This gem is called “The Amazing Morty.”

A traveling salesman drove into a small town where a circus was playing. A sign read:

“Don’t Miss The Amazing Jew.”

The intrigued salesman bought a ticket and sat down. There, under the Big Top, in the center ring, was a table with three walnuts on it. Standing next to it was an old Jewish man wearing a name tag with the name, ‘Morty’ written on it.

After the applause died down, Morty dropped his pants, whipped out the biggest schwantz any man could possibly have and smashed all the walnuts with three mighty swings!

The crowd erupted in applause and the old Jewish man was carried off on their shoulders to the tune of Hava Nagila.

Fifteen years later the salesman visited the same little town, found the same circus and saw the same sign now faded,

“Don’t Miss the Amazing Jew.”

He couldn’t believe the old guy was still alive much less still doing his act! He bought a ticket. Again, the center ring was illuminated. This time, however, instead of walnuts, three coconuts were placed on the table. There stood Morty before them.

The drum rolled, Morty dropped his pants and smashed the coconuts with three swings of his amazing member. The crowd went wild!

Flabbergasted, the salesman requested a meeting with Morty after the show.

“You’re incredible,” he told Morty, “but I have to know something. When I saw your act 15 years ago and you were using walnuts. Why the switch from walnuts to coconuts?”

“Vell, I tell ya sompin,”

said Morty,

“my eyes ain’t vat dey used to be!”

I’m glad you asked. Leaf blowers. Yes leaf blowers.

It seems that every Mexican in Los Angeles County is required, by law, to carry one of these infernal devices on their backs.

And please don’t email me about being racist. In other parts of the world I’m sure white people, Asians and even Jews have these noisy, polluting pieces of shit strapped to their bodies but we’re talking LA here.

Admit it. I’m right.

These sloth-inspiring, gas guzzling, smoke spewing, loud-as-hell machines merely move leaves and other garden debris from a highly visible patch of yard to one that is not so visible (perhaps the neighbor’s yard?) — the backyard equivalent of sweeping dirt under the carpet.

But sweeping is usually not loud enough to wake the dead. Leaf blowing, by contrast, is.

Strangely, amongst the customary gear that gardeners tote around is a rake — a quiet and efficient leaf control device used for centuries. Rakes, like brooms, however, stay in a pile of never-to-be-used tools.

Another maddening fact about leaf blowers is that they are not just for leaves any more. I live next to a Standard Parking garage (I have a list of grievances for that company!) and they now use leaf blowers to blow candy wrappers and cigarette butts from one part of the garage to another.

Again, they never touch brooms. Instead, the Leaf Blower Brigade blows crap around Standard’s two neighboring structures on Sunday nights between the hours of 10:00 PM and 1:30 in the morning, waking neighbors, causing pets to bark and howl and me to whine incessantly to 311.

Do leaf blowers suck or is it just me?

Let me know how you feel about leaf blowers. Log in and leaf a comment.

She answered,

“Better, but not good.”

I love that answer!

From now on I will, most likely, use that answer for everthing, particularly life’s most dreaded question: How are you?

“Better, but not good.”

Posted from my iPhone.

“Morris”

In the late 1930′s, Morris Rabinowitz fled his native Germany. He sold all his assets, converted it to gold, and then had 5 sets of solid gold false teeth made.

When he arrived in New York, the customs official was perplexed as to why anybody would have five sets of gold teeth. So Morris explained:

“We Jews have two separate sets of dishes for meat products and dairy products, but I am so kosher and religious I also have separate sets of teeth.”

The customs official shook his head and said,

“Well that accounts for two sets of teeth.  What about the other three?”

Morris then said,

“Vell, us very religious Jews use separate dishes for Passover, but I am so religious I have separate teeth, one for meat and one for dairy food.”

The customs official slapped his head and then said,

“You must be a very religious man with separate teeth for food and dairy products and likewise for Passover.  That accounts for four sets of teeth.  What about the fifth set?”

“Vell, to tell you the truth, once in a while I like a ham sandwich.”

Here’s a another zing…zing…zinger! I warn you though, it’s shticky:

A Jewish guy in a London Hotel calls the operator and asks, in broken English with a heavy Lithuanian-Yiddish accent, for the number: 266419.

A short time later there is a knock at the door, and, when he opens the door, he sees two beautiful and sexy girls, who ask him:

“Are you the guy who ordered: ”two shikses for one night?”

I know. I know. I’m just the messenger.

I’m so sick of Ms. Pollyanna Purebread and her minions. How is it that their optimism is so fragile that my kvetching is a threat?  They get so damned resentful that this little heeb can, with a couple of well placed gripes, pierce their WASPY suits of  I-must-be-optimistic-or-cry armor. On top of that, they resent that I consider kvetching to be an art form — though admittedly, a dying art form. They don’t understand that there is comedy in kvetching!

An old friend named Blair recently used a quote from Eddie Hunt as his Facebook status. It read, “LA’s Fine. Nothing terribly bad or terribly good will ever happen here. In NYC amazingly good and amazingly bad things can happen.”

Oy, what a tumult it caused. A band of insecure LA anti-kvetches went ballistic, not realizing that one interpretation of the quote could be that LA is a heck of a lot more even-keeled than New York. New York’s extreme ups and downs — while perhaps tremendously exciting — are, for the most part, the urban cultural schizophrenia most Angelenos prefer to avoid. Angelenos, that’s okay.

Blair didn’t know what hit him when the anti-kvetches began to flame his status message. First there was (LA spokesperson, I guess) Robert C:

ugh…blair, you used to live in Los Angeles…you know better than to make such ridiculous statements. reveals a new york provincialism that at this point in history is just laughable. when new yorkers talk like this their insecurity is showing.

Our insecurity? Really? And, is it provincialism to say what we all know but just can’t say in Los Angeles (and — I know from experience — in San Francisco) that New York is the capital of the world? (It probably is provincialism but let’s move on.)

Of course, I had to take this on. Admittedly I was in a somewhat grumpy mood:

When New Yorkers talk like that it’s because it’s true.

Then I took another swing. A New York right hook — right below the belt:

Face it. LA is a sleepy suburban sprawl that gets up late and closes early. It is a movie-set facade of a city that many people seem to enjoy. They say it takes at least 3 years of living in LA to actually like it. I’ve got two to go…

I thought that was funny. Ed, another one of Blair’s friends, did not. I was told by Ed to:

“hop back on that jet plane to NYC. (Stereo)typical New Yorker.”

Ed did not understand that kvetching = fun! I made up my mind to prove it to him.

To drive the point home, I told him I’d be staying in LA until I was done complaining. Ha! Anyone that knows me knows that that was code for me staying here indefinitely. Suck it Ed!

I also told him to think of my kvetching as punishment for not being able to find restaurants in LA open after 9:30 PM. Major LA kvetch! How can you consider yourself a major metropolis if everything shuts down by 9? Huh Ed?

Next came the Ms. Purebread ultimate (I left her spew unedited):

“we have ,sun,beaches,culture,fashion,film,radio,tv,top ranking colleges,desert mountains,green grass,clean city,oppurtunity,architecture,Inice people,beautiful beautiful people,1 recovery in the world,low stress,cars,every race possible,……LA is just the place for people who already figured out who they are,what they want,andwhere they want to be, and to do it in a beautiful atmosphere…….and don’t have to prove to everyone else………why struggle in the land of cement!!! carry stuff on your back,freeze your ass off,and it doesn’t matter how much money you have…..still complain. Love NYC,to visit,and then get back to real life!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why does everyone come here then complain,NYC is NYC,and LA is LA. Dig in and allow yourself to enjoy all that LA has to offer.

Already Ms. Calm-and-Collected LA Purebread is breaking a sweat and her low stress veneer is melting all over the beautifully manicured green LA grass. And, by its rambling nature, we know one thing for sure: She should put down the crystal meth pipe right away. Right away.

But never one to pass off an opportunity to infuriate a crackhead, I hammer my point home, again:

“I guess kvetching is just an art form that is undervalued and so misunderstood here in la la land…”

He shot back,

“…..we have just outgrown it.

Touche. Exactly my point. RIP New York Jewish cynicism, particularly when it rears its ugly head in LA.

One more volley from me:

“Yes. So advanced here. You need a light to tell you when to cross the street. Can’t figure it out for yourself?

Then Ms. Pollyanna Purebread snapped, choking on soured optimism. Oozing from her pores came doom and dread.

“at least the streets r not filed with rats…….clean,beautiful,and green grass. Is life about being advanced,or just the joy and gratttitude to be alive??????? Whats it like to be so advanced?????????? r u discovering any cures,or changing life?

The horror. The horror.

The movie set facade of her life had shattered. Her distaste of me and, by extension all kvetching New Yorkers drooled from her lips. We had pushed her over the pessimistic edge. Her life would never be the same.

I felt vindicated and alive!

And, of course, I felt some guilt. (It’s Jewish law.) Was I really just a pessimist curmudgeon that couldn’t enjoy LA?

During my hiatus from ObJew I pondered that very question. Should I too be an optimist? Should I embrace LA and all of its great attributes?

Nah.

I decided to embrace my inner, and outer kvetch. I decided to complain with gusto as if my life depended on it! I will not let the anti-kvetch automatons win!

He looked great, thank goodness, and I wished we had had more time to catch up — he was with another friend and they both had somewhere to be.

The encounter prompted me to search my computer for remnants of the time we spent together, so many years ago.

This is some of what I found (I wanted to edit the piece before posting but I resisted the impulse, somewhat.):

“Speed Queen”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“It’s about two,” answered William

“I gotta use the phone,” I snapped back.

“Klein, you just checked your machine. I’ve got to tell you about this Viacom deal!”

“Look William, I’ve gotta use the phone.”

I felt like a hostage; just after the ransom note and just before the kidnappers would cut off my right index finger to prove they had me. I grabbed the phone and dialed 9.

Craig… Eric… Little Rob!

The sun spontaneously broke through the overcast Manhattan skyline, with puffy clouds and tall steely buildings framing the bright sunlight. I could float right through the ceiling up to the roof. I was on the fifteenth floor, but it like I was on the twentieth or thirtieth. I was so elated to hear his voice that I didn’t even think about all the ugly ceiling tiles I would hit on the way up.

“I really want to hear all about the deal, William. But first I have to call Little Rob,” I calmly explained.

“Okay then. Sure, you just go ahead and make your little phone call.”

“Look, this is important. I could get laid. No, really I haven’t heard from that little speed queen since he left San Francisco in a paranoid drug frenzy. You know, he’s the first, and hopefully only Club Kid I’ve ever gone out with.”

“Club Kid? Is he hot?” William asked in sudden, almost urgent interest.

“He’s really cute and sassy. In fact, he’s the sassiest little bitch on both coasts. He makes me laugh. I really love him.

Move over. I’ve gotta use the phone”

Of course. A busy signal. This just means I’m going to have to gear up to ask William to use the phone again until I get through.

“I am putting this on my credit card you know?”

At an appropriate break in the Viacom deal I grab the phone again. Now it rings. Good. It rings for about five minutes. MCI charges for the call after a minute, even if the other party doesn’t pick up. I hang up the phone. I pick it up again.

“Who are you calling now?”

“I’ve gotta check my machine. Maybe I have the wrong number”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“See? Three new messages!”

Two are Little Rob wondering where I am. One is Cynthia, the obsessive Jewish mother. Actually, she’s my obsessive Jewish mother. But I need to keep my distance, for my own health and well being.

The number I have for Little Rob is right. So why is he not picking up? All three of his messages are giddy and funny. He always laughs at his own jokes. It surprises both of us to know how funny he is.

-Alan Klein
12/14/1993

And this went on for more then 3 years. The two of them never spoke. One day, as the young man passed the old lady’s stand and left his quarter as usual, the pretzel lady spoke to him.

“Sir, I appreciate your business. You are a good customer, but I have to tell you that the pretzel price has gone up to 35 cents.”

Thanks Capettawitz!

What would Jesus Drive?

He might drive an old Plymouth because the Bible says “God drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden in a Fury.”

However, in Psalm 83, often called the “Prayer for Israel”, it is suggested that Jesus preferred the Pontiac and a Geo, for the passage urges the Lord to “pursue them with your Tempest and terrify them with your Storm.

Jesus apparently did not like Hondas. In the gospel of St. John, it is claimed that Jesus said “For I did not speak of my own Accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say.” No doubt, he would have had some apprehension about driving a Pilate.

After wasting a great deal of time researching Bible quotes and others’ thoughts on this subject, I have concluded that whatever car Jesus might drive, it will, no doubt, be a Chrystler.

Created by Kent Victor Schuelke and Written by Larry Silverman

Here’s the script:

“Why can’t I carry my bag on the plane?”

“What, no meal? I paid $300 for this ticket and all I get is a little bag of peanuts and a package of Biscoff cookies. I can’t eat the cookies. I have to watch my blood sugar.”

We got better service traveling to the camps than we get on this airline.”

“Stewardess, can I get a blanket?”

“Stewardess, can I get a pillow?”

“Two dollars for some earphones? You cheap bastards. Just give me the fakakta Sky Mall catalog.”

“I didn’t see the seat belt sign. I was in the bathroom. Forgive me for having a small bladder.”

“I should have flown Eastern Airlines to Miami. Now that’s an airline!”

This is the content of my Facebook discussion about my status message posted early today.

Alan Klein Today is the final chapter of The-Folks-Visit-LA. Why is it a moral imperative for Jews to find restaurants even while at other restaurants? 10:32am

Larry Silverman at 10:37am April 22

9:30 in the morning and they’re already planning dinner? Yeah, those are some Jewie parents.

Alan Klein at 10:41am April 22

Dinner?? Sure but they’re already planning tomorrow’s breakfast before they leave for the airport. And if they ask one more time how long it will take to get to Burbank airport….

Larry Silverman at 12:05pm April 22

Have they yet suggested a “dry run” to make sure you know how to get to the airport?

Lauren Kolman at 2:37pm April 22

they just have to be prepared…any meal could be the last one…

Michael Lavinger at 4:13pm April 22

while still attached to the web he’s swinging on, spiderman has to shoot his next web.

perhaps it’s related. after all, with great restaurants comes great responsibility.

Alan Klein at 6:12pm April 22

So we finally settled on a restaurant for tonight. Now, by settled, I mean they changed their mind about 3 or 4 times prior to ‘settling.’ I’m happy with the pick though.

And, they did ask about the trip to the Burbank airport again. Not once. Not twice but 3 times. They’ve been asking not only me, but Lee and friends how long it takes to get to the airport from their hotel from the moment they landed here in LA. I’m sure they will ask again at dinner tonight. I’m shaking thinking about it.

Larry Silverman at 6:48pm April 22

Hotel? You made your poor mother stay in a hotel? oy.

Alan Klein at 7:06pm April 22

OMFG! This is for their own good. Trust me.

Alan Klein at 7:07pm April 22

They dropped me off no more than 30 minutes ago and they’ve already called to check on the plans.

Valerie Nuanes at 7:17pm April 22

Ok, so i’m late w/comments, but, did they ask you which was the best way to get to the airport and when should they leave because of traffic? Did they tell you what the traffic’s like at that time of day at home?

Alan Klein at 7:27pm April 22

Yes, it was presumably about traffic. But it was asked and answered. Then it was asked and answered again. Asked and answered some more, then asked to several other people that answered the question. They asked their old friends. They asked me again. They asked Lee again. They asked the tour operator yesterday. When they met another friend earlier today, guess what they asked? And it was answered again. Then, in the car, just a little while ago, take a wild guess what came up? Not to be impolite, I answered. I’m going nuts because I can’t stop thinking that they will ask again, over dinner.

Lauren Kolman at 7:06am April 23

i had the same experience…..ive lived here 9 yeaers…but my restaurant recommmendation wasnt good enough….my stepmother had to call three freinds and confirm my choice…

Tom Leone at 2:23pm April 23 via Facebook Mobile

You should have yelled out “Burbank Airport? Where is that? (It’s now called the Bob Hope Airport). This would have led to another round of inquires and repetitive checking of tickets.