Ramones-mania
Most people may have been more concerned with the Presidential visit this past week, but it was really just an advance party for the main event – the Israeli premiere of The Ramones. Or at least, the sole surviving member Marky who has recruited three look-and sound-alike Ramones to recreate the ‘hey ho let’s go’ atmosphere of the original punk pioneers.
All the mohawks came out in Tel Aviv Thursday night, along with leather jackets of all persuasions, and everyone had a blast, including my 13-year-old son.
Here’s a taste…
Laugh til it hurts dept.
A little taste of New York City comedy club ambience arrived in Israel last week as four American standups gave a series of performances to benefit Crossroads, a Jerusalem-based center for at-risk Anglo teens.
LA-based comic Avi Liberman, who organized the talent for the tour, has been bringing a revolving door of his funny friends over on a regular basis ever since 2002. This year’s lineup consisted of hilarious journeymen Marc Schiff, Reggie McFadden and John Mulrooney, all boasting numerous TV, club and film appearances.
Avi Liberman, right, and his merry band of comics. (photo: Joe Hyams)
All of the comics ‘localized’ their material except for McFadden – whose riffs on crackheads, ‘the ladies’ and Shaq left some of the more insular and/or religiously observant American-Israeli members of the audience shifting in their seats.
Everything else from all four was spot on, though, including Liberman’s eye-watering description of performing for the US troops in Afghanistan, Schiff’s deadpan Jewish nebbish persona, and Mulrooney’s dynamic delivery and personality. Despite being one of the two ‘gentile’ performers, Mulrooney’s peppered his set with a generous offering of Yiddish.
They’re still performing a couple more times this week, so if you have a chance, don’t miss a chance to catch the act.
License to ill
One of the only negative sides to having a birthday last week was the fact that my driver’s license expired. Usually, drivers are mailed their renewal form, along with payment instructions, and it works remarkably efficiently.
However, this time I didn’t get anything in the mail, and just by chance I happened to glance at my license a couple days before it expired. So I went online to the Motor Vehicles Registry, and saw a notice that said ‘if you haven’t received your license renewal form in the mail, call here’.
Calling the number, I received the usual slew of recorded messages and instructions, and eventually arrived at the right department, where I had to punch in my ID #, in order to have the form mailed to me.
But, after processing the number, the automaton man said “Your request cannot be completed due to unpaid fines. You need to report in person to the licensing bureau.”
Grumbling, I wracked my brain to remember any unpaid parking tickets I had acquired and not paid, but couldn’t think of any. And I knew for sure that there were no outstanding moving violations. So grumbling further, I headed the next day to the licensing bureau.
Even though there was a huge waiting room, around 10 clerks and a computerized number taking machine, most people were crammed in a snakeline in front of the Information booth.
“What’s all this for?” I asked a woman at the end of the line.
“It seems like everything you have to do with your driver’s license you get here instead of there,” she said pointing to the empty room.
Eventually I made my way to the front, presented my ID card and began to say “I didn’t receive my renewal…” when the clerk cut me off and her computer printer began spewing forth a printout.
“Here’s a temporary license for six months,” she said.
“Great, and you’ll send the renewal form for my permanent license in the mail?
“Not exactly,” she said, pointing to a stamp in the middle of the new license – “Temporary due to unpaid fines”
“What are these unpaid fines?” I demanded to know. “Just give me a bill and I’ll pay the damn thing.”
“No, we don’t have that information, you need to go to the Jerusalem Court offices on the fourth floor of the central bus station,” she said.
So, they weren’t giving me my license, but they couldn’t tell me why. Luckily on the back of the temp. license was a phone number for ‘court records’.
When I got back to my office, I called the number, and actually received a human on the line. I told her my story, she punched in my ID # and in 15 seconds said, “here it is, you owe 160 shekels for a violation on Shmuel Hanagid St.”
My mind raced furiously. “I don’t recall ever getting a parking ticket there,” I eventually said.
“Well,” the clerk responded with a laugh,” it’s not exactly a parking ticket, it’s a jaywalking ticket.”
And sure enough, I did have a jaywalking ticket from over a year ago, which I was ignoring because it made me so angry. And now it had come back to haunt me.
“You mean, I can’t get my driver’s license because I have a jaywalking ticket? How absurd,” I said.
“Oh, that’s nothing. The computers are hooked up with any kind of debt you might have. Even if you haven’t paid your TV tax, they can stop you from getting your license.”
Feeling defeated, I insisted on having the last word on this.
“Do you take credit cards?”
Leading Wikipedia editor to visit Israel
Filed under: Blogging, General, Life, Pop Culture, Technology
Thanks to our friends at Israel’s Consulate in New York, and the America- Israel Friendship League, and with a little help from yours truly at ISRAEL21c, one of Wikipedia’s leading editors will be coming to Israel in a week’s time.
Wikipedia’s David Shankbone is joining a half dozen American high tech and science reporters who are coming to visit some of the country’s science centers and receive some great story ideas – the latest developments at the Weizman Institute, the Technion, Google Israel, IBM Israel and some of the major personalities like Yossi Vardi will all be on the agenda.
As David Saranga, the spokesman at the consulate in New York, explained to The Jerusalem Post the rationale for bringing Shankbone: “More than once we have faced editors connected to Israel that appear on Wikipedia in English that do not represent the reality in Israel. We decided to initiate a visit by Shankbone to describe Israeli reality as it is.”
Heh heh, just wait till he experiences the reality of Friday night in the eye of Tel Aviv club and bar life that we have planned for the group with our host without compare Haggai. Wikipedia will have to come up with a new definition of ‘cool’.
Finding a new bogeyman
If the US intelligence reports that Iran has stopped work on its nuclear weapons program are indeed true, then it looks like we’ll have to begin focusing our attentions on other existence-threatening trends here in Israel that have until now gone neglected.
Feel free to add your own threats as they come to you.
1. Drivers who don’t use blinkers – not only is it dangerous, but it’s downright annoying.
2. People who don’t say ‘excuse me’. Hey, I know it’s the quaint ‘sabra’ Israeli way, but someone walking out of building onto the sidewalk straight into you without nary a shrug, has got to stop.
3. The ads on Channel 2. Has there ever been a TV station with more (and lousier) advertisements? Anyone for a boycott? Their shows aren’t so great either.
4. The school strike – can’t we just put reps from the teachers and the Treasury in a steel cage and lock the gate until they come to some kind of agreement? I have to get my kids out of the house!
5. Using the sidewalk like a trash can. Cigarette smokers and garinim eaters, this means you!
6. Visits by dignitaries. Yesterday’s announcement that George (Iran doesn’t have a nuke program) Bush will be visiting Israel in January already has traffic backed up in anticipation. Plan on staying away from Jerusalem during those hellish days.
Sorry, I always get like this whenever I come back from a visit to Maine.
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