Goldy

Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved

[With Chanukah and Christmas lining up this year, I thought now would be a great time to renew an old HA tradition. Happy Christmakah.]

If you don’t know, I have a podcast, and on this week’s episode we interview President Joe Biden about his very “middle-out” economic legacy.

Honestly, it feels like a bit of a consolation prize given the outcome of November’s election, but either way, omigod what a weird journey it’s been from foul-mouthed local blogger to this. Just goes to show that anybody who says this nation is a meritocracy has no idea what they’re talking about. In real life, luck, path dependence, and compounding are the signal while merit amounts to mere noise.

So, eat it, trolls. And everybody else, please give it a listen.

It was 20 years ago today that I published the first post here on HA, and mygod did it change my life (and hopefully a few elections and public policy debates along the way).

For a few glorious years HA was one of the most widely read, influential (and feared) state and local blogs in the nation. We were the official WA state blog at the 2008 Democratic Convention. HA helped get me my own radio show at 710 KIRO back when it was still a 50,000 watt news/talk powerhouse, and eventually a gig at The Stranger where I helped advance the nation’s first $15 minimum wage. And ultimately this weird adventure led me to my current job, which is hard to explain, but is gratifying and difference-making in so many ways.

I don’t blog here at HA anymore. Darryl and Carl keep it going on a daily basis, and so happy blogoversary (and a big THANK YOU) to them too. But of course, the biggest thanks goes to HA’s readers, past and present, because none of this would’ve been possible without you. HA’s comment threads may have been a cesspool of trolling since nearly the very beginning, but I was very, very, fortunate to find an audience large and loud enough to make my writing relevant.

By the way, if you miss me, I host a weekly podcast with my billionaire boss, Nick Hanauer, called Pitchfork Economics. It’s wonky and subversive and we interview amazing guests—Nobel laureates, best-selling authors, administration officials, and other leading or should-be-leading thinkers in economics, philosophy, science, politics, and public policy—so if you’re not already a subscriber, now would be a great time to start.

And finally, a much earned thank you and congratulations to my daughter Katie. She was just seven years old when this blog first started consuming my life and she patiently put up with more than her fair share of “just a minute, baby, I need to finish this post.” Today, coincidentally, she graduates from USC with an MFA in film and television production and I couldn’t be prouder. Here’s hoping our democracy, our economy, and our civil society survive another 20 years (at least) so that she and all our children have the opportunity, the security, and the means to pursue their dreams.

After spending a few hours yesterday fixing some server issues, I’ve started looking into how I might modestly update this shitty old blog. First thing you’ll notice is that I’ve removed the ads. They’ve only been generating a few bucks a month in revenue anyway, so why bother? I don’t really need the money, but if you want to help offset my $28/month in server costs, donations are always appreciated. That said, you’d probably do more good contributing to an ongoing journalistic concern than this shitty old blog archive. Up to you.

As for other updates, well, I hardly visit HA much anymore let alone post to it. So if you have ideas, please feel free to offer them in the comment thread, and who knows, maybe I’ll read them?

Seventeen years ago today I clicked “Publish” on the very first post here at HA, with obviously no fucking idea how blogging would soon take over my life. Had I to do the past 17 years over again, I wouldn’t, even if I wanted to, because how could anyone even hope to retrace the bizarre path I followed from accidental activist to foul-mouthed blogger to talk radio host to foul-mouthed Stranger writer to mysterious behind-the-scenes benevolent-plutocrat-funded progressive propaganda king?

That said, how’d the past 17 years turn out? Well, on May 10, 2004, I wrote this:

I have serious political goals, and I intend to pursue them. I intend to help educate the public and the media about an astonishingly regressive tax system that gives billions of dollars of tax breaks to wealthy special interests while placing an almost unbearable burden on the backs of middle- and low-income families. I intend to work for real, progressive, tax reforms that provide meaningful relief to those who need it most, assure adequate funding for essential public services, and create the kind of positive, rational business environment that all citizens want. And I intend to continue my efforts to expose Tim Eyman as the lying, thieving, blowhard even many of his most ardent supporters admit he really is. (Did I mention Tim Eyman is a lying, thieving, blowhard?)

But I also intend to have a little fun.

Well, progress report: this year the state legislature passed and the governor signed into law a modest capital gains tax—Washington state’s first bit of progressive tax reform in forever. Meanwhile, after losing a long drawn out civil suit brought by the state Attorney General, Tim Eyman is in the process of paying something like $5 million in fines and legal fees for at least some of the many crimes he’s committed over the course of his lying, thieving career. I can’t say exactly what I had to do with the outcomes, but it was something. Also, I did indeed have a little fun along the way. So progress!

Anyway, a big thanks to all the loyal readers and vicious trolls who helped make HA more than just a narcissistic exercise, and an especially big thanks to Darryl and Carl for keeping it going these past few years. Don’t know if I’ll ever come back to regular blogging, but if you miss me, I do spit out the occasional foul-mouthed tweet.

 

I don’t blog much anymore, but I thought I’d stop by HA for a moment to mark my 15th blogiversary.

It was on May 10, 2004 that I put up my very first post, clearly with no fucking idea how this foul-mouthed blog would eventually take over my life.

I’ve got a habit of shooting for the moon, but I’m also a realist, so nobody was more surprised than me when my shitty little blog developed such a large and loyal audience. I’ve been very fortunate. So if you’re still around to read this thank you… thank you for your support. (Also, a big thank you to Darryl and Carl for keeping alive what would otherwise be a static archive.)

And finally, as always: Tim Eyman is a horse’s ass.

Matthew 5:31-32
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Discuss.

I’ve had my dog Feisty almost as long as I’ve had this blog, a 13-plus-year span in which she has been a source of love, metaphor, and humor. And so, while I don’t really blog here anymore, I thought it appropriate to briefly post on her passing.

She was a good dog (mostly), a loyal companion, and an enthusiastic hiking partner. In fact, without her, I don’t think I ever would have cultivated my love of hiking through our region’s many mountain trails. I already miss her deeply. But after months of progressive kidney failure that left her unwilling to eat and increasingly unable to walk, my daughter and I sadly did the only humane thing to do, and held her in our arms as the vet relieved her of her suffering.

But since this is HA, it would be a disingenuous tribute to Feisty to mark her passing without making at least one political point: When we euthanize a beloved pet, we rightly call it an act of compassion. But if we euthanize a beloved family member, the law calls it an act of murder. Whatever. When my time comes, if I am unable to avail myself of WA’s Death with Dignity law, I sure hope that my daughter has the strength to lovingly murder me the way we just lovingly murdered our family dog.

Rest in peace, Feisty. In the remote event that there’s a doggy heaven, I hope you were greeted by 72 squirrels to do with what you please.

Deuteronomy 19:21
Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.

Discuss.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14
Set up a place outside the camp to be used as a toilet area. And make sure that you have a small shovel in your equipment. When you go out to the toilet area, use the shovel to dig a hole. Then, after you relieve yourself, bury the waste in the hole. You must keep your camp clean of filthy and disgusting things. The LORD is always present in your camp, ready to rescue you and give you victory over your enemies. But if he sees something disgusting in your camp, he may turn around and leave.

Discuss.

Leviticus 15:19-20
When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening. Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean.

Discuss.

Matthew 21:18-19
Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

Discuss.

Exodus 21:28
If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit.

Discuss.

1 Corinthians 10:20
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.

Discuss.

Genesis 2:25
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Discuss.