הכיף הוא על הכיפאק

Last night I attended a concert in Tel Aviv that was a full decade in the making. Lets flash back to the late nineties for a moment. Yoyo's were at the height of popularity, while Pokemon were just making a splash. Everyone knew how to dance the Macarena. People the world over were panicked by the Y2K bug, except in the U.S. where everyone was more concerned with whether or not the President got a blow job in the oval office. And back home, I was holed up in my bedroom listening to Kaveret, Tipex, and a groundbreaking Israeli hip hop group called Shabak Samech. My fascination with Israeli culture would grow and diversify as the years passed, culminating in this 9 month sabbatical here in Haifa. Last night, I met Eli and his roommate Daniel in north Tel Aviv to see Shabak Samech in concert, performing live as a group for only the second time since 2000.

Me and my ticket stub.

Their music style is silly, bordering on ridiculous at times. One of their most famous songs has only one line: שום דבר לא כבד מדי בשביל הפיל שלי. Literally, it means "nothing is too heavy for my elephant." I'm sure its some kind of inside joke with the band and they think it is hilarious to hear a concert hall full of people chanting it along with them. Because of the general goofiness of the act, the crowd tended to skew young. If not for this one eminently creepy 30 something guy who was trying to dance with a group of teenage girls, I might have felt like the oldest guy in the house.

Clearly we were excited to be at the show.

In spite of the predominantly teenage crowd, the show was phenomenal. They were on stage for nearly 3 full hours, and played just about every known song they have from the last 15 years. They especially brought the house down with one of Mook E's solo songs,
.כולם מדברים על שלום, אף אחד מדבר על צדק

Shabak Samech

We generally avoided the pit area in front of the stage, because we had jackets with us that we wanted to put down, and because it was a good 15 degrees hotter crammed into the crowd. Even so, I couldn't resist the allure to spend some time jumping, dancing and screaming with the rest of the lunatics. For your viewing pleasure, here is a clip from last nights concert. It really captures what a lot of the show was like.


Dropping the bomb.

That night the three of us crashed at Daniel's parent's house in a small, wealthy neighborhood called צהלה, just outside of Tel Aviv. This morning I woke up first and had tea with Daniel's parents before the other gentleman rose. Around 12:30, I said my goodbyes and hopped on a bus bound for the Arlozoroff train station, where I would catch my train back to Haifa. Here is where the madness began. I'm not terrificly familiar with Tel Aviv, and the bus I was on took a very roundabout route, actually going out west through Ramat Gan before coming back into the city. Because of my poor knowledge of the city, I badly missed my stop and got off in south Tel Aviv, by the Azrieli towers. From there I was able to find the Hashalom train station.

Closing out the concert.

I was cursing my luck at this point, even though I was relieved to have located a train station. The runaround cost me a half hour, which is a problem on a Friday afternoon when the buses in Haifa stop running shortly after 3. I quickly lost the sourpuss look though, when one of our madrichim, Or, came running up to me on the platform! Only in Israel does this happen. Apparently he was hanging out with friends the night before in Tel Aviv and was headed back to Haifa also. We chilled and talked the whole way north. Of course my concerns regarding the bus schedule turned out to be rooted in harsh reality. I had missed the last 46 bus, the only line that runs directly from the central bus station in Haifa up to campus. I hopped a 131 up to the Horev Center, and then transferred to the 24 which took me home. Israeli public transit is frustrating sometimes, but I was too tired to worry much about it. I headed back to my room to shower and get changed, and now I'm ready for Shabbat dinner and then some quality time with friends afterwards. Classes finally resume next week. Shabbat shalom.

The Return Of Moadon Bishul

We're back, and it feels so good! After a long intersession where our dinners were usually limited to 3 or 4 people, we've moved the day of the cooking club to Tuesday and made the effort to invite a lot of the new international students tonight. It paid off, big time. Because it was a cold and rainy night, we decided to make a big pot of chili. We ended up with 11 people at dinner, maybe our biggest since we began this whole thing. People meshed and the conversation flowed seamlessly, the food was hearty and tasty, and everyone went home happy. I think we're on to something good.

Now for something totally different. Last night I was sitting in the lobby of the dorms at my computer, talking to Elliot Gordon, another new American student. He told me he was from Woodmere, NY. I know a girl from Woodmere, Sheryl Gordon, who I went on Ramah Seminar with many summers back. I rolled the Jewish Geography dice and asked him if he knew her. His response was classic: "She's only my older sister! You're Eddie from Chicago..... You were at my house!" And indeed, I was. I was quite surprised although I probably shouldn't have been. This stuff just has a way of happening. It is a small, small Jewish world.

Getting My Shit Together

Today was one of those days for doing all the unpleasant things that need doing. I woke up around 9 and the mood to be productive came over me. I've learned from experience that if I ignore that feeling, it could be a long time before I feel it again. First step was gathering all the clothing that littered the floor of my bedroom into my laundry bag and hauling it up to the laundry room. Once my clothes were in the wash, I tackled the filth that has been accumulating in my bedroom. I gave the room the complete treatment: Garbage was thrown out, the multitude of unnecessary papers and read magazines were gathered and removed, dust bunnies were ruthlessly swept up and tossed out as well. I washed the floor, I cleaned my entire bathroom, and I reorganized the rest of my things.

I picked up my clean and now dry laundry and put it all away nicely. I'm especially looking forward to having clean sheets to sleep on tonight. My productivity mood had mostly faded by now, but I had one more big errand to run. I've been running dangerously low on food for days. The pantry was empty and the fridge was almost empty. I headed to the Super-Sal and stocked up on everything I could need. I'm now set for 2 weeks on perishables, and I've got canned and dry food for a month. It wasn't fun transporting everything home on a bus, but there is no satisfaction quite like looking up at a full pantry!