An Electro-Swing Hanukkah

This week - Saturday night, December 8th -brings the arrival of Chanukah, Hanukkah, or the Festival of Lights. Hanukkah is an 8-day festival represented by a candle lit for every day on the Menorah, the candelabra used for this special occasion. The Menorah is used to commemorate the miracle of a single day’s portion of olive oil lasting eight days, the olive oil being important for lighting the candles in the newly rededicated Second Temple.

One of the most significant aspects of Hanukkah is that it reflects an image of Judah and The Maccabees, Jewish rebels that fought against the tyrannical Antiochus Epiphanes of Greece. In light of the tragedy of The Holocaust it was important to remember that there were times in Jewish history when Jews have risen up and rebelled to reclaim their right to be Jews.

Jimmy's Gang - Parov Stelar

For the next eight nights candles will be lit and added each night on my Menorah (pictured above). Buying Hanukkah candles has always been pretty cool. Nowadays you can get candles in silver, gold, or multicolor with weird little wax appliqués on them. I get a different color and design each year. The wax is usually in a braided shape with the appliqués hanging off them like moon craters. You can find them at Bed Bath & Beyond in addition to any religious store.

Rock It For Me - Caravan Palace

No Jewish holiday is complete without a seasonal delicacy to make the holiday more fun, and that’s where latkes come in. Potato pancakes with either apple sauce or sour cream on the side, even non-Jews enjoy eating this all year round, but they’re the official delicacy for Hanukkah.

Be-Bop 2 Hip-Hop - Jem Stone

Another festival custom is spinning the dreidel, a diminutive spinning top that we played when we were kids. Each side of the dreidel had a different letter, which in Hebrew has a numerological value to it. When the dreidel stopped spinning and fell on the letter with the highest number value the kid with the highest number would win all the chocolate coins or bubble gum coins the other kids would put up in the betting pot. I always preferred the chocolate coins to the bubble gum coins because the bubble gum was always too hard and made your jaws ache!

The Gasworks Gang - Jem Stone

After all is said and done you can’t beat an awesome holiday season, and growing up in snowy Providence, Rhode Island in 1961 was the best. Predominantly Roman Catholic (a lot of Italians lived there) even my family loved going to downtown Providence and looking at the great department store displays with Christmas toys and electric trains and the humongous Christmas trees all tricked out with billions of lights. It was pre-zactly just like Bob Clark’s classic film “A Christmas Story” with all the elaborate fancy toy displays.

Hotel Axos - Parov Stelar

After we checked out the great store displays all over the metro area we drove through the residential areas to see who had the most extravagant display in front of their house. Some people went all out with an elaborately built manger (like in “Diner”) or a Santa’s Village that would make Walt Disney blush. One manger showcased statues painted and lit so ghouly grotesque the Three Wise Men looked more like Dracula, Wolfman and Frankenstein. Scary. I guess the bottom line with this holiday season that it’s all about THE LIGHTS, Christmas or Hanukkah. The snow might be falling but it’s all about THE LIGHTS.

The morning after this Xmas phantasmagoria had us bobsledding down the hilly streets of Taft Avenue, Rhode Island Jewish kids sledding in the snow with the starry spire of Temple Emanuel standing tall at the top of the hill like a sentinel protecting us from any further Antiochus Epiphanes in the future.

And all I want for Hanukkah is lots and lots of Burberry Prorsum clothes for men, or at least the dough to buy it with!

Parov Stelar will be appearing at The Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on Friday, December 14, 2012 at 8 pm.

Santa Stuffs It

I'm not a big fan of Christmas gift guides any more than the next guy but I have a feeling this one will be fun because my suggestions may be a little off the beaten path. I'm just going to throw a few ideas your way in case you hit a hole in the road and ran out of some great gift ideas.

Lately I've been getting into the whole Japanese "pinky violence" genre of films where the violence is so outrageously stupid you can't help but laugh at the gushers of blood spraying out of every hole in somebody's body, and what better DVD to start off with than "Tokyo Gore Police" with killer hookers that have samurai swords for legs? It's like a Paul Verhoeven samurai film, and if that concept doesn't make you drool then you're reading the wrong blog. Once you've seen that masterpiece of plasma porn check out "The Machine Girl", no less over the top and demented.

Some aging idiot I ran into at a party whined about how music isn't good anymore. Obviously he didn't get "Winchester Mystery House" by The Hex Dispensers, "Form Follows Function" by The Hentchmen, "2" by Darker My Love or anything by Les Breastfeeders, those psychotic Montrealers. CDs are cheaper than ever now that they have to compete with nickel-and-dime downloads.

Books are more fun to read than ever, too, whether it's wild fiction like "Skunk" by Jason Courter, "Hex" by Maggie Estep, or "Freezer Burn" by the always dependable Joe Lansdale. If they like comics get them all five volumes of the Harvey Comics archives, each volume featuring a different character, like Richie Rich, Casper, and the terminally bratty lil' devil Hot Stuff. If your giftee has slightly older tastes buy them every compilation volume from "100 Bullets" now that the series wrapped last Autumn.

If your giftee isn't a culture vulture get them a belt buckle from Heavy Metal Belt Buckles http://heavymetalbuckles.com/index.html. Not only are the buckles crazy as hell but some have built-in booze flasks, a real penny-saver if you frequent those damn expensive $15 a beer night clubs. Some also have built-in iPod holders so if the intermission music at the club sucks you can plug in and listen to The Hex Dispensers or The Hentchmen. Yeah!

Men are going back to wearing bracelets, believe it or not. You don't have to be a smelly Israeli stereo salesman to wear a nice dressy bracelet anymore, guys. An average bracelet will set you back $15-20 and Overstock.com http://www.overstock.com/Jewelry-Watches/Mens-Bracelets/17505/subcat.html has even lower prices on them with a great selection. Stainless steel with black rubber is the big look these days.

One thing chicks love it's shoes, and the coolest shoemaker on the planet these days for men and women is John Fluevog (www.fluevog.com). He designs some sweet fuckin' kicks that sport a kind of glam meets psychedelic rock look and they're not too pricey, either. They're well made, comfortable, and Fluevog swears they're made by angels. All 8-year old kids from Ecuador look like angels, so he's not really lying.

But if doing a good deed is your idea of a swell holiday gift, buy your giftee a membership with an organization that could use the support; in my area it would be The American Cinematheque (http://www.americancinematheque.com), the Petersen Auto Museum (http://www.petersen.org), or even the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (http://www.lacma.org). You'll be making a nice gesture for these cool organizations and your giftee will benefit from it as well with free tickets and awesome souvenirs. And if all my suggestions suck, just buy them a tattoo.

Hooray 4 Rebecca!

One of the things that I always look forward to whether it's Birthday time, Christmas time, or Anniversary time is getting cards drawn by Rebecca. As you can see pictured here her imagination runs rampant and she'll draw all sorts of wild stuff. Rebecca never fails to entertain me because getting her cards is just as exciting as getting the presents themselves!