, he certainly has that.

"I don't care what they become as long as they don't become neo-Nazis or go into advertising."

Luke: "I'm thinking about the advantages for a writer in coming from a particularistic background, an advantage that your children won't have."

Ehud: "Yeah. I do regret that there's no way I know to immerse my children in the ritual and culture I grew up in and hated most of the time. I have the memories of all the Succos and seders and the endless hours in shul on Yom Kippur. From age nine, my father would let me bring books of Jewish writers in to shul. He said, 'Sit down and shut up. Don't make a big deal out of it. But you can read those instead of daven.'

"I grew up as an unhappy troubled kid. I wouldn't do that to my kid. The system I was brought up in was repressive and did not give you the chance to find your own answers."

Luke: "It must kill your parents that all four kids left Orthodoxy."

Ehud: "It was hard for them, not just the ideological split..."

Luke: "But the practical..."

Ehud: "Yeah."

Luke: "Did they ever ask you -- 'Where did we go wrong?'"

Ehud: "No. It was more telling me where I went wrong.

"It was as frightening to them as if I had turned out to be gay. They weren't able to understand it. [Orthodox Judaism] was the most important thing in the world to them. 'How could you not want it?'"

Luke: "Is your wife Jewish?"

Ehud: "No."

Luke: "Did your parents come to the wedding?"

Ehud: "Yes.

"My first wife converted [to Judaism] of her own accord. She more into it than I was. She took Michael to Israel for his bar mitzvah. But my parents still had a lot of trouble with her. I would never blame them for the marriage not working out but they sure didn't help.

"I think they realized that."

"I don't go out of my way to read Jewish writers. I read 19th Century writers. I read what I need to write."

Superjux.com Hillary Breaks Down

I saw this one coming for months. She was dating a guy who did not remember her birthday and it's the straw that's broken the camel's back and she's on blogging hiatus. She's been in a downward spiral for months and it's made for fascinating reading in that car-crash way.

Hillary appears to comes from a close and caring family but her dating life is killing her.

"Low self-esteem and a bad upbringing comes in handy later in life," notes a friend.

There's a long comment thread on why the guy didn't call her on her birthday. My answer is -- he's just not that into you.

If admitting immigrants means making choices, CATHY SEIPP argues that even “moderate muslims” need to step to the end of the line

Anyway, you can’t avoid importing suicide bombers just by eschewing immigrants from fanatical backgrounds. Remember Raed Mansou Albanna? He was the Jordanian carbomber who, before finding Allah and blowing up 132 Iraqis outside a medical clinic a few months ago, apparently grew up in a secular home. Albanna was also a fun-loving Hollywood clubhopper for a spell, admitted to the U.S. on a tourist visa in early 2001 before returning to Jordan in late 2002.

So other than those who are actually fleeing persecution from Islam, the Free Speech Religion, or who have helped American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, I say keep them all out. Why should even the most festive Arab partyboy be allowed to take the place of one Mexican gardener?

Joy Comes in the Morning

This is a terrific novel by Jonathan Rosen.

The protagonist, Deborah, a Reform rabbi did not go to the mikveh, even though her ex-boyfriend Reuben, Orthodox, had asked her to. "The hypocrisy of his wishing to honor ritual purity while sleeping with her out of wedlock -- and after having explained to her why he could never marry her -- had astonished and depressed her." (pg. 222)

I've told at least a dozen women I've been with that I could not marry them (mainly because of our unbridgeable religious differences, yet I was happy to put aside such things to sleep with them).

They went to a seder hosted by a friend of Deborah, a Conservative rabbi named Wendy about whom Deborah...observed, "She'd be a better rabbi if her ass wasn't so big." (pg. 232)

Despite their somber garb, Orthodox men were the white rabbits of the religion, always rushing past -- late! late! late! -- except on Shabbas when they sauntered with time-killing ease. (pg. 243)

What's The Difference Between Young Orthodox Women In Los Angeles And Their Peers In The Rest Of The World?

One source of mine maintains that Orthodox women in L.A. (religious from birth, 18-24) tend to be more sheltered than their peers around the world.

Are Orthodox maideles from Brooklyn and West End Avenue and Riverside Drive less likely to be shocked by certain human realities than girls who grow up in L.A.? Are N.Y. Orthodox women more mature than their L.A. sisters? In New York City you take the subway and you see Orthodox girls everywhere. They cannot hide from the blend of humanity. How often, outside of a few blocks, do you see them in Los Angeles?

If you want to live Jewish and you are 18 and ambitious, you have to leave L.A. UCLA has not been able to maintain a critical mass of Orthodox Jews. There's no Stern College equivalent in L.A.

I'd like to hear from Orthodox men in Los Angeles who've flown to New York for a date. A friend of mine is researching this for a magazine article.

If an L.A. Orthodox girl is not married at 18, and not headed for an elite college or Israel, she may well languish at a community college.

If you are Orthodox and single in L.A., people assume there is something wrong with you. If you have something on the ball, you leave L.A.

I sense from my own observations that there are comparatively few Orthodox women in L.A. aged 18-24. Most of them seem to move to New York (upon graduating highschool and doing a year in yeshiva in Israel) to go to school and to find a husband. Many of my single Orthodox male friends in L.A. fly to New York for dates.

What's up with that? Why do Orthodox girls leave L.A. at 18 for Israel and New York? A part of the answer is that much of the best in the diaspora's Orthodox community, particularly among the youth, move to Israel.

New York's Jewish life is more intense than L.A.'s.

There's a much bigger Orthodox singles scene in Manhattan and New York than in L.A.

Yitz writes:

How come you don't launch at the 50 richest jewish families in L.A. and challenge them to endow a religious jewish college in Los Angeles? Why do orthodox rabbis at the SWC (Simon Wiesenthal Center) not use their rolodex to fund some sort of endeavor? Why won't YU make good on its 30 year old west coast expansion project.

I have a feeling that pico robertson jews like eating at pat's (most expensive kosher restaurant in L.A.) scarfing junk at munchies and reading their printouts at lectures than putting in the elbow grease necessary to create a full jewish orthodox community in Los Angeles. When high school grads leave L.A. for their year in Israel and then matriculate at YU, the chances that they will come back to L.A. are much less. They are more likely to end up in the hellholes back east like Passaic and Teaneck or make aliyah. Those who come back to L.A. are generally the ones who were coddled by their folks growing up and can't really make it in a foreign land. You would need many hands to count just how many wealthy jewish families in L.A. have children serving as COO of the family business back here after going back east to find a wife and a degree. Only the brats come back. The go-getters end up on Wall Street.

A Walk Through The Jewish Divorce Ceremony

An essay from In Fact: The Best of Creative Nonfiction:

I am wearing a long black skirt, a white blouse with sleeves that cover my lascivious elbows, and a black sun hat. When my husband enters the room and sees me dressed in uncharacteristically ultramodest garb, reading Psalms, he chides, "Who the f--- do you think you're kidding?" (pg. 271)

...[T]hree rabbinic judges sit ensconced on cushioned chairs. They wear costumes -- black jackets, white shirts, grey beards, and black hats with wide rims. The rabbi on the left is immersed in reading a tome and does not look up when we enter the courtroom. The rabbi on the right is sucking his thumb. He avoids my incredulous stare, which he would have to interpret as lecherous, versed as he must be in rabbinic wisdom. The judge in the middle looks at my husband and me as if our whole sad history is incised on our foreheads. (pg. 272)

Rabbi Yitzchock Summers (Anshe Emes) To Sign With Shaarey Zedek?

That's what Shmarya reports. My sources say no decision has been made yet on who will be Shaarey's new rabbi. "The powers that be at S.Z. have promised us a rabbi with star power," says a Shaarey member. "The equivalent stature of Aron Tendler who was known around the world. It's not going to be Rabbi Summers. It might be Asher Brander."

Pico Robertson posts:

I wouldn't say that SZ is moving right. Let's face it--Anshe is "black" compared to all of the MO shuls in the "Teaneck of the West Coast" aka the Pico Robertson area. I think it is less political and more character driven. In character, the tame hearted Summers is a complete 180 from what Aron Tendler is / was. It is less hashkafic and more about the personality of the Rav that SZ wants.

LA Jew posts:

At the Town Hall Meeting that this news was broken at—the president of Anshe Emes suggested that Anshe consider keeping Rabbi Summers by establishing relationships with high paying people outside of it's walls who want to learn privately with the Rav—and by extension would then increase his salary to the one offered by the Valley Shul. Unfortunately, Anshe does not have, nor has it ever had in recent years an infrastructure that is necessary to produce outreach or appointment booking for it's solo Rav to learn outside of the Shul boundaries. It is a basic davening location, where it's members are pious and unfortunately straped for cash, time and energy. The vast majority of them live in apartments, and some homes in the area. The physical workings of the Shul are maintained by the handiwork of a few individuals who are dedicated.

Anshe member posts:

Rabbi Summers has not even had his shabbos interview at SZ. I know R' Brander has and I highly doubt that they would offer him the job before he spent a Shabbos with them. I was also at the [Anshe] town hall meeting. and I know the results of the money that they are trying to raise. If all it came down to were dollars and cents Rabbi Summers will be staying at Anshe.

Rabbis Are Like Strippers

"Everyone has a private spiritual core but only a few people exhibit it in public." (Joy Comes in the Morning, Jonathan Rosen)

I feel shame because I remember how close I was with them and then I feel how appalled they must've felt and feel when they realize who I am and what I've written. I tasted sanctity with them and then profaned their world.

Yaakov writes:

At least you had the good sense to withdraw from commotion. No one speaking out on such a topic ever sounds intelligent, instead we get everyone's ego and need to win the point or appear a certain way. The world will always make the Israelis look more violent than they are. Have you been to the website the augean stables? Very interesting exchanges there. And then this other very terrible thing, apparently some Israeli children were given permission to write on bomb shells aimed at Lebanon, Stars of David, insults. Terrible. Although we know this is not official policy, meanwhile the mullahs call us a virus and they hide their missiles in ordinary neighborhoods, inviting more death.

The way the issues link is almost beyond the expression power of language and words. For example I had a theoretical support for the Iraq war but never believed that the Republicans were the administration to succeed. And I was right. And for all that Michael Moore's film on 9/11 bothered me in its picture of happy Iraqis without admitting that Saddam Hussein was a bloody torturuer and murderer responsible for much pain, it was also true in that film that the Republican leadership did not expect their own children to fight in the war. And they still don't. How many American Jews who are Israeli hawks expect their own children to either join the IDF or the US Army when they come of age? And don't use the excuse that study in an Israeli yeshiva is equal to service.

Hot Young Chix - An Issue Facing The Nation

Often when I'm interviewed for documentaries there's some old geezer in charge and he's assisted by a couple of hotties. Do these chix get their jobs purely through their professional skills? Are they hired in part because of their looks? Do the geezers hire the chickies because they want to be around chickies (and possibly sleep with chickies) or because the geezers believe that their documentary subjects will be more likely to open up to chickies?

'What is the point of showing suffering Lebanese?'

That was Dennis Prager's angle Monday morning. He called such reporting "utterly unproductive."

"Is anyone making a difference [with Lebanese suffering]? Yes. Israel is making a difference because they are on the front line of the war against terror.

"Now you know why the world sees the U.S. and Israel as such villains. Because of television reporting.

"It's just cheap -- inexpensive, easy, it garners interest but it doesn't teach us anything. Are we so stupid that we don't know what the suffering of a child is about? I don't think that CNN in its history reported on one Tibetan child suffering under the Chinese.

"In WWII, the Germans would have allowed British and American cameramen to show German suffering.

"Every time you see an Arab child suffering, and it is a terrible thing when any child suffers [should show the terrorist attacks on Israel that provoked Israel's offensive].

"Is it the point of news to show the suffering of war? There's something voyeuristic about this. It's easy reporting. It's easy to rivet the human eye on to children suffering."

Prager says the Lebanese failed to control Hezbollah and thus brought this suffering (the Israeli attack) on themselves.

Why is the suffering of the Lebanese less newsworthy and less important than Israeli suffering?

Prager and Judaism would argue that's because the Jews are God's Chosen People and represent God on earth and serve as the world's miner's canaries revealing evil because evil focuses first on Jews.

`A Real Defining Moment'

Braving extreme heat, a crowd of Israel's supporters estimated at several thousand clogged Wilshire Boulevard, waving Israeli and American flags and cheering speakers who included Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Both lamented civilian casualties in Lebanon but expressed strong support for Israel.

According to the Times lead paragraph, the primary thing that Israeli supporters did Sunday in Los Angeles was "clog" Wilshire Blvd. The verb chosen for the paper's lead sentence was "clogged." The subject of that sentence was "Israel's supporters."

I'm curious if those who support left-wing causes, such as the massive rallies a few months ago for illegal immigration, also "clogged" L.A. streets? Or do only Jews clog our town?

A search of "clog" on dictionary.com reveals only negative connotations to the word (and its variations), including:

1. To obstruct movement on or in; block up: Heavy traffic clogged the freeways.

2. To hamper the function or activity of; impede: “attorneys clogging our courts with actions designed to harass state and local governments”

A search of "clogged" (as well as "clog" and "clogging") on LATimes.com reveals that the newspaper has never used the word to describe any other rally in America (going back as far as March 24, 2002).

I'd be shocked if the Times ever described black or Latino protesters as "clogging" streets.

The Times story (by Teresa Watanabe and Valerie Reitman) only quotes Jews on the Left -- Rabbi Steven Jacobs, Jewish Journal Editor Rob Eshman, David N. Myers, Michael Berenbaum, Daniel Sokatch, and Zev Yaroslavsky.

The one possible exception is Jewish Federation L.A. leader John Fischel, who is difficult to place on the political spectrum but could certainly not be considered right of center.

Look at the second sentence of the story: "Both lamented civilian casualties in Lebanon but expressed strong support for Israel."

What kind of twisted thinking places lamenting civilian casualties in Lebanon in opposition to expressing strong support for Israel? Why did the Times choose the word "but" instead of "and"?

The Times evidently believes that lamenting civilian casualties in Lebanon is the opposite of expressing support for Israel.

Protect Israel By Thinking Pure Thoughts

Not only do I watch Fox News and pay my synagogue dues, but I also protect Israel by abstaining from female flesh.

Launched into my fifth decade of life, I don my kipa and tzitzit Sunday afternoon, sew my shirt together (first time I've picked up a needle in about a decade) and (skipping the sunblock because Psalm 121 says God will keep the sun from harming me, though, oy, we're in the days of the great slaughter, when the towers fall... the sunlight is seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days... with burning anger... his tongue is a consuming fire) haul my aching back to Wilshire and San Vicente Blvds to join 1,500 or so other Jews rallying for Israel.

I walk past a hundred people (about a quarter seem to be Jewish) rallying against Israel.

I hope there's a rumble.

I find a trash container in the shade (the temperature must be close to 100 degrees) and sit on it and read a book on creative non-fiction.

Anne Dillard advises me to not write about myself.

Though I'm a vegetarian, I check out the different ways my fellow Jews cope with the heat. The more Orthodox are completely covered up. Some look good. Some wear black suits. Most look dumpy.

The more secular Jews wear less but don't seem to cope with the heat any better for their bareness.

I see many religious Jews who make me feel ashamed. Some of them I hope will pass out before me but none do. Still, it's cool to watch your enemies suffer. I'm in the shade and I feel a breeze.

I see dozens of people I know but approach none of them. I don't want to come off as emotionally needy.

Who Would Jesus Bomb?

There's an enormous roar for the Governor.

A few anti-Israel protesters carrying the Palestinian flag wander by. A Jewish kid with a bullhorn tells them: "This is the wrong corner. Suicide bombers are on the other side of the street."

They leave.

If each of my loyal readers patronizes one fewer hooker this week and instead donates that money to Israel, together we can make a better world.

Mayor Villaraigosa's office is taking a tally as to whether the mayor should had attended Sunday's rally. mayor@lacity.org

Wow, I'm writing on the internet.

KS writes:

Hey Luke, You seem to be duplicitously involving yourself in the march supporting Israel. As though you went, but were not really involved, or went just as an observer. Interesting that this facet of your personality also seems to extend to your faith.

I have to tell you that I am less than impressed by Israel's conduct. I don't like the fact that Israel constantly falls back on its protector (the USA) when taking a tough stance. It's cowardly to speak boldly while your big brother stands behind you smacking his knuckles into his palm. It's even more pathetic when said big brother only associates with you for his own (political) expedience. What are your thoughts on Israel’s startling ability to cause maximum civilian carnage? Do they actually mistake those ice cream trucks for Hezbollah/Palestinian HQ's? At this point who is the oppressor/the oppressed?

I agree with President Bush who said after 9/11 that the United States will not distinguish between terrorists and those who harbor terrorists. Lebanon has chosen to harbor terrorists. So Lebanon will pay the price for choosing to make a deal with the devil (Hezbollah) just as Afghanistan and Iraq paid the price for harboring terrorists.

Israel got bombed. Israel now wants to destroy those who bomb it. That seems just. How would you like the United States to act if it got bombed by terrrorists in Canada or Mexico or Cuba?

Israel is doing the opposite of causing maximum civilian damage. If Israel wanted to cause maximum civilian damage, it would use its nuclear weapons and kill millions of people.

Author Steve Almond - Which Brings Me To You (Novel), The Evil B.B. Chow (short story collection, Candyfreak (non-fiction), My Life in Heavy Metal (short stories)

I call Steve (who blasted his nemesis Mark Sarvas, a fellow Jew, on Salon.com on Yom Kippur, Oct 13, 2005) Friday afternoon, July 21, 2006.

Steve: "My parents were psychiatrists. I don't think I wanted to do that. I've got lousy memory when it comes to my childhood. My earliest memory [about work] was that I'd work for a newspaper. I did that after college for almost a decade."

Then Almond got an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. "The MFA is the artificial welfare state for people who are passionate about writing and reading. There aren't many environments where people are word-drunk.

"People used to make a living at writing before MFAs were around, but then there were venues where you could make a living as a short story writer. The culture was a reading culture.

"There's more great writing than ever. There are just fewer readers."

Luke: "What was it like writing a novel with Julianna Baggott?"

Steve: "It was a thrill at the beginning. Then it got complicated and rancorous. That's what happens when you have two fragile narcissistic characters sharing a byline and a fictional world. We went at it fiercely. That was good for the book, to knock each other around. It wasn't pleasant. It was exhausting. The emotional veracity of those letters was predicated on Julianna and I putting each other through the wringer."

Luke: "Are you and Julianna a couple?"

Steve: "No. She's been married a dozen years. I just got married [to Erin, a writer from California]. But the writing of the novel was intense. We were in an intense relationship for six months. Would we want to write another book together? I can only guess that she would say no.

"My wife is a fan of Julianna's. I'm sure Julianna's husband heard a lot of 'That f---ing Steve Almond' comments. My wife heard a lot of 'Juliana's driving me crazy.' We each had someone in our corner to tell us to be less sensitive, that what matters is the book, to rub us down with salts and then send us back out into the middle of the ring to beat on each other more."

Luke: "How involved are you in Jewish life?"

Steve: "I write this crazy Jewish sex column. My wife tells me she's converting to Judaism. I've never believed in God. I'm deeply compelled by Jewish history. I identify culturally. My mom would use Yiddish words. They sneak their way into my work. I'm proud of the moral and intellectual tradition of Judaism.

"A lot of the great writers -- Philip Roth, Saul Bellow -- they have a Judaic perspective on life, an anguished apprehension of the suffering people go through in trying to love those around them.

"The Old Testament is the best writing on earth. It has the best stories.

"When I walk into a room, I'm drawn to the Jews. I usually recognize them. We have an attitudinal link to one another. It's the home team."

We talk about the internet.

Steve: "Any literary website has a certain amount of interviews, reviews and serious consideration of what interviews means. That's great. Then there's the other half -- the Fox News part -- malicious, gossipy, aggrieved, envious."

On May 12, 2006, Steve resigned from his writing position at Boston College after the university invited Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to speak.

Steve: "Boston College had a lousy record on gay rights and other things. Then I found out they were inviting Condoleeza Rice and I just thought it was a f---ing cynical thing to do. To cash in on her fame and make sure you get lots of donations and send the message to students that it is OK to lie as long as you get power."

Not only do I watch Fox News and pay my synagogue dues, but I also protect Israel by abstaining from female flesh.

Launched into my fifth decade of life, I don my kipa and tzitzit Sunday afternoon, sew my shirt together (first time I've picked up a needle in about a decade) and haul my bad back to Wilshire and San Vicente Blvds to join 5,000 or so other Jews rallying for Israel.

I walk past a hundred people (about a quarter seem to be Jewish) rallying against Israel.

I hope there's a rumble.

I find a trash container in the shade (the temperature must be close to 100 degrees) and sit on it and read a book on creative non-fiction.

Anne Dillard advises me to not write about myself.

Though I'm a vegetarian, I check out the different ways my fellow Jews cope with the heat. The more Orthodox are completely covered up. Some look good. Some wear black suits. Most look dumpy.

The more secular Jews wear less but don't seem to cope with the heat any better for their bareness.

I see many religious Jews who make me feel ashamed. Some of them I hope will pass out before me but none do. Still, it's cool to watch your enemies suffer. I'm in the shade and I feel a breeze.

I see dozens of people I know but approach none of them. I don't want to come off as emotionally needed.

There's an enormous roar for the Governor.

If each of my loyal readers patronizes one fewer hooker this week and instead donates that money to Israel, together we can make a better world.

Wow, I'm writing on the internet.

My Parents Went Through the Holocaust and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt: A Near-Life Experience by Suzan Hanala Stadner

Hanala calls me at 4 p.m. Friday, July 21.

Luke: "How has your life been affected by the publication of your book?"

Hanala: "It's surreal. I wrote it for ten years. It's like being pregnant for ten years. I finally gave birth. So now it is tremendous relief but are you going to like my baby. I've yet to get a bad review."

During her AA meetings (Hanala's been sober for 23 years), she often sketches. "I have a recurring theme of a little girl pulling her hair out. That was me expressing how I really felt. One of them had this T-shirt that said, 'My parents went through the Holocaust...'"

Luke: "Could you walk me through a typical day in your life?"

Hanala: "I'm a spin instructor. I used to weigh 160 pounds. I will either teach a class or take a class [in the morning]. Dealing with depression my whole life, I need the endorphins. I don't think I'd be sober today if it weren't for the gym.

"I'm doing a lot of interviews and promotion. It used to be that I was writing all day, or not writing and feeling guilty. Dating. Until a year ago, a lot of my days were taken up with my husband. I was in an 18-year marriage. I left last year. Leaving him was like getting sober all over again.

"I have a drug and alcohol counseling business.

"What I hate about my life: I hate hormones. My head gets busy telling me that I'm not doing enough, that I'm getting old. 'Have you looked at the cellulite? Have you checked out the wrinkles?'

"I've realized I should never try to solve my big problems after 8 p.m. After that, my head isn't working. Everything is so dark. I still have nightmares. My parents used to scream in their sleep. My father screamed in his sleep then we all screamed when he was awake. My mother says she still screams about the Nazis. I showed her my house in the Pacific Palisades with a gorgeous view down the ravine to the ocean. And fifty years after the war, she said, 'There are a lot of places to hide. The Nazis would never find me here.'"

Luke: "How do you feel about getting older?"

Hanala: "I'm not. I'm getting younger because I teach spin and I periodically get my face sandblasted (laser). I came to LA to get into TV and instead I got a tan. Unfortunately, that translates into skin damage. That's starting to show. But they have these wonderful things that are very painful and expensive but I'm willing to pay the price for my mistakes in the past."

Luke: "Anything you like about getting older?"

Hanala: "I have the kind of self-confidence that I thought only other people could have. Now I can talk to you and have a good time. In the past, I would've been sweating."

Luke: "When you date, do you tell people your real age?"

Hanala: "I'm openly telling people that I'm the child of Holocaust survivors, so we know I'm not 30. Yeah, it's hard to say. I like when people see me first. And then go, 'Wow, you look great!' Rather than me saying how old I am and then they're looking."

Luke: "What do you love and hate about dating again?"

Hanala: "I hate feeling lonely. But I felt lonely in my 18-year marriage and there's nothing worse than feeling lonely when you're with someone because not only are you lonely, but you're stuck. With being single, there's the hope that I will find someone who's funny.

"I have a feeling that once I'm doing more of what I want to do, once I get back to television, and next time real TV instead of cable access, I will meet a lot more people and the whole dating thing will become more natural. I'll know who I'm about to date because he's a popular TV star like me. We'll know each other. And then we'll do movies and sleep with other people."

Luke: "How do you feel about monogamy?"

Hanala: "I believe in monogamy. I was monogamous for the 18 years of my marriage. I don't believe my husband cheated on me. He didn't have the self-worth. He didn't believe that any other woman would have him."

Luke: "What does it mean to you to be on TV?"

Hanala: "I'm comfortable in front of an audience. TV is my dream job."

Luke: "Do you feel most alive when you're on camera?"

Hanala: "Yeah. I love it."

"My parents are hysterical. When I asked my mother why she married my father, she said, 'He dressed nice and he had a bike.'

"My sister is as funny as a chair. She has no sense of humor."

Luke: "Your time as a [community access] TV host has prepared you for interviews."

Hanala: "I didn't do too much interviewing on my show. It was all about me. I was more of a storyteller.

"I talk in my book about how my mother is narcissistic. If my mother wasn't cold, I didn't need a sweater. I picked up some of that narcissism. If your needs aren't being met, you learn to get them met any way you can."

Luke: "How did your ex-husband react to your book?"

Hanala: "He's heard about it. People have told him that I didn't pain him in the best light but he can't make himself read the book, just like he can't make himself see our dog. It's too painful.

"There's so much I didn't tell because I don't want to hurt him. He probably didn't like me telling certain stories but tough. Let him write his own book."

Luke: "Do you participate in Jewish life?"

Hanala: "I went to services a couple of times because I have a friend -- Rabbi Mintz at Chabad of Bel Air. His wife is the best cook in Los Angeles. But I'm more spiritual than religious. But I'm very religious. If I had to pick one religion, I'd be a Jubu (Jewish and Buddhist)."

Luke: "When you say you are very Jewish, what do you mean?"

Hanala: "My first language is Yiddish. If you saw me now, you'd see how my hands are moving through the air. Within two minutes of meeting me, you know my parents are Holocaust survivors. I talk about Jewish issues. Guilt -- the gift that keeps on giving. My sense of humor is very Jewish."

Luke: "Where are you and God these days?"

Hanala: "We're tight. I breathe God in. It's not like God is separate from me. I believe God is present in me unless I shut him/her/it out through negative thinking and hormones. Hormones will keep God away.

"I believe in karma. If you do things you are not proud of, you will suffer for them. I can't afford to have my self-esteem go down. That's how God gets me.

"God is about love. What happened in Nazi Germany was because there was no God because there was no love. Fear took over. Fear kills love."

Luke: "How many years of therapy have you had?"

Hanala: "Oh God, I could've bought a Rolls. With my therapist, it's been about eight years. If you saw where I came from... A lot of people say, 'Isn't that a long time? Don't you think you've had enough of that?'"

Luke: "What have you learned from therapy?"

Hanala: "Being raised by Holocaust parents, I learned that my silly feelings should be ignored. I had no right to feel bad, "Is a Nazis chasing you?" As I said in the book, Hitler spoiled my parents for regular suffering. So, in therapy I learned that my feelings WERE important, therefore I was important. After all, if we're not our feelings, what are we here for, to be money-making robots?"

Molly Jong-Fast Interview

She's the daughter of Erica Jong (Fear of Flying) and novelist-professor Jonathan Fast.

She calls me Tuesday, July 17, 2006 at 1:24 p.m. PST.

Luke: "What effect did your memoir (The Sex Doctors in the Basement) have on your life?"

Molly: "I was walking down the street the other day with my mom and we went past [actor] Marisa Berenson [article] and she looked so pissed. I can never go to 57th Street anymore because Joan Collins lives on 57th Street. There's a BLT restaurant on 57th Street and I won't eat there anymore because Joan Collins eats there.

"It's made me even more paranoid than I was before and more neurotic.

"People hate me now. I've always been working for that.

"You get more people hating you for a successful book than for a book that says questionable things about them. Nobody's jealous of me. They'd be insane to be. They may be annoyed with me.

"I'm as cynical as I can be. I always thought that at 19, because I'd been a drug addict, alcoholic, in every casino, had an affair with every creepy psycho, but now I'm even more jaded.

"That's good news."

Luke: "Were there juicy stories you hung back on because you didn't want to lose friends?"

Molly: "Losing friends was not my motive. Being sued [was her motive for holding back on some stories].

"I will probably never write a memoir again because I've probably exhausted anything interesting about my life.

"Between my mom and I mining the same [material]. She got a DUI three years ago in LA. I really wanted to write about it. She wouldn't tell me, not because she was embarrassed, but because she wouldn't want me to scoop her. I knew something had happened. She came home early.

"She wrote about it in her book and it pissed me off because I had always wanted a DUI and never gotten one. When I was an adolescent drug addict, I always hoped that some day I would find myself in jail.

"I never did. It's very hard as a white semi-affluent...to find yourself in jail. My mother was able to accomplish something yet again that I could not. It's heartbreaking."

Luke: "How may years of your life have you spent in therapy?"

Molly: "Minus three? But I don't know that that's the measure of crazy anymore, unfortunately. I wish it were. Things would be more clear."

Luke: "Have you ever had sex with any of your shrinks?"

Molly: "No. It's New York. You'd have to find a really f---ed up shrink for that. My psychotic meter is good enough that I'd probably spot that."

Luke: "That's not something you've tried to bring about."

Molly: "No. I'm very appropriate about that kind of thing. I'm the opposite of my mother.

"I was wild with drugs. She was wild with sex."

Molly stands 5'8".

Luke: "How much of your life were you overweight?"

Molly: "Some."

Luke: "At what age did you get that under control?"

Molly: "It's something you always deal with."

Luke: "How has it affected your writing?"

Molly: "It is one of the best thing going for me. It's something that most women struggle with. The more rarefied I am, the less useful I am. I know a lot of writers who, the more successful they got, lost contact with anyone who wasn't a sycophant. They wouldn't interact with normal people. Their experience became less valuable. As writers, the most important thing we have going is observing other people's lives. The least important thing is what's going on with us.

"Issues about my appearance have dogged me, even into my years as a married person. I'll never get closed off from that because I'll never be that successful."

Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Molly: "I don't even know what I want to be now. I go through periods of wanting to do something worthwhile in the world, such as a decorator. Of course there's nothing worthwhile that attracts me. I'm not good at anything.

"I'm getting you so depressed. I feel like I get everybody so depressed lately.

"It used to be that people would hate me and then they'd meet me and say, 'You're so nice.' Now people meet me and say, 'I'm so sorry for you.'"

Luke: "What about an English teacher?"

Molly: "I'm very dyslexic. And I get weirdly into helping people and they'd be living in our house..."

Luke: "What were your parents expectations for you?"

Molly: "I don't know. They didn't really have any. I was able to start a cycle of disappointment at an early age."

Molly attended highschool at Riverdale Country in the Bronx. "My mother had been a brilliant academic. My father had been an incredible musician and admitted to Princeton on his musical ability. My grandmother had this crazy marriage where Dashiell Hammett had been in love with her and tried to run off with her. She'd gone off with Madame Curie. You can never live up to that.

"I was this lackluster drug addict student whose friends were druggies. The school was JAPpy.

"Ohmigod, I'm making myself so depressed. Usually I have this pathology where I can talk about my life with complete and utter abandon, with a pathological attachment to it where 'This happened and then that happened...'"

Molly used drugs from 12-19.

Luke: "What do you love and hate about Jewish life?"

Molly: "I'm not very Jewish. We're members of a [Reform] synagogue and I've become exponentially more bourgeois in my adult life. I like that you're not allowed to swallow and no crucifixes and no little pictures of Jesus. I would not be cool with a lot of religious art.

"Reform Judaism. What's not to like?"

Luke: "Will you send your son to Hebrew school?"

Molly: "I don't know. I was never bat mitzvahed. I never went to Hebrew school."

Luke: "Is your husband Jewish?"

Molly: "Yes. It's great. We have all the Jewish genetic diseases. We have a one in four chance of having a baby that's going to die. People say, 'You have such great genes.' I have horrible genes."

Luke: "What's been your relationship to Judaism?"

Molly: "When I discovered I was Jewish at 13, I was shocked. It's pretty great. With Reform Judaism, there's not much to swallow. I grew up ostensibly Catholic. My nanny raised me Catholic. I know the Rosary."

Luke: "Can you say it?"

Molly: "I could probably. 'Our father who art in Heaven...' Oh, that's the wrong words. The Rosary is the one with Mary.

"I've had enough Rosary beads. I've never taken communion. That would be a sacrilege. But I've gone to church. I've prayed on my knees. I think I know more about Catholicism than many Catholics."

Luke: "Has God played any role in your life?"

Molly: "He hasn't struck me down, but no, not especially. I have some belief in God but I'm too embarrassed to talk about it. I'd much rather talk about being a drug addict."

Molly went to NYU and Barnard but did not graduate. She doesn't drink or smoke or lend her bum to other blokes.

Luke: "[Tobacco] is a gateway drug."

Molly: "A gateway to fun and happiness. I can't do it because I have a small child.

"You can't hate yourself with the same kind of zeal when you have a child. The love I have for him is exponentially greater than the love I have for anyone else in the world."

Luke: "Including your husband?"

Molly: "Yeah. And my husband feels the same way. If I had to save Max or him, I'd save Max. He'd save Max too. We've had that conversation."

Luke: "What have you learned from being written about?"

Molly: "Not to Google myself. I haven't done it in two years.

"I care. Part of me is like, 'I'm nice. Why don't you like me?'

"I've had a lot of people interview me who did not like me and I've been able to turn it. I'm a junkie. I know how to do that.

"But if I know how to do that, why haven't I gotten further in life? Shouldn't I be able to do anything?"

Luke: "Your next book?"

Molly: "It's gorey. It's upsetting. I hope all the fancy program ladies will stop talking to me after this. The hope is to alienate everyone."

Luke: "Isn't it tough to write something gorey when you have a kid?"

Molly: "No. I pride myself on my ability to compartmentalize."

Luke: "You don't think about your kid reading your books?"

Molly: "No, because I never read any of my mother's books. They didn't interest me.

"Do you have enough?"

Luke: "One more question. Would you rather have written a great book or have a great marriage?"

Molly: "It seems like neither is ever going to happen. I guess I'd rather have a great marriage. I'd rather be happy than successful or famous. That's the one lesson of my childhood."

Luke: "Why did you keep your name and not take your husband's?"

Molly: "That was never going to happen. That's not even a real question, is it? Why didn't I get my husband to change his name? I wanted our son's name to be hyphenated but he put his foot down."

From Molly's New York Times wedding announcement of November 2, 2003:

Molly Miranda Jong-Fast, the daughter of the writer Erica Jong of New York and Jonathan Fast of Cos Cobb, Conn., was married last evening to Matthew Adlai Greenfield, the son of Connie and Stewart Greenfield of Westport, Conn. Rabbi Sarah Reines officiated at the New York Palace Hotel.

Ms. Jong-Fast, 25, is keeping her name. She is a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts degree in English at Bennington College. She is a freelance magazine writer and the author of a novel, ''Normal Girl'' (Villard, 2000). Her mother's most recent novel is ''Sappho's Leap'' (W. W. Norton). Her father is an assistant professor of social work at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University in New York. The bride is the stepdaughter of Kenneth D. Burrows, a partner in Bender Burrows & Rosenthal, a New York law firm, and of the Rev. Barbara Fast, the associate minister of the Unitarian Church in Westport.

Mr. Greenfield, 39, is an assistant professor of English at the College of Staten Island in Willowbrook. He is also a poet and an editor of ''Edmund Spenser: Essays on Culture and Allegory'' (Ashgate Publishing, 2000). He graduated from Yale, from which he also received master's and Ph.D. degrees in English literature.

His father, who retired as the chairman of Oak Investment Partners, a venture capital firm in Westport, is the chairman of the Alternative Investment Group, a management firm in Southport, Conn. The bridegroom's mother retired as the chairwoman of the zoning and planning commission in Westport.

Dawn Eden writes:

One day during that summer of 1999, I returned home to my Hoboken, N.J., apartment after a day of work to find an odd message from a man from my past. It went something like this, in a voice that sounded like James Cagney after gargling with gravel: "Hello, Dawn, this is Mike McPadden ..." He sighed. "...Selwyn Harris."

I knew the name all right. A blast from the past. I even knew how he'd gotten the moniker; he'd named himself after the last two old-fashioned seedy movie houses left in Times Square back in the early Nineties, when he started his sex-industry fanzine. The publication was named Happy Land, in a sick reference to the 1990 fire at an illegal Bronx social club.

...I hadn't heard from Mike — then calling himself Selwyn — after having a few seemingly promising dates. A mutual acquaintance informed me that there was a simple reason for the silence: The man I'd considered a potential beau had neglected to tell me that he had a girlfriend all along.

Another Steve writes Dawn:

A hollow laugh escapes me when MM claims "God doesn't hate my predilection for eyeballing nudies, I concluded, nor anybody else's."

Would Mike eyeball these nudies if they were a member of his immediate family? Wife, Mother, Sister, daughter? Would he? Really???

There's a real dislocation in his values system somewhere.

Yaakov writes:

I found your website by way of your Zaggat guide to the shuls of Los Angeles. I was amazed that anybody under the age of 75 still remembers the Playboy Rabbi of Temple Emanuel. So many years ago! What a sad story, he was actually a very gifted rabbi who excited many young people to continue Jewish studies, and yet, over time, he proved to be criminal, ending his career under accusations of embezzlement at the City of Hope. I knew him casually then. Reform Judaism in his day was very different from how it is practiced now, there was a defiance against tradition. Things...have changed, but that's the beauty of Judaism, that over the three millenia we have thrived, lost, adapted, regrown, followed destructive paths, returned to growing paths. I am always hopeful for us, since maintaining joy and hope is so much better than despair, and despair is a sin. We have a few days a year mandated for grief, and so many more mandated for joy and satisfaction.

Finding the guide to the shuls led me to read deeper into your blog. You have a great enthusiasm for literature and writers who I have not had the pleasure of previously encountering. What a fine writer you have found in Nathan Englander.

I wish to add a few old cents to some of the other issues you raise, if I may. When Joseph and his brothers met behind closed doors in the palace, they cried so loudly that their cries were heard throughout the palace. There's an interesting midrash on this: Jews should keep their voices down when crying among themselves. I'm afraid that this whole issue you have raised over the sexual crimes of some rabbis approaches the violation of that principle.

One of the basic attacks on the Jews, which you can find in Mein Kampf and on the internet, is the connection between Jews and pornography. I refuse to Google such sites anymore, but it's easy enough for you to find them. A few basic realities: Jew haters make no distinction between secular and religious, Haredi and Reconstructionist. They would make no distinction between the Jews who make porn (and let's not avoid a dismal truth, there are indeed many Jews in porn in the San Fernando Valley), and a Jew who maintains a website devoted to gossip about porn that takes, or took, advertising from porn. Such distinctions, the anti Semites say, are a form of Jewish reasoning that is a demonstration of the Jewish poison.

Vicki Polin's transcript from Oprah belongs to a discredited world of recovered memories, and the specifics of her charges of flesh eating and Satanic abuse under a Jewish cult actually follows a script that seems to have been written in the 1950's, about a Jew who survived the camps and brought a child abuse cult to America. Again, this can be researched. Tremendous damage, lives ruined, followed this belief in the uniimpeachable memories of abused children.

An interest in the sex lives of porn stars must have included watching a fair amount of porn. This is unhealthy. You seem to have transferred your interest in the sex lives of other people from porn to the rabbinate. Your long posting about the Gay Mafia in Hollywood is also reflective of what I think is an unhealthy preoccupation.

The groups that are pursuing the sex lives of rabbis are not working from pure motives, nor from a position of Torah. And I say this knowing that there are many sins that have been covered. I was privileged to know Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, and when the accusations against him were made, I was terribly saddened. And many rabbis defended him, or at least made light of the charges. And yet... and yet his melodies have done more to bring Jews of all kind back to the prayer and shul than any single force in the world Jewry in the last thirty years. The shabbatons you mention as necessary for bringing Jews back to Torah, as you sketch it out, feel like the kind of punitive brainwashing workshops in an EST weekend.

I haven't read all of your words, but I don't see anywhere in your writing a sense of the simple joy of Judaism. It is said that the plague of darkness was so thick, the Egyptians couldn't move, and yet they say the shabbos lights of the Jewish tables, in the houses of the slaves. Where, in your writing, is that light? What elected you to be an avenging angel, in partnership with some dubious people? The list of rabbis among whom Saul Berman signed his name are men of Torah and probity.

No one is unimpeachable. This is a lesson of Judaism. None of us are without sin and for our sins, all of us beat our chests, but lightly, on Yom Kippur, singing a very gentle melody, remember that, the melody of the al cheit is gentle, like a lullaby. You make a joke about seduction and interviewing, but in light of the rest of what you are concerned with, it's not so funny, Luke, not at all. To seduce by interview is a form of coercion, an abuse of power, especially if the interview is a technique you use like a weapon, instead of freely exhchanging heart and vulnerability with a woman. Boned? Is that the best word to come from a man who condemns rabbis about whom he may be wrong? You're forty and are you married?

If you were in my community I don't think you'd be likely to find a bride among any of the fine, educated women who are frum from birth. Their fathers and mothers would not allow it, not because you were once involved with porn, but because your interest in the sex lives of others hasn't changed position in your heart, only in your focus.

Forget all of that! Become a great booster of Jewish writers. Stay out of the debates over modernity and Orthodoxy; this debate has raged from the beginning of our people. You might condemn Hokmah ha Goyim, but there are more than 800 Greek words in the Talmud. The Rambam brought Judaism into what was then modernity by stripping Judaism of what he thought of as superstition, using Greek philosophy as a lens, and then coming back with books whose depths are still to be found. The Shulchan Aruch was a scandal in its day, heavily criticized. The Haredi descend from the Hasidim, in whose founding generations the forbears of the rabbis we call Orthodox today were informing on their leaders for apostasy. Christianity was founded by men who were enraged by the hypocrisy of the Priests, so much so that like adolescents everywhere, they gored their fathers with a religion they knew would enrage them.

I am a great admirer of the Chabad movement, with one important reservation: they still speak of their last rebbe in the present tense. A disappointed messianic movement is not unknown to Judaism, and I am not the first to expect that in a hundred years they will not be recognizably Jewish. And yet, these rabbis open their homes to Jews of no practice, and teach and encourage and add a mitzvah at a time, with no expectation of full fledged membership in the, well, sect, cult, or tribe. Many great teachers have computers with pictures that they wouldn't want exposed.

Many great men have unbearable urges, as Mr. Englander knows, and they wear black and go to a city where they are not known. The definition of adultery in Judaism, the traditional definition, is sex with a married Jewish woman. Is that an exculpation? Is that fair? Many great men and women, great teachers, great artists, great leaders, have lived in ways that are not spiritual. We can't expect perfection; in fact the expectation of perfection is Christian, not Jewish. We do not have perfect saints. Jacob, my ancestor and yours, barely survived his battle with his shadow. And if he barely survived, how can men such as you and I expect more from others than we can expect from ourselves?

The private lives of adults are their own business except under the specific situation of pastoral counsellors and therapists abusing the trust of those who come to them for help. In some states this is a crime, in others a lapse of professional ethics subject to some penalties. The abuse of minors is a crime.

Stop worrying about sexual misconduct, for your own health. Find something vital that will help you grow and be attractive to the kind of women who want only to spend their lives with a man who loves books so much that a great book makes him want to vomit. I like that kind of paradox.

Live with enthusiasm. This will be bring you love.

I know personally some of the men you are siding with. Some of them are not invulnerable. Some of them, I think are misguided. But even where I disagree with them, or I'm waiting for certain shoes to drop, at the same time, I know them by their services, by their communities, yes, and by their shabbatons, and I have spent many hours learning with them. Disputing, too, but learning. And when/if some problems catch up with them, I hope I have the strength to stand by them and offer whatever I can to help them make teshuvah, with the least interruption to the life of our community, and by community, I mean, from Pico Robertson to Williamsburg, from Pacific Palisades to Miami Beach, and from all of those regions, to Eretz Yisroel.

Shlomo taught a great lesson, that every Jew has to love to love every Jew, and yet this is hard for, and I can't underline this but.. for all of us. Hard for all of us. He joked, "There's a Jew in Alaska, I like him, I don't know him, but I like him." We have to love each other. This may sound weak to an avenger, but among a few truths I think I've learned, it's near the top.

My best wishes and I hope you find an exciting Jewish woman to raise a family with, and have children who learn Torah with the enthusiasm you have for literature.

It's not Friday, but I like to say it anyway, "Gut shabbes, Luke Ford."

What Is Modern Orthodoxy?

The Modern Orthodox rabbi packed in his Modern Orthodox congregants Saturday afternoon as he told them what Modern Orthodoxy was -- "The Harder Path, but the Right Path."

The air conditioning was delicious. The food was delicious. The self-satisfaction was delicious.

"We are right," they thought.

Modern Orthodoxy has been losing the war with its more religious counterparts over the past 40 years. Most teachers at Orthodox day schools are religiously right-wing and a substantial portion of Modern Orthodox kids are either becoming charedi (fervently Orthodox) or leaving Orthodoxy.

The rabbi definied Modern Orthodoxy as a "dynamic engagement with Modernity" from a base that accepts that the Torah is the word of God and that the rabbinic tradition (particularly the 15th century legal code Shulchan Aruch) is authoritative.

The rabbi said "Modern" is not a diminutive.

In the real world, the more an Orthodox Jew emphasizes that he's Modern, the less observant and Torah-knowledgeable he tends to be. "Modern" in Orthodoxy tends to be a cop-out. It usually operates as an excuse to get out of observing (and believing in) inconvenient parts of the tradition.

Every Jewish religious movement (from Reconstructionist to Reform to Conservative to Orthodox) claims to be the hardest, though in practical fact, the more religious, the more rigorous behavior is required. We can't judge the difficulty of the intellectual rigors a Jew puts himself through. We can only gauge behavior and behavior shows that the more religious deny themselves more of the pleasures of the secular world while doing a better job of keeping their kids Jewish.

Far Rockaway, Queens, used to be a bastion of Modern Orthodoxy. Kids grew up in the seventies rarely davening mincha (the afternoon prayers). Now Far Rockaway is a charedi bastion.

The rabbi said Modern Orthodoxy has three distinguishing characteristics:

* It welcomes truth from any source.

Hmm. Everybody says they accept truth from any source. Modern Orthodoxy by definition does not accept truth from any source. It only accepts those non-Jewish truths that don't clash with Orthodoxy's essential beliefs, such as divinity of the Torah and the historicity of the Exodus from Egypt. For instance, the Rabbi Joseph Hertz chumash (Pentateuch with commentary) only contains non-Orthodox commentary when it supports Orthodox positions. By contrast, the Artscroll Chumash (charedi) contains no Gentile commentary.

* Places a premium on human dignity. Thus hearing aids are allowed on Shabbat and women's prayer groups, bat mitzvahs (bar mitzvah ceremonies for girls are only 80 years old) etc.

The problem with this argument is that "human dignity" is a flexible conception and common sense argues that it must be balanced against numerous other considerations such as moral standards and Jewish law.

* Accepts reality and does not try to fit it into a comfortable preconception.

For example, Modern Orthodoxy does not look at the vast majority of Jews who are not Orthodox as people who need to be brought to the truth through such things as Shabbatons about the Torah codes. Modern Orthodoxy understands that most Jews are not Orthodox as a result of the Enlightenment, rationalism, the Holocaust, etc.

Marc D. Stern writes in Tradition magazine (36:2):

"It is a commonplace in the Orthodox community to denounce feminism, but that movement has worked profound positive changes...

"...Do we oppose equal pay for equal work for women (though too many yeshivot do not implement that policy in paying teachers, which may help explain a shortage of women teachers in yeshiva)? Are we for tolerating sexual harassment of women in the workplace? Do we advocate the unrestricted availability of pornography? Substantial progress has been made against these unacceptable behaviors, not because the Shulhan Aruch forbids them but because feminist fought against them in the name of equality.

"The attack on sexual harassment would not have been brought about by citing Even he-Ezer, nor the war on pornography won by invoking hilkhot tseni-ut. (One such effort by Agudath Israel to remove offensive ads from subway cars has gone on for years unsuccessfully, running up against cries of censorship and religious impositions)."

The rabbi said Modern Orthodoxy was not rollerskating with a yarmulke on or studying Torah at Starbucks. He said these were flip characterizations of Modern Orthodoxy that do no justice to its intellectual and moral seriousness.

The rabbi said the essence of Modern Orthodoxy was struggling to engage with the wider world from within the authentic Orthodox tradition.

I contend that only intellectuals want to intellectually struggle, and they're numbers are never going to account for more than 1% of a religious denomination. Any religion based on such struggle is not going to work. Most people will do what they do because of habit. Most people will try to lead the meaningful part of their lives with people such as themselves (meaning that most Orthodox Jews are only going to interact with Gentiles and the non-Orthodox to earn a living, and then, because of Orthodoxy's strict laws, it's only easy to relate to fellow Orthodox Jews in an intimate way).

If Modern Orthodoxy is based on intellectual struggle, it's going to fail because only about 1% of its members are going to intellectually struggle, and of those who do struggle, some will leave Orthodoxy all together and others will leave Modern Orthodoxy to become more religious.

"Modern Orthodox" is a contradiction in terms. They are incompatible if you take either Modernity or Orthodoxy seriously. When the Modern Orthodox study sacred text, they do so as though the Englightenment never happened. Then they go earn their living and seek out their entertainment (with substantial exceptions) as though they weren't Orthodox.

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein writes:

"Who can fail to be inspired by the ethical idealism of Plato, the passionate fervor of Augustine, or the visionary grandeur of Milton? Who can remain unenlightened by the lucidity of Aristotle, the profundity of Shakespeare, or the incisiveness of Newman?"

That's easy to answer. Almost everybody. Only intellectuals are moved by such writers. Only intellectuals give a damn about Milton and Newman and co.

Second. It makes no difference to the moral level of a person's behavior whether or not he appreciates "the ethical idealism of Plato" or the "incisiveness of Newsman." Most people are not morally improved by studying great thinkers. They are morally improved by fearing God and what their friends, family and community will say.

Third. What Rav Aharon Lichtenstein (a Ph.D. in English, he wrote a thesis on Milton) provides are beautiful words that feel good to hear but signify nothing. Modern Orthodoxy is shot-full of such intellectual pretensions (see Saul Berman). When the rubber hits the road, it is deed that matters over creed, and that's where the Modern Orthodox are losing to the Charedi Orthodox.

Appreciation of Milton and Plato is never going to make a difference to a Jewish religious movement. These are esoteric concerns of intellectuals far removed from the moral struggles of ordinary humans.

Rav Aharon Lichtenstein wrote: "There is hokmah ba-goyim, and we ignore it at our loss."

The Modern Orthodox Jew (literate in Hebrew and adept at leading prayers) reading this section out loud to the group could not pronounce "hokmah ba-goyim" because he did not know what it was.

It means the wisdom of the non-Jews.

I love what Rav Aharon Lichtenstein writes (Leaves of Faith, pg. 94):

"To deny that many fields have been better cultivated by non-Jewish than Jewish writers is to be stubbornly, and unnecessarily, chauvinistic. There is nothing in our medieval poetry to rival Dante, and nothing in our modern literature to compare with Kant, and we would do well to admit it."

The Modern Orthodox rabbi said people should be conflicted and troubled by homosexuality because on the one hand people may be born that way, but on the other hand the Torah condemns that behavior.

But what's the conflict? Homosexual behavior is a sin. And let's be real -- it is a far more serious sin for a man than most sins because it takes him away from having a traditional family life, the bedrock of Judaism and civilization.

There was an awkward moment during question time when the religiosity of a specific and well-known (in the community) child was raised as part of a challenge against Modern Orthodoxy.

Teen's Slaying Highlights Robertson Boulevard as a Brutal Border

Slain teen lived on gritty east side of Robertson; to the west is a wealthy area with far less crime.

In the area around Hamilton High School, the distance of a few city blocks can mean the difference between a million-dollar home on a tree-lined street and a block of dense apartments struggling with crime and blight.

The slaying earlier this week of 16-year-old Hamilton student Ana Interiano has evoked sadness over her loss but also highlighted a stark economic and social divide along a stretch of Robertson Boulevard on the Westside.

On the west side of Robertson are the affluent communities of Beverlywood and Cheviot Hills, where the choicest real estate approaches Beverly Hills standards.

A Times analysis of last year's LAPD crime records tells the tale: There were 121 assaults and robberies in the neighborhood around Cadillac Avenue east of Robertson Boulevard. To the west of the boulevard, there was one robbery and no assaults.

Why Do Rockers Wear Such Tight Pants?

I'm watching over and over again my DVDs of Journey and Air Supply and I feel uncomfortable about the tightness of these guys' pants. What's up with that? Surely it's not healthy. Maybe that's why these blokes look so haggard today.

I can't ask my friends about this because they'd say I'm a fag.

The Interview as Seduction

I've been interviewed over 100 times and I always give a better interview to an attractive woman (though I've never had sex or even kissed anyone who's interviewed me). I want to be swept away by an interview, to forget myself, to get excited and be charmed and enthralled by my interviewer. I want her to see things in me that I don't see in myself.

I hang my head with shame when I reflect that there have been several women I've interviewed who I've ended up seducing (though never on the spot). I know this is a violation of my Jewish and professional ethics, but it's a lot of fun, and frankly without some sexual tension, it's hard to get a great interview.

On the other hand, I've never seduced a woman without (informally) interviewing her.

Oh, the shame! The obloquy! What would Kevin Roderick do? I bet he's never boned anyone he's interviewed. I must do better.

I fear I have taken the journalistic commandment to massage a source too literally.

'May God Bring Salvation'?

I was listening to Dennis Prager Friday morning. He said he doesn't look to God to bail us out. If we don't take care of Islamic terrorism, it will destroy us.

I went to a rally for Israel Thursday afternoon. We recited Psalms (I've never cared for the Psalms, ugg) exhorting God to bail us out.

Friday morning, I got an email from a rabbi full of practical suggestions of what we can do for Israel during this time of war.

Then he closed by saying: "May God bring salvation."

I know religious people are supposed to talk this way (the more religious you are Jewishly, the more you hold by divine providence), but I don't buy it. I don't believe that God will bring salvation for our terrorism problem. It is up to us to bring salvation. God has told us what is right and wrong. Ultimately, God will reward the righteous and punish the wicked. But I don't think God is going to bail us out of our Islamic problem or our personal problems. If we are in a bad relationship, it is up to us to improve it or get out. If we are able-bodied and don't have a job, it is up to us to get a job. If we are bipolar, it is up to us to get a doctor and get on medication.

I don't blame God one bit for the Holocaust. I blame Germans and Europeans. I don't blame God for Islam-launched rockets falling on Israel. I'm not the least concerned with blaming the Muslim terrorists either. They're doing what they said they will do -- try to exterminate Israel.

We know we have a problem with Hezbollah and company and, frankly, it is up to Israel to take care of it. Israel has the capability of solving this problem by killing the bad guys. Israel should have taken action after the first bomb landed on its territory. I blame the Israeli government, particularly the Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, for allowing rockets to fall on Israel. Olmert and co have fallen down on the job and it is up to them to get back up and solve things.

The Benefit For A Woman Of Sex on the First Date

Aimee Bender writes in The Girl in the Flammable Skirt:

...[W]hen it's the first date, and you ----, the guy holds you much better than he does the next few times. The first date, you're sort of the stand-in for whomever he loved last, before he fully realizes you're not her, and so you get all this nice residue emotion.

Defrocked Rabbi Drops Case Seeking Anonymous Bloggers' Identities

End of Suit Is a Victory for First Amendment Rights on the Internet

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Rabbi Mordechai Tendler, the former leader of an Orthodox Jewish congregation in New Hempstead, N.Y., has withdrawn the proceeding he filed in Ohio in an attempt to subpoena the identities of four anonymous bloggers who wrote on the Web about his alleged sexual misconduct.

Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy represented the bloggers, www.rabbinicintegrity.blogspot.com, www.jewishsurvivors.blogspot.com, www.jewishwhistleblower.blogspot.com and www.newhempsteadnews.blogspot.com.

The four bloggers had anonymously posted material on their Web sites describing the former rabbi's alleged misconduct and sexual harassment of female congregants whom he had been advising. Tendler had filed petitions to subpoena the bloggers' identities, both in Ohio and California district courts.

Public Citizen, which has been a strong defender of First Amendment rights on the Internet, has filed a motion that Tendler's California petition should be denied because it would violate the bloggers' constitutional right to free speech.

"This just goes to show the importance of protecting anonymity, because as soon as Tendler found out that we had filed a motion against him, he withdrew his petition," Levy said. "He was never prepared to prove that the allegations against him were false - he only wanted his critics' names so that he could go after them. The First Amendment demands this kind of protection for citizens using their right to free speech."

Vanilla Pop: Sweet Sounds from Frankie Avalon to ABBA

Author Joseph Lanza writes on page 200:

...Then, from the manicured environs of Melbourne, Australia, two vocalists named Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell formed Air Supply. Chart successes like "Lost in Love" and "All Out of Love" survived as MOR hallmarks, but Air Supply's vocal milieu got bogged down in the rustic, Engelbert Humperdinck-inspired reflections of such 1970s predecessors as Morris Albert ("Feelings"). The chorus to "All Out of Love" may have ascended to sweet vanilla, but the main verses were spiked the musical equivalent of bong water.

Luke Ford says: What does that mean? What's bong water? Which verses are like bong water?

Luke Thompson says:

Bong water is the left-over water from water pipes used to smoke marijuana. The smoke is inhaled through the water to both condense the smoke and filter out some of the crap, for a cleaner high. The water, filled with the nastier charred pollutants, is something you do not want to find yourself drinking by accident, or even spilling.

Luke Ford says: If bong water is so nasty, how can it be compared to Air Supply lyrics? Which lyrics?

Rob Spallone's Private Predilections

Ganja Goddess Party Wednesday Night

Jamie Lynn, Melissa Jacobs Penthouse CEO Marc Bell and the girls Jamie Lynn

Lainie Speiser says: "Melissa Jacobs the October ’05 Pet of the month and one of Jamie’s Pet “wives.” I flew her in from Wisconsin because she’s a stoner. Jamie has several Pet wives, Martina Warren, Cassia Riley, Melissa Jacobs and Charlie Laine. Though she told me yesterday she’s thinking of divorcing Cassia because she’s not attentive enough."

Jon Papernick

I call Jon Papernick (JonPapernick.com) in Waltham, Massachusetts Sunday afternoon, July 2, 2006.

Jon: "Last time I was interviewed, I mentioned that Henry Miller was one of my influences and the person wrote 'Henry James.' Maybe you want to run it by me..."

Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Jon: "I did want to be a writer but I didn't think I'd be good enough. I took a creative writing class in eleventh grade, and my teacher (Mrs. Gerard) told me I was not a good writer. She died before my book came out.

"As someone who's been a teacher for the past six years, it's been my primary mode of income, I would never say that to anybody. What we write is always a work in progress."

Luke: "You'd never say that to anybody? Even if their work sucked?"

Jon: "Not as a teacher. I'd say they hadn't fulfilled the ambitions of the story.

"When I was 18, I wrote and self-published a novel (Turned Into Earth) that was an absolute piece of junk. I sensed a lot of resentment from my friends. In a sense, everybody wants to be a writer. They all want to publish a book. Here I am calling myself a writer... If they're not doing any writing themselves, in a sense they feel like they're wasting their lives.

"You've got to play being a writer before you are a writer. You've got to convince yourself that you are one before you have the chutzpah to do it."

I tell Jon that I've made my living from blogging for nine years but I've never made more than $50,000 in a year.

Jon: "Wow. I've never made close to that and I've never blogged."

Luke: "Whenever I come out with a book, half the people I mention this to respond, 'How are you going to market it?' I find that annoying."

Jon: "I didn't get that question. When my first book (The Ascent of Eli Israel and Other Stories) came out, I wish I'd gotten that question. I got a great review in The New York Times when the book first came out, and I assumed it'd just go from there. I didn't do any marketing. Nobody said anything. I wish people had. I would've gotten a website way back then, and made phone calls to independent bookstores, made postcards and bookmarks, had friends write reviews on Amazon... Whatever it takes.

"As far as marketing, the best thing is to just get your writing out there. I'm going to write a weekly column for Jewcy.com called 'The Perfect Jew.' That should get some attention. I have to go out and do things to make myself a better Jew."

Luke: "How were you raised Jewishly and where are you today?"

Jon: "I went to synagogue twice a year and hated it. The biggest and oldest Reform temple in Canada - Holy Blossom. It was really Reform. I was the third generation of my family to have gone there. It wasn't for me. My parents didn't practice. They sent me to Hebrew school in first grade and I failed.

"I grew up with any antipathy for Judaism. I had a bar mitzvah. I crammed for it for six months in the rabbi's basement.

"I did it in Hebrew but I didn't know what it meant.

"A lot of your education comes from home, so if you're not getting the support, you don't follow through with it. Through my early twenties, I had a real antipathy towards Judaism. It wasn't until I went to Israel at age 22 (in 1993) that I got a sense of pride about being Jewish. It was the turning point in my life.

"I don't practice at all, that's why I'm doing The Perfect Jew column. It springs out of a quote from Leon Wieseltier. He said that people from my generation don't know what they're rejecting. They're slackers. Eighty percent of my religious education comes from the writing of my stories.

"Writing is a spiritual act. It's a meditative prayer-like act, trying to drag creation out of the darkness of your subconscious. I'm interested intellectually but I don't enjoy going to synagogue. We go a couple of times a year. Part of the reason I don't enjoy it is that I don't know the songs. You go there and they start singing and I have a mental block and can't remember them. For The Perfect Jew, I'm going to try to learn some of these prayers.

"If you sit in a classroom and don't speak, it's boring, but if you're involved in the conversation, it's great.

"We just had a son seven weeks ago. He's my first kid. We want to bring him up with a strong sense of Jewish identity.

"My wife is the daughter of a Reform rabbi."

Jon spent his first 22 years in Canada (getting a B.A. in Creative Writing from York University) and a couple of years after returning from Israel in 1997 while he saved up for graduate school (converting his Canadian dollars at the rate of 62 U.S. cents per, he got an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College).

Luke: "Did you get your money's worth from Sarah Lawrence?"

Jon: "Yeah. It was great. I can't tell you what I learned except that I think I learned everything. It's osmosis. You're reading stories, writing stories, critiquing stories. You're living it 24 hours a day. Almost immediately upon arriving in graduate school, my writing went from good to very good."

Luke: "What crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"

Jon: "We were into punk music. We rode skateboards. We drank a lot. We had a lot of fun. But we were nice. We didn't get into fights. We weren't bad kids. We enjoyed hanging out. I'd sit by the convenience store drinking a slurpee, getting drunk, watching TV."

Luke: "At what age did you become interested in girls?"

Jon: "Twelve."

Luke: "At what age did you become a man?"

Jon: "Seventeen."

Luke: "Is there any non-sexual event you'd describe as the demarcation point of when you became a man?"

Jon: "Maybe it was seven weeks ago when I had my baby. There are many times that you think you've reached it but then you have another point... Maybe I won't reach it until I don't have a father."

Luke: "Tell me about you and God."

Jon: "Growing up, I was definitely a nonbeliever. Listening to punk music, I questioned everything. Nothing made any sense. I believe in God the Creator. A God who created the earth and then absented himself. I have a sense that God left an imprint on our DNA which acts as a representative of him or herself, meaning guilt. Guilt is a representation of God. It keeps us from doing things we should not do. There's a certain code we have to live by and that's God."

Luke: "What did you love and hate about the practice of journalism?"

Jon: "I liked doing it in Israel because it was an interesting subject. What I hated is that when I came back to Canada, I was only able to land a job on the financial desk doing gold price and pork futures, which was boring. I liked how dynamic journalism can be, but it can also be crushingly boring. Ultimately, it was disappointing. I thought journalism would be a way for me to make a living while I wrote my fiction but I realized that it exhausts you. It takes all your energy away from you that you could be using for writing. When you're a journalist, you work all year round, and long hours. When you're a teacher, you get Christmas off, March break, and summer. When I worked as a journalist [in Canada], I had six off days in a year and a half.

"I'm doing more personal journalism now. Things I care about. I'm less interested in going out to a fire house and asking, 'Why did city hall burn down?' I'm a little self-centered in my journalistic desires now, but I've earned that right.

"I use my fiction tools when I write my journalism now.

"I like to craft my stories. When you write for a wire service, you have to bang those stories out.

"But I did get to meet Yassir Arafat, which was bizarre."

Luke: "Other things you loved about it?"

Jon: "Not really, otherwise I'd still be doing it."

Luke: "What do you love about writing fiction?"

Jon: "I love the way it makes me feel when I am on the ball, in the zone, when I'm writing something that is working. That is the best feeling in the world. It's totally self-contained. You're not relying on anybody else for this happiness. You don't rely on your wife. You don't rely on your parents. You're all alone in the room and making this incredible act of creation.

"What I don't like is when I'm not writing. I have this terrible feeling that I should be writing. I don't write every day. I haven't written any fiction since my baby was born. There's this terrible feeling that life is passing you by."

Luke: "What kind of sexual wattage has your writing created in women?"

Jon: "Some when I was an undergraduate. When I was 21, I had two girlfriends at the same time. That didn't work out, but for about a year and a half, it seemed to excite people. And I wasn't even any good at the time. My wife will say that when she read my story, The Ascent of Eli Israel, that was when she realized she wanted to marry me. She thought it was the best story she'd ever read.

"Sometimes I think I can count all the people who've ever hit on me with two hands."

Luke: "What do you love and hate about teaching?"

Jon: "I love teaching. You do get to use your writing skills. It takes [away] the solitariness of being a writer. What I don't like is grading. That is why I don't teach composition. At Boston University, I had to grade 60 essays every two weeks."

Luke: "What's the situation with your novel, Who by Fire, Who by Blood?"

Jon: "This is a problem. It's novel that took me four years to finish. It makes my collection of short stories look like Disneyland, and those stories were disturbing. I can't get it published. My agent sent it around and he couldn't sell it. I fired him and sent it around to a bunch of publishers and couldn't sell it. Then I went back to my agent, revised the novel, threw out 65 pages, and he sent it out to various publishers who like it better, but I think they're afraid of it. It has the emotional sensibility of Richard Wright's Native Son and Camus' The Stranger.

"The other Jewish writers who came up at the same time as me are writing things that are friendlier. This is an unfriendly book."

Luke: "Is your book linear [and realistic]?"

Jon: "Yes. These days, publishers seem to want to have novels set in two to three different times or places. Mine is set in one place and goes from point A to point Z. It's a traditionally told story. Publishers today like to see narratives chopped up, which often makes up for writers not knowing how to tell a story. I liked Everything is Illuminated, but there's not a story there. It's a short story that's been expanded to 300 pages."

Luke: "How much research do you do for your fiction?"

Jon: "It depends. I never do research for three months and then write. I write and then research as necessary. As I need things, I read things."

Luke: "At what stage does your wife [of four years] read your work?"

Jon: "Sometimes every page, which drives her crazy. When I have a draft, she'll always read it. She's my built-in bulls--- detector. She's not a writer. She's not a major reader. But she's one of the smartest people I know and she'll keep me on track."

Jon Papernick's The Ascent of Eli Israel Makes Me Want To Vomit

The last time I was this upset was when Italy beat Australia 1-0 (or when my ex posed nude or when I got thrown out of a shul).

I got nauseated reading this collection of short stories. My stomach knotted up and I could barely swallow my dinner. Almost every story delivered at least one punch to the stomach. Almost every story made me fear that something horrible was going to happen (and I was usually right).

I call Jon Wednesday morning, July 12.

Luke: "I could barely eat my dinner last night. I was wondering why and then I realized it was because I had just finished your book."

Jon: "That's great. Can I get it in writing?

"There's a great quote from Franz Kafka that literature should serve as a pickax that shatters the frozen sea within. I aspire to that. I think I did my job in your case."

Luke: "My stomach wrenched up from the time the old man molested the boy in the first story."

Jon: "And that's one of the nicer stories."

Luke: "Why do you choose the material you choose?"

Jon: "If you were watching the news today, what's happening in Israel is insane. They have a war on two fronts. Israel is intense. Have you been to Jerusalem?"

Luke: "Yes."

Jon: "There are a lot of disturbed people in that city.

"The first story I wrote was An Unwelcomed Guest about the backgammon game. It puts the conflict into a nutshell and sets it in a kitchen.

"I just turned it into a one-act play.

"I try not to point fingers. I've got my own bias. In my fiction, I try to keep it [pure of ideology]. I've had people say I'm anti-Jewish, that I'm anti-Arab, that I'm pro-Jewish, pro-Arab. Married couples have had those feuds. I tried to paint the picture as clearly as I could and show the complexity of the situation. It's not open to a solution. There's no peace in the Middle East because people wait for the only possible solution -- the Messiah.

"I don't why the stories are so dark. I could've written humorous stories. The King of the King of Falafel is a light story."

I groan.

Jon: "I must be a dark person. I close my eyes and I start writing and my subconscious starts to spew things out.

"I try for a blend of darkness and humor. I'm influenced by [William] Faulkner. There's visually dramatic scenes and the mix of race and religion. There's bitter acidic humor.

"You mentioned in your email that you are horrified that my novel is darker than this. That might explain why I've had some difficulty getting it published."

Luke: "I had an invite to see a film [Factotum] about Charles Bukowski this week and I said, 'No! I hate those type of films.' I've never read Bukowski."

Jon: "He's mildly amusing. I heard him speak on poetry. 'Writing a good poem is like taking a good s---. It's painful. It kills you. And then you feel great.'"

I dislike profanity but I hate the s-word (and toilet humor).

Luke: "Isn't a dark belief in life the logical result of no belief in God?"

Jon: "I'd say yes but I don't think that applies to me. While the stories are dark, there's truth to them."

Jon's a deist. "Somebody said, 'Suicidal people don't write novels because hopeless people don't create.'

"The act of writing and creating a world is taking the mantle of God on our shoulders. We all have the urge to create. It's the destroyers who really don't believe in God."

Luke: With what emotion did you write your stories?

Jon: "I came back home after I ran out of opportunities [in Israel]. I remember thinking, 'I have to find a way to get over Israel.' It'd gotten under my skin. I couldn't stay there because I didn't speak Hebrew well enough to get a job. I didn't want to drift around forever.

"I wrote the stories to get Israel out of my system, to work things out, to make sense of what I saw there. I did witness the aftermath of a suicide bombing. I did see charred bodies on the street. In my own mind, I did see a woman [without her upper torso]. I did see an untouched apple on the ground. It may or may not be true, but I do recall seeing that."

Luke: "This book gives reasons for why you don't live in Israel. Nobody would want to live here."

Jon: "That's weird because I do consider myself a Zionist. I do feel strongly about Israel. When I'm there, I feel like a better person. I feel like I'm a part of something vital.

"There are other sides of Israel. I could write a book about Tel Aviv, about hanging out at the cafes and going to the beach. [Ascent] is about my experience of working as a journalist in Jerusalem. It's not exactly an advertisement for living there."

Luke: "I can't imagine any sane person wanting to live in the world of this book."

Jon: "I guess you're right.

"Maybe there's a touch of madness in me?"

Luke: "As a journalist, you have to seek out these aberrant characters?"

Jon: "As a fiction writer, even more so. As a journalist, whoever is there to speak to you, you take.

"I am drawn to madness in my writing, to the clash of religions with a tinge of madness.

"I haven't been able to write fiction [since his baby was born eight weeks ago]. I've got my baby with me. I'm feeding him with my other hand now.

"A lot of Flannery O'Connor's characters are clearly mad."

Luke: "When you write about the religious, you're like a scientist poking at insects in a cage and saying, 'You are all very interesting' but you'd never become one."

Jon: "You're half-right. 'You are all very interesting and there but for the grace of God...' I spent five weeks at Aish HaTorah in 1993. I said I was leaving. The rosh yeshiva (head of the yeshiva) pulled me into his office and said, 'I want you to stay for a year. Give me a year and you'll thank me for it.' I said no. 'I'm a writer. I need to go back to Canada where people speak in my language. I can't be around Hebrew all the time. My craft is suffering.'

"He said, 'We've got a guy at the yeshiva who studied under Bernard Malamud. You want to meet him.' I met him. He said, yeah, if I want to go home, I should.

"I do feel that if I had stayed for a year, who knows? There are aspects of that madness that got under my skin. I can imagine drinking that kool-aid and thinking more extreme thoughts. Every person has mad aspects. Those mad people are unlived parts of myself.

"It was the same yeshiva David Koresh went to."

Luke: "I didn't know David Koresh went to Aish HaTorah."

Jon: "They won't admit it, but it's true. There's a Koresh street in the old city. That's where he took his last name.

"I just like that I did it [Aish]. I came from such an atheistic place. As a teenager, I was so against all religion.

"I did get in a debate [with Aish founder] Noach Weinberg and I pissed him off. He gave a lecture on the five levels of knowledge. He said that Judaism was superior to Christianity because Judaism was based on knowledge. His father told him we were at Sinai, and his father, and his father, and would your father lie to you? Whereas Christianity is based on faith.

"The next day he came in and gave a lecture on the five reasons there is a soul. And all five reasons were based on faith. I called him out on that. He stormed out of the room and slammed the door.

"I like to question and questioning was not really acceptable in that milieu.

"There was a gay Irish Jew there who wanted to be a part of Aish but they were keeping him at arm's length.

"There was another guy who had a Christian girlfriend. They said, 'If you don't get rid of the girlfriend, you'll have to leave.'"

Luke: "I don't think you could've read this book if you had your baby by your side?"

Jon: "Probably true. Four of the seven stories have young people brutally abused.

"I do have a different take on the world with Zev next to me. I finally understand selflessness. I understood how one would give one's own life to save one's child. I imagine my writing will change dramatically."

Luke: "This book seems to be very much the product of a single man."

Jon: "Are you talking about the anger?"

Luke: "I don't picture a happily married man writing this book."

Jon: "I think you're right.

"The novel I'm writing now is a lot lighter -- it's about a guy who fell off the Brooklyn bridge. But I've had trouble getting to it over the past year. I've been afraid to look at it. Maybe I'm afraid of my own success.

"I just wrote an article for an online parenting magazine called 'I'm hot, my wife's not.' It was her idea. It was the idea that a father's stock seems to rise in the world and a mother's stock seems to drop. People will come up to my wife and say, 'Are your nipples hurting? Are you still pumping? You look tired. Did you have hemorrhoids?'

"I can walk around like the biggest schlep but with a baby strapped to my chest, women look at me in a different way."

We chat about MFAs.

Jon: "We're seeing a lot more middle-of-the-road competent writing. But is competent what we're looking for in our fiction writers? I'd rather see a little bit of madness than this controlled New Yorker type of short story that don't seem to have a resolution. I don't understand why people would sit down to write one of them. My impulse is the opposite -- lots of plot and drama. So many of these books are just veiled autobiographies, which I don't find interesting.

"I remember giving my book to someone's mother in Israel. She's like, 'I'm probably going to hate this. You're probably one of those ironic twenty-something writers.' First, I'm thirty something. Second, I'm not ironic."

We chat about Nathan Englander and his new novel.

Jon: "I do wish him success though every writer's success kills a little bit of me.

"He's a slow writer. It took him about six years to write those eight stories in his first collection.

"I met him at a memorial service in New York last month. He seems shy. You expect him to be larger than life.

"So did you like my stories?"

Luke: "I just found them very upsetting. It was like the movie Pulp Fiction with people getting sodomized and shot and overdosing but you can't tear your eyes away and everything comes full circle.

"It's not what I'd choose to read on Shabbos."

Jon: "I warn people it's not bedtime reading."

Pearl Abraham

I interviewed her this week via email ( and got her answers back July 11, 2006).

* What's the wildest, craziest, riskiest thing you've ever done (aside from murdering your protagonist 80 pages in)?

A: You mean other than leave home, family, faith to become me, and it seems I am still forever becoming, as are my characters. I've had some adventures, but writing The Seventh Beggar may have been my greatest one so far.

* The dominant emotion I feel when reading your novels is sadness verging on depression. Is this your dominant emotion? Is this how you feel when you write? Do you seek to evoke an emotional reaction from your readers, and if so, what?

A: Sad and depressed? This comes as a surprise. I think, and am confirmed in this by mail from readers, that my novels are often funny. I'm probably the least depressed (or maybe I should say least neurotic) of Jewish writers, and I think some of these Jewish writers will confirm this. You may be responding to something different (than the standard Jewish American writing) in my narrative voice or in the voice of my characters, or maybe your sadness is based in a preconception that has more to do with what you think of Hasidism. What do you think?

I look to engage my reader's interest, of course, but I'm not all that focused on the reader as I write. I'm largely immersed in my characters and they tend to grow and lead the way. When I start to see and love the characters for who they've become, then I know that they are alive, that the novel may yet live. My writing tends to be character driven, which may be why the death of my protagonist is so painful to readers. It was certainly a challenge for me, as the writer.

* What's the story of you and God? You believed as a child, but dropped this belief when you went to college? Did God ever speak to you?

A: I can't say that I believed in God as a child; I just never experienced that religious phase that most teenagers go through, that time when your classmates begin to sway and pray longer and harder than anyone else. Based on the absence of any such inner urge, I could only watch and wonder; I'll confess that I sometimes judged them as pretenders -- I thought they might be seeking a good reputation so as to beget a worthy mate in marriage.

I understood as a child that I ought to believe, but somehow, the love and fear of God missed me, despite my twice a day recitations of the O hear Israel. I knew even as a child that my Mom was very afraid (I'm not as certain of her love for God, as I am of my father's) and still is afraid of God, death, hell, and even as a child her fear felt childlike to me. I did, though, for a number of years, about 5-7, have a fear of going to sleep, which I think was a fear of obliteration. As an adult, though, I welcome sleep, and the kind of thinking I do in sleep and dream.

My interest in the concept of God came to me belatedly, and not on a religious level. I'm interested in the idea of divinity as an aspiration, a height or level of achievement, the ascetic mystic's interest, though I am not a mystic either. My goal is to attain as often as possible the divine knowledge or experience, intuitive and otherwise, that becomes available to the mystic. I may have had a few glimpses of it, in the course of my life, at work. Most people do, I think.

* When you participate in Jewish life, what encourages you and what discourages you?

A: Piety is a huge turnoff. And piety without rigor, without an intellectual grounding, is even worse. Growing up, I encountered a lot of that in girls and women who didn't have access to the education of their brothers. But I now meet grown Jewish men and women who have access to knowledge and prefer not to know. They seem to relish custom and ritual and law without quite knowing or caring what or whether it signifies. I was on a panel on Orthodoxy recently and I tried my best to set up a rigorous conversation about what orthodoxy means, and how and why it began -- it actually arrived late to Judaism, which had a long prophetic tradition, unlike its all-too-early arrival to Christianity -- and whether orthodoxy is still a viable way to live. I cited Maimonidies who said that orthodox piety is for the masses and wisdom is for the elite. Henri Corbin, the author of Alone with the Alone, writes that orthodoxy or dogma presupposes an end to prophecy, meaning individualism, an end to the possibility of an individual's attaining eternity. Who, in our day and age, would want that? Certainly no novelist. The audience and the other panelists did not want to or could not go there. They wanted to talk about the number of worshippers in Upper West Side synagogues, and they wanted personal confessionals. I should qualify this: it could have been my personal failure to communicate: I've been told that I perform better when I'm not sharing the stage with others, probably because then I take full responsibility.

I admire real scholarship. Hugely. I talk to my youngest brother approximately once a week and love hearing about the esoteric ideas he's thinking and writing about. He's a Hasidic scholar and writer, knows his way around the texts, and in tremendous contrast to most orthodox Jews I meet, he's open to the most honest and heretic conversations. Not that this is true of every Hasid, and the reverse is probably not true of every orthodox. It takes a well-read individual with an independent, rigorous mind to converse freely.

* When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? What crowd did you hang out with in highschool, college? Today?

A: It shouldn't come as a surprise that I wasn't the most popular kid. For one thing, I wasn't a team player. My achievements tended toward individual ones: I was a dancer and performed on-stage, solo and within groups. In my Junior and Senior years of high school (and also summer camps), I was head of dance and I choreographed for musicals and plays. We staged a lot of these then, for some reason (I didn't attend a Hasidic school). My school hired a professional pianist and director who taught me a modicum of ballet and modern dance which generated rumors that I'd taken ballet classes. I developed a passion for dance and wanted to become a classical ballet dancer. On days off from school, I would take the local minibus to a ballet school on Main Street to study the photos in the windows. Of course, my parents would never allow me to wear tights and leotards, but in my second year of college, I signed up for dance classes, soon learned that I was too old for classical ballet, and decided to drop it. Entirely.

In college, as an undergraduate, I found parties a huge bore since everyone was stoned and I wasn't. Ditto at those final-tour Grateful Dead and The Who and Neil Young concerts. I had a boyfriend who loved The Who. I shared Bill Clinton's problem: I didn't/couldn't inhale smoke, so I tried eating pot, and once drinking it as ganga tea, experiences that left me with no love for it.

Today: do I hang out? I'm in touch with various writers and friends, and we sometimes hang; we call it lounging. My Dutch friends are especially good at downtime. Most of my writerly relationships are conducted largely via email, with only a rare face-to-face meeting. The Jewish contingent has its own ghetto dynamic going and it's especially fun when we manage to get Steve Stern, Melvin Bukiet, Aryeh Stollman and I together, usually after another bad Jewish event where we are asked to speak on what it means to be Jewish. Melvin and I have our own standing specialties: we go café hopping (I think this started in Tel Aviv), drink and smoke; I should say, he smokes, I mostly secondhand smoke -- though I smoke biddies and cigarillos, when I can get them. Best source for biddies: bum them off Paul Auster, who carries whole little boxes of them. Excellent source for baby torpedoes: my Dutch editor, Pieter Swinkels. The label on the box, "Roken is dodelijk," adds flavor. Unlike the American warning, which manages to get the optimistic word health in it, the Dutch uses the word DEADLY loud and clear. Death, for better or worse, seems to have become a motif of this conversation.

I now spend quite a bit of time upstate where my social life seems to have taken off. And I'll be teaching at Western New England College, in Springfield, MA this year. There are more of us up here these days than in New York City. I have a friend in the area who is a painter and we get together for various adventures. And Aryeh Stollman and Steve Stern aren't far away.

Having said all that -- it makes me sound well-connected and social -- I should tell you that I'm really not. I spend most of my time alone, in the company of my dachshund, Emma P.

* I find a world without God and religion depressing. I'm curious where you find happiness and meaning if everything is just going to end in nothingness.

A: Oh God. I find meaning and happiness in Knowledge (gnosis). And in good literature, which tells us about ourselves, what it is to be human. And in trying to craft decent literature. And in teaching it, which I hope will create good readers of literature.

Meaning in God? Well, yes, since my concept of God is an abstract man-made idea of a perfection to aspire to. Re: Religion? Not if it means orthodoxy, or some other conventional form of it.

And nothingness? I can trace my beginning as a thinker back to the year in high school when I studied the commentaries on the concept of tohu va'vohu in Genesis. Every novel begins with a blank page; that's why writers are so neurotic during their year of publication. They have to go back to that blank page one. That, and also their publishers serving up the usual publishing debacles, and then the dearth of good readers. What will remain, when I have returned to NOTHINGNESS, are I hope a few of my pages. And an independence of spirit and wit that I hope to have imparted to friends and students.

* Being raised in a serious religion immunizes one from falling for wacky cults such as the Kabbalah Centre, I believe. Would you agree?

A: I do agree with you. When you've had the real thing, you don't easily fall for the fakes and wannabes. Indeed you remain quite discerning and you probably don't easily embrace anything else. I, for one example, had no interest in becoming an orthodox, modern orthodox, conservative or reform Jew.

* What do you think of the contemporary "spirituality" craze? It strikes me as cheap grace. People looking for the benefits of religion without paying the price that organized religion demands.

A: The Hasidic movement would not have survived if it hadn't made itself appealing to the masses. Perhaps you could say that about the novel as well. The ascetic lifestyle appeals only to the elite, the seriously rigorous. But the question remains: Is the form that survives worthy of survival? This is a painful question that writers and artists everywhere must ask themselves every day: To survive, to actually earn a living, one must make the work easy or accessible enough for the masses, but then is the art worthy enough to be called art, to engage in?

* I've heard the novel described as a bourgeois medium primarily suited for entertainment. Yet you make considerable demands on the reader in The Seventh Beggar. Do you think most of the readers of that book are up to that task? I notice that interviewers love asking you fancy shmancy questions about the various intricacies of the book and I can't help thinking that these intellectual concerns, stylistic concerns, otherness and being concerns, are miles removed from the average bloke picking up your book and hoping to have a good time.

A: Your question comes at a moment in which I am preparing for a lit class titled "The Development of the Novel," so this may come off as pedantry, but I don't mind joining the ranks of pedants such as Don Quixote and Charles Kinbote.

The novel as a genre began as an anti-authoritarian form, in reaction against the epic with its heightened language (verse) and false or idealized heroics, and also against the prose romance (chivalric or pastoral/Arcadian) produced for entertainment. From the romance, the novel took prose and refined it, from the epic it took worthiness, or a higher purpose. Yes, the form is based in the town square, it embraces the carnivale, or aspects of parody, but it is not and was never intended as mere entertainment. That remains the task of romances such as Harlequins and thrillers and mysteries and spy sagas. The word 'novel' still means new, though it's been around a few centuries now, and when all is said and done, the novel, to continue calling itself a novel, ought to attempt something new, to react against what came before it. Unfortunately the general public has not been informed of this. What's happened is that the publishers aiming to earn as much as possible have sold the literary novel as entertainment, which it can be, though it isn't mere entertainment or easy entertainment, and so has created a false set of expectations. Don Quixote, probably the first modern novel, was an immediate bestseller, sold as a parody of the chivalric romance, but the book isn't an easy read (it's over 900 pages long), and it isn't funny, though most readers who come to it expect it to be. Nabokov famously called it crude and cruel and it is that: it's filled with cruel prank after cruel prank. And with plenty of pedantry. But Don Quixote lives, both in and out of its 900 pages.

That said, The Seventh Beggar is entertaining -- my publisher forgot to tell you that. Its best readers are the ones who relax and go with the flow without looking so hard for meaning. The book is intuitively organized and intuitively coherent -- it is after all a mystic's story -- and it takes a relaxed, confident reader to allow intuition to do the work of understanding. Younger readers do well with it. Non-Jewish critics, especially from overseas, did better with it then Jewish ones, which means what? That American Jews are no longer the people of the book? But I think we've already established that.

* At what age did you begin to have an erotic interest in boys? I assume your family and religious community put a squash on this. Did you run wild with the boys when you got your freedom? I'm sorry to be so vulgar, but there's very little wank material in your works.

A: You're wrong about the "wank material" in my work: Joel engages in an orgy of wanking in the first third of The Seventh Beggar. And Rachel of The Romance Reader has her fantasy variations on love, if not sex. And Deena, of Giving Up America, well, she's in the mode of renouncing love along with much else. At the age of, maybe ten, I had a crush on a friend of my brother's, Ari Weinstock, who taught me to ride his banana handle banana seat bicycle. My parents didn't fuss about it. Then I fell out of love with Jewish boys and in love with fictional MEN. Oddly enough, I didn't read much secular Jewish fiction. I was reading classics, such as The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights and A Tale of Two Cities, as page turners! By the time I was in my teens I was spending most of my time with women and though I didn't develop a crush for anyone in particular, I was the crush object or crushee (a word?) of various girls, usually a few years older than I, usually at summer camp, where we'd sit in a gazebo in the dark, and look at the stars. I must not have been erotically engaged since I found it rather vapid, didn't know what to say. The value of these crushes, I think, was more in being beloved rather than in the act of loving.

* How do you feel about the chutzpah of people such as Steve Stern writing in English trying to imitate of Yiddish when they are neither literate in Yiddish nor Hebrew? Shouldn't there be a license to do this?

A: Thing is, when I read [Steve] Stern and [Dara] Horn and [Nicole] Krauss, I don't have to go beyond page one to know that their knowledge of Yiddish and Yiddish culture is based in books (Henry Roth) and legend, and in an immigrant culture long bygone. The nostalgia and cornpone alone is a dead giveaway. I hear that sort of corn from every upper westsider who had a grandmother or father who spoke some Yiddish. They distort and mispronounce words (see Isaac Bashevis Singer on the impossibility of writing Yiddish in America), for example, "patchkeying," an Englishing of the word "patchkeh" -- the most recent one I've heard. To them, Yiddish is sad and funny, though ask a real speaker of Yiddish in Williamsburgh whether his language is tragicomic and he'll think you're from the moon. If there's wit, it's in the speaker's skills, in succinct and witty phrasing, which is true of every language.

SIGNIFICANTLY, though, this immigrant nostalgic Yiddish is what general readers recognize, and the nostalgia and corn confirms them in what they already feel about Yiddish, which makes them feel good, and so they prefer reading this to reading a version that is unfamiliar, perhaps more than they want to know.

Non-Jewish readers, if they bother at all, come across all this nostalgia and corn and walk away confirmed in what they already think: that Jews and Yiddish are full of oy veys and other kvetches, that if this is art, it's art on a Chagall level. You'd never know that fine poetry, by say Yankev Glatshteyn, was once written in this language. At the end of the day, working in this nostalgic joking vein, keeping the Yiddish and Yiddish culture just light and funny and easy enough to please, is a kind of sellout.

* What did you think of Wendy Shalit's January 2005 essay in the NYT book review about Jewish novelists writing negatively and unfairly about Orthodox Judaism? I noticed she did not mention you.

A: Wendy Shalit was asking a valid question -- she asked whether this is art, and the answer is that much of it is merely entertainment -- but her conclusions were entirely obtuse, astonishingly confused. Good literature and bad literature have nothing to do with religion. Stereotypes, caricatures, and sentimentality are easy crowd pleasers, and make for easy reading. These writers are finding a market niche-Jewish Americans seeking entertainment disguised as literature -- and filling it. Even if the work shows some craft, it doesn't necessarily qualify as art. Enduring art features authentic characters that live on the page, and walk off the page and continue to live for 400 years, as Don Quixote and Hamlet have. Such characters come from the writer's ability to enter deeply and empathetically into these characters, from what Keats famously called "a negative capability," which is an ability to become the OTHER. Shakespeare's characters are particularized humans who can think and change, and, after Harold Bloom, "overhear" themselves.

The controversy helped the writers sell books. And they all took full advantage of it with responses. I like to think that I was excluded because I didn't suit Wendy's thesis. For one thing, I write with empathy and sympathy for that world. And I hope my characters aren't caricatures, and I hope they live. Only time will tell, and so we'll have to postpone the question for a century or so.

* What do you think of this? Ted Solotaroff's comment in a 1988 New York Times Book Review essay that "[a]s assimilation continues to practice its diluting and dimming ways, it seems evident that the interesting Jewish bargain or edge in American fiction will be more and more in the keeping of writers...who are anchored in the present-day observant Jewish community and who are drawn to the intense and growing dialogue between Judaism and modernity under the impact of feminism, the sexual revolution, and the Holocaust."

A: It's an attempt at prophecy but it's blinkered and in any case, has already been proven false. All sorts of unforeseen things happen. For one thing: Jews are no longer one of the interesting minorities and, I'll take a leap here, we, perhaps I should say I, aren't even all that interesting to ourselves, never mind to others, except perhaps to the Christian Right writers of the Left Behind series, who want to co-opt our biblical history. The sophisticated Jewish reader looking for something to read is skipping Jewish work that is too anchored in the subject of Jewishness. Irving Howe, btw, attempted some similar predictions re: Jewish writing, and was wrong since he also didn't foresee that there would be a new wave of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia.

In music, the crossing of genres and cultures has been extremely fertile. Think of Steve Reich, whose Tehillim takes the rhythms and chants and forms of African music and sets Hebrew texts to them. Or Osvaldo Golijov, who crosses Spanish and Jewish strains. I don't see why hybridity shouldn't do as much for literature. It already is doing it. Talented assimilated Jews will find ways of expression that reflect their varied influences. Hybridity makes for some of the greatest work: Don Quixote, which crosses the epic with the prose romance, is again a perfect example. The Seventh Beggar has something of this hybrid impulse, with, the bluegrass/Hasidic festival, with the golem and Cog, with a tale that crosses Nachman's Seven Beggars with the "sevens" of other fairy tales.

Whatever Happened To Michelle Goldberg?

She profiled me for a couple of pieces (one in Speak magazine and one in Salon) that were published in 1999.

Michelle was a delight. I wanted to talk to her all day.

I remember chatting to my friends about how adorable she was. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley (I believe), she had a 14 year old's voice and manner that made you want to open up to her.

I found she's now blogging on HuffingtonPost.com, where I found this bio:

Michelle Goldberg is the author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. Esquire described Kingdom Coming as "an important work of investigative journalism, exposing as it does a mass movement with 'a vision of reality utterly at odds with that of the secular world,' that would use its power to impose a religious worldview on a diverse country." Publishers Weekly called it "an impressive piece of lucid journalism" and a "carefully researched and riveting treatise."

Goldberg is a contributing writer at Salon.com, and her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The New York Observer, The UK Guardian, In These Times, Newsday and many other newspapers nationwide. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Luke says: July 11, I catch her on Dennis Prager's show discussing her new book. She now has an adult voice and manner as she argues her case. But I'm sure she can still be as adorable as a kid when she works her interviewing magic.

I find it interesting when those of us who can be charming interviewers are called upon to argue out our ideas. It's hard to do both things well. I have no doubt that Michelle and I are better interviewers than pundits. If you are primarily devoted to promoting your ideas, you're rarely going to be a good listener. If you are primarily devoted to listening, you are unlikely to be a good polemicist.

Comedian Earl Skakel

I met him outside of Sardo's Bar in Burbank one night. More specifically, I met his handlers. I didn't really get to meet Earl.

That came Friday, July 7, over the phone.

Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Earl: "An NBA player. But realizing I am 6'2 and Jewish, that shot that one down."

Luke: "What were you expected to become?"

Earl: "My parents sent me to a seminary (San Fernando Missionary in Simi Valley) to become a priest but I had a premonition of what Catholic priests are all about, so I hightailed it after two days.

"It was just a weird vibe in there. I thought I was at the Tomkat [gay porn theater in West Hollywood] on a Saturday night. Even as a 12 years old, I knew something was running amok."

Luke: "Can you show me on the doll where it hurts?"

Earl: "The priests were too hands on. Backrubs at dinner, I wasn't jiving with it."

Luke: "Are you homophobic?"

Earl, who's straight: "Not at all. I live in West Hollywood on Larrabee, a cruising street. Believe me, you're not homophobic if you live on Larrabee."

Luke: "I thought you were Jewish."

Earl: "Back in 1950s, you had to convert to Catholicism to marry into the church. My Jewish mother converted to Catholicism. I'm like a unicorn - half and half."

Luke: "When did you realize you were destined to become a comedian?"

Earl: "Towards the tail end of highschool, 1986. Everyone told me how funny I was. I became friends with people who were agents. They said, 'Earl, get into comedy. You're funnier than any of our clients.'

"It took me a few years to build up the courage. It's nerve-racking getting up on stage. I don't know how porn actors do it. We're just telling jokes.

"To get up in front of a room full of strangers, I had to go to a therapist to get over the stagefright. We started with the comedy and then we got to sex and I had to stay a year longer. I'm not the best with girls. I had to overcome shyness in all areas of my life."

Luke: "How many women have you been with in your life?"

Earl: "Between 40-50. For a non-celebrity who looks like me, that's good. My friend Eric has been with between 600-700 and they're hot. I'm not going to lie to you. I've been with a few pigs out of necessity."

Luke: "How much sexual voltage does your career pack?"

Earl: "I do better now because they see me on stage."

Luke: "How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

Earl: "Twenty two."

Luke: "Why aren't you married?"

Earl: "I'm a very selfish person with my time. I don't think it would be fair. Marriage is the ultimate step and you have to be very sharing with your time and considerations. I'm a loner."

Luke: "What's the longest monogamous relationship you've been in?"

Earl: "Six years."

Luke: "With a woman?"

Earl: "As far as I know. In this day and age, you have to do an oil check before you put the dipstick down there.

"I was just starting in comedy. She wanted marriage and kids right away. I thought it would be unfair. I saw her a couple of years ago. She married an Asian guy, so at least I know my dick is bigger. He's smarter but I've got him beat in the ruler."

Luke: "Are you well endowed?"

Earl: "I've been told yes. I'm not Tommy Lee. But I've been told I'm big by every girl I've been with."

Luke: "How has that affected your psyche?"

Earl: "It helps a lot."

Luke: "Have you used viagra?"

Earl: "It's a great story. I hope this tape is at least a half hour.

"My friend's father passed away."

Luke: "So of course you popped a viagra."

Earl: "It interweaves with viagra.

"We go over to his house for the wake and he [the son] says, 'Hey Skakel, take these. My dad doesn't need them anymore.'

"It's this plastic baggie with about 40 horsepills of viagra.

"I had never taken viagra before. I'd never needed it. I jack off every day.

"I took one. It didn't really have an effect. I was expecting an immediate effect.

"I took three more. That night I was beet red from my forehead to my bellybutton and like a chinese noodle below that.

"The next morning I woke up and it worked. I had the Sears Trade Tower in my pants. And it wouldn't go down.

"I go to the doctor and his only advice was to just jack off until you come.

"Apparently my friend's dad was taking 100mg tablets. So I had 400mg of viagra in my body. The normal dosage for a guy 6' and 200 pounds is 20-30 mg.

"I had to jack off for about eight hours."

Luke: "What do you love and hate about your life now?"

Earl: "I love comedy and the people I get to meet. Clothing companies are now sending me leather pants and shirts and say that if I wear them on stage, they'll take care of me.

"I get to meet celebrities. Being a music fan, I get to meet some of my favorite rock 'n' rollers. They see me on stage and they treat me as an equal. If I just met them on the street, they'd probably be, 'Get away from me!'

"What I hate is that some of the celebrities I meet aren't nice. They give you an attitude. I met John Saxon who was in the famous Bruce Lee movie Enter the Dragon.

"I went up to him and said, 'Hi, Mr. Saxon, I'm a big fan. Can I have your autograph?' And he looked at me and in all seriousness says, 'I don't have the time.'

"I can understand if you walked up to Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks. They're busy. John Saxon hasn't acted in Nightmare on Elm Street 2 in 1984. He's got the time. That's all he's got.

"I hate girls who aren't nice to you because they don't know who you are, but after they see you on stage, they say, 'Oh, you're so funny. Let's go out.'"

Luke: "Where are you and God?"

Earl: "We're about as far away from each other as possible.

"You've got to understand that I went to a Catholic grade school, a Catholic highschool. I had religion shoved down my throat the first 20 years of my life. I do believe in God but I don't believe in the one presented to me in my youth. The God who is all loving but if you don't do what he says, He'll put you in Hell forever. That's a sadistic God."

Luke: "Where do you find meaning in life?"

Earl: "Through comedy. I take pride in helping people forget about their problems for an hour."

Luke: "You're like The Piano Man. Billy Joel."

Earl: "I love Billy Joel, but stay away from the booze. That guy's got alcohol face like I've never seen."

Luke: "Do you have addictions?"

Earl: "I've never had a drink or drug in my life. And I come from a family of indulgers in the liquid beverage.

"There are two reasons I don't drink. One. My mom said, 'Earl, if you don't drink until you're 18, I'll get you the car of your choice.' And she did. A BMW 318i with a red steering wheel.

"After I got to 18, I saw Gene Simmons from KISS asked, 'Why don't you drink or do drugs?' And he said, 'It impairs the blood flow to my pee pee.' I thought, 'Wow, this guy is the doctor of sex. I'm not going to touch booze.'"

Luke: "These are lonely habits for the world you live in?"

Earl: "I'm a loner. It doesn't take much for me to be entertained. So much of my life is writing jokes. I'm on the internet constantly looking at various news sites."

Luke: "Where are you politically?"

Earl: "Down the middle. I like Bush's stance on terrorism, but his economic policy is killing me. I drive an Expedition 1998 and we need to start bombing another country because these gas prices are killing me. If this is a war for oil, where's the oil?"

Luke: "Do you think it is true that in every joke there's a victim and that all humor is a channeled form of hostility?"

Earl: "Definitely. I try to make myself the victim in almost every joke. You can get people on your side fast if you make fun of yourself. The first 15 minutes of my act is talking about how I didn't get laid until I was 22."

"Two days after the Great White fire in Rhode Island, I did a joke about it. Someone in the audience knew the guitar player [porner Ty Longley] who died and got in my face afterwards. I felt horrible.

"You have to survey the room before you do any touchy material."

Luke: "What role has pornography played in your life?"

Earl: "I don't watch porn much because I don't like the close-ups, especially now that everything is on DVD. I really don't need to see Ron Jeremy's balls in digital clarity. The female body is the most beautiful creation on the planet but after it's been ploughed by three black guys for 20 minutes, it looks like a busted football down there.

"When I do watch pornography, I make sure it is a low-quality VHS tape."

Luke: "What crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"

Earl: "I was the most popular guy in highschool because I was the class clown. I was friends with everybody. I was friends with the jocks, the cheerleaders because they knew I was harmless. My social life was like a buffet. Everything was spread in front of me. I just didn't eat all of it."

"I went to Erotica LA and interviewed people for that mobile TV thing I do. At Sardo's they told me, you can't have the girls talk about sucking cock all the time. You've got to come up with some better questions. We went back to Sardo's two or three times, and every question went back to sucking cock. 'Hey, what do you think about Tookie Williams getting executed?' 'Oh, I was in a bukkake film two hours ago...'

"I don't want to be known as the guy who asks the dirty questions. With that crowd, it's hard. They're nice people. Some of the better interviews were with the guy actors. They seem more with it. But who wants to see me interviewing dudes?

"My enthusiasm petered out because you can't really talk about anything else other than sucking... The girls are so sweet but if you ask, 'What do you think about Bush?' They say, 'I just ate some two hours ago.'"

Luke: "Why didn't you just ask them about their lives?"

Earl: "I figured that most of them had been molested, so I don't know that I want to go down that route. When you asked what got me into comedy, I envisioned making people laugh, getting laid, making money. I can't imagine what got these girls into sucking endless amounts of pee pees. There had to be a moment where they thought, 'Hey, that sounds like a fine job. I'd really like to get into anal.'

"Porn is something I could never do but I don't look down on them for it. It's sad. I think most of them come out here to be a legitimate actress and they end up meeting Ron Jeremy at the Rainbow and he's like, 'You should get into porn until your career takes off.' Then it's just an endless circle. After two years, no guy wants to jack off to the same girl. Then what do you do? Give out rub-outs in the back of the LA Xpress for $100. Believe me, I know."

Luke: "Have you ever hired a hooker?"

Earl: "Absolutely."

Luke: "How did it make you feel afterwards?"

Earl: "Like I wished I had my money back."

Luke: "How do you determine right and wrong?"

Earl: "We all have limits and boundaries."

Luke: "You just intuit it?"

Earl: "The guy I play hockey with has a beautiful daughter. At the time, she was about 15. Hottest body I've ever seen on any girl on earth. Skinny. Natural DDs. She was totally into me and sexually active and I just couldn't do it. Nobody would've ever found out."

J.R. Taylor finds a conservative message in the Wall of Voodoo circa 1982 underground hit (got heavy play on MTV) Mexican Radio (co-written by Stan Ridgway).

Wall of Voodoo producer Richard Mazda phones me Friday afternoon, July 7, 2006. "I was like the fifth Beatle [with Wall of Voodoo]. Even though I was a producer, I was part of the creative process.

"Stan is proud of America. That sort of patriotism you don't see back in Europe, but that's more of an American thing than a right-wing thing.

"Although you had the Go Gos and bands like that [New Wave aka born out of punk rock] had hits, when a band like Voodoo or Devo had hits, it was more significant because the American audience was so conservative [in its musical taste]...

"Mexican Radio was one of the few things that I was working on [in the eighties] where I said, 'This is like a hit record. It's got a tune you can sing. It's got that sing along quality to the chorus. You can imagine half a dozen drunk idiots singing along. 'I wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbequed iguana.' You just knew that would become like a drinking song, which is ironic because Stan is a hugely intelligent lyric writer. He wasn't writing drinking songs for idiots, and definitely not drinking songs for right-wing idiots."

Luke: "You've been in the entertainment industry for over 20 years. What percentage of the people you've mixed with have been political conservatives?"

Richard: "I'm neither conservative nor liberal. I'm libertarian.

"Twenty five years ago, the creative types who went into music were more likely to be political than today. Paul Weller and the Jam were supporters of the miners' strike [1984]. Tom Robinson, who at the time was the second most famous gay man in Britain (after Quenton Crisp), and he had a hit record called Glad to be Gay.

"The only person who was conservative back in the day was Mark Smith, leader of The Fall. He had some potentially suspect ideas. You couldn't say they were out and out racist, but he'd say things that were jarring.

"Lyric-writing is weird. You could say that Ted Nugent back in the 1970s was right-wing. All he ever seemed to talk about was shooting, hunting and fishing. He was like an apologist for the NRA.

"You had Lynyrd Skynyrd, who were stereotypes of the Southern hillbilly. Sweet Home Alabama has a whole verse about Neil Young:

Well I heard mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow

"Nei Young wrote that song 'Southern Man' criticizing the politics of the South.

"The majority of musicians tend to be left-wing. On the other hand, I've read people like P.J. O'Rourke who I find funny. I agree with him -- why should the Left wing be the only people who can satirize?

"I have an American friend who now lives in Britain. She used to be the girlfriend of Jackson Browne. Now she's married to a famous bone doctor. At parties, she'll say she reads the Daily Telegraph, a right-wing paper, and people attack her for it. She'll respond, 'Why can't I get all points of view? If you can't countenance giving a little thought to what is being said by the right-wing, how would you know what you believed?'

"I know I'm not racist. At the same time, I'm not for completely open immigration policies. It's bred problems in Britian. The July 7th, 2005 bombings is an example of how we've left ourselves open. When I lived in Britain, I couldn't believe that we allowed these fire-breathing Muslim preachers... Over here, what they were saying would be considered treason, but in Britain, we're so liberal, we allowed it to get out of control and July 7th was an example of how it came back to bite us in the ass. There could've been a time when the moderate Muslim leaders could've been encouraged to stand up.

"I'm not anti-Muslim. I'm anti people who are not supportive of the culture that is giving them succor and sanctuary.

"If you don't know what is being said in a radicalized mosque, you are allowing people to be brainwashed into potentially atrocious acts.

"This is politicizing society. We all became a bit apolitical in the past 20 years. I was amazed at the lack of student political protest. People don't seem to care that when the Republicans held their convention here in New York in 2004, hundreds of people were arrested, supposedly to keep things safe. The police were arresting people just because Bloomberg wanted them gone in case there was trouble. Twenty five years ago, that would've caused a riot. Now people just roll over and let it happen.

"I don't have any good theories other than that we are all a bit affluent."

Luke: "Maybe people have better things to do with their time?"

Richard: "Maybe. It's easy to protest when you're broke. When you have a lifestyle to protect, it tends to depoliticize people and makes you think about the material things in life."

Luke: "And people getting older. Old people don't march in riots."

Richard: "I have a 16 year old daughter. She's strident in her views. She's in a performing arts school. A helluva lot of her male friends are gay, which is the nature of being in a performing arts school. She's a member of the gay-straight alliance. She goes on AIDS walks. I'm glad she does.

"The political nature of the music business in the seventies seems to have disappeared. Black music is not throwing up enough consciousness in the lyrics like it was, like 'People Get Ready' and 'Innercity Blues' and 'What's Going On?' Paul McCartney wrote that song, 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish.' John Lennon was regarded as a political figure.

"Now it's all clones of 50 Cent and N'Sync. That's why I retired from music and went back to acting. There are no real rock stars anymore. Whatever it was that we thought about rock music's mission seems to be diluted, somewhere between consumerism and downloads... People have such wide choices for entertainment."

Luke: "Do you think the rock music mission turned out to be an illusion?"

Richard: "At the time I didn't think it was an illusion, but it didn't have any longevity. It didn't pass down through the generations. When you look back on hippies, they look a little bit pathetic. But at the time, hippies protesting the Vietnam War were important."

Luke: "I'm wondering if pop music, including the music you worked on, is primarily a form of entertainment and is not primarily a vessel for intellectual and political change?"

Richard: "It is primarily about entertainment but that doesn't mean a message can't be entertaining. Today you are less likely to hear something that will shock you. The Sex Pistols went so far, there's not much you can do now.

"If you take female politics, where are the women protesting the sexualization of fashion and music and everything else? I'm the same as any other redblooded male. I watch the Pussycat Dolls and it's hugely entertaining because they're scantily clad. I can think of a time, maybe 15 years ago, when I would've been told off by various women for that. Now there's a small percentage of feminists who would still be angry about it, but they're not making much noise. Where's the protests about the overly pumped image of Lara Croft in Tombraider video games? Nobody cares.

"That goes hand in hand with plastic surgery. Girls now want to have big tits. The majority of them would love to have a large chest and perfect lips. I don't know where it's all going.

"Back in 1980, if you told everybody you were going to get your breasts done, your fat sucked out, your lips done, a bottom reduction, you would've been considered a pariah, a freak."

Luke: "Is there anything that people told you when you were a young man that now looking back you realize they were right?"

Richard: "You probably touched on it when you said music is primarily entertainment. I'm sure a couple of people said to me, 'You won't really care about things in the same way you do now.' There's a big truth in that.

"I've got a 16 year old who's got to go to college. I'm not going to do anything to threaten my livelihood."

Luke: "Anything your parents told you?"

Richard: "This. 'You think this is really important now, but in the fullness of time, it'll be like nothing.'"

Mazda has been in a relationship with a woman for 13 years, married four years. "You don't need the madness to prove anything."

"I own a property in Britain. I own a theatre company (The Queen's Players) in New York. I'm not petit bourgeois but I am bourgeois."

One of the keys to my success is that I've never been shy announcing exactly how I make my living. Nor have I had occasion to hold my head in shame in this respect.

As H.L. Mencken said, you can tell the quality of a man's character by how he makes his living.

If you can't with pride tell people what you do for a living, then you can only slink through life burdened by shame.

At least that's what Rabbi Daniel Lapin says in his book, Thou Shall Prosper: Ten Commandments for Making Money:

Be Proud Of And Let People Know What You Do

Make lots of new friends, try to help them, and make sure they all know how you could help them and that you are eager to do so.

...The Talmud records the names of many great scholars and eminent sages who were known by their occupations, such as Rabbi Yochanan, the shoemaker. Jews were encouraged by these Talmudic heroes with their distinctive names to proudly declare their occupations, too. Jews also take the lesson to heart from Jonah, prophet of God, who was woken by the sailors terrified of the storm that threatened their ship. In an effort to identify the menace, the frightened men inquired of Jonah: "Tell us who caused this storm? (Was it you?) What is your occupation? Where are you from?"

To this day, one of the first questions people tend to ask a new acquaintance is, "What do you do for a living?" It is a legitimate question because the inquirer really wants to know what the person does for other people. He or she is wondering how do others find you useful. How you help your fellow humans is a proud part of your identity. The only person to be embarrassed by the question is the one who has no answer. Traditionally, Jews have been quick to identify their occupations. This obviously makes it much simpler for others to make contact for business purposes, and it may be partially responsible for Jews acquiring the reputation of being forward and aggressive in business.

Body Outlaws

By Elisa Albert

I look back now and pat myself on the back for what amounted to years of extended performance art, my body my tool for sociopolitical commentary, my every stomach roll a calculated fuck you to the beauty mafia and the culture that nursed it. I cultivated a righteous (if somewhat smug) anger and unleashed it upon anyone unwise enough to discuss the StairMaster or order salad dressing “on the side” within earshot of me.

A few years down the road, once I’d staged a definitive exit from the ranks of Rhinoplasty High, something strange happened.

Hotline

By Elisa Albert

He is still letting out rhythmic exhalations that echo and imitate the beating of my heart as well as the still present, inexplicable tick tick ticking in my head when I have exhausted myself of Important things I need to tell him. And, like an old lover in sync with me, he comes just when I finish, at the same instant, with a gasp and a pitiful roar. We both sit quietly, spent, entangled in the fiber optics between us.

Simcha Stress and Bridal Blues

By Elisa Albert in the July 11, 2003 Jewish Journal:

Whenever I tell someone about my impending nuptials, the reaction is the same.

First come the whoops of joy and the chorus of "Mazel Tovs!"

Then, invariably, the tone shifts. Faces fall. "How are you?" they ask, in much the same tone one might hear at a shiva call. "How are things going?"

Planning and executing a wedding, the implication suggests, are psychologically only slightly less taxing than death or divorce.

New York Times: WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Elisa Albert, Joel Farkas

August 17, 2003

Elisa Tamar Albert and Joel Samuel Farkas are to be married today by Rabbi Michael Gotlieb at the Saddlerock Vineyards and Ranch, a winery in Malibu, Calif.

Ms. Albert, 25, is keeping her name. She is a short-story writer and a candidate for a master's degree in creative writing at Columbia. She graduated from Brandeis and received a certificate from the Radcliffe Publishing Course. She is the daughter of Elaine Hearst Albert and Carl A. Albert, both of Los Angeles. Her father retired as the chairman and chief executive of the Fairchild Dornier Corporation, an aircraft manufacturer in San Antonio. Her mother is the director of the children's literacy program for the Los Angeles Jewish Federation.

Mr. Farkas, 34, is to begin his third year at Fordham Law School this month. He graduated from the Los Angeles campus of Antioch College. He is the son of Pamela R. Farkas and Dr. David E. Farkas, both of Los Angeles. His mother is a psychotherapist there, and his father a dentist.

Ms. Albert and Mr. Farkas grew up in the same Los Angeles community, and their families were acquainted -- her older brothers were friendly with him -- but the difference in their ages left them only vaguely aware of each other. In 2001, when they were both living in New York, their mothers arranged their first meeting as adults, although not for the usual reasons: Mr. Farkas's brother had died by his own hand seven weeks earlier, and Ms. Albert's brother had died in 1998 of cancer, and their mothers thought they might give each other emotional support.

Ms. Albert recalls that she made the first call to Mr. Farkas with trepidation. ''If your mom's just giving out your number,'' she said into his answering machine, ''feel free to ignore this message.''

But Mr. Farkas was glad to have someone from home to talk to. He teased Ms. Albert about her hesitant message, and they arranged to meet in Union Square for coffee.

Both remember their surprise, on that first meeting, that their two-person support group quickly seemed to become something else. ''I was like, 'Oh my God, he's really cute,' '' Ms. Albert said. ''I was chiding myself for being shallow in the face of something much more serious and weighty.'' Mr. Farkas, who also had a crush, worried that the family connection that had brought them together might cause some awkwardness, and that the the age difference could become an obstacle.

A week later, though, he called Ms. Albert and asked her to join him for a band performance at a downtown club. At his apartment afterward, they talked for hours. Just as her patience with his own hesitancy was about to give out, he kissed her.

''Basically, we didn't spend a minute apart for the next six months,'' Ms. Albert said. And in that time, the losses they had each suffered became not just the basis of their introduction but part of their relationship. ''We marvel that something so awful can give way to something so positive,'' she said.

The New York Times Divorce Announcement

Elisa Albert writes in The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide To Guilt:

… My New York Times wedding announcement read, as many do, like a smug sigh of relief: Nice privileged over-educated girl marries nice privileged over-educated boy. Accelerated offspring, sound real-estate investment, timely death, and flourishing of Judaica on the planet forthcoming. Continuity of the Jewish people thusly assured and hopes and dreams of respective families fulfilled, all with a lively hora, some lovely orchids, and top-of-the-line kitchenware to seal the deal.

But less than a year after our triumphant announcement (oh, and the getting married itself), my husband and I separated, and all that pride, joy and hope inscribed in the paper of record quickly gave way to a tailspin of failure, reproach, and profound guilt. It wasn’t only my life and heart I’d destroyed: I felt I had dashed the hopes of loved ones, wasted an obscene amount of money, and failed to fulfill the needs of my people by reproducing. I found myself fairly buried under the rubble.

...One day we wer fighting and I felt hopeless and things were going dreadfully, and the next his good friend's wife (a rabbi, no less!) ran into a friend of mine at a mall several states away and breezily offered up the news that we were kaput. Then an in-the-dark relative of mine, still more states removed, got a pseudo-sympathetic phoen call from said rabbi's sister-in-law. And so on. (Um, an aside, if I may? Perhaps we should collectively be focusing a little less on themed bar mitzvah parties and a little more on philosophical illumination of concepts like Lashon Ha Ra. Just a thought.)

Elisa Albert Interview With Publisher's Weekly

I was raised in a very insular and infuriating [Los Angeles] Jewish community, and one that proved endlessly dissatisfying to me as I grew up, but it's impossible for me to shake its influence. There's the desire to reclaim it somehow, make it my own and reinvent it in a way that's meaningful. There's a good deal of sentimentalism inherent in that urge, and one I think I share with the population of my stories.

>Your closing story at once apes and purports to address Philip Roth.

It's designed to pretty much dynamite everything that precedes it. I was aiming to level my own shtick, to poke fun at myself and my own obsessions. I'm most enamored of writers who seem self-aware and are willing to stand back and take aim at their own narrative patterns from time to time, like, say, Mr. Roth. I think I needed to do that in order to put this collection to bed and move on, narratively speaking. That it's fake-autobiographical and mock-revealing made the writing process hugely amusing, if only to me. And a great teacher of mine once said that as long as you're amusing yourself, you're onto something.

Elisa Albert - How This Night Is Different

She calls me from New York Thursday afternoon, July 6, 2006.

Luke: "Could you give me the geography of your life?"

Elisa: "I grew up in Brentwood and then Westwood. I went to Temple Emmanuel for elementary school and Harvard Westlake for [8th - 12th grade, graduating in 1996]. I went to Brandeis, graduating with a major in English with a concentration in Creative Writing and I minored in Women's Studies.

"I worked for a couple of years in New York in publishing. Then I entered Columbia in 2002 and graduated with my MFA (masters of fine arts) in 2004."

Luke: "Where did you go to temple?"

Elisa: "My parents helped found a [Conservative] synagogue in Santa Monica - Kehillat Maarav [Rabbi Michael Gotlieb, who performed Elisa's marriage].

"My parents were incredibly secular. They married. They had my two brothers and me. Around 1980, they went to some kind of weekend at Brandeis Bardin [Institute]."

Luke: "Dennis Prager."

Elisa: "Who posed the 'Do you want your grandchildren to be Jewish?' question. They looked at each other and said yeah.

"My mother had an awakening and instituted Friday night [shabbat] dinners and kept kosher. My father went along with it but never cared that much. They split up in 1986. The split was a long drawn-out process. They divorced in 1995."

Luke: "When did you realize they were going their separate ways?"

Elisa: "I don't know. They didn't really talk to my brothers and I about it. It was one of those strange murky things about my childhood that I can't figure out even now.

"I was a happy kid. At 12, everything started to go insanely downhill. Adolescence was a complete disaster. I was a trainwreck. I was a rebel by default. I didn't have any friends. I didn't do well at school.

"Between 12 and 22, things were pretty rough.

"My older brother was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 25. I was 15. I was 20 when he died."

Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Elisa: "I wanted to be an actress. I wasn't particularly talented, but I didn't figure that out until later. I was huge reader. I don't know why I didn't think about writing. There's an old family movie my dad shot. My brothers are playing in the foreground. In the background, I'm about two or three, and I'm pushing a doll carriage back and forth in the backyard, but instead of a doll, there's a book in it."

Luke: "You were reading then?"

Elisa: "I was a huge reader. Being the youngest made me precocious. I talked early. I was trying to hold my own with my brothers who were six and nine-and-a-half years older."

Luke: "Do you think that part of the reason you wanted to become an actress was because you didn't want to be yourself? You wanted to play other characters?"

Elisa: "Sure. When I write fiction, that's the best analogy I can think of. I am inhabiting someone else."

Luke: "What group were you in or were you just excluded in elementary and highschool?"

Elisa: "Elementary school was awesome. In highschool, I tried to be a Drama person but I never succeeded. I was on the newspaper and I wrote a column called 'Phat Albert.' It was my own vitriol all the time. I excoriated everybody.

"I don't blame it entirely on L.A., but it is definitely a strange place to come of age. Harvard-Westlake was a stressful private school. I was considered the ne'erdowell of the century for going to Brandeis instead of Yale or Princeton or Harvard."

Luke: "When did you realize you were a writer who deserved to be published in real books by real publishers?"

Elisa: "I lucked out in college and fell into workshops by visiting writers. Jayne Anne Phillips told me I was a writer. Stephen McCauley. Poet Mary Campbell. Marcy Hirshman. Again and again, I got this incredible support from these disparate writers."

Luke: "Tell me about you and your body. It sounds like you hated it for a while."

Elisa: "That essay [in the book Body Outlaws] says it all. I was a trainwreck as an adolescent. I was 50 pounds overweight. I was 5'10. I was a size 12 or 14. It was awful, especially in LA I was at this exclusive private school with all these Stepford people. I was not valued at all for my aesthetic presence. I was embarrassed all the time. I thought I was a blight on the landscape. I had a beautiful mother. That was rough.

"I grew up. I got some self-esteem. I became a vegetation. I'm pretty normal now. It's definitely a contrast. I hated myself."

Luke: "Did you use make-up? Did you like to dress up?"

Elisa: "No, not at all. I was a combat-boots overalls kind of girl."

Luke: "And now?"

Elisa: "Whatever. Sometimes, for something special, I'll dress up."

Luke: "Jeans?"

Elisa: "Yeah."

Luke: "What were you expected to become?"

Elisa: "I had cool parents. They just wanted us to be happy and so something productive. They're lawyers. My father marveled at my verbal ability and said I'd be a great lawyer."

Luke: "What were the Jewish expectations?"

Elisa: "I definitely heard a lot from my mom about marrying someone Jewish and creating a Jewish family.

"Having lost a brother and watch my parents go through that led me to make a really stupid decision and marry young [at 25]. I'm 28 now but I'm appalled at my 23 year old choice of spouse. It was definitely influenced by my wanting to do the right thing by my family and give my parents nachas (joy) and have a gillion children to replace my brother.

"Luckily, aside from a couple of heinous years of going through a separation and divorce, I'm none the worse for the experience."

Luke: "Would it be fair to describe much of your writing as angry?"

Elisa: "What?"

I repeat the question.

Elisa: "Not if the word 'anger' has a pejorative sense."

Luke: "Forget pejorative."

Elisa: "I'd like to think of it as righteous anger. I was a huge Ani DiFranco [folk-punk singer] fan in highschool. She was this angry chick singer. There was a quote from one of her songs ("I'm not a pretty girl") that I wrote in a black sharpie all over the walls of my room. She had no interest in playing the part of the nice, placid attractive woman who makes everyone feel good about themselves. There's a verse:

I'm not an angry girl
But it seems like I have everyone fooled
Every time I say something they find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger and never to their own fear

"I remember relating to that.

"My goal as a writer is to tell it like it is, whether it is in fiction or nonfiction, to tell difficult truths, whether or not it is fun to hear or even feels good to say. I tell my students all the time -- you should not bother writing at all if you are not committed to being honest.

"I bristle at that word. I don't think of my stories as angry. As sentimental, and tender and rueful and quizzical, but anger definitely carries that pejorative edge to it."

Luke: "Did you ever get a response from Philip Roth?"

Elisa: "I sent him a little package with the book in it yesterday."

Luke: "Is he your favorite writer?"

Elisa: "He has been. I have a rotating cast of favorite writers. If I'm reading a book I'm really enjoying, that's my favorite writer. He's a pillar. I feel like I've eaten all of his books and they're a part of me. But I guess that metaphor doesn't extend because then I would have to s--- them out.

"Saul Bellow said that we write in response to everything we've read.

"When I read something meaningful, it goes into the stew."

Luke: "Tell me about you and God."

Elisa: "I definitely don't believe in some kind of bearded presence in the universe watching us. It's an evolving sense for me that life is precious. That my life is going to come to an end one day and while I'm here, I have many choices. Bound up in that thinking is a sense of 'god.' I'm a big fan of yoga. I consider that my synagogue/church attendance. I go to yoga a couple of times a week and I feel that I can focus and clear away all sorts of mental and emotional clutter and think about what is important and make contact with whatever is in existence. I don't talk about it that much. It's something between me and myself. I feel that whenever I try to articulate it, something crucial is lost.

"I definitely don't feel 'god' when I go to synagogue. I have enjoyed going to synagogue in the past but it's for a sense of community and ritual rather than a true sense of the divine.

"I never thought about it too much, or I didn't have the skills to think about it this way. As I get older, I think about it more.

"When I feel happy, that's the most that I can associate with a belief in god. When I'm surrounded by people I love. When I feel fulfilled. When I feel like I am doing something good in the world, or I feel good.

"I don't think I have too much of a concrete god belief.

"I believe that life is precious. That we are here for a reason. That we should respect nature and the earth."

Luke: "What's been your relationship with Judaism?"

Elisa: "It continues to evolve. The institutional Judaism with which I grew up -- the day school, Hebrew High School, Camp Ramah for 11 years (Conservative Judaism) -- I loathed all that stuff. I was miserable within that framework of institutional Jewish practice. I have a seething contempt for a lot of the people I grew up with in that milieu. I've tried to leave it far in the past.

"Brandeis was an odd choice for somebody trying to run away from institutional Jews but I had few Jewish friends at Brandeis. I prided myself on having nothing to do with Hillel and anything at all.

"Judaism is something I'm exploring for myself now in ways that make me feel good. I have respect for cultural religious institutions now in a way that I wasn't able to growing up. To this day, I get extreme heebie jeebies when I run into someone from Camp Ramah, which invariably happens whenever I set foot above 69th Street. USY (United Synagogue Youth) is an insular and provincial community. I can't stand it."

The USY website says: "The Department of Youth Activities, of The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, inspires Jewish youth to explore, celebrate and practice ethical values, Zionism and community responsibility based on the ideology of the Conservative Movement."

Luke: "What specifically did you hate about it because every community is insular to varying degrees."

Elisa: "True. With few exceptions, there were a lot of people who seemed to have no ambition or curiosity or intellectual depth beyond getting together, trying to sleep with one another, and planning their big Jewish weddings as soon as they finished college. I felt suffocated and marginalized."

Luke: "How did you feel suffocated?"

Elisa: "I just never related to that. I could never play that game. It just felt empty. It felt divorced from any real religion. Judaism seemed like an excuse to have this little club and be shallow."

Luke: "Can you give me an example of a community where you've experienced the opposite (joy, safety, intellectual stimulation, passion, meaning)?"

Elisa: "Grad school. I felt so at home in graduate school, in workshops with fellow writers who became good friends. Different people from all sorts of backgrounds who all value the same thing -- humor, truth-telling, good writing, articulation of things that matter individually and globally. I felt like things mattered. It was a deeper experience. It's definitely an insular world too."

Luke: "The people in graduate school were smarter, more intellectually curious, and had better values?"

Elisa: "Yes. The people at Camp Ramah didn't seem to question anything. What value does anything have if it doesn't withstand questioning? When I grew up, I found people who knew all sorts of things and were adventurous and curious about many different things. Judaism can stand such iconoclasm and questioning.

"There is a great midrash about all the people in a village putting all their tsures (troubles) on the table in front of them and wrapped up in all their tsures were all their triumphs. You can take anyone else's package but you'll always take your own back.

"I don't begrudge anybody else's happiness or success and I don't begrudge it myself either.

"There was a girl a year behind me in grad school who was in the New Yorker's debut fiction issue. Of course I felt like, goddamn it.

"I don't wish the girl any harm. It was a fantastic story and deserved to be recognized."

Luke: "Regarding your essay in The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt, how do you wish your friends would've reacted to your dissolving marriage? You write that you wished they'd have studied the laws of Lashon Ha Ra. How should they have reacted when they had a piece of juicy gossip?"

Elisa: "I'm referring obliquely there not to my friends, who are wonderful, but to the Jewish communal yentas (gossips). I read somewhere that when it's someone you know, it's not gossip. It's news.

"It was the element of schadenfreude that I found hard to take. I felt implicated everywhere I went. For a good year, I felt like I wanted to burst into tears every time I left my house. There was almost this glee - 'Oh, guess what happened?'

"I grew up among these people. My older brother works in the Jewish community. He loved Camp Ramah. Those are his people. My mom works in the Jewish community.

"Even the way people tried to console me made it clear that I was the object of a lot of pity.

"How should people have reacted? 'Good for her. She got herself out of a terrible situation quickly without having children or further ruining her life. How difficult. I'll send her a card.' But instead there was a lot of smirking.

"Something hit home for me after my brother died when I'd be out and about and running into people and people wouldn't mention it. It was as though they were afraid of it. It happens to this day. I run into people I haven't seen for ten years. Obviously they know my brother died and they just [say], 'Hi, how are you? Good? Great.' Or, 'That's a bummer. Oh. Have a nice day.'

"I've developed this real anger at that. It doesn't seem right not to acknowledge enormous tragedies in the lives of people around you. It's a lie that really bothers me. I felt the same thing around the marriage. My life is in tatters and people say, 'Oh, great. Everything's sunny. Nice to see you.' When real s--- is happening, it's important to [acknowledge it]. It's immoral not to acknowledge. So much of the sorrow we carry around is helped by simply acknowledgment.

"My experience of the Jewish community I grew up in was that a lot of times things did not get acknowledged."

Luke: "At the depths of your pain, you wish that people would observe some of the laws (Lashon Hara) of your religious tradition."

Elisa: "Absolutely. This isn't just about Judaism."

Luke: "But you chose to use the word Lashon Hara."

Elisa: "The point of religion is to make us better human beings. If all Christians were Christlike, this would be a beautiful world to live in."

Luke: "How often do you see religion making people better?"

Elisa: "I see it more often with people who identify idiosyncratically, who intellectualize it, people without blind faith, people who struggle with it."

Luke: "I don't think most people want to be challenged. Only a tiny percentage of people want to struggle with these things. Only intellectuals such as yourself."

Elisa: "I sadly agree but you can surround yourself with such people and you don't have to get frustrated or sad when you have to run into your old Hebrew school classmates at Whole Foods on the Upper West Side."

Luke: "Was your highschool like Lord of the Flies?"

Elisa: "I call Camp Ramah the Jewish Lord of the Flies. There were no adults around. There were adolescents playing adults. There were rampant inappropriate relationships going on between the 'adults' and the teenage campers."

Luke: "Between the counselors and the kids?"

Elisa: "Oh yeah."

Luke: "A lot of predatory?"

Elisa: "Absolutely."

Luke: "What about staff and kids?"

Elisa: "That's what I mean. One person at camp was over 40.

"There's a great story by Ellen Umansky in the Lost Tribe anthology -- 'How to Make it to the Promised Land.' It's the definitive Jewish summer camp story. The place is hell on earth.

"My blood pressure goes up just talking about it."

Luke: "Did anyone get busted at Camp Ramah for statutory rape?"

Elisa: "Not that I know of. It was encouraged. Anything that resulted in a Jewish couple was encouraged. That was the goal of Camp Ramah.

"There's a wonderful, famous, respected [Conservative] kindly old rabbi who I like personally, but who is notorious for showing up at Camp Ramah and a few dayschools around town to give a little speech to 14, 15, 16 year old girls about how they need to prioritize getting married and having families as soon as possible. If they are late to do those things, not only will they die barren and alone, but the Jewish people will die out. It will be their fault. You can have a career later.

"It's completely outrageous. It's anachronistic. It's antifeminist and completely misguided and doesn't take individuals into account. I hated it because it encountered virtually no resistance at Camp Ramah. This is a line most people bought into.

"Camp Ramah puts out an alumni newsletter and like JDate, there's a whole corner of mazal tovs. 'We met at Camp Ramah.' This fetishized niche. That's what Camp Ramah is for. If you met your spouse at Camp Ramah, you get a crown of rubies. It's a sick little world."

Luke: "If you were talking to that same group about the same topic, what would you say?"

Elisa: "You have a lot of time. You need to experience the world and figure out who you are in it and take care of yourself and you'll know what you want and who the right partner for you is. You'll be able to create a life that is satisfying to you in the long-term."

Luke: "What should be more important to an 18-year old girl? Get a good education or get a good man?"

Elisa: "Obviously the former, though I don't deny that different people have different capabilities. Some people don't want an education."

Luke: "Would you rather have written a great novel or have a great marriage?"

Elisa: "That's a ridiculous question because one doesn't preclude the other."

Luke: "No, but we can't have everything we want in life. Which is more important to you?"

Elisa: "It's apples and oranges. It's a false choice. Write a great novel or become a great doctor? That you have to choose. I have every intention of having a family, if that is what I want, and continuing to write. I don't see the choice."

Luke: "Which part of your life have you been the happiest?"

Elisa: "Now."

Luke: "The reason is?"

Elisa: "I know who I am and what I want. I know how to honor myself and my feelings."

Luke: "What does it mean to honor yourself and your feelings?"

Elisa: "To know that my feelings are important and that if I feel happy or sad or uncomfortable, it's not me. If I'm sitting across the table from somebody and I want to stab myself in the eye with a fork, it's not because there's something wrong with me, it's that I don't like this person and I don't like the vibe.

"I don't beat myself up for things."

Honoring her feelings, Elisa starts crunching (on what I find out later are) raw, unsalted almonds.

"I live in an insular world of writers and sometimes it slaps me in the face that a lot of people out there don't understand, or willfully ignore, the difference between fiction and nonfiction."

Crunch, crunch, crunch.

I try to bring my questions to a close.

Luke: "What do you love and hate about New York? What do you love and hate about LA?"

Elisa: "I love about LA that my mom and dad are there."

Crunch, crunch.

Elisa: "I can go back now feeling great about life and revisit old places and not feel terrible about the awful years we discussed earlier. I hate about LA that it is a minefield. Without warning, I'll stumble into a weird feeling of being 15 again and not knowing that there's a whole world out there beyond this insular miserable community and just not thinking there's a place for me anywhere in the world. It's a place full of ghosts -- my grandparents, my brother, a whole family identity that just doesn't exist anymore. That can be empowering too if I don't let it penetrate and just live with it.

"New York I love because I feel completely at home here. I feel like the person I am is valued here. I feel like I found my place here. I found my people. I am allowed to be who I am and honor myself.

"I hate that it is far away from my parents. I hate that because I didn't grow up here, I don't have all those convenient associations. I don't know who the good waxer is. I don't know where you go to get the best manicure."

Luke: "What did your older brother most want for you?"

Elisa: "To be happy. I don't feel like I got to know him well. He was off to college when I was eight."

Luke: "Was he able to communicate with you when he knew he was dying?"

Elisa: "Not so much. It continues the theme of things not getting discussed or acknowledged in my family. He was really optimistic as was everyone. It wasn't until he'd had a second brain surgery, which diminished his personality, it took away the essence of him, that it was clear he was not going to make it. By that point, he was just a shell. We didn't get to mull it over too much.

"I remember saying at one point -- 'He's going to die.' And getting in trouble for that, getting admonished. 'Don't say that! How dare you say that!' As if my saying that is going to make it happen. That's where my penchant for honesty at all cost comes from.

"I'm approaching the age he was when he died (29)."

Luke: "How did your family and friends react to your writing?"

Elisa: "Really well. My dad is plainly thrilled and proud. My mom less so but only because she operates in this insular little lashon hara world. She gets worried about other people thinking X, Y, Z. She moves in this little world and everybody's sniping about everything. The first story [in Elisa's collection] is called, 'The Mother is Always Upset.' She says, 'People are going to look at that title and think it's about me.' I said, 'Mom, if they read the story, then they'll know it's not.' 'But people aren't going to read the story. They're just going to read the title.' 'Mom, if people are that dumb, then who cares?'"

Luke: "Did the people who you described in the Guilt book as gossiping about you, did any of them apologize?"

Elisa: "No. I keep my distance as much as I can from that crew. I can imagine what they think of me. What the camp people I skewer think of me."

I'd like to hear from these people what they think of Elisa Albert and her writing.

Luke: "Is there any pleasure in revenge in your writing?"

Elisa: "I hope not. I'm going to be honest with what I feel, but I think revenge is a bad reason for writing."

Luke: "How did your ex-husband react?"

Elisa: "It was pretty hard but he's a big reader. He understands. He's not thrilled. He wasn't touched by the essay in The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide to Guilt. His happiness that I had gotten published..."

Luke: "So much of Philip Roth's writing is revenge."

Elisa: "You think? Sometimes. I think he's at his weakest when he does that. That stuff reeks from a mile away."

Luke: "How would the people you grew up with at Camp Ramah, Hebrew High, USY, Harvard-Westlake describe you?"

Elisa: "First there'd be an awkward pause. Then? Oh, I don't know. Weird. Loud. Ugly. Obnoxious."

Luke: "How would your closest friends you've made since grad school describe you?"

Elisa: "That's what friendster is for, no? Cool. Attractive. "Cheerfully acerbic," according to one friend. Smart. Funny. Good things."

Great Book Or Great Marriage?

Whenever I ask high-achieving women if they'd rather write a great book (or direct a great movie, etc) or have a great marriage, they usually take offense and maintain they can have both and there is no need to choose, and no, they won't rank which objective is more important to them.

One who did not take offense to my question was married novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum, who emails me that she'd rather write a great book.

Elisa emails me: "That book or marriage/family question is laughable at best. I'd love to see you pose it to a male writer, if only for a true realization of its absurdity."

I ask myself that question and answer that I'd rather have a great marriage.

J.R. Taylor writes on Rightwingtrash.com:

The adult industry still offers some surprisingly conservative content. When I polled adult actresses for Playboy.com before the 2000 election, a clear majority preferred Bush to Gore as both a candidate and a potential sex partner.

This site isn't too judgmental about private lives, but The Devil In Miss Jones makes a perfect parable for many women in the aftermath of the sexual revolution. All the sex, none of the satisfaction.

Toby Young

On Wednesday night, July 5, 2006, Rob Long interviewed Toby for the LA Press Club Party for Toby's new book "The Sound of No Hands Clapping." The chat was funny but shallow. Here's a .wav file.

The two guys knew each other too well. Evan Wright would've been a better interviewer.

Toby reminds me of myself. He's established such a persona about himself through his writing that people are often disappointed when they meet him and he doesn't do anything over-the-top self-sabotaging.

I figure that the Mr. Big in his latest book has to be producer Joel Silver. Runner-ups would be Scott Rudin and Joel Schumacher.

The LAT(?) did a piece on Toby's new book but they didn't finger Mr. Big.

It's sheer nonsense when Toby and Rob say on stage that this guy [Mr Big aka Joel Silver?] will make people disappear if they anger him.

I interviewed Toby Young June 16, 2003:

Luke: "How do you like LA?"

Toby: "I love it. I wanted to move here. My plan when my book came out was to move to LA, try to take Hollywood, and then, when I inevitably failed, write a sequel about screwing up on the West Coast. My wife and I started our honeymoon here. We went on this driving tour of the Pacific Southwest. I hoped she'd fall in love with the place but she didn't. Now that she's having a baby, I think she wants to stay in the UK. I'd like to move here but it'd be tougher to write a similar book about LA because there are so many [already].

* I meet the charismatic high-energy high-octane author Aphrodite Jones who has a courier boyfriend who melts into the background.

* Andrew Breitbart came late. Luke Thompson came over and they started yelling at each other. Luke has taken shots at Andrew on his blog, including an insinuation on his blog of Maia's graduation party that Andrew made a racist joke to Ann Coulter. Andrew had been talking about two of his favorite black scholars -- Shelby Steele and Thomas Sowell -- and how great it would be to have them speak at some highschool's stupid diversity day.

* Conservative actress Leah Lipshultz wore t-shirts (she brought three and wore at least two over the evening) denouncing the LAT and NYT for their publication of how the U.S. government tracks terrorist money.

* The tall blonde who I thought was Mickey Kaus's date walked off with Michael Sonnenschein.

David Daley writes July 3, 2006 for the USA Today:

The Sound of No Hands Clapping could use more pompous anti-heroes like Carter. It opens with a big-shot Hollywood mogul seeking out Young to write a screenplay after admiring his endearing-jerk persona in the first memoir. But No Hands Clapping doesn't even manage to be How to Lose Friends, L.A.-style. For one thing, Young never names the studio head or almost everyone else he works with in Hollywood, so there's none of the delicious insider dish you'd expect.

When Young focuses on his L.A. story, he can still carry whole chapters just on the basis of his needy, neurotic, scheming, procrastinating persona.

Unfortunately, he also can abandon the story line for chapters at a time. His tangents include a banal minute-by-minute account of the birth of his first child, painfully long retellings of wedding toasts that fell understandably flat, long-running jokes about his resemblance to someone who led the British opposition party in the '90s, and a padded story about attending a screenwriting seminar.

Mary Carey Drama

At a "Mary Carey For Governor" Party, Sponsored by "Beverly Hills Pimps & Hos" clothing, Sutra Lounge, Costa Mesa, CA 06-30-06.

I call her Wednesday afternoon.

Harold answers. "Lukey Pookie.

"Jonathan Davis from Korn came to the party. O.B. Tryce. Shifty.

"Mary's new best friend is [the wrestler] Chyna (Joanie Laurer). She's always trying to kiss Mary with her big lips and Mary does not know whether to kiss her back or to run.

"Mary says that I abuse her."

Luke: "Are you punching her again?"

Harold: "That I physically abuse her."

Mary: "I've got the bruises to prove it.

"Everyone sees her fall on her head and do this stuff to herself. But the next day it's Harold. It's all about the story, Luke."

Mary: "I'm sitting in AIM getting my HIV-test. I've got my little cup with my bag of urine. I have to shoot a movie next week, my fourth for Legend, which means I'm going to go crazy in another day or two.

"When someone was going to introduce me to Chyna, they said she was like me, Jessica [Jaymes] and Tawny [Roberts] combined. I didn't believe them.

"Then I hung out with her and I realized they were correct."

Luke: "How's Jessica Jaymes?"

Mary: "Last I knew she was dating guys off MySpace. She's meeting random guys off MySpace and telling me how wonderful MySpace was and how different guys were coming over and she loved them.

"Kendra Jade took me to a comedy club two weeks ago. I called Jessica and she said, 'Oh Mary, I have a job at 9 p.m. I can't talk.'"

Luke: "She's a busy girl."

Mary: "I, unfortunately, am not busy like that. I've been feature dancing.

"Oh Luke, you're Jewish. My best friend from highschool, Amber, is Jewish. She told me that the big thing to say is, 'Next year in Jerusalem.'

"She's very Jewish. She wears her Hebrew name around her neck.

"I told her that a lot of the people I have to deal with in LA are Jewish and I told her I wanted a cool name. She told me to say, 'Next year in Jerusalem' when I do a toast.

"My highschool, Pinecrest, was 90% Jewish. My friends from highschool want me to convert [to Judaism]. I'm contemplating it. Honestly, I'm really into the Christianity thing too. It just seems that Jewish people are financially more successful than non-Jewish people.

"Tawny [Roberts] flew in to town. She's with her lawyer. She's suing Rich, Jesse Jane's husband [and Tawny's ex].

"I don't know the full details. I don't know who's right or wrong. I used to take Tawny's word as truth, but I didn't realize that when someone is drunk, they might not know accurately what is going on.

"It's nice to be around my friends from highschool. They're normal. They have jobs but they'd rather do nothing. They think I do nothing. They think all porn stars are rich because everyone's seen Jenna Jameson's E! True Hollywood Story."

Luke: "Are you and Tawny hanging out?"

Mary: "We're supposed to get together today. She's hanging out at a colonics place. She's unhappy with the weight gain of being four months pregnant. She's trying to figure out ways to lose weight while she's pregnant.

"I asked her if she was going to get botox. She said, 'You can't get botox when you're pregnant.' I guess it's OK to drink alcohol. Not sure of the rationale but it's good to know she won't harm the baby with botox."

Luke: "Do you do botox?"

Mary: "Just the frownlines between my eyebrows. I still want to have movement in my forehead.

"After that pilot of shot for VH1, I had a meeting with VH1. Now they just want to have a little documentary thing on me instead. Documentary probably means for free while reality means pay.

"When I was in their office, I asked, 'Is this going to be AFTRA? SAG?' Everyone tries to have porn stars on their show for free. I've done too much free stuff. I like doing news shows.

"Harold and I have been fighting a lot. He wants to have threesomes with strippers in strip clubs because he doesn't get anything out of the relationship. Why can't he have some sort of benefits? I said, 'Why can't we have a monogamous relationship aside from my six movies a year?'

"He says that if he's not in charge of my money, he should get to have sex with other girls. I think that's wrong. What do you think, Luke?"

I laugh.

Harold: "I am with this girl 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This isn't by my choice. She makes me look like the bad guy when other people want her to hang out without me. I have no problem with that. But she'll tell people, 'I can't. Harold won't let me.'"

Mary: "You got mad when I hung out with Mancow."

Harold: "I enjoy the break.

"She's super-clingy. Even when I take a s---, she's standing next to the toilet."

Mary: "If I go out without you, you always think I'm doing something shady."

Harold: "You are."

Mary: "You are just trying to defend yourself because I have bruises to prove [Harold beats her]. If you go to DailyCeleb.com, maybe you'll see the bruises on my shoulder."

Harold: "Why can't I talk to Luke?

"Luke, call me."

Luke: "Who is Bridgetta Tomarchio?"

Mary: "She's a reality star. She goes to mainstream redcarpet events, so photographers know her. I've been hanging out with her a lot.

"Wankus didn't know who Bridgetta Tomarchio was and he yelled at her to get out of the picture. So his name and Tyler's name aren't under their photos. Bridgetta was very upset, so she threw a bottle at him.

"At mainstream redcarpet events, everyone knows who Bridgetta is but in porno, no one knows who she is."

I email Wankus: "What happened between you and that reality chick Bridgetta? I heard she threw a drink at you because you told her to get out of a picture."

He responds: "I don't know who Bridgetta Tomarchio is but as I said on The Wanker Show on KSEXradio.com this past Monday, "Tyler (Faith) and I were hanging with John from Korn and our good friend Rob and having a nice time at some club in Orange County. We later bumped into Mary Carey who is back with Harold again, the man who supposedly beat her."

"Anyway...all is going well and we are about to take a group photo when all of a sudden, some trailer bitch comes jumping into the mix, sprawls her body out across the group and acts all freshman college drunk aand annoyingly tries to be in the photo. This pestered me and it had been a long week so in my best Wankus sarcasm I poked my index finger on her shoulder in a pesty, pointy fashion and said, 'you're very cute but get the fuck out of the picture'. She in turn pushed me, slamming my camera to the ground while I laughed at her. Moments later she returned with the bouncers and they told us to leave.

"I tried to tell the bouncers that it was no big deal, no need to kick us out but they wouldn't have it. And to make it worse, Harold, Mary's man, instead of getting my back said to me in front of them, 'yeah well you did go too far Wankus.' What the hell is that? There's no doubt about it that I went to far. There's no doubt about it that I handled it wrong. But c'mon man...there's an unwritten rule of thumb that when one of your friends, or at least someone you're having a good time with that night, gets into a situation...you get their back. That's how we do it on the East Coast. Don't know what the hell Harold was thinking. Regardless, Tyler and I left without incident and enjoyed a good laugh the whole way home."

Mary says I should join her and Harold at Starbucks because she just got her lips done.

Harold: "If you want to know how things are really going down, call me.

"Whenever I tell him I'm going to call the police or get lawyers, he says, 'Nobody will believe you in court because you are a porn star.'"

Harold: "I can get people to say how you fall down."

Mary laughs. "One reason I like Harold is that he doesn't try to pose in pictures with me. I could never date a guy like that. I find it weird if someone else is trying to be in the spotlight with me. Harold hides from the cameras.

"Harold hid from me in the club [June 30] because I was telling these guys that I wanted to have sex with them.

"Luke, you should hang out with us every day. I feel that if you were around, things wouldn't be so crazy.

"If I get my own reality show with a lot of money, I'll hire you to come with me everywhere.

"You could write my book. With my handicapped parents, the private Jewish prepatory school, I was raised by my grandparents, it's a unique story."

Luke to Harold: "Tell me the real story between you and Mary."

Harold: "She'll just snatch the phone from me."

Mary: "What does kosher mean? That it was blessed by the rabbi?"

Luke: "No. It is a complex series of laws."

Mary: "Next year in Jerusalem.

"Tell me some benefits of being Jewish over Christian. You chose to be Jewish. You did your research. Jewish people who are very Jewish have pride. You don't see Christian people walking around, 'I'm Christian.' All my Jewish friends, it's a whole connection they have. I feel left out."

Luke: "Wherever Jews have lived for the past 2000 years, they've been a minority, so they are always defining themselves against what the majority, the goyim, do."

Mary: "Will Jewish people be accepting of me? My friends are. But they think I'm rich and successful because they see me on the news. Jewish people pride themselves on being rich and successful. It's OK that you've done the pornography as long as you were successful with it. They don't seem to be judgmental."

Luke: "It depends on how religious the Jew. The more religious, the more judgmental."

Mary: "Christians are very open arms, forgiveness. If I came to a temple, would people be open-arms, forgiveness, hugs and kisses like they are in church?"

Luke: "No. Jews aren't as much into love and forgiveness."

Mary: "They're more into money?"

Luke: "They're more pragmatic."

Mary: "Harold would fit in as a Jew because he's not loving and he cares about money a lot. I always say, 'Isn't it more important to have love?' He says, 'No, I want to have money.'

"Christians say that love is all that matters. My Jewish friends say that money is all that matters."

I laugh.

Mary: "Do other girls make you laugh as much?"

Luke: "No."

Mary: "When you call me, you know you're going to laugh. Then you're going to be exhausted after talking to me."

Luke: "Yeah."

Mary: "Everyone feels exhausted after talking to me. I don't understand it. Is it because I talk too much? Switch subjects a lot?"

Harold: "If I'm going to be in a relationship, I have to feel that I'm being compensated for it. If we were to break up next week, what would I have to show for this relationship?"

Luke: "Nothing."

Harold: "She's not a good girlfriend, because every time she's away from me she's always talking about hot guys are. She'll say, 'If Harold wasn't with me, I'd ---- this guy.'

"Fine. If you want to have a relationship like that, bring some girls home. Let me ---- another girl.

"I help her with her website. I'm not allowed to look at another girl's website. I'm not allowed to look at a porno."

Mary says she dated NBA player Eddie Griffin. "He used to fly me and Tawny to Houston, etc, to hang out with him.

"He could've had a great career. He was [taken number] seven in the draft. But he smoked marijuana and would stay up until 4 a.m. drinking. He'd miss practice. I said to him, 'You could have such a wonderful career if you didn't party.'

"I thought he was getting things together but judging by this article, I don't think he has.

"That's what happens when you give a 23 yo NBA player millions of dollars."

Suit: NBA Player Watching Porn, Drunk Before Crash

(CBS) MINNEAPOLIS On March 30, Minnesota Timberwolves center Eddie Griffin was drunk and masturbating when he crashed his luxury SUV into a parked Suburban outside a store in Minneapolis, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by the man whose Suburban was hit in the crash.

Rikku writes:

Luke, Please save us readers from the predictable, trite details of Mary Carey's life. From what I have gathered from reading your site, the basics of her life are: she does porn, she gets drunk, she goes on the radio with Mancow, she gets drunk, she fights with her boyfriend, they break up, she drinks some more, and then she gets back with her boyfriend. Repeat.

I really enjoyed the interview with Greg Zeboray, although I never imagined there would be insurance for porn shoots. The best aspect of the interview was his ability to speak with authority, insight, and intelligence.

I implore you…more interviews like Zeboray, and exclude any future inteviews with Mary Carey.

By Elisa Albert

I look back now and pat myself on the back for what amounted to years of extended performance art, my body my tool for sociopolitical commentary, my every stomach roll a calculated fuck you to the beauty mafia and the culture that nursed it. I cultivated a righteous (if somewhat smug) anger and unleashed it upon anyone unwise enough to discuss the StairMaster or order salad dressing “on the side” within earshot of me.

A few years down the road, once I’d staged a definitive exit from the ranks of Rhinoplasty High, something strange happened.

Hotline

By Elisa Albert

He is still letting out rhythmic exhalations that echo and imitate the beating of my heart as well as the still present, inexplicable tick tick ticking in my head when I have exhausted myself of Important things I need to tell him. And, like an old lover in sync with me, he comes just when I finish, at the same instant, with a gasp and a pitiful roar. We both sit quietly, spent, entangled in the fiber optics between us.

Simcha Stress and Bridal Blues

By Elisa Albert in the July 11, 2003 Jewish Journal:

Whenever I tell someone about my impending nuptials, the reaction is the same.

First come the whoops of joy and the chorus of "Mazel Tovs!"

Then, invariably, the tone shifts. Faces fall. "How are you?" they ask, in much the same tone one might hear at a shiva call. "How are things going?"

Planning and executing a wedding, the implication suggests, are psychologically only slightly less taxing than death or divorce.

New York Times: WEDDINGS/CELEBRATIONS; Elisa Albert, Joel Farkas

August 17, 2003

Elisa Tamar Albert and Joel Samuel Farkas are to be married today by Rabbi Michael Gotlieb at the Saddlerock Vineyards and Ranch, a winery in Malibu, Calif.

Ms. Albert, 25, is keeping her name. She is a short-story writer and a candidate for a master's degree in creative writing at Columbia. She graduated from Brandeis and received a certificate from the Radcliffe Publishing Course. She is the daughter of Elaine Hearst Albert and Carl A. Albert, both of Los Angeles. Her father retired as the chairman and chief executive of the Fairchild Dornier Corporation, an aircraft manufacturer in San Antonio. Her mother is the director of the children's literacy program for the Los Angeles Jewish Federation.

Mr. Farkas, 34, is to begin his third year at Fordham Law School this month. He graduated from the Los Angeles campus of Antioch College. He is the son of Pamela R. Farkas and Dr. David E. Farkas, both of Los Angeles. His mother is a psychotherapist there, and his father a dentist.

Ms. Albert and Mr. Farkas grew up in the same Los Angeles community, and their families were acquainted -- her older brothers were friendly with him -- but the difference in their ages left them only vaguely aware of each other. In 2001, when they were both living in New York, their mothers arranged their first meeting as adults, although not for the usual reasons: Mr. Farkas's brother had died by his own hand seven weeks earlier, and Ms. Albert's brother had died in 1998 of cancer, and their mothers thought they might give each other emotional support.

Ms. Albert recalls that she made the first call to Mr. Farkas with trepidation. ''If your mom's just giving out your number,'' she said into his answering machine, ''feel free to ignore this message.''

But Mr. Farkas was glad to have someone from home to talk to. He teased Ms. Albert about her hesitant message, and they arranged to meet in Union Square for coffee.

Both remember their surprise, on that first meeting, that their two-person support group quickly seemed to become something else. ''I was like, 'Oh my God, he's really cute,' '' Ms. Albert said. ''I was chiding myself for being shallow in the face of something much more serious and weighty.'' Mr. Farkas, who also had a crush, worried that the family connection that had brought them together might cause some awkwardness, and that the the age difference could become an obstacle.

A week later, though, he called Ms. Albert and asked her to join him for a band performance at a downtown club. At his apartment afterward, they talked for hours. Just as her patience with his own hesitancy was about to give out, he kissed her.

''Basically, we didn't spend a minute apart for the next six months,'' Ms. Albert said. And in that time, the losses they had each suffered became not just the basis of their introduction but part of their relationship. ''We marvel that something so awful can give way to something so positive,'' she said.

The New York Times Divorce Announcement

Elisa Albert writes in The Modern Jewish Girl's Guide To Guilt:

… My New York Times wedding announcement read, as many do, like a smug sigh of relief: Nice privileged over-educated girl marries nice privileged over-educated boy. Accelerated offspring, sound real-estate investment, timely death, and flourishing of Judaica on the planet forthcoming. Continuity of the Jewish people thusly assured and hopes and dreams of respective families fulfilled, all with a lively hora, some lovely orchids, and top-of-the-line kitchenware to seal the deal.

But less than a year after our triumphant announcement (oh, and the getting married itself), my husband and I separated, and all that pride, joy and hope inscribed in the paper of record quickly gave way to a tailspin of failure, reproach, and profound guilt. It wasn’t only my life and heart I’d destroyed: I felt I had dashed the hopes of loved ones, wasted an obscene amount of money, and failed to fulfill the needs of my people by reproducing. I found myself fairly buried under the rubble.

...One day we wer fighting and I felt hopeless and things were going dreadfully, and the next his good friend's wife (a rabbi, no less!) ran into a friend of mine at a mall several states away and breezily offered up the news that we were kaput. Then an in-the-dark relative of mine, still more states removed, got a pseudo-sympathetic phoen call from said rabbi's sister-in-law. And so on. (Um, an aside, if I may? Perhaps we should collectively be focusing a little less on themed bar mitzvah parties and a little more on philosophical illumination of concepts like Lashon Ha Ra. Just a thought.)

Elisa Albert Interview With Publisher's Weekly

I was raised in a very insular and infuriating [Los Angeles] Jewish community, and one that proved endlessly dissatisfying to me as I grew up, but it's impossible for me to shake its influence. There's the desire to reclaim it somehow, make it my own and reinvent it in a way that's meaningful. There's a good deal of sentimentalism inherent in that urge, and one I think I share with the population of my stories.

>Your closing story at once apes and purports to address Philip Roth.

It's designed to pretty much dynamite everything that precedes it. I was aiming to level my own shtick, to poke fun at myself and my own obsessions. I'm most enamored of writers who seem self-aware and are willing to stand back and take aim at their own narrative patterns from time to time, like, say, Mr. Roth. I think I needed to do that in order to put this collection to bed and move on, narratively speaking. That it's fake-autobiographical and mock-revealing made the writing process hugely amusing, if only to me. And a great teacher of mine once said that as long as you're amusing yourself, you're onto something.

An Open Letter About Rabbi Saul Berman

Jewish Whistleblower writes in reaction to this:

Dear Rabbi [Avi] Weiss,

I am deeply disappointed and shocked at your decision to offer a position as Director of Rabbinic Enrichment to Rabbi Saul Berman at this time. Further, you refer to him in you public letter as "a person of great brilliance, integrity and sensitivity".

Unfortunately, many of us have found over the past few years that simply is not the case. Rabbi Berman has not only defended and protected now confessed sexual predator and child molester Rabbi Mordecai Gafni but he has continually made false public claims of investigations that he personally conducted and claims that determinations of Rabbi Gafni's innocence had been made (see copy of one of those public letters below). Rabbi Berman continued to make such claims while at the same time refusing to talk to several of the brave survivors of Rabbi Gafni who came forward and attempted to discuss the matter with him. Some investigation.

Rabbi Berman not only publicly defended Gafni, but he has attacked many individuals trying to protect others from being abused by Gafni in a very public campaign aimed at destroying their reputations and names. Ultimately, Rabbi Berman was responsible for the creation of the environment in which Gafni remained unchecked and where he abused further vulnerable victims.

Rabbi Berman throughout his conduct in the Gafni case, has demonstrated a total lack of character and integrity. His refusal to address the totality of his conduct publicly or do anything even resembling teshuvah towards the brave former survivors of Rabbi Gafni or their supporters forces me to question your judgment in hiring Rabbi Berman.

Rabbi Weiss, if Rabbi Berman is entitled to public honor from his colleagues without any accountability or teshuvah for his public conduct over the past years for protecting a sexual predator with public lies, then I believe you and your colleagues have failed to appreciate any of the lessons we had hoped you learned from the Lanner affair and our community's inability to deal with sexual predators will as such continue. I would have expected more from you.

The Mishnah, Avot 4:4, reminds us that sequestering a hillul Hashem will always be unsuccessful: "Whoever desecrates the name of Heaven in private will ultimately be punished in public, whether the desecration was committed unintentionally or intentionally."

(Public Letter Berman attached his name to, one of several)

To Whom It May Concern,

I have had occasion during the spring, summer and fall of 2004 to conduct an extensive personal inquiry in response to accusations which have been made against Rabbi Mordechai Gafni and publicized on the Internet. A more balanced version of these same issues than that on the Internet was raised in an editor's column by Gary Rosenblatt published in the Jewish Week newspaper, in which Rosenblatt asserted that he was unable to draw either a negative or positive conclusion about these issues, calling his extensive research into the issue an "investigation without a conclusion".

I have invested literally hundreds of hours in talking to parties directly and indirectly related, reading public statements posted on the Internet, and following the unfolding of this issue. I have come to a number of clear and unequivocal conclusions.

First, as I have written in a public letter together with Rabbi Joseph Telushkin and Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, we have found the decades-old accusations against Rabbi Gafni to be unconvincing now, as they were dismissed in responsible contemporaneous investigations. We believe that these accusations have been intentionally distorted, kept alive and circulated by a small group of people who have waged a vendetta-like campaign against Rabbi Gafni, creating a false and unfair impression of his character.

Second, the material posted on the Awareness Center website and related Internet blogs is not credible. Both in regard to Rabbi Gafni as well as to other cases posted there, the Awareness Center has grossly distorted facts and blatantly lied. Indeed, working together with a small team I have collected a host of examples of such behavior on the part of the Awareness Center. While the Awareness Center does address an issue critical to the Jewish community, that of sexual harassment and abuse, the center itself has unfortunately become an abuser itself of the first order.

The major other Internet poster of accusations against Rabbi Gafni is a certain Luke Ford. Luke Ford, who poses as a journalist, also runs a pornography site. He is a discredited Internet gossip columnist for the pornography industry, who, by his own written admission, regularly publishes libelous material as truth without even the slightest attempt at verification.

Third, I have urged Rabbi Gafni to continue actively writing and teaching his communities of students around the world. I have done so based on my firm conclusion that he poses absolutely no danger or threat to anyone. Indeed, I firmly believe that the notion suggested by Vicki Polin of the Awareness Center that he poses any danger whatsoever is patently absurd. While in some areas I would take issue with Rabbi Gafni's thought, particularly in areas where he departs from classical Orthodoxy, the work he is doing is serious and is of great benefit to the Jewish community worldwide.

I urge the readers of this letter to continue to support Rabbi Gafni's work, including his public teachings, writings, television projects and social activism. We are in need today of hearing the emerging voices of the next generation of Jewish leadership, and Rabbi Gafni's voice is one of them. I look forward to learning what he has to teach in the decades to come.

Rabbi Saul J. Berman (Director, Edah)

My New York Fact-Finding Mission August 16 - 23

Anyone who will assist me in my pursuit of truth will be amply rewarded, if not in this life, then in the world to come. Email Luke

I'm trying to remember if I have any friends or readers in New York. I'm passive about these things, so unless you email me, I'm probably not going to ask you to meet up.

Chaim writes:

I am making inquiries among those in the know. Will they fly you business class? Coach blows, coast to coast. But JetBlue is nice. Preliminary thoughts on hotels: It all depends on where you daven. Satmar? Bobover? Chabad? Each has its own charms and its own corner of Brooklyn. Manhattan is full of Godless Jews and Modern Orthodox who, as we all know, are but two generations removed from Baal worship.

Are You a Successful Woman in Need of REVENGE?

Chaim Amalek writes:

Has Luke Ford shamed you in front of your friends or otherwise wronged you? Do you want to get back at him the one way that will truly count, because it will require of him that he put more effort into his writing that is presently the case? The answer is not to hire Mexican day laborers to camp out on his front lawn or lawyers to sue him out of his flea infested bedding. It's to hire the author of this blog to work on your interesting projects so that he no longer has the time to help out Luke with his.

Just think of the shame and regret Luke will feel once he sees me tooling around town in a recent model Toyta Camry, taking this or that meeting with important people in Hollywood while he must make do with the company of wanker enablers and drives around in a serial killer van. He'll think to himself, "But for my lithium problem, that could have been me." And as for the person who hires me, you will get a solid, trustworthy inventive sort whom you can take to all manner of social events without any fear of embarrassment, just so long as the topic of discussion does not turn to the nefarious role of the Jews in polluting our culture with their insane and suicidal obsession with multiculturalism and in favor of unlimited immigration from the Third World. (Hey, I'm just kidding! I am, after all, a liberal upper west side Jew myself!)

Fill Luke's heart with regret. Just write to me at chaimamalek@yahoo.com, or call if you already have the number. Not only do I offer the chance at revenge as noted above, this can be your chance to hire a real New York Jew to have on call as your non-kabbalistic, non-scientological guru; your political adviser, idea incubator, and oh so much much more.

Remember, revenge is a dish best eaten with whipped cream.

Dennis Prager's Son David (23yo) Married Esti Warshawsky (Miami Beach, FL) July 2

On his radio show, Dennis waxed lyrical about the wedding. He said there's no comparison between getting married and living together without marriage.

Prager's step-daughter Anya marries next month.

Laurie Zimmet writes: "Mozel Tov, David and Esti. I'm send you lots of love and hugs from Baghdad...wishing you a world of joy! What a wonderful time in your lives! Mozel Tov!"

Photos from the wedding.

Greg Zeboray Interview

Greg calls me back Sunday afternoon, July 2, 2006.

Greg: "You are the first Adult industry person I've ever given an interview to. So I hope you make it a good one. I don't care if you take two hours. Everything is on the record."

Zeboray is profusely quoted in the latest issue of XBizVideo magazine.

Luke: "How did you get into Adult?"

Greg: "I first insured dancers in various strip clubs such as Main Attractions, Mr. Jays in 1991. I met some Adult people. My first clients were Jon Dough and Deidre Holland. I met a person who handled HIV-testing in San Diego County, which is where Dave Cummings went to get his HIV-test. Cummings called me about insurance. Dave referred me to Bill Margold. Bill said, this is out of level. Call Jeffrey Douglass and Lenny Friedlander. I called Jeffrey and Lenny and they said, yes, we want an insurance person for the industry.

"This is the summer of 1995.

"In terms of revenue last year, the Adult industry represented a little over $200,000 to our insurance agency. That's approximately half of my business."

Luke: "How good a job is the Adult industry doing protecting the talent from STDs?"

Greg: "As long as they are not condom mandatory, they are not doing a good job. HIV-testing gives a false sense of hope."

Luke: "Has your attitude to the industry changed over the past eleven years or have you changed?"

Greg: "The industry has changed radically. My attitude is still positive."

Luke: "What's your take on the Adult DVD industry's financial doldrums?"

Greg: "JimmyD called it the porn depression. I call it the first step in the coming new world order. The landscape of Adult production companies five years from now will not resemble today. I see mergers, acquisitions and many failures."

Luke: "How long will DVD last?"

Greg: "It's being replaced now by VOD and the internet. Within five years, companies will be lucky to get 100 pieces out the door. VOD will replace DVD in all entertainment, not just Adult. I believe there are peer-to-peer networks out there where people are already distributing scenes and whole DVDs for free."

Luke: "How's the Adult industry fighting piracy?"

Greg: "They don't have a clue. How many Adult companies file a copyright on their titles before they release a movie? It's almost nil. If you file a copyright on a movie prior to its release, you can not only go after [a pirater] for damages, but for all costs incurred. Conversely, once a movie is released, you can only go after the [pirater] for damages, not for your costs. You can spend $150,000 going after someone who made 300 copies of your movie and the judge gives you $3,300 damages."

Luke: "What do you think is the median number of units sold per release?"

Greg: "If you can get 900 - 1,100 pieces out the door on a new release, you should go to your church and thank God. If you can get $10-$12 per release, you should go back to church and thank God.

"A lot of these companies do not self-distribute. Distributors take anywhere from 20-30%. So if a typical guy gets 1,000 pieces out the door, that's $7,000."

Luke: "What kind of job do you think the Free Speech Coalition is doing representing the interests of the industry?"

Greg: "I don't think they're representing the interests of the industry anymore. They've made a commitment to become the second coming of the ACLU."

Luke: "So they're pushing more of a leftist agenda than representing the pragmatic business interests of the industry?"

Greg: "Absolutely. When somebody can tell me why an Adult industry trade group should oppose the Utah state registry [penalizes the email senders of sexually explicit material if they are not sure the recipient is at least 18], I'll listen. I see nothing wrong with that. The FSC position is that that is a restriction of fair trade. You can't send advertisements out to kids about alcohol or cigarettes.

"Right now the FSC has healthy membership because of 2257. As you know, I have the ear of most of the major companies in Adult. And they all tell me that they joined as an insurance policy. When that 2257 issue is resolved, you just watch how many people do not renew their memberships."

Luke: "Has anyone succeeded Russ Hampshire in his role as the industry godfather?"

Greg: "No. It's a tragedy. The industry misses him more than it will ever admit. I'm just glad that he's still an active part of my life."

Luke: "What do you think about the industry's trend towards increasingly demeaning product?"

Greg: "I think it's terrible.

"Porn is consumed by a minority of American households, by porn addicts, who get bored of regular porn and want more and more. People who let porn become their sex life, the worst product out there is screwing them up worse.

"I'm a devout libertarian. I don't believe in laws [regulating expression], but I've long thought that all of the entertainment industry has an obligation to society to better society. I believe you should have enough decency that you won't put out [detrminental] product even if it makes you money.

"Rob Black. I will say publicly what many people will say privately -- the day they lock him in a prison cell, the industry is far better off. The government at that point will have said -- here is the line you can not cross. Right now there is no line in the sand. But when Rob Black is convicted, they're going to know what you can and can not do."

Luke: "What do you think of Max Hardcore?"

Greg: "We find him uninsurable. That should tell you something. We received an application a couple of years ago and when we reviewed that website [maxhardcore.com], we decided it wasn't something we wanted to get involved in."

Luke: "Do you think the 2257 regulations will ever get enforced?"

Greg: "I do. Other than sending IDs out to what they call secondary producers, such as website operators, that's the only provision of 2257 that I see as wrong."

Luke: "Do you think there are any millionaires in the industry who are solely employees?"

Greg: "No."

Luke: "Do you think there are any billionaires in the industry?"

Greg: "No way."

Luke: "Maybe this isn't a $12 billion a year industry."

Greg: "It's a $400 million [DVD] industry, maybe $500 million.

"The industry went out and promoted these figures that included strip club revenues, hotel revenues, etc and came up with this [$12 billion] figure, hoping it would lead to the legitimization of the industry. What it has really led to is a bunch of idiots who watch this stuff and think that porn is the new gold rush. They jump in and produce a few movies and think they're going to get rich. Everyone I've seen who's done that has walked away with no money. We no longer insure these people. They don't stick around.

"The latest one I did not want to insure was two guys -- one in San Clemente and his partner in Newport Beach. They went to the AEE show in January, hooked up with a producer/director. One time I was told they spent $45,000 and one time I was told they spent $85,000. Let's say they spent $45,000 to produce a stupid beach movie, the same movie that's been produced for 20 years.

"That movie shouldn't cost a dime over $25,000. This producer/director has been around forever. It's not like people are going to stand in line to buy his product.

"You should have heard the grand plans from these investors about what they were going to do. I hope they each told their wife that they could lose all their money.

"They're going to have to pay a distributor 30% to distribute their movie. If God grants them a favor, and they get 1,000 pieces out the door at $10 a piece, that's $7,000 back. If they sell it to a cable channel, they're going to get about $6,000 for it.

"They're never going to get their money back.

"About a year ago, a guy took out a $100,000 equity line on his home. He gives that money to a performer/director to shoot four gonzo movies. They couldn't sell any of the movies.

"This guy went to someone I know and practically begged the person to help him sell those movies. The guy couldn't help him.

"The man who took out the equity line is going to lose his house.

"I don't feel sorry for the guy. That's just pure stupidity.

"I saw Steve Hirsch say on Neil Cavuto [Fox News show] that Vivid was a $100 million company.

"Vivid's DVD sales, if lucky, are $20 million a year. If Vivid is a $100 million company, that's with all the other businesses they own."

Luke: "What type of insurance do you offer?"

Greg: "Production insurance. Errors and Omissions insurance. You have to have production insurance if you want to rent locations and have a film permit and rent equipment and wardrobe."

Luke: "What changes do you see in production insurance?"

Greg: "Insurance companies are going to require that all cast and crew be paid on a W2 [making them employees rather than independent contractors who fill out a 1099] and covered by an active workmen's compensation policy."

Luke: "How often have production companies or insurance companies been sued for what has happened on a porn set?"

Greg: "As far as I know, it's never happened in the 11 years I've been selling production insurance [to pornographers as well as other shooters]."

Luke: "How much is production insurance?"

Greg: "For $200,000 in production costs, the full package is about $5,500 a year."

Luke: "How much work have you put in trying to sell health insurance to porn stars?"

Greg: "A lot of work over the years. With the previous generation of talent, I had a fair amount of success. The current generation of talent is not worth the time. The ones coming in the business now are 18-year old kids who are completely irresponsible and have no conception of what health insurance is about."

Luke: "How well do the talent agencies look after the interests of the talent?"

Greg: "Not well. What matters to the agents is how much work they can get the talent and how much money they can make off them. If I was talent, I'd go without an agent."

Luke: "What do you think about the rise of LA Direct Models from nobody to the top of the heap?"

Greg: "Derek is a hustler. He has no strong competition."

Luke: "What happened to World Modeling? They used to be number one."

Greg: "They're the walking dead. They got outhustled. Ten years ago, he had all the talent. He placed ads. He signed up the talent. All the directors and producers were looking at his books every day. But new agents such as Derek started taking the girls out to meet directors and producers and getting the girls driven to the sets."

Luke: "Will we see another Adult company going public in the next six months?"

Greg: "I know of one going public in the next six months."

Luke: "Do you think making porn is honorable work? Is it noble?"

Greg: "It's not noble. Even honorable? I'd probably say yes. As long as you do things legally and ethically, you are contributing to society, at least financially, if not with the product."

Luke: "Yet you know many people whose lives have been hurt because they worked in porn [as talent]."

Greg: "The people who come into the business as talent are f---ed up. No normal girl is going to do porn. The girls who come into porn are massively lazy. They don't want to work. They have no education. They're a bunch of idiots. They lost their moral compass long before they were old enough to do porn. They partied so much they were already into drinking and doing drugs. These are not normal middle-class girls. If they weren't doing porn, they'd be doing something else as bad as porn or worse."

Luke: "How can it be noble then to make your living off screwed up people?"

Greg: "I said it was just noble financially."

Luke: "If these girls are all screwed, it makes one squeamish to make one's living off them."

Greg: "Some people are born to put personal desires and financial rewards a step ahead of someone else's misery."

Luke: "It's a sick thing to make your living off people who are screwed up."

Greg: "It's not something I would do, but I'm not going to fault people who do it.

"Let me tell you a story. A girl I know of, 18 years old, comes in the business. Within three weeks, she's already gone. I hope she'll never come back.

"This girl was already an alcoholic when she came in. She'd already had a kid. She lived with her parents.

"She tried to tell her mom that she did porn and her mom flipped out. She said to me, 'I felt so bad that I just lied and said, 'Just kidding, mom. I'm really just doing modeling.'

"Every time she talks to her mom, her mom says, 'I want to see some pictures.' Of course her mom is proud of her. She thinks her daughter is a model.

"The agent should've said to this girl, 'This isn't the right career for you. Your family will find out. It's going to devastate your relationship with your family. You already have a drinking problem.'

"Instead, agents say things like, 'Don't drink while you're working. But look at all these jobs I got for you. You're going to make $10,00 in the next two weeks."

Luke: "Working in porn would have to devastate relationships between a child and her family."

Greg: "You better believe it. A girl is better off being a whore. She can go to San Francisco and turn tricks day and night. Then, when she leaves the business, she can come to LA and nobody is going to know what she's been doing. When a girl shoots porn, the images are distributed around the world. These images never go away.

"Her personal relationships are over. First, they lose almost every friend they have, not so much because their friends disaprove, but because of the lifestyle change. They lose the closeness with their family. They'll never have a normal relationship because every guy they're with will look at them as a whore. He'll say, 'This is fun. I'm having a great time.' But she won't be who he wants to take home to mom and introduce as the one who will give her grandchildren.

"When they make the decision to enter Adult, they are throwing away a big chunk of their future. If I could talk to every new girl who enters the Adult business, I'd explain everything I just told you. And if half of them turned around and walked away, I'd say that was wonderful."

Luke: "Have you slept with or dated any of these girls?"

Greg: "Never. For many reasons. One, I've almost always had a girlfriend. I do not believe in cheating. I don't have a girlfriend now. I have long figured that as long as I didn't even try to go on a date with a girl, nobody in the industry could ever say, 'Watch out for Zeboray, he's out to meet the girls.' Two. There can never be a bad situation between me and a girl that causes her to tell people to stay away from me and that kills my business."

Luke: "You must get to know these girls fairly well. How do you keep yourself from becoming Captain Saveaho?"

Greg: "I don't get to know them well anymore. When I first got around the industry, I tried to be a friend to a lot of the girls. They could call me. I'd let them stay at my house. It only took me a year or two to realize there was nothing I could do for them. It's so painful to watch girls swear they'd never step in the fire again, and then turn around and do it. I have ceased all personal chats with talent."

Luke: "So what do you think of the work of Mark Kernes?"

Greg: "Very little.

"I am a proud Christian. I was born a Christian. I was raised a Christian. I am a strong Christian. If Mark Kernes wrote his anti-religious stuff against the religious right who probably are potentially harmful, I could stomach it. But instead, Mark Kernes continuously writes absolute hatred for all Christians. Hatred for all religions period, but he seems to attack Christians more than any other.

"I support the industry. I support its legal right to exist. I like the industry. But because I'm a Christian, I'm a horrible person."

Luke: "Does he let you know that on an individual level?"

Greg: "I avoid him like the plague.

"A long time ago, when he was running for reelection to the board of the Free Speech Coalition, I came out with a list of who I thought should be elected and who I thought should not be elected. I said that Mark Kernes should not be reelected. That he brought nothing to the FSC except blanket approval for Jeffrey Douglas.

"Mark took great offense to that.

"Unfortunately, with all his rants, he's made me angry at him.

"He works for a company that is pro-free-enterprise, and Mark claims to be libertarian, but as far as I'm concerned he's 100% socialist."

Mark Kernes responds:

Gosh, I could have sworn I was an equal opportunity offender — despite the fact that the vast majority of religio-reactionaries are Christian — in fact, many (perhaps most) are members of the Southern Baptist Convention. (Feel free to read all about it in Kevin Phillips’ excellent work, “American Theocracy.”) But then you have nutbars like Joe Lieberman and Daniel Lapin who throw the stats all out of whack...

But I strongly doubt that Greg is a horrible person — since I haven’t had contact with him in several years, I’ll just have to take his word for that — just because he’s a Christian. Plenty of Christians follow the alleged teachings of their messiah and don’t seem to have nearly as much trouble reconciling people having consensual sex with people supporting family values — especially considering that sex is where families come from.

But Greg’s wrong if he thinks I “hate” religion. I don’t; I wouldn’t waste the emotion. I just think of it as a social disease.

And I’m “100% socialist”? Does that mean that now I’ll have to start charging for the 3D slides I give to the performers?

Fred writes:

1. Selling insurance to porners/performers is reasonably noble. It adds some financial responsibility to an otherwise irresponsible life. If one of them has a major injury/illness, at least their taken care of to the extent of their coverage. (Even if it's just workman's comp at the set, it's a step up, albeit not a big one.)

2. Why would somebody invest in porn? The financial return is only a portion of the motive. I think lots of folks invest in porn because they're interested in sex. If it were a purely financial consideration nobody would do it. In your opinion, are porners solely interested in the business aspect? What percentage of the film makers have never hit on a performer?

3. When there's a glut on the market, the amount of money to be made goes down. Are the pornstar wages being negatively impacted by this? They have to, sooner or later. Query what this will do to the economics of being a porn star and the quality of the girl who signs up.

Most people get into porn for primary reasons other than financial.

Talent wages, at least for the top tier talent, have yet to take a hit, but they must.

Greg: "You know why Mark Kernes, Mike Ramone, talk about religion all the time? Because deep inside they believe there is a God and they're scared to death."

Luke: "What do you think of AVN?"

Greg: "I suspect there are kinks in that armor. I bet a significant number of their advertisers are well behind on payment. If you look at the magazine, it hasn't gotten any bigger over the years. I bet that's why AVN has gotten so big in the consumer trade show business.

"If you want an honest to God trade publication, there's none finer than XBiz."

Luke: "What do you think of the performance of Dr. Sharon Mitchell?"

Greg: "Even though I don't care for her personally, I have some respect for her. She's driven. I introduced in 1997 to my neighbor, Sandy Petering, with QWest. They discussed testing and determined that the PCR-DNA test worked best.

"I do not believe the industry is served best by only having one testing facility. Competition brings out the best in people.

"HIV testing is wonderful for new people coming into the business. It's going to keep HIV-positive people out.

"I don't believe the tests should be distributed among the talent on a shoot. It should be private and only made public when someone tests positive.

"I love Darren James but he is an example of why I have a problem with the way the testing system is used.

"Sharon Mitchell has stated many times that Darren was infected in Brazil. Yet when he came back to LA and took the PCR-DNA test, he tested negative. It was after he worked for three weeks, apparently spread the virus, and retested, that he came up positive.

"The point is that Darren was already positive when he received the negative test.

"If you walk on to a set today, and they've finished the boy-girl scene, and you walk up to that girl and ask, 'Was the guy you just worked with HIV-negative?' Her answer will be yes. You'll say, 'How do you know?' She'll say, 'I just saw his test.'

"'Honey, I hate to tell you, but that test does not say he's HIV-negative. Didn't the Darren James situation prove that to you?'

"It's being improperly used and creating false hope.

"Mark my words -- if they stay non-condom, there will be another outbreak. It could affect somebody that's big, such as Vivid."

Luke: "Vivid for so long was condom-mandatory but now they're advertising some of their movies as condom-free."

Greg: "I have reason to believe that financially they had no choice."

Luke: "How has working around this industry affected your social life?"

Greg: "None, because I don't tell people. I don't not tell people because I'm ashamed of it. When I first started dealing in the business, I would tell people, but I got so sick and tired of the stupid questions...that I just shut up about it."

Luke: "Why do you think the DVD market is going to largely disappear in the next five years?"

Greg: "Because cable VOD, computer VOD, and peer-to-peer networks, are going to take away the DVD market and this industry will be in trouble.

"If you talk to any of the facilitators such as TVN in Burbank, they'll tell you there's only room for one or two more cable VOD channels in this country. Then all the cable networks will be full.

"We do the E&O (Errors and Omissions) on a few cable VOD channels. Now the cable markets are paying a licensing fee of 10% (that's how much the porn producer gets for the VOD sale of his product, the Internet VOD companies (AEBN, Hot Movies etc) pay between 25-35%)."

Luke: Who are your friends in the industry?

Greg: "Russ Hampshire, Robert Herrera and John Chambliss (Acquarius Broadcasting Corporation, a cable VOD channel), Jim Malibu, Sieg Badke at Pure Play, Drew Rosenfeld at LFP Video."

Luke: "What kind of job do you think Drew is doing with LFP Video?"

Greg: "Wonderful.

"We've insured LFP for a while. We've had some issues that probably would've resulted in the severing of our relationship. Dustin Flynt worked with us to renew the relationship. But LFP was on the watch. We kept an eye on what was going on. We were very uncomfortable having directors who were horribly drunk -- drunk all day, drunk all night -- being in charge of sets. Ultimately, we pay for that risk.

"When Drew Rosenfeld took over the video division, LFP was removed from the watch list. That's how comfortable I am with Drew's ability to make the hard decisions and see to it that things get done properly such as getting rid of directors who think they should be able to drink all day.

"As long as Drew is running that company, they're a model client.

"He's made hard decisions. Some people have gotten their feathers ruffled.

"I worry to death that Drew physically can not handle this kind of stress and that it is going to kill him."

Luke: "I guess LFP stopped distributing Vivid because that became unprofitable for LFP over the past year?"

Greg: "I understand that it has never been profitable."

If the Vivid deal was unprofitable from the beginning, why did LFP renew the deal in the summer of 2005? It only became unprofitable in the last year. Also, if you look at the interview Larry did with AVN a few months ago, Larry was quoted as saying that most of LFP Video's profits in 2006 would come from the Vivid deal.

Luke: What happened at Red Light District?

Greg: "When Dion started that company, he made sweetheart deals [with various directors]. Now business ain't good. I don't care who you are. David [Joseph's] just been ridding himself of people with sweetheart deals. He's making prudent business decisions so they can go forward profitably. Everyone's interpreting that as though they're broke, but I don't think they are in terrible shape."

Luke: "Who are the top six production companies in terms of revenue?"

Greg: "You're not talking distributors such as Evil Angel?

"Vivid, Wicked, Digital Playground, Adam & Eve..."

Luke: "Red Light District?"

Greg: "They are not a production company. They never have been. They're a distributor.

"Everybody wants to go to Evil Angel because they sell pieces like crazy. They get top dollar. John Stagliano does not screw around. In flat-out intelligence, John Stagliano is the most intelligent man in Adult."

Luke: "He's probably the most respected."

Greg: "He commands respect and he deserves respect."

I call Jon Papernick (JonPapernick.com) in Waltham, Massachusetts Sunday afternoon, July 2, 2006.

Jon: "Last time I was interviewed, I mentioned that Henry Miller was one of my influences and the person wrote 'Henry James.' Maybe you want to run it by me..."

Luke: "When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Jon: "I did want to be a writer but I didn't think I'd be good enough. I took a creative writing class in eleventh grade, and my teacher (Mrs. Gerard) told me I was not a good writer. She died before my book came out.

"As someone who's been a teacher for the past six years, it's been my primary mode of income, I would never say that to anybody. What we write is always a work in progress."

Luke: "You'd never say that to anybody? Even if their work sucked?"

Jon: "Not as a teacher. I'd say they hadn't fulfilled the ambitions of the story.

"When I was 18, I wrote and self-published a novel (Turned Into Earth) that was an absolute piece of junk. I sensed a lot of resentment from my friends. In a sense, everybody wants to be a writer. They all want to publish a book. Here I am calling myself a writer... If they're not doing any writing themselves, in a sense they feel like they're wasting their lives.

"You've got to play being a writer before you are a writer. You've got to convince yourself that you are one before you have the chutzpah to do it."

I tell Jon that I've made my living from blogging for nine years but I've never made more than $50,000 in a year.

Jon: "Wow. I've never made close to that and I've never blogged."

Luke: "Whenever I come out with a book, half the people I mention this to respond, 'How are you going to market it?' I find that annoying."

Jon: "I didn't get that question. When my first book (The Ascent of Eli Israel and Other Stories) came out, I wish I'd gotten that question. I got a great review in The New York Times when the book first came out, and I assumed it'd just go from there. I didn't do any marketing. Nobody said anything. I wish people had. I would've gotten a website way back then, and made phone calls to independent bookstores, made postcards and bookmarks, had friends write reviews on Amazon... Whatever it takes.

"As far as marketing, the best thing is to just get your writing out there. I'm going to write a weekly column for Jewcy.com called 'The Perfect Jew.' That should get some attention. I have to go out and do things to make myself a better Jew."

Luke: "How were you raised Jewishly and where are you today?"

Jon: "I went to synagogue twice a year and hated it. The biggest and oldest Reform temple in Canada - Holy Blossom. It was really Reform. I was the third generation of my family to have gone there. It wasn't for me. My parents didn't practice. They sent me to Hebrew school in first grade and I failed.

"I grew up with any antipathy for Judaism. I had a bar mitzvah. I crammed for it for six months in the rabbi's basement.

"I did it in Hebrew but I didn't know what it meant.

"A lot of your education comes from home, so if you're not getting the support, you don't follow through with it. Through my early twenties, I had a real antipathy towards Judaism. It wasn't until I went to Israel at age 22 (in 1993) that I got a sense of pride about being Jewish. It was the turning point in my life.

"I don't practice at all, that's why I'm doing The Perfect Jew column. It springs out of a quote from Leon Wieseltier. He said that people from my generation don't know what they're rejecting. They're slackers. Eighty percent of my religious education comes from the writing of my stories.

"Writing is a spiritual act. It's a meditative prayer-like act, trying to drag creation out of the darkness of your subconscious. I'm interested intellectually but I don't enjoy going to synagogue. We go a couple of times a year. Part of the reason I don't enjoy it is that I don't know the songs. You go there and they start singing and I have a mental block and can't remember them. For The Perfect Jew, I'm going to try to learn some of these prayers.

"If you sit in a classroom and don't speak, it's boring, but if you're involved in the conversation, it's great.

"We just had a son seven weeks ago. He's my first kid. We want to bring him up with a strong sense of Jewish identity.

"My wife is the daughter of a Reform rabbi."

Jon spent his first 22 years in Canada (getting a B.A. in Creative Writing from York University) and a couple of years after returning from Israel in 1997 while he saved up for graduate school (converting his Canadian dollars at the rate of 62 U.S. cents per, he got an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College).

Luke: "Did you get your money's worth from Sarah Lawrence?"

Jon: "Yeah. It was great. I can't tell you what I learned except that I think I learned everything. It's osmosis. You're reading stories, writing stories, critiquing stories. You're living it 24 hours a day. Almost immediately upon arriving in graduate school, my writing went from good to very good."

Luke: "What crowd did you hang out with in highschool?"

Jon: "We were into punk music. We rode skateboards. We drank a lot. We had a lot of fun. But we were nice. We didn't get into fights. We weren't bad kids. We enjoyed hanging out. I'd sit by the convenience store drinking a slurpee, getting drunk, watching TV."

Luke: "At what age did you become interested in girls?"

Jon: "Twelve."

Luke: "At what age did you become a man?"

Jon: "Seventeen."

Luke: "Is there any non-sexual event you'd describe as the demarcation point of when you became a man?"

Jon: "Maybe it was seven weeks ago when I had my baby. There are many times that you think you've reached it but then you have another point... Maybe I won't reach it until I don't have a father."

Luke: "Tell me about you and God."

Jon: "Growing up, I was definitely a nonbeliever. Listening to punk music, I questioned everything. Nothing made any sense. I believe in God the Creator. A God who created the earth and then absented himself. I have a sense that God left an imprint on our DNA which acts as a representative of him or herself, meaning guilt. Guilt is a representation of God. It keeps us from doing things we should not do. There's a certain code we have to live by and that's God."

Luke: "What did you love and hate about the practice of journalism?"

Jon: "I liked doing it in Israel because it was an interesting subject. What I hated is that when I came back to Canada, I was only able to land a job on the financial desk doing gold price and pork futures, which was boring. I liked how dynamic journalism can be, but it can also be crushingly boring. Ultimately, it was disappointing. I thought journalism would be a way for me to make a living while I wrote my fiction but I realized that it exhausts you. It takes all your energy away from you that you could be using for writing. When you're a journalist, you work all year round, and long hours. When you're a teacher, you get Christmas off, March break, and summer. When I worked as a journalist [in Canada], I had six off days in a year and a half.

"I'm doing more personal journalism now. Things I care about. I'm less interested in going out to a fire house and asking, 'Why did city hall burn down?' I'm a little self-centered in my journalistic desires now, but I've earned that right.

"I use my fiction tools when I write my journalism now.

"I like to craft my stories. When you write for a wire service, you have to bang those stories out.

"But I did get to meet Yassir Arafat, which was bizarre."

Luke: "Other things you loved about it?"

Jon: "Not really, otherwise I'd still be doing it."

Luke: "What do you love about writing fiction?"

Jon: "I love the way it makes me feel when I am on the ball, in the zone, when I'm writing something that is working. That is the best feeling in the world. It's totally self-contained. You're not relying on anybody else for this happiness. You don't rely on your wife. You don't rely on your parents. You're all alone in the room and making this incredible act of creation.

"What I don't like is when I'm not writing. I have this terrible feeling that I should be writing. I don't write every day. I haven't written any fiction since my baby was born. There's this terrible feeling that life is passing you by."

Luke: "What kind of sexual wattage has your writing created in women?"

Jon: "Some when I was an undergraduate. When I was 21, I had two girlfriends at the same time. That didn't work out, but for about a year and a half, it seemed to excite people. And I wasn't even any good at the time. My wife will say that when she read my story, The Ascent of Eli Israel, that was when she realized she wanted to marry me. She thought it was the best story she'd ever read.

"Sometimes I think I can count all the people who've ever hit on me with two hands."

Luke: "What do you love and hate about teaching?"

Jon: "I love teaching. You do get to use your writing skills. It takes [away] the solitariness of being a writer. What I don't like is grading. That is why I don't teach composition. At Boston University, I had to grade 60 essays every two weeks."

Luke: "What's the situation with your novel, Who by Fire, Who by Blood?"

Jon: "This is a problem. It's novel that took me four years to finish. It makes my collection of short stories look like Disneyland, and those stories were disturbing. I can't get it published. My agent sent it around and he couldn't sell it. I fired him and sent it around to a bunch of publishers and couldn't sell it. Then I went back to my agent, revised the novel, threw out 65 pages, and he sent it out to various publishers who like it better, but I think they're afraid of it. It has the emotional sensibility of Richard Wright's Native Son and Camus' The Stranger.

"The other Jewish writers who came up at the same time as me are writing things that are friendlier. This is an unfriendly book."

Luke: "Is your book linear [and realistic]?"

Jon: "Yes. These days, publishers seem to want to have novels set in two to three different times or places. Mine is set in one place and goes from point A to point Z. It's a traditionally told story. Publishers today like to see narratives chopped up, which often makes up for writers not knowing how to tell a story. I liked Everything is Illuminated, but there's not a story there. It's a short story that's been expanded to 300 pages."

Luke: "How much research do you do for your fiction?"

Jon: "It depends. I never do research for three months and then write. I write and then research as necessary. As I need things, I read things."

Luke: "At what stage does your wife [of four years] read your work?"

Jon: "Sometimes every page, which drives her crazy. When I have a draft, she'll always read it. She's my built-in bulls--- detector. She's not a writer. She's not a major reader. But she's one of the smartest people I know and she'll keep me on track."