The club/bar distinction

Did I ever tell you all how much I hate "clubs"? Furthermore, have I ever told you all how much I love "bars"? I wonder how many people out there have a similar love/hate distinction for two somewhat similar concepts. But the truth is, clubs and bars are not similar at all and here is why:

Lets begin with clubs, because I don't know if there is anything I hate more besides comedy clubs. And I only hate comedy clubs b/c the comedians there are so dirty and it makes me uncomfortable if there are girls at my table. B/c either way it's weird: If I laugh at the sick jokes the guy is telling, the girls at the table think I am a real pervert, and if I don't laugh I can see that the girls are thinking "Does Ari even get that joke?...probably not, he doesn't understand anything sexually related b/c he is challenged when it comes to physical intimacy issues." I may be reading too much into this, but I really hate the dirty comedians.

Anyway, back to clubs in general- there are so many things about them that get me angry. The first time I went "clubbing" was as a senior in high school, and I remember going with a few friends to Banana Republic to buy "clubbing clothes"...otherwise known as "clothes that make you look like a big homo." Basically, the tighter the shirt, the more club-worthy it is, and unfortanetly, for us guys, the same goes for pants. In addition, you have to get all this hair gel and slick back your hair so that you look as syrian as possible. Truth is, I still do this on Shabbos, so maybe that part of the clubbing ritual is acceptable. But only b/c I do it.

The worst part about the clubbing dress code is that if you try to wear a hat the big bouncer men tell you to remove it. I always go through the same garbage with these guys. I take off my hat at the door when they inevitably ask me to, and then I put it back on as soon as I am back inside. Then, 20 minutes later, another big black guy comes over to me with a flashlight, like he is sherlock holmes or something, and tells me to take off my hat again. This process usually repeats itself 4-5 times, until I am escorted out of the establishment. I guess "clubs" can have the right to set their own dress codes, but it seems a bit unfair to me. If a Jew is wearing a kippah they would not tell him to take it off, so why should I be prohibited from wearing my baseball caps? I bet that if I made a whole big deal about this next time it happened, I could turn it into a big "freedom of religion" constitutional law debate.

The dress code gayness is just the beginning of my clubbing misery. Inside of the club= total disaster. First of all, you got this loud terrible music blasting, so you cannot have a normal conversation with anyone. Either you can try to shout over the music and repeat each sentence you say 6 times, after the person says "What?" over and over again OR you can lean really close to the people and say it in their ear. But that is even more bizzare b/c if it's a guy, you feel like you are dangerously close to licking his ear, and if it's a girl you are paranoid about having bad breath or alcohol or breath which I guess is the same thing. So communication is a major problem.

I guess the reason communication is a problem is because the ikkar of clubbing is to dance, and not to talk. If this was "ballroom dancing" or the cool dancing that they did in "Grease", I would have no objective problem with this type of activity. (Personally, I'm not gonna dance at all ever, but that is not for this public fades rant forum). But, what actually goes on at the "clubs" is the "grinding": 2 people or more rubbing up against eachother like Will Ferrel and Chris Kattan did in Roxbury Brothers skits and amazing movie. For various reasons, I am against this grinding, but my main question for the men out there is what happens if you get "excited" during this activity? Isn't that really awkward for you and the lady? I guess maybe these experienced grinders are so used to this type of thing, that it doesn't excite them at all. I cannot really think of any other possible explanations.

So you can see why I hate clubs. Bars, on the other hand, are everything that clubs aren't. Bars are for groups of friends to go out and communicate with one another while enjoying a moderate amount of alcoholic beverages. At bars you can wear your hat or anything else you want to wear, and no one will tell you to remove it. At bars, there are jukeboxes where you can pick normal good music, or there is good live music. At bars, there is no "grinding", just conversing.
And at sports bars you can even watch sports while enjoying a beverage. And so I think when people say that going to bars and clubs is "not proper" or not "frum" or whatever...a real fine distinction should be made: Clubs = Assur, Bars = patur aval assur. Thank you.

The hearing aid excuse

To start with, can we all agree that www.thefacebook.com has surpassed www.onlysimchas.com as the number 1 site that modern orthodox jews check over and over again each day for no particularly good reason? Lets face it, everyone in college and grad school has a facebook account, and even the people that we would normally classify as "too cool for facebook" seem to be getting in on the fun. Sure, there are definetly some holdouts left, but its a very small minority. Facebook has become the new waste of time-juggernaut that onlysimchas was for so long. Congrads to a new champion.

Now today I decided to attend afternoon services in my home town of West Hempstead and an odd incident occured. I was participating in the part of "tachanun" where we put our heads down on our forearms, and the guy in front of me leaned back right into my head. I thought that once he felt my head on the seat he would move back up and let me do my "tachanun", but he continued to press back stubbornly into my head. Obviously, I was quite enraged, and when I looked up to see who this character was, I was surprised to see an old man with a hearing aid. Which brings me to the following critical issue? Does the fact that this man has a hearing aid give him the right to have bad manners? As far as I know, having a hearing disability does not effect the sense of "touch", and this man should have been able to feel my head as he rocked back into it for no apparent reason. What about being old...this guy was probably close to 80. Is old age an excuse for this type of behavior? I'm not sure what the answers to these mysterious are, but I let the guy off easy, without any type of verbal diatribe. But the real reason I did this is because I am afraid of altercations, and I knew I could just have a rant about this.

By the way, the putting the head down part of tachanun is no doubt- one of the most fun parts of the services. Did u ever put your head down and see if you can get away with just leaving it there for the rest of the time, and just take a nap? I tried that a few times in high school, and it was very effective. Only problem is on mondays and thursdays when Torah comes out right after, and everyone knows that you just passed out b/c otherwise you would stand up. To simplify and phras this as a new rule: the "secret nap method" is NOT EFFECTIVE on mondays and thursdays.

Some of the other parts of the services which I find to be quite enjoyable/fun include (in no particular order):
1) Modim D'rabanan: Its fun for me to see how much of this I can say out loud without looking at the words...I can never get to the end. I always end up just saying things like "B'rachos V'hodaos al..(make up some words here/or remain completely silent)...Baruch K-el Ha'Hodaos. I wonder if people hear it when I am ad-libbing on the modim D'rabanan?
2) The "Mah Na'aseh" part of Tachanun, when you suddenly are supposed to stand up. This is one of the rare parts of the services where we get to act out how we're supposed to feel when saying the words. Sometimes I like to jump up very suddenly and also hold my hands up. This usually makes others around me uncomfortable, kinda like when people open their hands and hold them out for a prolonged period of time while saying "poseyach es yadecha" during the "ashrei" prayer.
3) The three-step hop during Kedusha. I love this part, it gets me pysched; what can i say...I like jumping and hopping.

For those of my readers who are not Jewish, I guess you can just focus on the central issue of this rant: Should a disability give the person an excuse from bad manners/and proper etiquitte?
Obviously, if the behavior is related to the disability, then the person has an exemption, but this was not the case in the incident that occured to me today. I man with a hearing aid should still apologize or be careful not to shove his entire body into my bowed head. The hearing aid is no excuse.

the hotel life

I have always been fascinated and slightly obsessed with hotels, and I cannot really explain why. It could be that I just love the idea that I can mess up the room as much as humanly possible, and immedietly after I leave, a person will come and restore it to impeccable cleanliness. The blankets will be folded perfectly, and I will be given new towels, and small shampoos and "bathroom foams". This is noy just regular "cleanliness", this is "impeccable". I am very unsure if I used this word correctly. I also am pretty sure that i spelled it incorrectly.

Anyway, it is for this reason, that I decided to book myself a hotel room in the " Prima Kings Hotel and Casino" located in Jerusalem, Israel. Now, I know what you are thinking...why didn't you just stay in your old yeshiva, which many people consider to be a "hotel" in its own right. Well, there are a few reasons why I didn't, but the main one is that so many people are visiting yeshiva right now, that I probably would have had to sleep on a mattress on a floor. Last time I did that, I got sick from all the dust and foot odor and also because I didn't bring my own blanket and pillow. This meant that I was forced to borrow some old blanket and pillow from someone else and it smelled like a dead old woman. Actually, in reality, it probably smelt completely fine, but whenever I use someone else's blankets/pillows/sheets, I always smell them and force myself into thinking that they have some weird foreign smell attached. Does anyone else do this? Anyway, the end result of all this was that I needed to stay in a real bona-fide hotel. Also, I wanted to be close to ben-yehudah.

So I get to this hotel, and I get my keys, and I go to room 432...and let me tell you something- this room was just as "dead old ladyish" as any room can get. But i wasn't about to go complain b/c i was dead tired and so i just went to sleep. As luck would have it though, I complained the next day to "mom", and she made a couple phone calls and a was moved to room 116. Now room 116- this is what i had envisioned as my dream hotel room. I had a balcony, new furniture, marble stuff in the bathroom, etc. The truth is- it was really the exact same room, but everything was new, whereas in the old room everything was from 1934. So I think that it's interesting to note how much a change in style effects my mindset. What is even more intersting to note is that I could not be a mature adult and get my room changed myself. Instead, I had to place a call to "mom", who was in America, and she had to call my travel agent, who was in Israel, and she had to call the hotel front desk, which was 4 floors lower than my current physical location. It seems that it would have been easier for me to simply go down and switch rooms. But Alas- I am not good at doing things myself.

I think the main thing I learnt from my 12 days in the Kings Hotel and Casino, is that hotel life is not all that its cracked up to be. At least it wasn't at this particular location. First of all, I think that the " please do not disturb/please make up my room" sign was completely ineffective. I hung this thing on my door every night, but housekeeping still knocked on my door starting around 9:30 a.m every morning. Now here is my question: Doesn't knocking on my door every 15 minutes constitute a disturbance? I think the problem is that the Israeli or Arab housekeeping staff could not read english, and therefore could not determine whether my little sign said "do not disturb" or "make up my room". Maybe an argument can be made that they should be able to tell the difference since the words are different, but I can see it being confusing. I know that when I look at arab words they definetly all look the same to me.

Some more problems with the "do not disturb sign", while we are discussing it: It is a demeaning thing to the housekeeping staff and violates their human rights to a certain degree. Its kinda like slavery: Ok- i am in this hotel room, and you are my housekeeping staff- now whichever way I turn this little sign, you will do what it says. If I turn it this way- stay away from me! Do not disturb! And if i turn it the other way- MAke up my room! Fold everything, pick up my dirty clothes, give me new towels, and do not steal any agurot i leave lying around!
Umm...isn't there some more humane to work this system out. I think the hotels should institute some type of policy where you sign up for what half hour you want the cleaning to be done. That way you know when they are coming, and you get the hell out. One additional problem with the whole do not disturb sign is that its misdirected at the wrong audience. Sure, its annoying when the housekeeping knocks on your door, but you know what is an even greater disturbance? Babies and toddlers running through the halls at 7 am. Perhaps, if this occurs, I should be allowed to walk out of my room, and slap the mother of these children across her face with a do not disturb sign. And yes, this did happen, except I didnt go out and slap the mother. Instead, I just rolled around in my giant double bed and yelled "quiet, sheket, quiet, sheket" over and over.

You know what else didn't live up to the hype? The "included free breakfast" that lasts till 10 AM. My first day there, I woke up at 9:52 and panicked as if I was missing an interview or something. I ran down to the dining room without any shoes on, in a wife beater, and my shorts on backwards. Of course, I ran into 43 people I know, and never saw them again the rest of my trip. This was my first and only time attending the breakfast. I first went for some refreshing juice, but then realized there was pulp in it, and spit it out everywhere. I tried this with a few different juices, and finally just had to settle for cold water, which I could have just gotten from my sink. There were many things that made me nauseous at breakfast. Lots of fish, with the heads and the eye...don't know why those were at breakfast. Also, lots of fruit and cheeses that looked old. Also, the eggs were old looking. But, i guess this all makes sense because the breakfast is free, so why should it be appeatizing. In economics they teach us that there is no 'Free lunch" (or in this case "free breakfast") but the truth is there is a free lunch- it will just make you wanna vomit.

I guess, reflecting now, I am complaining a bit too much. The hotel was nice, and the beds were comfy. And nothing at all was stolen from my room at all. And like I said before, the location was great. But the best thing about the hotel was the lesson it taught me: that hotel life is certainly not all that I had hoped for.