My friends Samadar & Jeremy invited people over on Thursday night for a pre-Purim get together. It was totes fun, especially since I was in the middle of my hardest-working week ever and had just come from my friend Jean’s, helping her w/tech support as she gets used to using Excel, Outlook and webmail while taking Internship Coordinator duties from me for my main nonprofit client.
Rebecca, Hayley & Ariel and the Becker-Barkins were all there. S0, were the best damned hamantaschen I’ve ever tasted in my whole life! Gotta hand it to the Israelis. I’m a carbohydrate and high fructose corn syrup, and trans fats coinnoiseur, and I much prefer awesome fluffy white cake and buttercream icing like on Magnolia or Billy’s cupcakes to hamantaschen, which were just always too bland for me. But these were sort of minis, and it was all about the center filling: huge mushy dates (w/anise for kick!), apple filling, chocolate chips in vanilla pudding. Plus, the outside was nice and crumbly. Just superb.
Besides having a fantastic personality and being a stellar friend, Yoda Jeremy is also an undiscovered artist. Just look at this huge canvas he painted for Samadar (they are engaged). What I find really impressive, is it looks just like her – not b/c of what he did paint, but precisely b/c of the open spaces he carefully did nothing to. I mean, that nose is her – and it’s two dots !! But it’s the exact right two dots. To me, this is talent in the extreme.
Does anyone feel like they're being watched?
Finally, gotta add that we played some PlayStation 3 off-road game, and it was just incredible. Look, I’m a guy whose experience w/video games kinda died after Missile Command and Time Pilot left the scene. I know all about how games like Guitar Hero, The Sims and tie-ins w/films like Avatar are huge business, but I just haven’t played any of them for myself.
But suddenly this game was on Jeremy & Samadar’s High-Def TV, looking so gorgeous, and I had to ask to play. It was awesome, a real highlight for me. We all especially loved the schadenfreude of watching the guy fly off his motorcycle and through the air after smashing into a big rock. Bam!
Not really, but I thought it was a funny title.
After my hardest-working week ever, I was thrilled to be able to join my friend Danny and head out to Ha Te-atron (The Threatre Club), for a Gay Purim Dance Party called “Express Yourself.” This is the same venue where the bi-weekly party Big Boys is, that I’ve been to and written about on here. The difference was that Big Boys is for men 30 and older, and this was open to both sexes (but still a gay event), ages 24 and up.
I went as “70s Gay Workout Guy,” and my costume consisted of a 6-day-old pornstache I’ve been growing, my Jewfro hair I’ve been growing out, some really gay short-shorts I bought from Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour and saving for exactly this kind of über gay happening, a too-tight t-shirt, headband, wristband and tube socks.
Let's get physical !! Physical !! I wanna get Physical....
I’m awaiting pics from Danny and another friend, which I’ll add when I get them.
Let me just tell you – the costumes were serious and all get out !!! For secular adults in Israel, there’s almost no difference b/t Purim and Halloween. For kids, it’s a bit different – there’s no trick-0r-treating, and there’s no emphasis on macabre (no skeletons, witches, ghosts). But for the adults, it’s just an excuse to go to costume parties, exactly like in America.
And there were some super fierce and fun ones. I’ll post some pics, but they were taken w/my BlackBerry camera, so they ain’t great. I brought my real cam too, but left it in the car, b/c didn’t wanna bring two devices inside the club. The immediacy of Twitpic trumped the quality of pics for the long-term.
They played a lot of my favorites – Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, Madonna, etc. My friends Russell and Eyal were there, too. Plus, I met a deliscious and big-hearted adorable college-student, who fancied me. Always nice what that that never happens. Had an outstanding celebratory time!
So different from how I spent my last Purim: picking up a repaired Lenovo laptop in an Orthodox neighborhood and watching the drunk Frums be idiots.
Say....VELVETA !!!
Gefilte Fish Out of Water 
