The Cotton Eyed Jew

Spent last night rocking the town with Kim, my former boss, who Paula and I call the cotton-eyed Jew. Kim is a film studies and Jewish studies maven with golden fingers for picking the banjo. She’s almost completed her documentary about “murder ballads” and Appalachian Mountain music – and she’s in Tel Aviv now, getting a third masters in Contemporary Jewish fiction, I think, although I lose track, while for fun she studies Wittgenstein and Lacan. Last night we had plans to get our dance on.

Before we went out she gave me a small banjo concert which led to an impromptu jam session. Apparently I’m a natural with harmonies and picking up ditties – so a new band is born! Here’s the plan. We’re gonna hit the Tayellit (the board walk) in Tel Aviv when all the Israelis, Russians and Romanians are getting their Shabbat on – put on some Dixie outfits, perfect our repertoire of Appalachian Mountain Music, and make us some shekels!! She used to perform on the street in New York, and I’m always up for a little attention, so our plan is to make enough to take ourselves out for sushi. Load up the banjo case with them shekels, please! Stay tuned for pictures and lyrics.

In the meantime, our outing was a Tel Aviv success. We decided to throw caution to the wind and not consult any Israeli hipsters about where we should go. We wanted hip hop, and if that means dancing with 16 year old boys in skin tight white shirts, so be it. After witnessing a fight outside Gayha, the rapper Subliminal’s club, we struck out again at Night Place, a pre-teen southern comfort soaked disco (Kim called it the Adam’s Family Disco), so I decided we needed to really let ourselves go, and hit the belly of the beast. Allenby Street.

Our first success was the “Tarantula” bar, where we learned about the noisy new trend of dangling large cymbals over the bar so the bartender can bash it in excitement when a new girl hops onto the bar or when someone forgets to pay. We kicked it there a while, communing with the teenagers, and then headed to Allenby 40 a disastrous and delightful mix of, well, everything you could possibly find in Tel Aviv. Sullen Moroccan boys – pouting in tight jeans and tank tops, strange Nordic tourists in baffling knit sweaters, hot Nigerian men in Adidas sweat suits, too sweet faced to be real thugs, gorgeous Ethiopian girls shaking their thing, chunky Yeshiva boys out for the night with some sweaty velvet kippahs, and a posse of tough, Moroccan lesbian chics who took a shine to Kim.

Our favorite couple for sure was the elder Russian duo. She had short no-nonsense hair and glasses, and he was drenched in sweat, gyrating in a button down shirt, eyes and crotch focused on his mother, I mean date. They looked like biology teachers. We did the booty dance of the young and like moths to the flame they swarmed. I learned a move from Kim – the punch your fists in front of you move—to keep the kids at bay. We topped off the night at a café for a jolt of caffeine, which then turned into an impromptu house party. There were only four of us there, and one of the patrons was really enjoying his ecstasy and the house music (Ah! Musicah!) so he leapt up, the waitress jacked the sound, and we created our own dance party between the tables and chairs. They even dimmed the lights for us. Our next party destination will be Jerusalem – if we survive New Year’s Eve!

Now its off to Shabbat with Micah and his 9 month pregnant wife. Its pouring, so I'll be drenched and late. But God will forgive me, because I'm observing (kind of) the occasion.