Stop Me If...

Go ahead. Click here. But don't blame me.

Gotta admit the McCoy and broccoli jokes got me going.

No One Raps Like a Jewish Nazi

Mein Shtetl Ist Dein Shtetl

Jew in the Face and Longer Each Day

One of my exes is going in for his second nose job next week. Like all of his siblings and cousins, he received his first one as a high school graduation present from his Jewish grandmother. The first one was done by a hack doctor in Long Island City during the second Reagan Administration. We're both half Jewish, though my lineage is paternal and his is maternal, so I've been told by several other exes that I'm a fake half Jew. Regardless, this ex said his main attraction to me in the beginning was that I had such a Jewish face and features, except that my nose was so clearly from the French lineage of my mother. Looking at photos from two, three generations and further back of ancestors in Quebec and eventually Normandy, I can see the same nose. So he's probably right. I don't exactly love my nose, but I don't obsess about it the way I do my other flawed body parts.

He, like 85% of my exes, was born in 1968. Three of them have had some form of surgical facial transformation and are a good decade my juniors. Thus I am sure that I am desperately overdue. When I was in my 20s, I was dating a guy who said that if he had all the money in the world, there would be two things he'd want to do to transform his appearance. I shocked him by saying that there were 78 things I'd want to change. I'm so old now, I don't know that I'd even bother with such futile procedures. And it might take the Jew out of my face.

Since last week's purchase of The Jazz Singer, I've been continually obsessed by Jolson and other Jewish entertainers that died or were popular years before I was born. One of the great revelations in The Jazz Singer is that Jolson swung his hips much more than Elvis did three decades later. I'm sure seeing someone so ethnic doing that really scared them in Peoria. More than Jolson, I adore Eddie Cantor. There is something so intentionally obnoxious and unstoppable about him. Whoopee (1930) is one of my favorite musicals, nothing beats a two-strip Technicolor musical about a Jew in black face out west. I love his version of Everybody Loves My Baby even more than Nina Simone's.

And just look at Eddie's face above and then glance at my profile. Couldn't he pass for my great-grandpa?

I've been re-watching the opening minutes and extras of Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) . Things got really boring once they left the Hoovervilles in Central Park. However, they did have Jolson singing I'm Sittin' on Top of the World during the opening credits. Too bad they didn't let Kong sing some Eddie Cantor songs during his stage act. He certainly could pass for my uncle Chester, a burly Jew in black face.

Octogenarian Jazz

Like many people, The Jazz Singer is so pivotal a cultural milestone that I am sure that I have seen it even though I've only witnessed a few seconds in countless cinematic historical reviews and references set in films of the same era. I actually did see the wretched 1980 remake and have managed to erase 99% of my recall of it.

Yet I succumbed to today's 80th anniversary reissue of the 1927 original which embodies the word deluxe even by Criterion standards. The restoration is so flawless, it's hard not to think it's a complete recreation from scratch. What's especially disconcerting is just how ethnic such a hugely successful mainstream, pre-World War II film was. Coming from a Jewish family that suffered mid-American anti-semitism during the same era, I can't help but wonder how it was received in places like Indiana, Kansas or Oklahoma at the time where Catholics and Jews were the main targets of the Klan.

In recent years I've come to gain an unexpected appreciation of Jolson, especially in the superb 1933 Hallelujah, I'm a Bum. The black face scense are still pretty hard to stomach, but the three disc accoutrements are enough to make me foget all of that, adding one more volume to my ever growing library of pre-World War II cinema.UPDATE: This article in the Miami Herald sheds some light on the racial blind spot this otherwise thorough reissue offers. How odd that this and the other early cinema milestone, The Birth of a Nation, are so intertwined with the most sordid, tragic aspects of our nation's history.

Have a Pluckin' Good Yom Kippur

On what day do rural Haitians and Upper East Side Jews have a great deal in common? Why, today, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, when traditional rabbis often hold a chicken above their heads for sacrifice.

In personal ads, I often note that I am religious but not spiritual. That's the handy thing about being a Unitarian with its Piccadilly Cafeteria approach to religion. You can pretty much pick whatever you want and never have to go to confession or hear sermons about sin. I love all the pageantry, costumes and rituals of various religions provided I don't have to get all spiritual. Give me costumes, sets and lines and I'm always up for a performance. However, I draw the line when it comes to killing chickens.

In addition to being one half Jewish I am also an amateur juju man. My powers are great, but like Mothra I only destroy to save the word. So if you're a fire breathing lizard, consider yourself warned. Otherwise have a jolly, holly Yom Kippur and atone like it's 1999!

So Do I