for 6 September 2000. Updated every WEEKDAY.
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Filler
Dear Polly: Oh Polly Polly Polly. Oy Polly Polly Polly. You just don't understand. Jews are every bit as crazy as everyone else. It's just that we're allowed to drink. Indeed, we're required to drink. We've got special prayers for it. It's so basic to our faith that in Iran we've got special dispensation to make our own wine. (Iranian Jews tend to have lots of friends when the wine is ready.) Hell, we've got a major holiday on which we're required to get drunk. It helps. A lot. But don't go wacko and start praising Jewish food. As the dear late Zero Mostel so wisely put it, all that schmaltz has killed more Jews than Hitler. Alan S Kornheiser <ASKornheiser@prodigy.net> Jewish food no good? Clearly you've never been to Catholic mass. And let me tell you about what my family eats every Christmas, our traditional Eastern European Catholic meal. Turkey? Ham? Croissanwiches, all around? Nay. Raw garlic, lima beans, buns soaked in honey, sauerkraut, and prunes. Actually, it all sounds pretty good to me, right now. Anyway, you might be just as crazy as anyone else, but there's a big difference between letting that crazy out whenever you feel like it, and swallowing it back until you're stockpiling automatic weapons one day and you're not quite sure why. I mean, my stockpile is for the coming Apocalypse, but it took me years of therapy just to figure that out. Kvetching, but silently, Polly  Dear Polly, While your assessment of my fellow tribesmen is in some measure accurate, I don't think you've quite got the full picture. You see, being a cutesy vulnerable man in a culture of bossy demanding women is horribly frustrating and at length, soul crushing. Young Jewish men like myself often flee their claustrophobic families, drink heavily, and date schikses ranging from the ever so slightly tweaked (usually half-jews) all the way to the unhinged (usually catholic). Well some do. I guess the other ones become dentists and call their mothers once a week. What I'm saying is, it's very complicated, but hey, what isn't? Thanks for amusing me. I'm going to go eat breakfast now. Then I'm going to call my mother. Jonathan Newman <newmanj@chass.utoronto.ca> Yeah, yeah, you flee your families, screaming loudly, but then get back just in time for dinner. I know all about it. Far better to complain loudly, flee, rebel, date stupid goys, and return refreshed and ready to stay with your tribe from that day onward, than to seethe quietly, pretending to enjoy your family, all the while never telling them what you really think or want, until one day you realize what that stockpile of weapons is for. Well, that's what MY stockpile is for, but hell, it took me several really strong acid trips just to figure that one out! Polly Ok...got a really good laugh out of this one about Jews having the coolest emotional make up ... here's a good Jewish family story ...Last thanksgiving there's a huge fight with my brother and my mother, I get involved and my brother and I practically come to blows ...he storms out of the house...and then the next morning, he and Mom go out to breakfast and everything's fine... My nice Jewish wife (who is easy on the eyes) was even shocked at this one. Jesus Christ! Ken Kadet <Kadetk@fleishman.com> Nice one! Thank god you're Jewish and not a repressed Wasp or a Catholic, because what if that fight broke out and your brother had a stockpile of weapons in his basement like I do? MY stockpile is for killing really big insects, but it took me a divine visit from God himself to uncover that mystery. Hail Mary! Polly Filler 1. Horseradish 2. Fifteen different Yiddish words to describe levels of human stupidity from mild incompetence to out and out bastardry (thanx, S.J. Perelman for pointing this out.) 3. S. J. Perelman, 4. J.L. Dreyfus (on Seinfeld), 5. Jews embodied the only alternative to rampant anti-intellectualism in LA when I was growing up in that hateful megalopolis, 6. R. Crumb, especially for coining the phrase "Hateful megalopolis" to describe LA, 7. Joseph Heller, 8. Women that make a beta-male feel like he shouldn't toss himself off a bridge just yet, 9. Mel Brooks when he was young and funny, 10. everything else I can't remember now. I still think that Joseph Lieberman is a baptist in Jewish drag, and Spielberg's bar-mitzvah movies like Saving Private Ryan are ways of trying to ease his Jewish guilt--but he should feel all the more guilty that it wasn't Saving Private Horowitz. Keep it up - you're on to something, as usual. Richard Von Busack <regisgoat@earthlink.net> You know, it's funny you should mention Horseradish, because when I was younger, Jews, like Horseradish, just made no sense to me. Too strong and bitter! Now, though, I find both truly delightful, and loathe the bland, squirming pussy who avoided them in the past. I had no backbone. I couldn't handle them. Now I'm drawn to them like a moth to spicy mustard and raw onions. Open-minded, with chronic halitosis, Polly Excellent article, really! I've been reading Filler for ages, so I think I know your style well enough to understand that your comments about us Jews are not ironic or baiting in the least. I know you're going to get a lot of miserable flame mail from a lot of Jews and anti-Semites, but let me tell you that I am very flattered by comments which come as close as Suck gets to genuine praise. I don't know how Jews tend to avoid getting to the Unhinged level, but I think it has something to do with that extra special blend of humility and humiliation that only ethnic people know. Incidentally - you know "that one rat bastard whose name he can't even speak for fear his tongue falls off"? For me, that guy is a Wacko In Denial. Terry Colon even got the unibrow right! I wonder if this is true for a lot of other people too...they are easily the most irritating of the disturbed. B'shalom, The Pie Guy You know, I haven't received a single flame mail, not from Jews or anti-Semites. First of all, this proves my point that Jews are proud of their distinguishing characteristics and culture, as well they should be, and don't take themselves too seriously. I mean, that's the point. You can't scream and then hug and have lunch together if you take yourself so goddamn seriously like the rest of us miserable non-Jewish humans do. Or maybe it's an ethnic thing. But what exactly does that mean, "ethnic"? What an awful bland American concept: you're either a pasty, uninspired, flaccid, droopy WASP or Catholic, or you're "ethnic", "colorful", "feisty." Actually, come to think of it, my take on Jewish people IS pretty annoying and not entirely healthy - sort of like the idea that women are "wild" and "emotional" and "untamable" and therefore, you know, unemployable and really pesky when they're on the rag. I mean, how much do we, in the socially restrictive Western World, truly respect those who break the boundaries of social norms and act exactly how they feel? We might applaud it loudly, but still turn our backs and at some level hold onto the idea that such behavior isn't quite as "classy" as the behavior of snooty bottle-blond aristocratic corpses, sniffing and pouting over spotty forks. When I say "we" I mean "them", of course, since I'm an emotional wreck and my forks are quite spotty. Whatever. It is what it is, you know? Polly [Insert funny Jewish salutation here] Oh! Suck's going to generalize about personality disorders! Awesome. I always get a laugh out of stuff like this, because I never match any of the trite categories and am confidently aware of the fact that I'm a well-rounded, complex human being. But I'm not. I'm jewish! But I'm not! I'm x-catholic! Have I turned into a jew by leaving my traditional faith? Are people jewish by default? I didn't fit neatly into any other category but "jew" - and it was entirely accurate. Thanks, Polly! I was well-rounded and appropriately complex but now I'm just jewish! Help me out here. What the hell am I supposed to do? I don't know any clever jewish phrases. Do I have to marry a jewish woman now? Should I move out of Brooklyn Heights? Can I be a closet jew? Oh well. I'm not mad. I'm over it. I think I'll go eat. AGH! There it goes again! help me, Russell Warner <russell@privatecube. privatelabs.com> How did you get all that Jewishness without inheriting it? That's not fair, man. The only thing you're missing is pride in your heritage. Get on that and get back to me. Polly hello, I'm an American living in Germany. and when I first got AOl I paid 10 DM and got 2 free hours, and then paid 3. something per minute. Now I pay 10 DM and get no free hours. But the other day I went to my bank to get the backup that Aol sends monthly and was told "AOL doesn't sent it no more so I went on the internet to get the info." My question to this man was, "How did you get my monthly charge without using my password?" Which means if he did use my password, AOl gave it to him: I have asked AOL and sent an email to Steve Case, and still haven't gotten a response. This is like dealing with the KGB. Kathleen Daniel <KDaniel722@aol.com> Steve Case never wrote you back? Wow! What a jerk! That is just like dealing with the KGB! Maybe you should ask that banker man who he gets his information from. Sounds like he's got some good connections in the upper eschelons, nudge nudge, wink wink. Work that angle. But wait - why are you on AOL? Or more importantly, why are you living in Germany? And why are you contacting me about this? Do you suspect that I have ins with the KGB? Before we explore the symptoms you're experiencing, we really have to look closely at the deeper causes behind your problems. You understand. Polly |
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