Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Omer 22: Three weeks and one day — Chesed of Netzach

Okay, I have to admit it, saying Chesed of Netzach out loud can sound like you've sneezed. And this week, you don't want anyone to think you're sneezing.

It's the opening day of the week of Netzach, alternately seen as Endurance or VIctory. Inner Strength or Ambition. And today is the day that energy is channeled through Chesed, or lovingkindness.

Simply put, love endures.

And so I turn to a source on the subject that most Jews (whether Buddhist or otherwise) would never quote, Saul of Tarsus:

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Or to quote a source I enjoy listening to a bit more:

I believe in the power of love (I believe)
I believe in the power of love (I believe)
I believe in the power of love
I believe in the power of love

Feel the power
Let the people call me naive
I believe I believe I believe I believe

What is it that can make a lost soul found?
Love
And what is it that can make the
coldest day seem warm?
Love
And what is it that can bring a
smile through to strangers?
Love love love love

Give it everything
Cause what you give you get
so give it everything
Open your heart

I believe I believe
Power of power of power of love

So sang the Prophetess Lady Kier of Dee-Lite. It is this power that must always be present in endurance. Because Netzach, also seen as Victory, means we are enduring in the struggle against or to change something. Endurance is transformed by Love into VIctory, because what has been changed is the one who endures, rather than any outside situaion. The is the spinning of straw into gold, the act of ennobling suffering.

Today is five days of the Omer: Hod of Chesed, The Glory of Love

"You've got to give a little, take a little,
and let your poor heart break a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

You've got to laugh a little, cry a little,
until the clouds roll by a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

As long as there's the two of us,
we've got the world and all it's charms.
And when the world is through with us,
we've got each other's arms.

You've got to win a little, lose a little,
yes, and always have the blues a little.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love.
That's the story of, that's the glory of love."

Not exactly what you were expecting today? Well, one of the names for Hod is Glory. Another is Surrender. And this lovely old song recognizes the truth. In fact, you've got to lose to win. You've got to surrender to let love in. To one's lover. And to the Divine lover. That's the story of, that's the glory of love.

Iowa approve same sex marriage: "You really ought to give Iowa a try..."

From Meredith Wilson's Music Man, the quintessential American musical:

Oh, there's nothing halfway
About the Iowa way to treat you,
When we treat you
Which we may not do at all.
There's an Iowa kind of special
Chip-on-the-shoulder attitude.
We've never been without.
That we recall.
We can be cold
As a falling thermometer in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We could stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But what the heck, you're welcome,
Join us at the picnic.
You can eat your fill
Of all the food you bring yourself.
You really ought to give Iowa a try.
Provided you are contrary,
We can be cold
As a falling thermometer in December
If you ask about our weather in July.
And we're so by God stubborn
We can stand touchin' noses
For a week at a time
And never see eye-to-eye.
But we'll give you our shirt
And a back to go with it
If your crop should happen to die.
So, what the heck, you're welcome,
Glad to have you with us.
Even though we may not ever mention it again.
You really ought to give Iowa
Hawkeye Iowa
Dubuque, Des
Moines, Davenport, Marshalltown,
Mason City, Keokuk, Ames,
Clear Lake
Ought to give Iowa a try!

The Divine Feminine Meets 21st Century British Music Hall Rock & Roll Comedy

Easy now fuzzy little man peach, Old Greg is in the house. This is beyond description. If you've never seen The Might Boosh, or this particular episode, The Legend of Old Greg, you're in for a very wild ride that combines British music hall tradition comedy, rock & roll chaos comedy, the divine feminine and glitter rock plus funk and hallucinogenic insanity meeting the dark comedy of folktales. There, that was suitably incoherent. But I am not about to get into a scholarly deconstruction of something I love so much, it would only be vivisection, and Old Greg wouldn't like that at all. It's all here, and very very funny. I am only including parts 2-4. You can find it all on youtube of course, where you can also see a live version of the "hit single" from this episode, Love Games. Trust me, you want to see all three videos below. It will change your life forever.


Quick, make an assessment.

The NFL Super Bowl meets Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo

The Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo has been doing their amazing parody of Swan Lake for years. Did you ever think you would see the concept adapted for a Super Bowl tv commercial, complete with NFL players in the role of swans?

In the background, much like the Trocks, the players are in tutus. After years of homophobic ads broadcast to subconsciously defuse the homo-eroticism of the games, this spot is a welcome departure, if a shameless rip-off.

Some Light-hearted Viewing for the Sixth Night of Hanukkah

Sunday Morning Cartoon: If You Were Gay

Avenue Q — the Broadway musical — has inspired a large number of animators and mash-up artists to create short films taking songs from the show and matching them to animation. One of the more popular songs to get this treatment is "If You Were Gay," a sweet song of sung by a straight character to his best friend and room mate, a closeted gay character. One of the more recent versions on YouTube features original animation:

But just as interesting are the mash ups taken from Japanese yayoi anime here, here and perhaps most brilliantly, here. There are versions edited to other films, like Austin Powers, and version edited to episodes of SpongeBob. Personally, I would love to see this mashed up with bits and pieces of old Laurel and Hardy films. Let me know if you find any that you think are particularly brilliant.

If I can’t dance, it’s not my apocalypse. (The B52s, Emma Goldman & Reverend Billy)

The B52s have always made the most infectiously happy dance music in rock and roll. It was just absolutely about feeling good and celebrating — even celebrating outsider status. Oh sure, there were some songs that were vaguely political — Channel Z, Bushfire — but overwhelmingly the music just made me smile, laugh and dance.

Well, the new B52s album is out: Funplex. And the title song is as usual, something that’s hard not to move to. Except it is anything but happy. This is "it’s-the-end-of-the-world-so-I’m-going-to-dance-anyway" music.

Funplex is what happens when the B52s meet Reverend Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping. It’s a searing indictment of mindless consumerism/materialism as a drug that numbs as us all as the planet goes to hell. This is seriously depressing stuff.

This is a song about drug addiction, sex addiction, shopping addiction. And the emptiness in our hearts that these compulsive behaviors try to assuage. It’s really sad.

And here I am listening to it on my ipod, bopping my head and wanting to dance. And cry.

And celebrate. Because rock and roll is also supposed to be deeply subversive. And this song certainly is that. Will it help wake America's youth from the trance — the George Bush lie that the most patriotic thing Americans could do in the face of terror was to go shopping. Shop your fear away.

This is the way of the Jester: speak the truth in a way that is funny. That isn't threatening. Maybe people will wake up. And certainly coming out of the trance is something to celebrate, even if one wakes up to a world that doesn't exactly inspire optimism at the moment.

Yes Fred, the world is going to hell. But if I can’t dance, it’s not my apocalypse.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Jollity Farm

Long before the now iconic Simpson's opening sequence with Homer heading home from the nuclear power plant, pulling out the  radioactive rod that fell down his shirt and throwing into the street there was a cartoon called Jollity Farm, set to the music of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.

The band was a dadaist musical version of Monty Python (whose members they worked with on a British children's show in the mid '60s). And Jollity Farm is an upbeat number that seems perfect for kids — all the animals on farm make their appropriate sounds — not unlike Old McDonald Had A Farm. Except that in the cartoon, well, there is the rather unfortunate effect for the animals of living next to a nuclear power plant.

The cartoon begins innocently enough, with the music and the motions on screen reminiscent of so many cartoons from the '30s where it seemed all of nature was dancing to a jazzy rhythm. The kind of music you hear on Don Byron's Bug Music, his marvelous tribute the to music of Raymond Scott, some of whose music you have heard in Warner Brothers cartoons. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, go right now and listen to Powerhouse. You'll know it in a second, but it wasn't written for a cartoon. Scott was a serious Jazz composer. It just works well in so many cartoons. But I digress — except to note that many of the Bonzos were also originally serious Jazz musicians who also channeled the English music hall tradition.

Watching this cartoon you can see the influence of Warner Brothers, Disney and Scott. And you can see how it may have influenced Matt Groening. And you should wander over to youtube and take a look at all the Bonzo's songs. One of my favorites is their absolutely insane Sound of Music.

Japanese Competition for The B-52s: Jun Togawa

When I first saw Jun Togawa sing Radar Man all I immediately though of the wild sounds Kate and Cindy brought to rock and roll. What is really interesting is the cylon like robotic limbs Togawa wears in some performances along with her schoolgirl Lolita get up. But this is one schoolgirl not to mess with. I love this video, hope you do too: