Cherubim and Sera-phim: The Marvels of Comic-Con
by Simon

Where have we been, these Jews you love? What have we been up to?

Well, double duty, baby. Sera's been busy cooking up some mind-blowing shit that will be rocking your screen soon enough. Sime's been turning out all manner of commercial ephemera and prepping The Classic Rock Singalong (which goes down this Sat. night, 8/16, @ M Bar in Hollywood; please join us, Angelenos). And they've been dreaming up some other stuff too, which is all, like, ultra-classified.

But the purpose of this – our first post since, what, the Harding administration? – is to share my delight and pride at seeing Sera's panel and other public appearances at Comic-Con.

See, I've always known Sera was a superstar, and Jules and I met her back when she was a mere poppet, working in a not-very-satisfying job and writing genius works in secret. So to see the world embrace her fantabulosity makes me about bust a button.

And boy, was there some embracing at Comic-Con. Julia, Jo, Jim, Mollie and I dutifully filed into a gargantuan auditorium to watch her on the Supernatural panel (moderated by Entertainment Weekly's Alynda Wheat and also featuring series creator Eric Kripke, writer-producer Ben Edlund and a couple of actors whose names escape me); and yeah, OK, a lot of the chiquitas in that capacity crowd were screaming for the boy stars in a way that recalled Beatlemania or Hitchcock's The Birds, but the true aficionados were also palpitatin' for our girl.

Afterward, folks started lining up for autographs ... so many, in fact, that Comic-Con closed the line. And the seemingly endless throngs who trudged cheek-by-jowl through the convention center (including us) had to content themselves with viewing the signing ceremony on the Jumbotron.

Those of you who were part of that great wave of genre-loving humanity know what I'm talking about. If you weren't, imagine, thousands of fans crammed together so tightly that they make a giant hall look like a really small space, most of them dressed as Princess Leia (in near-naked Jabba-slave mode) or Spiderman or the octopus lady in The Little Mermaid.

Her Majesty's loyal subjects.

And seriously, peeps, one of the best things about Comic-Con is that the true fans of these shows and films don't just know the stars. They know the names of the people who toil away on their laptops, fueled only by specially fitted latte-dispensing helmets and muffins that have been crumbled into mouth-ready bites by a team of nubile interns, conjuring the fantastical scenarios of ghouls and vampires and ninjas and superhero vixens we depend on to make life remotely palatable.

And even in that constellation of scribes, our Sera shines brightest. If you ask me.

The Center Cannot Hold.

A remembrance from Simon

This is about the day I went to the Center for the last time.

Oh, I should explain what the Center is. Y'see, in my family – for pretty much my entire life – that word signified more than just the Valley Cities Jewish Community Center on Burbank Boulevard. It was the hub of our community, our secular schul, our arts academy, sports center and hangout away from home.

I trundled into the place in diapers for day care and spent a staggering number of hours there until my teens. I made misshapen family gifts in arts and crafts classes, donned funny hats and greasepaint for rough but enthusiastic musical comedies, shot the shit with other kids and even tried my hand at improv comedy. But the Center was also where we gathered in the auditorium for political talks and bought tchochkes at the Purim Bazaar. And did every other damn thing. Most importantly, it connected us with dozens of other families - the Paleys, the Mintzers, the Shares, the Diamonds, the Beckers, the Jampols, the Browns and so many others - that formed our lifelong mishpuchah.

In the ensuing years we stayed in contact with most of those families, through tragedies, triumphs and time's other tidbits. But the Center? It became less of a hub and more of a concept. I left L.A. at age 18 and didn't come back for ten years; when I returned to the Valley Cities, the Center was no longer a center of my life. I'd stop by for an event now and then and find the place had fallen into a certain musty desuetude. The air conditioning was poor. The upkeep was spotty. The well-intentioned organizers of Center gatherings often didn't set up enough chairs, and they always seemed to throw the refreshments together at the last second without the slightest inkling of what human beings might want to consume at all, let alone at the same time. It became a trifle depressing, though the idea of the place still glowed in the furthest reaches of my consciousness.

At last, many years on, the time had come for the operation to move to a new location in the deepest valley. A farewell brunch gathered the tribes in the poorly cooled auditorium, in front of the very stage that had been the fulcrum, for me, of a thousand pre- and post-pubescent dramas (scripted and otherwise).

There were round tables. Mailing list forms. A refreshments area groaning with a random array of recently unfrozen cakes, midcentury coffee urns and cartons of Minute Maid orange juice. (What, no sardines or diet Fresca?) Reminiscences and photo ops. A wake, in short.

I felt ambivalent about even showing up, and a few old Center pals I spoke to in the days beforehand said they did too. I expressed these mixed feelings the old-fashioned way: by rolling in super-late. At one of the round tables, fanning themselves gloomily in the sweltering heat, I spied my parents and siblings. My dad, the first to see me creeping up, flashed an inimitably dark "join the fun" expression, much the mien one might expect to see on the puss of a dear old friend one chanced upon in some stifling ring of Dante's Inferno.

Dad, a Center president back in the '70s, glumly assented to appear in a group photo. Various luminaries of the organization were extolled from the podium. We heard about matching contributions for the new Center. Then my brother, ever the thoughtful time manager, suggested we make our way to the other side of the building, where a videographer was recording testimonials from Center stalwarts.

We trudged down the hallway I'd traversed hundreds of times in my life. We passed the room where I'd made construction-paper assemblages; the room where we had naptime, stretched out on mats on the tile floor after our graham crackers and apple juice; the room where I'd rehearsed songs from You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown when my voice was changing. The rooms of my first true socialization, my first creative experiments, my first romantic stirrings.

"Sime," my mom said, having dipped her Madeleine in the tea of memory, "I could just see you running down this hallway, with your full diaper."

"You mean just now?"

When we arrived at the surprisingly dark videography room, they were finishing up with someone else. I went to use the bathroom; when I flushed the urinal it overflowed, sending a symbolic flood cascading over the deteriorating floor. I reacted with a kind of wounded hostility: For fuck's sake, I know they're moving out, but this is just pathetic.

Then we made our way into the videography room, wherein the only chairs were only big enough to house the tuchuses of preschoolers. You could sit in those, the videographer lady said unhelpfully, or you could maybe sit on a table.

I was about ready to just go out to my car and drive away at that point, so fully had I let the half-assed planning and crumbling interiors become a scapegoat for my sense of loss about the place (and, via the transitive property, the salad days of my youth). But instead my brother and I hustled back to the auditorium (in which, I shit you not, somebody was by now at the microphone singing "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"), grabbed some adult-sized chairs and schlepped them back down the eternal hallway of my childhood and into the underlit videography room.

They arranged the five of us in a line and the little red light on the video camera went on. And then something happened.

The memories came tumbling out.

First my parents described the early days, the "red Center" days when progressive, secular Jews were a thorn in the side of the conservative Jewish establishment; when Vietnam, the Civil Rights movement, poverty and feminism galvanized these suburban liberals. My siblings remembered their adolescence there, playing music and making friends. And I talked about the kaleidoscopic experience of growing up amid the songs and stories and possibilities ... and kind of lost it.

It was the first time the five of us had said a lot of this out loud, at least at one time, but it flowed like some kind of jazz threnody, a stately groove with bits of elegantly laced improvisation. We were alternately laughing and weeping, spinning yarns and riffing and eulogizing.

This too was like a wake. But the good part of the wake, when everyone's had enough bourbon to start telling the real stories.

The Center is moving and it won't be our Center. I'm off at the other end of the city, and the rest of the family, though still living in the Valley, has become a hub of its own. But other stories, other childhoods will start at the new building. I hope they're as indelible as the ones we unspooled on that last day.

Laura Kightlinger: Half-Jew, More Than Half-Hot


We get it, America: There's too much ranting in the blogosphere. And we think you'll agree that our Semitic scribblings tend, by and large, to be more kvell-y than kvetchy.

But as we're more than tangentially connected to the world of TV, we do feel qualified to air a loud complaint against the cancellation of a truly funny, original show: The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman.

This punishingly funny half-hour series on the IFC sprang from the brilliant, sick mind of Laura Kightlinger, who gained national attention as a cast member on Will and Grace and Lucky Louie and whose deadpan standup routines have delighted us for years (and whose smoldering hotness has long haunted Sime's dreams). She claims to be half-Jewish, which is reason enough to put her on the ol' Heeblog.

On the show, she plays a spectacularly self-involved aspiring screenwriter who makes a staggering series of bad decisions, frequently in collaboration with her best friend, the equally narcissistic Tara (Nicholle Tom). Rather than rabbit on about it all day, we'll just offer you a couple of tasty tidbits:






See what we're sayin'? That's some funny shit (and that's the great Mary Kay Place as Jackie's mom). The show's improv-friendly vibe and anything-goes approach to subject matter have also prompted fantastic work from such folks as Ray Wise (as a right-wing radio commentator) and Sally Kellerman (as herself - and please, call her Sally Kellerman), not to mention inspired cast regulars like Azura Skye, Patrick Bristow and Jeremy Kramer.

It couldn't hurt to contact the people at IFC and urge them to revive this fantastic show: programming@ifctv.com. And no matter how that noise plays out, you'll want to grab the DVD toot sweet.

In the meantime, though, you can check out Laura's bizarre and hysterically funny faux-reality "Cat Demon" shorts (featuring stellar work from Laura herself and her fellow national treasure David Koechner) on FunnyorDie.com. You can also periodically catch her at the amazing Uncabaret.

You Deserve to Sing.
An invitation/invocation from Simon

What's a pragmatic, empirical, non-mystical, irreligious, secular Jewboy to do?

I'm generally the most skeptical dude in the room when my tousle-haired Cali friends start spewing some Age of Aquarius doo-dah about the coming transition in human consciousness. If I happen to hear a TV preacher yappin' about the End Times, it makes me giggle. But there are moments, my Very Hot darlings, that give even a hyper-rationalist like me cause to pause.

Like this dream I had the other night.

It was a typical low-level anxiety nightmare, one of those sweaty mini-disaster flicks of the unconscious. You know the kind: normal space-time is like existential quicksand and accomplishing the most basic tasks is fraught with absurd difficulty. In this case, I was trying to find my car and walking around in circles. And then, in the midst of my hyperventilating despair, I had a realization.

It was pretty much this: Wait a minute ... this is one of those low-level anxiety dreams.

Textbook lucid dreaming, people. Once I made that connection, I simply pointed to an area behind me and said, "The car is over there." And it was. (To my delight, my dream ride was a shiny new red VW bug, not the Pleistocene-era Nissan Sentra, currently bedazzled with birdshit, that is my waking-life model.)

Then I opened the door of the car and said, "While we're at it, there's going to be a briefcase full of money on the front passenger seat." And there was.

The dream was pretty much over then. I had made my point.

You don't have to be a psychoanalyst to agree that cars and cash in dreams don't stand for cars and cash. And whatever it ultimately means when one has a successful lucid-dreaming experience, it felt like a breakthrough.

Controlling the content of a dream is rather like taking the helm of a starship and finding that it's no more difficult than riding a Big Wheel. And the feeling of not only infinite possibility but unlimited potentiality is thrilling.

I awoke, how you say, pumped.

My life has not irrevocably changed since that revelatory sleep-space adventure. But it has caused me to reflect on the ways that we hold ourselves back. How can I share with some of you the opposite of holding back?

It's a humble offering, but it's the best I can do: If you're in L.A.*, come sing with me.

You know you love to sing. It's fun. It feels great. But even as we're surrounded by karaoke bars and TV competitions that purport to invite Joe and Jane Six-Pack onto the stage, it's always about whether you're good enough. It's always "Don't quit your day job." Either you're a world-class undiscovered superstar with incredible pipes who can wrestle a classic soul anthem into submission with your crazily overwrought melismatics, it seems, or you should shut the fuck up.

It's kinda like saying nobody should be allowed to have sex except porn stars.

Well, here's what I'm saying: Singing is your right as a human being. You are fully entitled to express your joy in being alive, however fleeting that joy might be, by lifting your voice in song.

And our little party, The Classic Rock Singalong, is the place to do it. Sera's written about it in this space before, so a lot of you have already gotten the lowdown. But here it is in a nutshell: classic pop hits, the ones that you know from the radio and sing in the shower. A great band and a bunch of cool singers on stage leading the songs. A book of lyrics for everyone. The entire freakin' bar wailing their hearts out, borne aloft by power chords and (with some sober exceptions) the disinhibiting effects of liquor.

It's seriously fun, like a lucid dream. See you there?

*If you're not in L.A., why not have your own Singalong? All you need is a few musicians, a bunch of friends and a couple of bottles. I guarantee your guests will remember it (if they remember anything) as one of the best parties ever.

Oh, L.A., How I Heart Jew.

(a mash note from Sera)

A few weeks ago, I was at a meeting with a couple of exec-y types, chatting about movies. We'd narrowed it down to one movie in particular, a theoretical one based on some manga they'd sent me (that's "Japanese comic-booky-type novels" for those of you born before the year 1990). I said, "You know, I'd set the movie in Los Angeles." They were like, okay, cool, we were thinking the same thing, we want to shoot it here, but can we ask you - why do you feel it should be set here? And I was like, "Duh, L.A. is made of magic."

That's where I lost them.

They were nice guys, though, so they weren't all snide and elitist about it. The more recent transplant gave me a surprisingly candid, sad look and said, "If there's magic in L.A., please show it to me, because I haven't found it."

So I went off about, you know, blah blah, various iconic movies set in L.A. I referenced the many books of Francesca Lia Block, a Very Hot Jewess who made her name describing the flowering freeway vines, canyons and hot dog stands of the city in postmodern, punky fairy-tale terms. I talked about landing here at 17, in awe of Venice Beach, the turbaned roller-blading guitar player, the chainsaw jugglers, the entertaining crackheads, the murals, the punk girls with straw-stiff candy-cane hair, the surfers with impossible underwear-model bodies, the glittery red snake of Mulholland, the sculpture garden at UCLA that is awesome whether or not it is midnight and even if you are not tripping on acid. Basically, I blabbed until they shrugged and conceded the point so we could move on.

But their eyes were still clouded over all smog-like, and I don't blame them. Being a grown-up sucks ass, man. You get up, hit traffic, hit work, field a zillion phone calls, attempt to mitigate your stress level, then hit more traffic upon leaving. Especially city denizens like these two gentlemen I was talking to - they have to do drinks meetings all the time, so their evenings are clotted up with trips to trendy WeHo eateries on streets made perilous by paparazzi SUVs ready to kill for a single snap of Heidi Montag, whoever the high holy FUCK she is.

I know how those two gents feel, in that I live exactly one mile from the beach and have visited said beach exactly twice in the last three months. It is easy to be fooled into thinking that Los Angeles is just what those high-and-mighty people from, oh, everywhere else on planet Earth say it is: crowded, sprawling, smoggy, fake, centerless, cultureless, magic-free.

But they're wrong, and I'm right. I remembered this the other day, quite by accident. Here's how it happened:

Hiatus was ending. I was about to go back to work, whereupon I'd be expected to report to an office and act more or less like a grown-up five days a week until May of 2009. It was my last chance before the first day o' school to do the following: pamper myself; get a much-needed pedi; go to Barnes and Noble and sit on the floor flipping through lots of books I have no intention of buying (or, full disclosure, of reshelving); travel ridiculous distances by car to indulge random food cravings. So: I ventured deep into the wilds of Hollywood.

First, I went to the best Thai restaurant ever. It'll fool you from the outside - it's in a strip mall, next to a storage facility. But enter, and you are greeted by a ten-foot-high trash-metal sculpture of Elvis, and that is your first clue that you have come somewhere special.

I'd say go at night, for kicks, because a tiny, sexy man in a Nudie suit performs several shows each evening. He is known as Thai Elvis. I have a huge crush on him. There's also a guy who wears bowling shirts cut out of holographic-shiny material of the type most often used in the manufacture of stripper thongs. He does impressions, notably a poignant Kermit the Frog, all competent, all with the unwavering, morose expression familiar to everyone who calls L.A. home: the look of the failed actor. But anyway, enough about them; during the day it's all bright and sunshiny in there, a bunch of lightning-quick waiters talking to each other through secret-service earbuds.

I go there for this dish they call Morning Glory. I don't know if it's really the stuff that grows in your grandma's yard. It is green and stemmy and crunchy, made with lots of garlic and chili and I don't know what else, I can only assume sweet sweet crack because I will happily drive for an hour to get the stuff when the urge hits. Sometimes I'll mention to a friend or a coworker - oh, I'm thinking of going to this Thai place I like for some dinner, they have this vegetable dish ... and they'll get this dreamy look and go, "Are you talking about Palms Thai? The Morning Glory? Who the fuck knows what that stuff really is, but I ate it every single day of my pregnancy, and now the twins are geniuses."

So, that was lunch.

Then I went to a Korean spa to have the entire top layer of my skin scoured off my body by a small, brusque lady in a transparent black bra and panties who speaks zero English. In a room surrounded by naked old ladies, staring at my naked self.

Yeah, it's not the sexiest place to go for a massage, but you know what? Fuck that. I live in Schmancyville, I make a decent living, if I really wanted to I could go to one of those very very nice cushy hotel spa places. In fact, I do, once in a while; but when the classy, oh-so-corporate Burke Williams brochure talked about a treatment where they'd beat my ass with wheat stalks and I'd come out all smooth and fresh as a baby, I was expecting some kind of serious, borderline-kinky Russian-bathhouse exfoliation. Instead, a bored lady wisped soapy water on me with plastic car-wash fronds. Meh. I'm about the real thing, bitches.

Which you can actually get, in L.A. If you seek it. You receive my meaning? You getting the magic, yet? It's not everywhere in America you get to lie on a massage table and have someone leave no inch un-buffed (I betcha they skip the boobs at The Four Seasons - but don't boobs need scrubbing and oiling as much if not more than the surrounding skin? I mean, you gonna wax the car but skip the hood ornaments, people?), the chatter of half a dozen Korean ladies floating over your head? I love that - I love it when I don't speak a word of the language. No one will call an HOA meeting, or ask me to give them notes on their script, or fail to mention our dinner together is in their mind a date date, or on the other hand say they'll call and then never ever ever call, ever. My Korean buff lady is awesome, she makes no promises, she scrubs me, turns me over, washes my face with a little squirt of a cleanser called Naive, kneads my scalp so adeptly that I instantly forget I have anything in my life to stress out about, and hands me a tip envelope. Relationship over.

From there I was led to another room for a massage on my newly-exposed fresh and silky skin. Again, this massage was not polite. There was climbing on the table, and there were feet involved. Oh, don't be a pussy. Everything's clean, guys. And effective. Errant vertebrae snap back into line. I get off the table ready to produce twenty-two episodes of televised entertainment.

Are there Thai restaurants and Korean massage grottoes elsewhere on this green earth? But of course. Maybe there are even Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles. If so - run, don't walk. I mean, you'll be risking a tummy-ache so intense you'll mistake it for organ failure, but it's worth it.

Sera and Dinda, suffering after a delicious meal at legendary Roscoe's.

These are just the outlines of my magical L.A. constellations. There are lots more, of course. I would do a whole series of posts about this, except... let's be honest, I totally won't get around to it.

Instead, I conscripted Simon into service. He's a lot cooler than I am. He lives on the cool side of town and goes to cool restaurants people like me haven't heard of yet because he has yet to email me about them. I called him and asked him to finish this post for me, which he has done in natty bullet-point fashion below. I like that. It serves to jog the brain. Inspires one to ask oneself, "what does my bullet point list look like, and why have I been ignoring it in favor of whining like a little bitch about traffic?" Maybe even nudge one to include one's Very Hot pals on one's next adventure into the secret heart of L.A., where celebs fear to tread.

Because ultimately our point here is that our city is a veritable onion of magic. There are layers galore, for anyone who is willing to drop the 'tude and embrace the perfect weather and beautiful light and vast ocean and 90-something languages and impressive cache of competent tattoo artists that is the city of angels. So, here's Sime's House Blend of magical goodness:

• Red-tailed hawks, Griffith Park coyotes and twilight owls.
  


• Ancient stone steps that lead up to overgrown, abandoned estates. (NOTE FROM SERA: Harry Houdini used to live in one of them!)
  


• Seedy-looking, neon-lit clubs blasting live salsa music through the wee hours.
  


• Snowy peaks and sunny beaches visible from the same hilltop.
  


• The afternoon parade of dogs and owners on the winding hilltop streets.
  


• Neighborhood bars that play old monster movies with the sound off and have a DJ spinning vintage hip-hop.
  


• Tacos off the truck ... just outside the bar playing the monster movies.
  


• Naked pool parties that somehow end up as philosophy seminars, and vice versa.
  


• Funky little art galleries curated by chatty women who turn out to have been legendary punk rockers in the '80s.
  







• Getting lost in some neighborhood and stumbling on a soccer game in progress: fierce Latino kids in uniforms flying at each other.
  


• The sound of a train chuffing through the rail yard when the air is thick with night-blooming jasmine.
  


• Sitting on a concrete ledge and eating kettle corn at the farmer's market between the pupusas bar and the kim-chee booth.
  


• The way the downtown skyline powers up at night like a parti-colored electric grin.
  


• Standing on Fairfax or Silverlake or Ocean with a cocktail buzz on, feeling a mellow breeze on your skin and not wanting the night to be over quite yet.
  


• That sense of infinite possibility that swings up like the lantern moon just when you surrender your plan for a quiet evening.
  

So corny. So poetic. So outside the circuit of expensive car - expensive restaurant - expensive home. But the magic is there if you're ready to let it scrub you clean the way a fierce yet tender Korean lady works over a weary pilgrim from the distant shores of TV land.

All you have to do is get lost. In your own backyard.

I Just Blogged To Say I Love You.

Dear Hotness That Is Vous,

Hey. It's Sera. I know, I know. It's been way, way too long, hasn't it?

I went halvsies on this here blog o' hotfulness with Simon Of The East, and here I sit in Santa Monica, having blogged not a whit in so long you've probably taken us off your bookmark list in betrayal and despair.

It's like this, folks. There was a strike; and then I went back to work and it was, let us say, very slightly busy; and then I was done and I got to go on hiatus, but it was this tiny hiatus compared to the hiati to which we who write for your couch-bound entertainment are generally accustomed. Just under a month, which is nothing to sneeze at, I know - I have friends with their own businesses who haven't taken time off in three years, and I have friends with kids who haven't had a day to themselves since the friggin' nineties. But still, it was only just long enough for me to take care of business.

What business? I'd love to share, because what's a blog for if not to digitally toot one's own metaphorical horn, but I can't. I'm uber-Jewlicious in my level of superstition, and all the shit I've been rocking is mid-rock. There was a point last week - Tuesday going into Wednesday, to be precise - where I got so in the zone I worked all night and straight through the next day. Don't feel bad for me, it was bliss, to just dive in the creative deep end because I want to rather than because I'll get fired/production will shut down/my professor will give me an F.

Sometime in the next few months, I'll either post about what/whom I was working on because things bloomed in fantastical fashion, or I'll have fallen on my face and have a hilarious cautionary tale with which to entertain you.

The one little thang I can tell you 'bout is that I got invited to contribute to a lush and deviant collection of gothic erotica curated by Susie Bright. It'll be out in time for Hannukah, I do believe. Because I apparently don't get enough of it at work, I wrote about a demon. I think I was a disgruntled nun in a past life.

So, yeah, I'm a slacker and I suck and maybe I remind you of your deadbeat dad who always said he'd call but almost never did. But, like your dad, beneath my charming, possibly drunk exterior, I really do love you and have the best of intentions.

xoxo,
Sera

Let's Get the Hell Out of This Desert.
Some Disorganized Passover Thoughts From Simon

It won't be the same watching The Ten Commandments this year, what with the guy who played Moses having passed on. ("I guess we can take his gun now," said a less-than-reverent friend. "Oh, too soon?")

But we've got plagues of our own to worry about; didn't you see that ABC debate? Some people aren't wearing flag pins!

We've been so damn busy, in fact, that my family didn't even get around to planning our seder until a few days ago. While Julia and sister Jo normally undertake the Charoset preparation, this year we opted to outsource to brilliant local cateress and VHJ Lisa Feinstein, whose Provisions offers an enticing, original Pesach menu (full disclosure: she's also a client. But I wouldn't steer you wrong).

This year, as ever, a lot of us will participate in a ritual that celebrates freedom. And as always, we'll be asked to consider the ways in which we're still somehow enslaved – to our obsessions, our emotional baggage, our chemical dependencies and other bad habits.

Like every year, we'll be enjoined to recall our people's past sufferings and – at least at our table – to consider how we are obligated to witness and, if possible, alleviate the sufferings of Jews and non-Jews alike, everywhere in the world.

We'll parse the symbolic importance of the items on our seder plates, and the youngest child (ever more precocious and performance-oriented) will charmingly enunciate the four questions about why this night is different from all others.

But I've got a question of my own (I can't help it – I'm the youngest sibling myself): How will this year be different from all others?

I ask because I'm experiencing something strange and unbidden, something attached to and yet wholly separate from the dark, anxious meandering that has marked the last several years. Like I've been wandering in the desert but see, in the distance, the possibility of a shady sanctuary.

I promised myself, this election season, that I wouldn't get sucked into the vortex of political obsession. A lifetime of disappointments dotted with half-hearted victories – and culminating in the dumbshit dystopia of the Bush years – had persuaded me that laying my bleeding heart in the center of the highway as a ritual sacrifice was no longer an option.

I had just about comfortably settled into what I regarded as a Mature Middle-Aged skepticism, and thus could regard all electoral jousting from an armored remove. Exhibit A? An entry from this very blog that promised, "Your candidate is a sociopath." So much more fun. So much easier. So much less painful that having a dog in the race.

Then along came a candidate who got me believing.

So about this strange flowering of hope in the Bush-bleached desert of my soul. It's forced me to admit some things to myself. That as much as I've decried the politics of fear, and as much as I've turned the mighty X-ray of my dialectical mind on "hope" as a trope, I'm just as fearful as anyone.

I'm afraid that if I open myself up to the blinding rays of what could be, a trap will spring shut on my flesh and spirit. I'm afraid that if I dare to believe in a candidate who seems to speak for the best in us rather than the worst, I'll find myself deceived. That a Pharaoh or a Karl Rove or a James Earl Ray or some operative in a black helicopter will end it all with a bullet or a conspiracy or a conspiracy of bullets. For all the invective I've leveled at the fearmongers, I've been a loyal consumer of fear.

Here's the thing: Hope is the opposite of fear, it's true. But hope isn't just a big soft hand that lifts you onto a fluffy carefree cloud, far above the whirring blades of despair. Hope is an invitation, whether the hearty roar of a fired-up crowd or just a sexy whisper from the universe, to leave the dreary confines of one's grey cell of detachment. To come out and play. Hope will ring the doorbell, but you've got to drag your sorry ass outside.

I am 43 years old. During the sweltering, chaotic summer of my birth, three extraordinary kids drove down to Mississippi to stand up for a more inclusive vision of democracy. The loyal exemplars of traditional values, fine Christians all and fiercely protective of their local heritage, repaid the efforts of these hopeful Americans with a fusillade of bullets. The martyrdom of this trio fell hard on two California Jews who were soon expecting their third child, the one who'd later be tasked with the four questions at the Passover table. They gave me Andrew as a middle name, in honor of Andrew Goodman, a young Jew who sacrificed everything to extend the blessings of liberty.

I wasn't quite four years old when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Once again, the hopes of forward-thinking, open-hearted people were shadowed with anguish. And what followed might fairly be called forty years in the desert.

And in the decades since, so much destruction. So much betrayal. So much enslavement to triviality. In such a world, isn't hoping for better just a burden? Let's just hide in the bunker, catch up on some TiVo'd triviality and gird ourselves against the wicked, wasteful world with a Costco-sized supply of contemptuous wisecracks.

But then, wouldn't you know it, the doorbell rings.

Maybe you saw this video of a fantastic poem by an incredibly promising young writer/performer. It moved and delighted me because it cut to the heart of this dilemma I've been kvetching about.

Here's the part of the Passover story I'm focused on this year: Getting the hell out of the desert, and how seriously scary that is. How much easier it would be to stay in Egypt, to be gangsta-hard and stylishly cynical, rather than make the long, hot, sweaty, hopeful trek. How tough it is to believe that the angry red sea of the status quo will give way for us, no matter how resolutely we march. But also about how impossible it is, when hope rings the doorbell, to pretend you're not home.

Have a beautiful, meaningful Pesach. On this potentially liberating holiday, I greet you with all of my tenderly, tentatively hopeful heart.

In Sickness and in Health

Presenting a couple of Very Hot Jews.

They were married around this time of year 58 years ago, and they remain, to me, a model of nuptial loyalty and companionship.

They are there for each other. This is the irreducible kernel of married life – not flowers or neckties or nonstop lovey-dovey. The "in sickness and in health" part of those vows is no joke when you spend your entire lives together.

Mama recently had some (long-awaited and much anticipated) surgery and Dad was there, just as she was there for him during his procedure not long before. They are wise enough to know they also need outside help, but each remains a pillar for the other.

And that matters a lot – not just for them, but for a lot of other people, too.

The cake actually reads "Keep up the good work."

Julia and I just celebrated our anniversary as well. The date marked two years of marriage but also 17 years together; having both survived ill-advised early hitchings, we coasted along in unwedded bliss for 15 years. But the same principles apply, I'm happy to say.

We went to the movies and then to a fantastic restaurant, where we drank rosé bubbly and looked moonily at each other and ambled (with much hilarity) down memory lane. 17 years have truly flown by, and it's because we're having a blast together.

But the thing that I realize with increasing clarity? The best, the absolute most sterling and precious thing about a long-term relationship? Being known. Not having to explain. Anticipating and being anticipated. The way one's reflexive bullshit collapses in the wake of a wry look from the other. Hearing something on NPR in one's car and knowing the other is laughing at it in her car. The mere thought of doing all that work to be known, ever again? Exhausting beyond belief.

photo by Josh Pickering

And as we get older we succumb to the vicissitudes of aging and must of necessity fuss over each other. We will (and do) talk of pills and doctors and exercises and the diminishing keenness of our senses. Sunrise, Sunset. In sickness and in health.

For as long as possible.

More to Come. No Joke.

Sime's wife hates practical jokes. She says she finds nothing practical about them. Maybe there's something to that, especially as concerns Internet communications; you've come to trust the Web as a semi-reliable provider of news and information, and suddenly it's crawling with prankish faux-stories designed to give the unwary an aneurysm.

So trust us, it's no April Fool's Day joke when we tell you that we regret not having posted an update lately and that we will soon. We could give you the usual litany of excuses – workload, international intrigues, those little two-tone pills that also give you terrible dry mouth – but by now you should know that we're just not very consistent. Call us pisher. But soon enough you'll be seeing a pipin' hot new post from your fave Hot Hebrews. Abso-freakin'-lutely.

Oh, and we're converting to Mormonism.

A Letter to Eliot Spitzer

Dude.

A ton of ink has been spilled, already, on your stupid zipper moment: How law-and-order types are invariably heavy-breathing hypocrites. How you've set the cause of government reform back 20 years. How powerful men can't keep it in their pants. How you're roadkill in the Justice Department's illegal wiretap war on Democrats.

There are so many valid (and stupid) points to be chewed upon, and the mighty termites of the fourth estate are masticating busily as we speak.

But if we may, we'd like to ask a question that no one seems to have considered.

You paid HOW MUCH?

Seriously, bro. Like, four grand and change for a hooker? The AP says you might've spent as much as 80 large, all told.

OK, maybe you're a specialty client, and you're into some crazy shit. But you're in New York, where no request is too unusual! Isn't there any competition in that market? We gotta know: How is it that you were ready to pony up that kind of cheddar? Isn't the prevention of waste and fraud your specialty? And we hate to press the point, for all kinds of reasons, but you, of all people, paying retail?

We believe you could get the full menu for no more than five Benjis, and that's just on Craigslist.

You might still have been caught, but at least you wouldn't look like such a chump.

Sincerely yours,

The Very Hot Jews

What a Night. Again.

It was another incredible, spiritual Sat. night at the Classic Rock Singalong. Thanks to everyone who played and sang (including Jim Mills, Very Hot Jew Mike Ruekberg, Jason Chesney, Dean Macneil, Paul Plagens, Mark Cade, Maureen Mahon, Jeff Nimoy and Matt Docter), to our brother-from-another-mother Josh Pickering for the incredible photos (including the one below) and a lusty rendition of Spinal Tap's "Big Bottom," and to the fine folks at M Bar. Let's do it again soon.

I'm not a religious man, but the Singalong is my church, and worshipping at the altar of pop melody with y'all is truly a privilege.

See the MySpace blog for a recap of the night. For now, here's a pic that captures the spirit of the evening, with Paul leading "My Best Friend's Girl." That's me on handclaps and backing vocals.

See you next time, I hope.

Open Your Hymnbooks, Please.

L.A. people: Sera has rhapsodized at length about The Classic Rock Singalong, and we want to remind you that there will be another one on Sat., March 8 (that's tomorrow, as I write this) at the same place (M Bar in Hollywood). It'll start around 10, and we hope to see you there.

Doesn't it seem like your friends are always talking about these shindigs in cavernous lofts and warehouses that have huge guest lists and DJs playing music so hip you can't possibly dance to it and are rumored to be crawling with hot, hot celebrities who kiss each other on the cheek and spend the rest of the night texting their friends at other parties?

This is not one of those.

The CRS is a comparatively intimate gathering in a friendly club with a reasonable amount of seating for your tired tushy. It is entirely about turning off your CrackBerry and being heard rather than being seen. And aren't you ready for that?

There will be a great deal of full-throated wailing as the band guides the audience through a parti-colored wonderland of pop hits. There will be love in the air. There will be imbibing of spirits. There will be spontaneous gyration. Perhaps someone will remove her/his top. You never know.

Lyrics will be provided. Don't pretend the next song is too cheesy for you. Just lose yourself in it. You'll thank us later.

Life Is Too Short Not To.

We have a headache. Which is to be expected, considering that less than twenty-four hours ago, we consumed a MASTERFUL AND GENIUS SEVEN-COURSE MEAL WITH WINE PAIRINGS. No, we didn't go to some schmancy Zagat-touted restaurant. This event of worldwide importance transpired at the homey abode of Simon's lovely sis-in-law Jo. All 84 plates of wonder were created by VHJ-inner-circleite Matt. Sime and Sera, when not moaning in full-mouthed ecstasy, kept exchanging burning glances that clearly said, "We must blog about this immediately. The world needs to know."

The chef at work.

We don't know about you, but we love us some food porn. Also, we enjoy reading about other people's personal lives. This post is for you if you are like us. It's a glimpse into the VHJ's near-n-dearest at their boho best. (If you aren't into fatty meals or candid snaps of folks you've never met, this post will bore you to tears; sorry; come back later; love you, mean it.)

You've heard of Matt before. He is the one who, when Sera was feeling like emo crap in a bucket of suck, arrived at her pad bearing pasta maker, bacon, Gorgonzola and cream. He's a fine writer, but more pertinent to this here blogversation is his blessed food-related obsessive-compulsive disorder. Matt owns a cookbook written by the psychotic genius who chefs the French Laundry, which is one of those restaurants that require reservations six months in advance. The cookbook talks about cutting little squares of meat "against the grain," fridging fresh fish in exactly the position in which they swam at the moment of their demise, and other frankly weird shit. Many of the recipes start with unseemly bits of offal, and end four days later. Not joking.

Most of us would treat such a cookbook as a novelty item, a glimpse into the inner-mindfuck of a true artist we could never imagine emulating. Matt, on the other hand, sees a fun challenge. He's the foodie equivalent of those crazy bastards who decide they want to swim the English channel.

As you can see, Matt likes to eat.

Matt called Sera up a few months ago and told her he hankered to engineer a feast for twelve. It would be a bit of work, he said with hilarious calm. Would she pitch in her producer's mind for drama and help him create an evening so cool, Oprah would beg to film it for a segment concerning the joie-de-vivreiest Angelenos in the history of ever? Strategy meetings ensued; invitations zipped into the hot little hands of our lucky, lucky jury; and the harmonic convergence of this weekend was the orgiastic, drunkarific result.

Our motley tribe descended upon Jo's, dressed to the nines. Here is the part we recommend to all of you. This is the thing that life is too short (and also waaaaaay too long) not to do: next time you plan a soiree, do mention to your friends that there's no such thing as overdressed.

We know, we know, there's no way in hell you're cooking that much. We understand; when supper's left to us, we usually end up serving pizza and cupcakes. Not everyone is lucky enough to know a cook as talented and maniacal as Matt. But even if your dinner party was catered by drive-thru, it shouldn't stop you from requiring festive attire. Believe us when we say you will derive special pleasure from dining in your finest. You will rediscover the deep hotness of your friends. Also, drunk people are more fun to watch when they're dressed to give an acceptance speech.

So, we mingled in the candlelight, champers-tipsy and newly re-in-love with one another. Simon rocked the orange velveteen blazer and pearl tie-bar. Lovely Wife Julia donned black silk, platform heels and a sideways tiara.

Power couple.

Jo poured her Semitic loveliness into a sparkly gown previously worn by a chanteuse at Cannes.

Sparkly Jo with longtime companion, Wiener.

Dinda and Mollie came as that couple at the cocktail party who make you reconsider swinging as a lifestyle.

Mols and Dinda, on the drive over. You know you want them.

Shana wore a blue crocheted flower in her hair; her Brit beau Dave, natty vest and rocker hair.

Intercontinental love in action.

Michael mixed thrift-store finds with designer duds in that envy-making way that overworked, sleep-deprived, yet nevertheless supermodelesque production designers do.

Matt's Very Hot Musician bro Andy wore a hat that made us reappraise our previous dismissal of Abraham Lincoln as unsexy.

Matt's girlfriend-cum-sous chef Lindsay wore her slinkster dress from Junior Prom, because it still fits, bitches.

Sera wore silver leather flowers in her hair and a capelet fashioned from 100% muppet fur.

Sera as rejected Dorothy Parker's Vicious Circle candidate.

So, we ate a lot. We took pictures of that, too, which we will share here for your droolification.

First, Matt served a soul-crushingly delish amuse-bouche of hamhock paté (sounds gross, tastes like a three-picture deal making artistic horror movies executive-produced by Guillermo del Toro - oh, and you get final cut on the films, and also James McAvoy/Natalie Portman will wake you each morning with a loving round of oral sex. Actually, as good as that all sounds? The paté was better).

Then he served us soup we would gladly kill for. Matt's initial inspiration for the whole event was Sera's offhanded remark that she quite liked the onion soup at Doughboy's, a hipsterlicious Hollywood bakery. "Dude, I can make an onion soup that will make you believe in Jesus," Matt shot back. And so he concocted a heavenly liquid requiring several days of simmering and several pounds of asiago - hands-down the best fucking soup Sera's ever tasted (and, full disclosure, very nearly enough to make her consider emailing Christ an application for the position of Personal Savior).

We strongly suggest someone get this soup on the table for the next Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. If anything can get 'em in the mood to lay down arms, it's a still-bubbling bowlful of broth, spongy bread, and ooey-gooey cheese.

If memory serves, right around the soup course was the first time Jo burst into tears of joy. This behavior would continue throughout the evening, as new and miraculous taste sensations were set before her sparkling bosom.

Many charming toasts were made, and glasses of wine were imbibed. We can't remember how many. More than four but less than all the wine in the world. Matt and Lindz split their time between the table and the roasting-hot kitchen, from whence nirvanic smells wafted. They emerged bearing skate - the fish, not the wheeled shoe - in a vertical sculpture of garlic and pan-seared lemon slice on a nest of oniony delight. Several people proposed marriage to Matt. When he gently refused, we offered to be his slave forever, as long as he cooked us skate every day.

Next came this complicated ravioli-esque pasta dish we can't recall the name of. Redolent of cheese, bursting with sweet buttery goodness, many members of our group decided that they would rather eat pasta created by Matt than anything else they could think of. Yes, including that.

Jules with her pasta plate.

After that, a palate-cleansing grapefruit-tarragon sorbet which Sera failed to photograph on account of she was shrieking with laughter and already so full she feared it was a mistake not to rent forklifts to get people back to their cars after the party.

The Very Hot Jews like meat. We like it so much that we suddenly realized we weren't really that full when Matt set before us a dish of lamb so beautiful we wanted to bronze it. It tasted just as good as you imagine.

Plating the meat course, sexily.

Then we took a much-needed breather - from the food, if not the drink, since Matt took that moment to bust out an epic bottle of dessert wine - and exchanged funny and embarrassing personal stories. Not to harp on the whole dress-up thing, but wearing spangly getups tends to jog one's formal-event memory banks. Visions of Sadie Hawkins Dances past pop into one's head. Michael charmed us with tales of helping his date - a girl! - make her dress. Sera recalled being helpfully informed that her prom dress made her look like a stripper. (It so didn't, at least in comparison to the stuff she started wearing later in life.) Tuxedo war stories abounded. Recollections of exotic travels punctuated by sumptuous meals that lead inevitably to heinous, gut-annihilating food poisoning. Life - isn't she grand?

Finally, Matt served dessert. He ended with another paté, the perfect symmetry of which seemed to soothe that OCD part of his brain. It was made of dense, dark, spiritually enlightening chocolate in a créme anglaise with pistachios. We all had seconds. Plates and fingers were licked. Groans of delight and overindulgence filled the air. Everyone swore they'd take a bullet for Matt, because protecting his gift had become the purpose of our lives.

Dessert, by the time Sera remembered to snap a pic of it.

And then, weary, some of us sloshed enough to require a cab, we collapsed into satiated heaps.

And that, handsome readers, is how the VHJ party. L'Chaim!