Goldy

If you noticed that this shitty old blog had gotten even shittier recently (really slow or not responding at all), it’s because I hadn’t updated the server it was running on for over 11 years, and had totally forgotten how to do anything at the Linux command line. Well… I think (hope) that’s been fixed. I still don’t know much about Linux, but I’ve managed to migrate the site to a spanking new server. Yay me!

Anyways, chances are you may have lost a few comments over the past couple days and I’ve disabled unsupported plugins so some functionality might be gone. Maybe permanently. Thems the breaks. But I think (hope) this shitty old site should be responsive again. So enjoy doing whatever it is you still do in the comment threads.

UPDATE:
So, the upgrade seemed to fix the original issues. Yay! But it broke my aged, hand-coded, customized theme. Fortunately, Darryl helped talk me through Linux, and after a little trouble-shooting we found a single line of bad code, which means, alas, for the moment, no comment numbers.

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?