Wilco

I'm jonesing for a Wilco concert. I need to sing, whistle, clap, dance and follow Jeff Tweedy's fingers as he rocks the guitar.

I love Wilco so much that when I see them live, I have this overwhelming urge to cry with joy, and I sometimes do after the concert.

Here are my favorites.



1. Forget the Flowers

2. Jesus, Etc

3. I am Trying to Break Your Heart

4. Hummingbird

5. I'll Fight

6. California Stars

7. Far Far Away

8. Outtasite Outtamind

9. Red Eyed and Blue

10. I Must Be High

Dear Mormon Church, stop the proxy baptisms and we are totally cool with your religion!

This is my attempt to explain to the Mormon Church (LDS) why baptizing deceased Jews is so offensive.

…..

When I was little I remember being confused when my Bubbie would say that she was going to “visit her mother and father” at the cemetery.

Before I understood what death meant, I actually thought that my great grandparents lived there, and I just did not have the opportunity to meet them, yet.

Eventually, I came to understand that my Bubbie was visiting graves to ensure that they were properly kept to honor her parents.

Honoring the dead is an important value in Judaism. A candle that burns 24 hours is lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death as well as on specific holidays.  There are points in the morning, evening, and afternoon prayer services to say a prayer in honor of the deceased.

In order to say this prayer, the tradition states that you need a quorum of 10 Jewish men. (Today in most Reform and Conservative Synagogues women are included in the quorum). My father goes to synagogue 6 times a week to ensure that there are 10 people in case anyone is in mourning can say the prayer.  My dad often is the one standing reciting the mourner’s prayer for deceased loved ones who don’t have anyone else to say it for them.

During the most important holidays of the year, there is a service specifically for people who have lost loved ones.

Jews take the responsibility of honoring the dead extremely seriously by commandment and by custom.

One might ask, who cares if a Mormon baptizes a Jew posthumously.  The person is dead; they don’t care.

To say nothing is to condone it, and this would be a violation of our duty to preserve and honor the memory of the deceased.  

(Not to mention that it’s distasteful given the centuries of forced conversions Jews faced to avoid further persecution).

Instead of apologizing, the LDS Church should rescind the baptisms (if you can baptize dead people, you can unbaptize them, right?) and stop any future baptisms of Jews like Anne Frank, Daniel Pearl, and others who lived as Jews, died as Jews and whose memories deserved to be honored as such. 

For more articles about this issue: 

Mormons baptized slain reporter Daniel Pearl

Elie Wiesel asks Mitt Romney to stop proxy baptisms

Apology by Mormon church

A humorous take on the issue

LA Fitness Intervention

Yesterday, the LA Fitness in Morton Grove, IL was closed by the health department for being unsanitary.  The news was not shocking to anyone who works out there or the LA Fitness where I work out on Clark and Diversey.

At the end of 2011, LA Fitness took over all of the Bally Total Fitness clubs in the Chicago area and many other places.

At first I thought the takeover might be good. Over the years, many of the Chicago Bally Total Fitness clubs had become more and more dilapidated. The club on Clark and Diversey stopped offering basic services like anti-bacterial hand wash or an easy way to clean off the machines after usage. The lockers are rusty and the toilets are often disgusting. I wondered what happened to the gym that I joined 10 years ago (at that Morton Grove location) that was a decent, affordable place to work out.

And while I didn’t expect miracles when LA Fitness took over, I also didn’t expect it to get worse. But it has. On one recent weekend, there was no toilet paper. They put industrial paper towels in the locker room (which certainly wasn’t probably good to the already deteriorating toilets.) I saw a woman ask the manager why he didn’t go to Walgreens across the street and purchase toilet paper. His answer was that they were expecting a shipment on Monday.  

The saddest part has been the rapid exit of the club’s friendly employees due to firings and the reduction of pay and benefits.

Here’s the conundrum.  In the vicinity, this is the closest, most affordable gym to probably tens of thousands of Chicagoans. You can just go in, work out, and try not to think about the deteriorating conditions or join a more posh gym for more money which many people can’t afford.

It’s like working out at Walmart, but Walmart has higher standards.

To be fair, I’ve never been in an original LA Fitness Club. It might be very nice. But working out at the clubs that they have taken over feels more like being at colonized gyms where the conquerors don’t care about the country’s infrastructure or citizens.

I think LA Fitness should address all of its “new” members via email and explain what its plan is for the clubs that they have taken over. Is it to run the clubs into the ground so people have to work out at their other facilities or are they planning to renovate and when will that happen?  We just want to know.

Personally, I would like them to renovate. These clubs employ so many good, decent people and offer an affordable place for people to take out their stress, lose weight, and prevent obesity.

In the meantime, I heard there is a sale on toilet paper at Walgreens.     

Married Friends! Help!

Dear married friends, if you have five minutes please answer the following question: what advice, based on your personal experience, would you give to ensure a happy marriage? Your answers will be published anonymously in an article I'm writing. I will just include your age, sex and the number of years you've been married (so include that too). 

You can comment here anonymously. Just please be sure to answer the question, your age, and the number of years you've been married. 

THANKS!!!!

Questions for the Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Beit Shemesh who are throwing eggs, rocks and spitting

• Why would you move to a place called “House of Sun” if you expected people to be all covered up?
• There are plenty of perfectly nice Ultra Orthodox Jews. Have you considered wearing a different color hat from black so that you can be identified? Since your issue is with women, perhaps pink would be a great color.
• Isn’t Hebrew a sacred language? Then how is it appropriate for you to graffiti buildings?
• What happens if a woman sits in the back of the bus and is checking out your neck? How is that ok?
• Can’t you come up with another name to call the police than Nazis? It’s really distasteful.
• Wouldn’t you rather eat those eggs?  Israeli breakfasts are so good!
• Didn’t “sinat chinam” destroy Israel before? Are you also supplying Iran with nuclear weapons?
• How do you know that your wives are behaving modestly if you are outside harassing people?
• Don’t you have PR Consultants? Right now you are being compared to the Taliban. You need to work on your image.
• Why if you wanted to fight so much didn’t you just join the IDF?
• Aren’t you supposed to be studying?
  
  To learn more:  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4167668,00.html

Guided Meditation

This is not a great time of year for people with depression and anxiety. You are commanded to be happy and joyful, and instead it becomes a mirror into the fact that you are not.

Although I'm pretty happy right now, my mind races. At times, it is comparable to a the track during the Indianapolis 500. There were days and nights during my 20s, where my mind could have fueled NASCAR as well.

Often this racing serves me well. I am a creative thinker and can complete tasks rapidly.

Sometimes though, I end up exhausted and depleted.

For much of my life, I have employed various interventions to cleanse the pallet that is my brain.  I have found that the most helpful "medicine" if I am an acute situation is guided meditation.

This not to be confused with meditation. I cannot do regular breathe in breathe out meditation because for some reason it causes my already burning thoughts to turn into a forest fire.

But guided meditation seems to work for me. Occasionally a negative thought or two will invade the meditation, and so I do my best to get rid of it or them. If they won't go away, I will just complete more guided meditations until they do.

And they do.

Below I am listing guided meditations that I have completed. Now the disclaimer: I have no training in this sort of thing. This is not in place of a psychologist or psychiatrist. This also just might not work for you. Also, if you feel suicidal or that you are going to harm yourself or someone else call 911.

As for the people leading the meditations, I have no clue as to whether they are excellent practitioners or total quacks. I cannot endorse them or their beliefs in any way. I can just endorse the particular guided meditation that has helped me break the negative cycle of ruminative thinking.

Tip: Don't watch the video, just listen. Be seated or lie down in a dark room or at least close your eyes. Be comfortable.

1. http://bit.ly/t419Ll

2. http://bit.ly/vvNzG1

3. http://bit.ly/uyM2ni

4. http://bit.ly/v487n9

5. http://bit.ly/9mMzb6

If there are guided meditations that you recommend, please include them in the comments section. 

Top 10 Reasons Matisyahu Shaved his Beard

10.  He wants to be in Old Spice commercials for the Super Bowl.

9. Waxing hurts.

8. He had a bet with Mitt Romney that the Bears would win on Sunday.

7.  He got sick of being called a Rabbi.

6.  He had put on weight and people thought he was Santa Claus.

5. He just found out that you don’t need a beard to be religious.

4. The hair care products didn’t last long enough to cover the gray.

3. It was itchy.

2. He saw himself on this new Bravo show and thought it was time to rethink how he observes Judaism: 

1.  It's easier to eat a jelly doughnut without having to worry about it getting in your beard. 

Best of luck to you Matisyahu. I like your music with or without facial hair. I especially liked when you sang with the PS22 Chorus. I hope wherever your spiritual journey takes you, it takes you to the recording studio.