Please join us this evening as the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally convenes for conversation and good company over a cold one.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the back room of the pub. We start at 8:00pm.
Chapters of Living Liberally are all over the place…if you can’t make it to the Seattle chapter, stop by another chapter near you.
An hour ago, I didn’t know Washington state had an intercity bus. Now I would like to see it expanded. Maybe ride it, although it doesn’t seem super convenient to Seattle.
Have any of you taken it? Is it worse than the Greyhound bus would be on a similar route?
Electile Dysfunction Hangover:
Peanuts:
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
With the new year, Amazon employees have to work from the office. I live fairly close to the headquarters, and have been working from home. I haven’t noticed — in two traditionally light days — particularly bad traffic. Or like coffee shops and restaurants being particularly full.
The Roanoke IS open tomorrow (Tuesday) on New Year’s eve. Will there be a gathering of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally? Could be. Pretty much all of the regulars have alternative plans for this New Year eve. But feel free to stop by, if you wish.
We meet (almost) every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the back room of the pub. We start at 8:00pm.
Chapters of Living Liberally are all over the place…if you can’t make it to the Seattle chapter, stop by another chapter near you.
I hope that your holidays were and are a delight. Unless you prefer them bitter sweet and then, sure, that. Or if you don’t celebrate at least I hope work was a good pace. Back to the regular pace of nonsense come the new year.
Robert Reich: The 10 biggest myths about our economy
Electile Dysfunction 2024:
Bruce W. Nelson: ♫ Matt Gaetz’s NEW TV Show ♬
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
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.]
It’s a holiday edition of Drinking Liberally! Get an early start on Christmas and Hanukkah (tomorrow) and Kwanza (Thursday) this evening as the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally gets together for conversations and good cheer over a drink.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the back room of the pub. We start at 8:00pm.
Chapters of Living Liberally are all over the place…if you can’t make it to the Seattle chapter, stop by another chapter near you.
– There are 109 more important things, but why are you buying a card with Ewoks on it and writing about a Disney princess?
– Transit in Rainier, pleez.
– Vancouver, please reject this nonsense.
Steve Shives: The evolution of health insurance
Roll Call: Congressional hits and misses of the week
Tommy Campbell: Marjorie Taylor Greene threatens drones and Matt Gaetz braces for House ethics report
Electile Dysfunction 2024:
Seth Meyers: : Трамп, Biden and Bernie react to drone hysteria, Mace says it could be aliens
Cliff Cash: Southern comedian rips on White supremacists
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Man fuck English ivy. Ban the shit out of it. I have pulled so many of the fuckers. I imagine many of you who aren’t apartment dwellers have pulled even more. They’re invasive fuckers and they choke out natives. Yuck.
But also whenever I see ivy sold at a garden store or whatever I have to wonder who buys it. Like fine, it can be a decorative indoor plant that can be contained to a pot. Just fucking grab some clippers and grab yourself some. Look at all those goddam roots, you don’t need to buy it. Honestly, if you’re buying it, you can’t be trusted with it.
And if you’re looking for outdoor use, why not go eat shit instead?
– Shoreline!
– Burien?
– Seattle.
– I am not sure that Washington’s approach to sports gambling is good, but perhaps there isn’t a good option.
– There are going to be so many horrible things in the Trump Administration including the ICE raids.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!