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PROLOGUE: MY FAMILY BACKGROUND

If you start with the history of my family, you have to study the history of the Jews. So well go back to ancient times. According to the Old Testament, the first Jews were established in the Middle East, then enslaved in Egypt for hundreds of years, then the Exodus came and brought them back to the Promised Land, or Israel, where they lived for thousands of years as their own grand empire. I dont want to give a religious lesson here so Ill Spark Note it; the Romans took over Israel, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, all the Jews emigrated into Central Europe near Germany, spread out throughout Europe to Poland, Hungary, Austria, Russia, France, England, had hundreds of years of intermixing with the Europeans, lost their swarthiness and Arab noses, and by the 19th century, the oppression of the Gentile Russians and Polish and Germans was causing the Jews of Europe to emigrate to America and Canada and South America in droves. My great grandparents were part of that huge diaspora of Jews from Eastern Europe to America in the early 1900s. My great grandfather, Shmuel Friedman, my fathers paternal grandfather, was born in Kiev, Ukraine, in 1899, then under Czarist Russian rule. At age 15 in 1914 he was to be conscripted into the Russian army for 25 years to fight in WWI. To run away from this, Shmuel left the Ukraine illegally and was able to board a ship from Italy to the United States. Upon landing at Ellis Island in New York City, he lived in tatters and poverty on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, which at that time was a major area for poor Jewish immigrants. He eventually found work as a tailor and moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn, also a pre-dominantly Jewish neighborhood back then. He met Bronche Ehrlich, born in 1900 in Vishkiva, Poland, to a large Jewish family, who had also with her two sisters, Rosa and Lily, and one brother, Harry, immigrated to New York in the early 1920s to escape the oppression by the Russian Empire. They married in 1925 and Shmuel was able to work his way up in a clothing factory to a decent, middle class salary. They lived in Brownsville. Their first son, Seymour Friedman (my grandfather), was born on July 12th, 1928, and a daughter, Shirley Friedman, was born in 1934. My fathers maternal grandparents, David Jacobovitz and Eva Epstein Jacobovitz, have a similar story. They were both from Vishkiva in Poland also, and both escaped to New York with their siblings for a life of freedom and opportunity. David and Eva married in 1921 and settled in the Bronx. David ran at first a fish store but eventually a candy store in the Bronx. Their first daughter, Yetta Jacobovitz, was

born in 1926, a second daughter, Goldie Jacobovitz (my grandmother) was born in 1931. According to my father, Seymour and Goldie met at a family reunion of all places in 1949 because my great-grandmother Bronche and my great-grandfather David were fifth cousins from the same village in Poland. So, there you have it, Im the product of incest, that explains a lot about my life. Seymour and Goldie married in March of 1951, settled in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, where my Uncle Steve was born in November, 1953, followed by my father, Barry Friedman, May, 1955, and my Uncle Joel, November, 1959. Uncle Steven and Joel were born on the same day, something they would bring up a lot. Seymour worked for chemistry companies, having received a Bachelors in Chemistry from City College of New York, which back in the 1940s was 20 dollars a semester. Try to find that in an American university today! 20 dollars wont cover one meal! Anyway, in 1957, Seymour got a job at a chemistry plant in Fords, New Jersey. Every hard-core New Yorker hates New Jersey, and Seymour and Goldie Friedman are anything if not hard-core New Yorkers. So Seymour tried to make the daily 2-hour commute from Brooklyn to Jersey, but after five years, they decided enough was enough and moved out to Fords in 1962, to 87 Tracy Drive, a house they still live in today. And was it a good thing they moved, because in the 1960s, New York City went straight to hell, as all the Jewish and Italian neighborhoods became overrun with drug-riddles blacks, Puerto-Ricans, and Mexicans and New York became one of the most dangerous cities in America, driving the normal middle-class away to the suburbs in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Long Island, and Connecticut. So, my father and his two brothers grew up in Fords, and all three became very different men. Uncle Steven got an MBA from Rutgers, moved to Houston, Texas, worked as an accountant for an oil company and got laid off, remained unemployed for many years, got very obese, never got married, never straightened his life out, and died eventually of pneumonia in February, of 2011. Uncle Joel would also meet a tragic end, however, he was a bright spirit who I remembered brought joy to everyone. He was a hardcore Jersey guy, never completed college, worked as a mailman for many years and by sheer luck rose in the company he worked for by learning how to use computers. He married a nonJewish Irish-American Jersey girl, Aunt Janice, moved to East Brunswick, had two kids, my cousins Amanda (born 1992) and Drew (1995). Amanda is a normal all-American girl, Drew has a very rare and severe version of autism and will probably never function as an adult in his life. To add to this, Uncle Joel died of colon cancer in 2002 at the age of 43, when I was 14. I

will go into this event in greater detail later in the book, as his death had a profound effect on me and still does to this day. Anyways, my father took a more unconventional path. He went to Rutgers for his undergraduate, in chemistry, then tried going to medical school in the Dominican Republic for cheap, but didnt like it, returned to Fords, worked as an orderly in a hospital for a year, and got his break (if you wanna call it that) by getting a full scholarship to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. He spent 5 and a half years there getting his Ph D in Chemistry. Talk about extending childhood. After getting his degree, he spent eight months at the University of California in Davis, near San Francisco, getting a Post-Doc. He made a surprise decision to return to New Jersey when he got offered a job from the company my grandmother worked at as a secretary, Siemens, to demonstrate MRI machines to various hospitals around America. At that time MRIs had just come out and hospitals needed people to show them how to use them properly. My father traveled constantly, going to cities all over the American Midwest, places Id never care to travel to personally, like Fargo, North Dakota, or Madison, Wisconsin, but, hey, I guess one mans Kathmandu is another mans Springfield. In 1985, the company transferred him to New Orleans, Louisiana. He lived there for two years as a single guy still traveling around. In September of 1987, by chance he met a man at a party who had the same last name as him, Friedman, and this other Friedman mentioned a Jewish singles party he should attend the next night. He went. There he met Sandra Hope Nathan, and the seeds of love (and years of dysfunction) were planted. My mothers family history is a little more unusual and less the typical Jewish-American the Cossacks are raping me so Ill flee to a poor tenement in New York so my grandchildren will go to Yale and become doctors saga. My mothers paternal grandparents, Mark David Nathan and Rose Galley Nathan, were both children of Polish-Jewish immigrants, but born and raised in Manchester, England. They were British to the tee, I see pictures of my grandfather and he looks like a hook-nosed Noel Coward, with the same slick-backed hair and debonair demeanor. Ive always wondered what Noel Coward would sound like reading the Kaddish prayer. Apparently my great grandfather was something of a rogue and an adventurer in his younger years, he fought in the British army in WWI in Turkey against the Ottoman Empire. In 1923, he and Rose moved to America, New York City, and lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, then a hugely affluent German-Jewish neighborhood. Their one and only child, Gerald Bertram Nathan (my grandfather), was born there on July 17th, 1925. I have no idea what Mark did for a living in New

York, but they somehow got by. In 1933 the Nathans moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where Mark opened a truck stop. My grandfather, known as Jerry, grew up in Charleston. He was a salesman type (who eventually became a salesman), good time Charlie, although I hardly remember him as he died when I was eight, but he did take me to a lot of movies. Jerry graduated from high school in 1942 and, like countless other young men of that time, volunteered in the Navy during WWII. He was sent to England at first, and then participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, where he was wounded in the forehead. He returned home in 1945, and the family had re-located to Dallas, Texas. He tried going to college at SMU but dropped out after a year. He then became a salesman but was called into duty once again for the Korean War in 1950, served one year in Korea (such great irony that his grandson would be going back to Korea some sixty years later and having his own special war.) In 1952, Jerry was working for a sales company and was sent to New Orleans as part of his territory. There he met Helen Slipman (my grandmother, born 1932), the oldest daughter of Polish-Jewish immigrants who had settled in Uptown New Orleans. Her parents, Isidore Slipman and Fagele Rosensweig Slipman, ran a tailors shop and were not that well off. Apparently my great-grandfather Isidore, from Warsaw, was not a typical shtetl Jew but a more sophisticated big city type. His wife Fagele was a short, fat yente Jewish type. They all died before I was born so I couldnt give an eyewitness account. Anyway, Jerry and Helen married in May, 1952, and settled in Dallas. They had their first child, Sandra Hope Nathan (my mother), on November, 27th, 1954, Marsha Diane Nathan followed on July 31st, 1959. Their marriage was troubled; Jerry was unstable in his career, bouncing from business to business and spending the money as quickly as he made it; he was also a gambler and a cheater. By 1962, they got a divorce. Helen brought Sandra and Marsha back to New Orleans. A year later, she married Herman Kohlman (born 1928), the son of an old and prominent New Orleans Jewish family and a very rich man. It was a marriage of convenience I believe. Herman was the District Attorney for New Orleans at that time, and worked on the JFK Assasination case. His name is mentioned in the 1991 Oliver Stone film JFK. See, I was born to be in show business. They had two sons, Neil Jay Kohlman, born 1965, and Ira Kolhman, born 1967. The four kids grew up on 1710 Valence Street, Uptown, New Orleans, one of those grand Victorian mansions like so many you see in New Orleans that gives the city its unique charm. Some of my fondest childhood memories are staying in that gothic and strange place. My mother Sandra went to the University of Texas in Austin, got a BA in social work. She then went to Loyola University in New Orleans for law school. After law school, she

worked for her parents law firm until marrying my father in 1987 and leaving for Texas in 1989. This decision caused a huge rift in the family which affected things tremendously, but Ill go into that later. Anyway, the stars were aligned at that Jewish single party in September of 1987. According to my father, my mother saw him across the room, beckoned over to him and said, Sit down, I dont bite. Quite the opening line. Apparently, my father drove her home, saw she had a Jacuzzi bathtub and said, Thats it, shes the one. He also said he couldnt remember how to get back to his place, so he figured hed just marry her and stay there cause hed get lost if he tried to go home. Anyways, four days later he went over to my mothers house for Rosh Hashana dinner and had decided he would marry her. However, he told everyone else in the world, including the Pope, before telling my mother. Apparently my father had said to my mother, Are you excited about the wedding? And my mother said, What wedding? And my father replied, confused, Our wedding! You dont know?! And thus goes the relationship of my parents. They were married in a whirlwind. According to my mother, If I had thought about it, I wouldnt have done it. Hmgood basis for a marriage right there. Their wedding was on November 14th, 1987. I can only imagine how awkward it was for my fathers parents to meet their future daughter-in-law for the FIRST time at the wedding. But if all this hadnt happened, I wouldnt be sitting here writing this, so thanks Mom and Dad for doing something completely irrational as marrying a total stranger. I guess good things do come out of chaos in life. My parents had their honeymoon in Israel and Egypt in the winter of 1987/88. There is a great shot of my mother on a camel at the Pyramids and my father below looking like a young Woody Allen. I guess Jews like to see the Pyramids; they want to admire what their ancestors built; I guess blacks should do the same to cotton plantations in Georgia.

PART ONE: FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF LIFE I was apparently conceived sometime in February, 1988, on the first night of Mardi Gras, the great annual New Orleans festival of wild debauchery, floats, Gods, nudity, transvestites, and King Rex-cake. Apparently, Heather Locklier threw my father a bead from a float and that inspired my conception; thanks, Heather. During this time, my father quit his positions at Siemens and a got a position as a professor at Xavier University in New Orleans. My mother still worked for her parents law firm. According to my father, my grandfather Herman wouldnt pay her on purpose and was a cheat. My mother says he was just clumsy with money. Whichever was the case, it caused huge tension and strife between my parents at the time I was born. I was born on October 30th, 1988, in Metarie hospital in Metarie, a suburb of New Orleans. I was a C-section baby, and born 2 weeks early, so I should end up being an Emperor whos always in a rush. According to my mother, I couldnt wait to come out. Why was I so anxious to leave? Its nice in the womb, its warm, theres always food, and youve got that umbilical cord to play with all day. Anyway, out I came and thrust into this cruel world whether I liked it or not. I look back at family albums of my birth and it looks so pleasant; all my mother and fathers cousins and friends are fondling over me and I seemed to have been born into a happy environment. So I wonder what the hell went wrong. I spent the first ten months of my life at 732 State St Drive, also in Uptown, New Orleans. There are pictures of me being taken to the Audubun Zoo in New Orleans and San Dustin, Florida. According to my father, he had gotten fed up with my mother working at her parents law firm for free and demanded either she quit or they have to pay her. My mother refused. My father also felt New Orleans was an unfit place to raise a child properly. And it is, if you cant afford private school. New Orleans, although a vibrant cultural area for tourism, is sadly mostly a poor slum filled with violent crime from the heavy black population. Not being racist, being truthful, I have nothing against blacks, I masturbate to

Jennifer Hudson as much as Jennifer Aniston. Anyway, my father got a position at the University of North Texas, his old alma mater, in 1989 and moved us to Dallas. He gave my mother apparently, three weeks to pack up everything and get a new place to live. And so we went to Dallas. We first lived in an apartment and then at a one-story house in Ringgold Drive. My first childhood friends that I remember were Dustin Frankel, whose parents were Los Angeles Jews. His father, Mickey, was a salesman and his mother was a former actress who I guess never made it big. My other good friend from those years was Mark Titunikov, his parents were Russians who had escaped from the Soviet Union after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and years of oppression. I havent seen those two guys in a very long time but there is a shot of us at age 4 in Halloween costumes. Another friend of mine that I made a little later in life was Barat Shupravishtara (I believe thats the name), he was Indian, his parents were immigrants from Mumbai, I remember his mother being the most beautiful woman Id ever seen at age 10, the opposite of my mother; dark-skinned, thin, elegant, and so gentle and warm, I loved when I would go over to their luxuriant house across the alley from ours and just be in Mrs. Shupravishtaras presence. I was ushered into puberty by an Indian woman; I should be working in Bollywood. My earliest memories of life are being in a baby seat and having my grandmother Helen leering over me. Little did I know that it is the Jewish way to always be leering over the children no matter how old they get. I played a lot, watched Disney movies, and was oblivious to the turmoil going on with my parents; apparently, my parents were concerned that I had developmental disorders and we saw several child psychologists about my condition. I was eventually diagnosed with Sensory Integration Disorder, where I am apparently unable to multi-task or understand certain things, I think it was all bullshit, although Im probably slight mentally challenged in some aspects, like how to seduce beautiful women and get easy money. Also, when my parents found out about my condition, my father apparently wrote a letter to my mothers parents, saying they were to blame for my disorder because the stress my mother was under during her pregnancy with for me for not getting paid by them, and he demanded 10,000 dollars from my grandfather or else hed never see me again. Thats pretty harsh. And growing up there was always a lot of tension between my grandparents and my father and I never knew why until I found out years later. So, from a young age I was in the middle of a Tennessee Williamss like Southern family melodrama, but throw in New York Jewish spice. So I guess Im if

Faulkner and Neil Simon had a son, although I dont know how thats biologically possible. At age 5 in 1994, two critical beginnings in my life happened; I started school at a Jewish kindergarten in Texas, and my brother, Bradley Ross Friedman, was born on July 13th, 1994. I hated having a younger brother, I was happy being the only child and getting all the intention. I remember sneaking into my brothers room when he was one month old and hitting him on the head with a teddy bear with the intention of killing him. Yes, I was fratricidal at age five. Take that Freud, usually most five-year-old boys want to kill their father to have possession of the mother, well, I was aiming after my brother. During this time my father worked at various colleges in the Dallas area as a chemistry supervisor and my mother worked at various law firms. Usually her law firms would go bankrupt or she would get fired. She was also severely obese and got worse and worse during my childhood years. We moved to three different houses and finally settled at 3909 Bridgeport Dr. in 1995, where I had most of my childhood years that I can remember. The neighborhood, in Plano, a western suburb of Dallas, was very pleasant to be in as a kid. I would say my years there were mostly happy. Yes, my parents fought a lot and my mother was morbidly obese, but I guess as a child you can block out any negativity because youre always living in an imaginary play world, a world I still try to keep today at the age of 23. The weather was always warm and sunny in Texas, there was plenty of wide open space, I rode my bicycle all around the neighborhood. I remember being somewhat of a ladies man at the age of 4. I had two girls at my Jewish preschool, Jennifer Shapiro and some other one, do a race to see who would marry me. I wish I had the same effect on women today. I started first grade at Brinker Elementary school in the autumn of 1995. My father got a solid position at Southern Methodist University, a private Christian college in downtown Dallas, that same year, as a chemistry supervisor/professor. My grandfather Jerry, twice-divorced and perpetually broke and seventy, moved in with us in December, 1995. We spent a lot of time together. He took me to a lot of movies and I really loved him. I recently watched a home movie from 1996 of him and I playing together. I have no vivid memory of this. He contracted colon cancer and had a year of painful chemotherapy before passing away in March, 1997. I remember visiting him in the hospital the night before he died, and watching him vomit into a basin seconds after he took time to read a poem I had to write for a 2nd grade project. An old man is dying in front of me and Im making him read poetry, yes, I was born to be a writer. I remember his funeral and for the first

time in my life realizing what death was and what badness was in the world. He was a good spirit, my grandfather, and I wish I had had more time in life to spend with him. But thats the way it goes, cest la vie. I remember going to a ball at Southern Methodist University for the Dean at age 8 and playing the piano in front of everyone. I was a star even then. I guess I was a typical American child, watched a lot of Disney films, played with other friends in the neighborhood, had sleep-overs. I went to Beth Torah Religious school, at Beth Torah, the local Conservative Jewish synagogue, yes, we started off as conservative Jews. My best friend at the school was Brandon Prince, another Jewish kid whose parents lived on the other side of Plano. I had many sleepovers at his house and his family had their share of problems. Once again, kids can bounce off these negative realities; I have a harder time now as an adult, it takes a lot more coping strength. Another best friend of mine as a child was Ryan Wagner, his parents were Canadian Jews living four houses down from us. Another family I remember were the Marcuses. They were Jewish from Colorado. Their mother was the most annoying stereotypical New York/New Jersey ugly crabby kvetchy pain in the ass Jewish woman you could imagine. Made my mother seem like Katie Holmes. They had a son a little older than me, Seth Marcus, who was troubled with ADD and personality problems. As a child I was nothing special, I took piano lessons starting at age 5 but hated it and refused to practice, my father and I had a lot of fights about it. Nowadays we fight about me refusing to work at a real job, things dont really change, do they? The moments that spark a clear memory in my consciousness from these years are the painful fights between my parents over money, job security, family wounds that wouldnt heal, and illness. And also the trips; going to New York City in 1995 for the first time, which has started a life-long love affair with that giant metropolis in all its terrifying and awe-inspiring glory. The trips to New Orleans, to Mardi Gras in 1999, where I was exposed to transvestite prostitutes and Cajun street touts , to the French Quarter, where you can have a wonderfully quirky caricature of yourself drawn while you stuff your face in a beniet, that great French donut desert that is a New Orleans one and only specialty. I loved New Orleans as a kid, because I didnt see the dark side of it; I saw the jazz music, voodoo, second-lines, Louis Armstrong, Big Easy attitude, crawfish, lobster, laissez le bon tomps roulez life and loved our annual road trips from Dallas into it. Usually my father would not come; I now know why. My Uncle Neil got married to a non-Jewish New Orleans woman, Hannah Wolf, in 1997, when I was 9, and we

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went in for the wedding, it was a gallant affair, the reception was at City Hall, all the bigshots of New Orleans society were there, even the mayor, and I remember dancing with my grandmother Helen, who, at 65, fell to the ground and broke her hip. Two years later I went to New Orleans by myself to experience Mardi Gras for the first time. A 10-year-old boy is out of place in that world of wild New Orleans debauchery, but, hey, I didnt know a prostitute from a nun at that age. On the flip side, I remember two trips into New York from those years. Our first was in December, 1995, when we drove from Texas to New Jersey to visit my paternal grandparents. I remember being obsessed with going into New York and riding the subway. I screamed and screamed, Were riding the subway, were riding the subway, WERE RIDING THE SUBWAY! until my grandfather finally said, Okay, enough, well go on the subway if youll just stop kvelling! I didnt know what kvelling was at that age. Theres a shot of me at that age standing in front of the Broadway production of Cats in Times Square at 42nd Street, maybe it was an omen to my future inclinations. Other areas we visited in New York put a spell on me for that place that hasnt worn off yet; Rockefeller Center, Central Park, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Upper West Side, Greenwich Village, Soho, Washington Square Park, and so on and so forth. I thought it was the most magical place Id ever been, I associate wonder and joy with that snowy winter walk through Central Park up to Rockefeller Center and ice-skating right below NBC studios where they shoot the Today Show. I went to New Jersey again in the summer of 1998 by myself, flying as a 9-year-old alone, what the hell kind of parents did I have to let me do that? My Uncle Joel, who I adored because he was a big lovable teddy-bear of a guy, took me into New York and we saw a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, which is now one of the most dangerous and drug-riddled parts of the city. Then there was going to Jewish camp; the most fun I had in my childhood was at Camp Beth Israel in somewhere in Easter Texas, I cant remember the town. These camps are just like regular summer camps, except they make all the kids go to Shabbat Services on Saturday mornings and make the prayers over the wine and bread during meals. But they were hardly strictly religious. I loved it, going horse-back riding out in the open Texas air, wearing my cowboy boots and hat, being free, playing simulation Israeli/Palestinian war games with water-guns, going swimming in a gorgeous lake, sharing a bunk with other Jewish suburban kids and first learning about what sperm and breasts were. Of course, these years were not all fun, travel, and games, there was hardships to that I had to put up with; my

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father got a kidney stone in the fall of 1997, a bad one that required an ambulance and I remember him being carried off on a stretcher and me, 9, saying, When you come home, we can play catch? I cry at that memory, my father from then on struggled with kidney trouble. Also my parents had some pretty brutal fights; many times my mother would threaten to leave, or my father the same, or wed be driving along the road and my Mom would just stop in the middle of the street and walk out and tell my father to fuck off. My mother was always unstable with her law firm jobs, usually her bosses were either drug addicts, drunks, or incompetents and she would bounce from one to the other. She finally got a position being a mediator for post office workers and divorce cases. This was very stressful and she took the stress out on either yelling at my father or me, luckily I had TV, and James Bond and Disney films to escape into. I also loved acting, I had dreams as a kid of being a movie star, I guess most kids do. I took an acting class when I was in fifth grade in downtown Dallas, I acted in a community theatre production of Agatha Christies Ten Little Indians, playing the villain Wargrave. From a young age I was introduced to theater by family, mostly my mother, who grew up with a strong love of movies, TV, and theatre. I was enmeshed in all the classic American musicals, whatever shows came to Dallas on the touring company from New York, Annie Get Your Gun, South Pacific, Gypsy (which I saw three years ago on Broadway with Patti LuPone), Annie, it goes on and on. I loved musicals, the magic and fantasy and thrill of it all, the lights, sounds, exotic locations, excitement, nothing excites me to this day quite like a good piece of theatrical entertainment, except maybe large black breasts. I even auditioned and got cast as a child extra in the touring company of Oklahoma, I was paid 200 dollars and did seven performances. Typical treatment for actors. I decided then and there that I wanted to be in show business for the rest of my life. I associate all my best memories of my mother with musicals; her warmth and love towards me really came out when shed sing a classic song to me, as a four-year-old I remember periodically crawling in her lap that she called the Mommy Cave and hiding from the world. I do believe she tried her best to love me as a mother despite the stress from her obesity and her constant financial straits. She was not cold and withdrawn, it was life doing it to her. My childhood was a boom time in American history; the 1990s, Bill Clinton was President, we were on top, things were great, Americans were experiencing lives of unprecedented affluence. My grandparents were born into the Great Depression,

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talk about a rocky start. But I was fortunate that I didnt have to experience economic hardship first-hand until a little later in life. Two major historical events of my childhood that I remember vividly were the Monica Lewinsky scandal and the Emilio Gonzalez story. Of course, we all know how Bill Clinton was getting blow jobs from a Lewinsky, one of his aides(Larry David of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm has a great joke about this, Did Clinton think he was gonna get blowjobs from a Jewish woman and nothing was gonna happen? Really? BLOWJOBS FROM A JEWISH WOMAN AND THATS THE END OF IT?! SHES NOT GONNA SAY ANYTHING?! HES GONNA GET OFF SCOT-FREE?! NO! NO!) Anyway, I remember watching Clinton blatantly lie on TV with the famous, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. And of course he did. My ten-year-old brain came to the conclusions that politicians= stupid old guys in fancy suits who dont just make babies with their wives. Of course the Emilio Gonzalez case in 1999 where a young Cuban boy came illegally over to Florida struck a chord with me; the idea of fleeing from a land of oppression and communism and poverty for a life of freedom and opportunity was similar to my great-grandparents saga. Ironically enough Id be fleeing from a land of golden freedom to a land of political stifling 12 years later. Another ridiculous incident in my kid-years was the idiocy of the 2000 elections, where it took six weeks to finally figure out the ballots for whether George W. Bush or Al Gore would succeed Clinton. It showed the true loopholes in American politics and I realized at that age how stupid people can really be. The most colorful characters sticking in my head from my youth are the people at my synagogue and my mothers side of the family. Boy, there were some interesting folks you could write about! One of my favorite teachers at Beth Torah was Eli Rosenberg, his parents had fled Nazi Germany for Argentina and he was born and raised down there, so he spoke Yiddish, Spanish, and English and looked like Geraldo Rivera but with Robin Williams level of body hair. There was Ms. Lainman, probably the ugliest, most bitter Jewish woman youll ever encounter, she always made me stay after school to practice more Hebrew because I would never concentrate, I thought she was a monster. The Rabbi at the Schul, Jeffrey Laynor, was, like my mother, morbidly obese and had his share of problems. He apparently hated being a Rabbi, was not sociable, and got a divorce and remarried. Another teacher at the synagogue, Bruce Feldman, was apparently the victim of an attempted murder by one of the congregants; us Jews and our passion, thousands of years of oppression finally boils over! Another woman I remember with such love and vigor was as far away from Judaism as you can get,

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save for Jihad-in-ists. Amelia, our Mexican live-in-nanny we had from age 5 to 11. She was an immigrant and lived on the first floor. Yes, I had a Mexican nanny, its not as bad as my mother, she grew up with a live-in-black nanny, Maid Marion, who died when I was 10 but I remember her a little from my visits into New Orleans, she was a spirited old black Southern lady, kind of like Aunt Jemima (if Aunt Jemima ever existed.) Amelia was a fun and feisty Mexican; I remember going over to one of her sons (she had four children and 10 grandchildren, ay dios mio) trailers for a Christmas party, and the wild Mexican music and dancing, which contrasted so much with the bland white Suburbia I was growing up in. Even though we Jews know how to have a good time at Bar Mitzvahs and brisses. And my mothers family; first off, my maternal grandmother, Helen Slipman Kohlman, was and is still one fire-cracker of an old New Orleans Southern belle. She had spirit and fire and had the deepest and most glass-shattering and unique voice youll ever hear on a woman. I would always do impressions of her growing up, most notably, Is this my oldest GRAAAAAANDSOOOON?! or BRING ME MA PIIIIIILSSS! THEYRE IN THE MONDAY BOX, NOT THE TUUEEEEEESDAY BOX, OR THE WEDNEEEEESDAY BOX, OR THE FRIIIIDAY BOX, OR THE SUUUUNDAY BOX! Little did I know I was harping on an old womans health issues, but, hey, kids can be cruel. Her husband, my step-grandfather Herman, was a slick old New Orleans cad type, and he had his roguish adventures. While my other grandfather Jerry was in the snow filled trenches in the Korean mountains during the war, Herman was partying it up in Paris, where he was stationed as an Army newsman. He told me stories, when I was 10, about driving to Spain from France and fucking Spanish prostitutes with his Army pals. He would always bring me bearclaws and Popeyes Fried Chicken, a New Orleans original. My mothers three siblings are also novel-filling characters themselves; Aunt Marsha fashioned herself a sophisticated New Yorker and moved there, married Glen Morak, another obnoxious Brooklyn Jew of Sheepshead Bay, near Coney Island in the south of Brooklyn, and she now lives on Long Island with her kids Jessica, Jeremy, and Jonathan. She affects a New York accent and has a hoarse and cigarette-ruined voice and Ive always thought she was totally nuts. I remember on a trip to New York with her she ran right into the traffic just for fun. Gee, running into New York City traffic sounds like a literal blast! Uncle Neil was the most normal of my mothers family I guess, he being a lawyer and just your average-Joe guy who liked football, beer, and talking about women. Uncle Ira is very unique; I would find out later that he was gay; he was a neurotic sensitive type who masked all his insecurities behind pitch-perfect sarcasm. I

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would always try to emulate his style of humor when growing up. I thought he was so cool and suave. I still think so to this day, although when I visit him in Chicago (where he lives and works now with his partner, John Thompson, an investment consultant), I see as an adult the truly sad and empty life he lives. Its not so cool and suave anymore. Anyways, I would say my childhood, against the tradition of a writer, was generally a happy one. Despite being exposed to their bickering and aging problems, my parents did a good job in providing a carefree fantasy life for me and in some ways they still create for me now. Although I have lived in the real world and I truly appreciate the fantasy I was allowed to be enveloped in as a child. My fondest memories from my childhood years are watching James Bond movies rented from Blockbuster with my father, going to the lake in summer, playing hide and seek at sleepovers with my friends, lounging in my friend Brandons pool at his house for hours at a time and getting horribly sunburnt, goofing around at Synagogue during services, making fart sounds out of the Shofar when it would blare. We went to Disney World in October of 1999, another fond memory, three days of magic, although it rained the whole time, damn the autumn weather in Florida. And I remember for my eleventh birthday in 1999, we saw a production of Little Shop of Horrors and I was invited onstage where they announced my birthday to everyone. My parents truly tried to give me a happy childhood, so I dont get angry at them, but there are some things I still blame them for in terms of my psychological hang-ups. I was rambunctious and full of energy as a kid, I somehow lost it when I grew up, or it internalized into rage and frustration. I guess the Texas atmosphere is more rambunctious, but when we moved to the Midwest, I had a more quiet and repressive environment to develop in. Things seemed good in my life until the age of 12. In 2000, my father got laid off by SMU and was unemployed for a while at 45. At the same time, my mother was getting dangerously fat. I remember saying as a kid a pretty cruel thing to her, I love you, Mom, even if you are fat. When I was a kid, I tried to rationalize why my Mother was so big when all the other Mothers were so thin. I decided that she must be perpetually pregnant. I even told all my friends in the Cub Scouts (Yes, I was a cub scout and hated every minute of it) about her pregnancy and the mothers called our house to congratulate her on the baby. She would of course say, What baby? Anyways, she was morbidly obese and finally was forced to have a gastric bypass surgery, like Carnie Wilson did. This surgery took a lot out of her and at the same time we had to move to another state. Oy vey, as a 12-year-old I was enmeshed in some real adult

15

problems. I remember our house having a massive leak and me being home alone and having to stop the water with towels, and then my mother coming home from work and having a mental breakdown at the pressure of having a husband out of work and nearly going bankrupt herself why being morbidly obese with two young children. Anyways, my father tried being a chemistry teacher at McKinney High School in Dallas. He apparently hated it and quit after nine days, claiming students throw coins at him. In August of 2000, he made a decision that shocked my mother and gave me four months of a very unique experience that most Americans or Jews dont have; he accepted an offer to teach at a university in Kano, Nigeria, a city in the north. Apparently, one of my fathers best friends in graduate school at North Texas was a Nigerian exchange student. This Nigerian student went back to his home land and became a professor at the university in Kano. He sent an e-mail to my father offering him a position on the science faculty in the summer of 2000. My father, unemployed and desperate, accepted it and was preparing for us to go live in Nigeria. He didnt know for how long. Of course, my mother flat out refused to move to Africa. My father tried to joke with her, saying, You grew up around them in New Orleans but wont go to Africa? They had some pretty hard fights about it. My mother said she would rather die than live in Africa. She didnt want to get malaria, get eaten by a lion, or get speared to death by a local tribesman. Since my father was not making any efforts to get another job in America, he decided to pack up and go to Nigeria with my brother and I and leave my mother there. He felt that he was a better parent than she was and Bradley and Id be better off being raised by him in Nigeria than my mother in the first world idiocy of America. And so, in September of 2000, off we went, to Nigeria, settling in Kano. It was a disaster from day one. The University had promised my father a decent apartment; there was no apartment; we had to live in a hut out in the countryside, a thirty-minute drive from the school. And my brother and I were to go to a small local school in the village area and be the only white kids. The sub-tropical heat was tough to adjust to, even though I had lived in the American south my whole life. And just the air of corruption and poverty that pervades in Nigeria was very off-setting for an eleven-year-old American boy. Luckily my brother was only 6 so he has no real memory of our time there. My father was forced to drive a broken down jeep to his job every day. I do remember the local Nigerians being very nice and I thought their clothing was so colorful and I even learned some of the local games the kids played, although I can

16

barely remember it now. My father tried to make this new life in Nigeria work but it was too much, he was simply too old to adjust to a new country, environment, especially one like Nigeria, which was severely lacking decent healthcare, sanitation, and organized society. I was just a kid so I thought of it as an adventure, but for my father it was no adventure as he got very ill, a combination of further kidney problems and yellow fever. I also was taunted by some of the kids in school for being white, and I could never understand my teachers English. But I did see plenty of lions in the jungle and will always be proud that I lived in Africa as a child. How many people can say that? Actually, probably a lot of white kids growing up in wealthy British and French families during colonial times. Anyways, after four months my father quit his position in Nigeria and in December of 2000 we suddenly returned back to Dallas. For a month he desperately searched for university work while being endlessly bitched out by mother, her screaming, I told you so, I told you you couldnt handle the wild jungles of Africa with those savages! He finally got a job at the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. For my parents, Columbus, Ohio might as well have been China. But, my father made the move, living up there by himself. For six months in 2001 my brother and I lived with just our mother while my father tried to find a house for us in Columbus to settle into. I had to desperately catch up in 6th grade that year after my four months in Nigeria has disrupted my typical school progression. By June of 2001, we were all set for the move to Columbus, having settled on a house in the Northwest suburb of Worthington, in the Worthington Hills neighborhood, at 1243 Clubview Blvd N., the house were still in today. I can remember vividly sitting inside our house at Bridgeport while the movers were loading our things into the van and reflecting on the tragic idea that my childhood and innocence were coming to an end; all these years of pure care-free joy and no worries and exploration were over and I was entering a new, more complex phase of life. Its incredible how time erases most things from your memory, and years of your life are gone as if they never happened, I can hardly recall most of my life before age 13, just a few blips of absurd moments here and there, and most of what Ive produced in this chapter has been hard to conjure up. The mind does that to you; the only things you can remember are the things that are the less painful, but the wounds that stab at you the most never fully depart. And so we drove from Texas up north to Columbus, stopping in Memphis, Tennessee, along the way to see Graceland, the touristy mansion of Elvis. When we

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arrived in Columbus, my old happy life in Texas was gone and a new phase of seemingly endless depression, moroseness, selfloathing, shyness, and awkwardness began.

PART TWO: ADOLESCENCE AND CRISIS

The piano doesnt belong there, Barry! Theres not enough room! Its okay, theres enough! We can put the chairs in the back! No, you cant put it in the back cause then everything is scrunched up, people wont have room to breathe, we need to put it in the bigger guest room! This room is fine, well use the bigger room for other things! Why wont you just listen to me?! You wont listen to me! This whole time weve been moving you have to just argue with me over everything! Im sick of it! Im trying my best here and youve uprooted me and I have to get the bar again, Dont say this in front of the kids, THE PIANO GOES IN THE OTHER ROOM, IT MAKES SENSE, ARE YOU DENSE, ARE YOU AN IDIOT?! IM TALKING TO A CHILD HERE, NOT A FORTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD MAN! Okay, okay, shhhh.well, she was just seventeen, you know what I mean, and the way she looked was way beyond compare.Ill never dance with another, till I saw her standing there. Well,

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my heart went boom when I crossed that room and I held her hand in mine. Dont touch me, Im disgusted by you. And thus went the conversations between my parents as we moved into our house at 1243 Clubview Boulevard North in Columbus, in June, of 2001. They screamed at each other about everything, where to put this, where to take that, Im disappointed this, Im angry that. The agony of my mothers recovery from a massive gastric bypass surgery combined with her losing her bar abilities in a new state added a new level of anxiety to already tense situation of moving across the country. There was not much escape into in Columbus when we first moved there. For me I guess I considered it another adventure, like my time in Nigeria, although our neighborhood, Worthington Hills, didnt seem that much different than the one in Plano. Green lawns, quiet, wide open spaces, average two-story suburban houses. Our house was on a golf course for the Worthington Hills Country Club, we would get free passes to all the golf games played by the old WASPS stock-broker or real estate men who wear those golf clothes and ride around in the carts while Mexicans and blacks serve as their caddies. Our house was previously occupied by the Jeffrey Jones, an older man who had lost his wife to cancer some years ago and was retiring somewhere in Florida I think, I dont know, I never met him. Apparently the ghost of his wife still haunts our house and there were a few times when as a kid I would hear a womans voice whispering in my room at night and I was frightened to death and would beg the ghost to leave me alone. I now realize it was probably just the sound of the fan blowing. The house itself was a typical suburban three-story place, with a basement/laundry room, foyer, living room, kitchen, garage, and upstairs complete with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. I would sleep in the room right by the staircase, my brother in the room to the far rear with bunk beds, and my parents in the master bedroom and one room was left as our guest room. We had four TVs, our piano, a VCR, a DVD player, countless photographs and portraits. My father was a collector of strange portraits and would hang pictures of Chinese women all over the house, it drove my mother crazy. She used to scream, All these Chinese women are staring at me! I cant take it! GET RID OF EM, BARRY! My brother and I enjoyed having a multi-level laundry chute, when we first moved there we would play childish games of shouting to each other from different levels through the chute.

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I enjoyed the first summer in 2001 exploring the new neighborhood, playing the in sprawling back yard and meeting some of the other kids. The first new friends I made were Kelsey and Jared Grubaugh, who lived across the street from us. Kelsey was a girl, red-headed and fun, my age, I spent many days playing polo and watching movies at her house. I guess I had a crush on her but we never acted on it. Our two next door neighbors ironically enough were both New Yorkers whod moved to Ohio back in the 70s. On the right were the Malazewskis, Polish, and on the left were the Blusteins, Jewish from New York. In another huge twist of irony, my grandfather Seymours old boss from New Jersey, Pete Yearsick, was living in retirement in our very neighborhood in Columbus! How is my life not like a great farce! Other friends I was making in the neighborhood were the Midgleys, a Canadian family living 4 houses down from us (just like the Canadian Wagners in Texas, do things really change in life?). They had two sons, Todd and Jared. Mr. Midgley worked for a car company, I think. Todd was my age, in the boy scouts, looked like a chipmunk, but he was very nice and pleasant. Jared was two years younger than me so of course I didnt really know him that well. The Midgleys had a tragic story. Apparently there was a third child, a daughter, who had drowned at a picnic some years back, and that devastated the family. Ironically enough I would come to know such a kind of tragedy in my family shortly thereafter. Todd is now married with an 8-year-old stepson and works as a serviceman. That summer my mother tried to make me Jewish friends and set up play-dates for me. Two Jewish kids I met that I still retain friendships with were Josh House and Will Klein. Josh was Jewish but lived in a different neighborhood and we met at the local high school pool in summer. He was a theatre geek like me and we went to Hebrew school together and hit it off pretty well. Will Klein lived in my neighborhood, the son of a doctor and lawyer, go figure. He would have a lot of trouble in life with drugs and I would find out much later got arrested for possession and selling of heroin in New York. Many other suburban kids my age would fall into problems with drug use, see, taking your kids away from the crime-filled areas doesnt prevent anything or stop them from falling into it anyway. I was anxious of beginning school in the fall of 2001 at a new place, McCord Middle School, and being the new kid. Being new and adapting to change is hard, I seem to keep getting into situations that require constant adjustment all the time, from Nigeria to New York to College to Korea to China to back home. But thats what life is, I guess, constant change, as time waits

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for no one and youre forced to constantly change. Another stressful situation I found myself in was preparing for my Bar Mitzvah. I was to be 13 in October of that year, and it was time for the traditional Jewish rite of passage of the Bar Mitzvah, or Son of Commandment where a 13-year-old is called to the Torah in front of the congregation on the Sabbath to lead the ceremony and read the Torah portion in Hebrew and a Haftorah (after-Torah) portion also. And give a speech in English. I dont know if the Ancient Hebrews gave speeches in English also, Im guessing probably not. Anyway, the idea of reading a long passage in Hebrew from memory scared the absolute shit out of me and I had a very hard time with accepting it. My mother got us enrolled in Beth Tikvah, the local reform synagogue. And I was to be tutored by Valia Burgelson, a Russian Jewish woman who had an accent that could scare the hardest motorcyclist. I hated having to go to Bar Mitzvah lessons and I remember crying and refusing to practice my Hebrew. I eventually realized I could just memorize the sounds from Mrs. Burgelsons recording of the portions I would have to read and just copy them without knowing what I was looking at. And thats exactly what I did. Yes, I cheated at my Bar Mitzvah, I guess I never really became a Jewish man. But, hey, I grew up in Texas and Ohio, not on some kibbutz in the Israeli desert, so sue me for not being able to read Hebrew. I started 7th grade in September, 2001, a month which would become monumental in American history. For my personal history, I remember the first few weeks being hard. I was the new kid from Texas, kids in Ohio thought of Texans as obnoxious and crass and everyone called me a cowboy and constantly asked to see my cowboy boots and hats and expected me to have a Texas drawl. And I would think, My great-grandparents were living on some shtetl in Poland eighty years ago, you think Im gonna be a cowboy? I received the nickname, Diamond Dallas Dave, it also didnt help that George W. Bush was then President and he was a Texan and the image of Texans to the rest of the world were that they were total white trash cowboy assholes. Thanks a lot, Bush. I was intimidated by many of my male classmates, because I was small for my age and had not really started puberty while many of the other boys were already getting tall and muscular. I remember a particular angry feud I had with Greg ONeill, a pale Irish guy who constantly made fun of my mother or something or the other, I attacked him gym class and we threatened to have a major brawl after school, of course the brawl never took place. On September 11th, 2001, a major event happened that shook up America and the world and forever changed the way we travel and think about international relations. Two planes were hi-

21

jacked by members of the terrorist group Al-Quaeda and crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, destroying that iconic landmark. Also a hi-jacked plane was headed towards the Pentagon in Washington D.C. It was a complete crisis, I remember hearing about at lunch in the cafeteria and one of my fellow classmates, William Wehner, casually mentioning a building being blown up. We were sent home from school and I remember coming back to the house and seeing the footage of the twin towers being destroyed and the victims in the fall out, the thousands of people dead from the plane and inside the building. I recognized the enormity of the tragedy and remembered thinking that were would be a major war after this. Of course, following 9/11 we had the period of high paranoia and alertness to terrorists, and God help you if you were Arabic in the United States. Osama Bin Laden became the Public Enemy and Number One on Americas Most Wanted. I guess 9/11 will forever be the defining historical moment in my time, kind of like John F. Kennedys assassination or the bombing of Pearl Harbor or D-Day. A positive of our move to Columbus was that my parents decided to buy my brother and I a dog. We found a puppy mixed with part Australian Sheep Dog and part Jack Terrier, we thought she was the most adorable dog wed ever seen and bought her. We named her Punim, which is Yiddish for face, because we thought she had the most remarkable face on a dog wed ever seen. I loved and adored Punim and spent many happy hours just playing with her, letting her lick my face all over endlessly, taking her for walks, Ive always had a love of dogs my whole life, theres something comforting to me about dogs and their willingness for obedience and immediate friendship, something thats hard to extract from your fellow human beings. Punim sadly got old, as dogs do, and my parents gave her away about two years ago. But I miss her and will always associate her with happy memories from growing up. A hard adjustment for us to make in Ohio, coming from the South, was to the winter weather. Our first cold winter was experienced at the end of 2001, going into 2002, we had a major snowstorm and my parents had to deal with shoveling snow off the driveway and bitterly cold weather. My father grew up in Jersey so he could handle the winter; my mother was a life-long Southerner and cold weather to her was like being tortured in the Spanish Inquisition. I remember my mother trying desperately to scrape mounds and mounds of snow off her car and she couldnt do it; my father then screamed in her face ARE YOU A MORON?! JUST DO IT! And he simply brushed off the snow in a few brisk strokes. My mother then ran into the house and refused to do anything with him. My father can be very short-tempered and

22

impossible to deal with in situations like this. I particularly hate working on projects with him like fixing things around the house, he becomes too panicky, it must be kvetchy New Yorker in him coming out. My Bar Mitzvah, which I previously mentioned Id cheated on, was on January 5, 2002. It was a happy weekend despite family tensions and the strain of my mother trying to find a decent job being over 45 and without the bar to practice law in Ohio. My mother never took the bar here in Ohio and Ive always wondered why; was it anti-pathy? A hatred of Ohio and homesickness for her beloved New Orleans? Or was it just plain laziness? Whatever the case, Im not quite sure what jobs she worked at during this time, I think it was just private law firms that would be unstable or teaching classes in law at small schools downtown, like Capital University or Franklin Law School. Whatever the case, we got by, we just got by. But cold winters mixed with my parents financial straits and my mothers health problems were hard to deal with as a teenager. A lot of pain is wrapped up in these times, but I guess with the passing of enough years you forget and it becomes part of the integral experience of a full and complete life. Anyway, my Bar Mitzvah was a fun and festive day. All my relatives flew in from New Jersey, New York, New Orleans, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Las Vegas, and wherever the hell else in the world I have family. I remember discovering my first pubic hairs around my balls and was so excited that I blurted out to my Uncle Neil, Uncle Neil, I have hair on my balls! I HAVE HAIR ON MY BALLS! I dont think Id be this candid with someone today, but, hey, I was 13, what did I know? We stayed in hotel rooms at the Hilton and had a fancy reception in the ballroom at night following the service at Beth Tikvah on the Saturday morning. It was the last time I would see my Uncle Joel before he got sick with the colon cancer that, little known to me, was eating his body up. My party after the services was a long and glorious dance party. We had catering from Katzengers, the one Jewish deli in downtown Columbus. I dont know why but I remember being in Katzengers with my parents and apparently an attractive girl with a huge ass walked by the table, my father looked, but I didnt, and my mother said, Hm, he didnt see that girl, hes not really a man, yet, Barry, we cant give him his Bar Mitzvah. Anyway, my new friends from both Hebrew and normal school flooded my party, and Kelsey came and another Jewish family from Upper Arlington, the Benatars, who were Orthodox and the father was Israeli, the mother from Boston, and other Jewish families from Beth Tikvah that I really didnt know. I remember standing at the table receiving the

23

congratulations from all the various guests and having no idea who any of these people were and thanking them nonetheless, I guess I was preparing for a future as a celebrity (a future I havent really achieved yet. But hope is hard to kill.) A funny memory was from the morning, right before the ceremony as we were taking family pictures. My grandmother Goldie, or Bubbe, as I call her, was being her typical New York Jewish self screaming at my cousin Drew, who has autism and wouldnt stop crying, All right, all right, enough with the crying, were gonna take the picture and then youre gonna get some ice cream, all right! Anyway, the dancing at the reception was a lot of fun, my mother played many Mo-town hits from the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, etc. Also the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, all the classic rock songs from the 1960s and 70s that my parents grew up on. We had a big black guy, James, as our DJ, he apparently worked in Hollywood or something like that, he was like Barry White live in the flesh. Anyway, this is not a very Jewish celebration as you can see. But this is what happens when American culture takes over, isnt it? However, we did have the obligatory dance to the Hava Nagila where we all get in a circle and do the traditional Jewish dance while I was lifted in a chair by my four uncles. Two of those uncles are now dead, its hard to believe that, as that memory of all four of them lifting me in the air to the manic sounds of the Hora while Im laughing with glee remains fresh in my mind as if it just happened. I guess thats what life does to you. I got 700 dollars in money in Bar Mitzvah gifts; isnt it great to be Jewish? How many Christian kids get that much for Christmas or Islamic kids for Ramadan? They dont get anything on Ramadan, just starvation! Although we Jews also fast on Yom Kippur for repentance for our sins, something Ill never understand. How is not eating gonna make up for our mistakes? You still made them, now youre just hungry! As for puberty, well, I would say definitely developed a healthy appetite for women. Although I was painfully shy around the girls in my school and never had the chutzpah to go up to any of them and ask them out. I was clueless with girls all throughout my teenage years and feel great regret, as I probably could have had a lot of great fucks with girls that were willing but I couldnt see the light, what an idiot. There are many things that you look back on and just think if you had been more rational or not been wrapped up in your own head it would have been much more fulfilling. I did, however, discover my grandfather Jerrys stash of Playboy magazines in our guest room, my mother said he had gave them to me for inheritance. Im

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ashamed to admit it but I read the magazines not to masturbate to girls, but to laugh at the jokes. Yes, I read Playboy for the jokes! What kind of teenage boy was I?! In fact, I didnt even start masturbating till I was 22! I never masturbated, every once in a while Id have a sex dream, but besides that there was no achieving of orgasms ever! I think no masturbation came from just being lazy or not caring or having my mind focused on other things. Whatever was the case, I just didnt masturbate, and thats all there was to it. Although I do remember my first sex dream when I was 14, it was with a Pakistani-American girl I went to school with, I thought she was the hottest girl Id ever seen and just wanted to kiss her big brown lips and touch her black hair and caress her beautiful brown skin so badly. Ive always been drawn to dark-skinned girls my whole life; black, Indian, Latino, Filipino, whatever. I guess because theyre exotic or different and look totally different than me, than my mother, represent a totally different way of life that I can escape into from my own unsatisfying one. I remember taking the plunge and just saying to the Pakistani girl in my English class, Do you realize how hot you are? That did not go over so well and she didnt respond in quite the way Id hoped she would. Yes, I was not the worlds greatest Don Juan or Casanova in those years, because I was short, pudgy, and Jewish, in a pre-dominantly white anglo Christian Mid-Western American community. I wouldnt say I grew up Jewish; I grew up WASP but with the KNOWLEDGE of my Jewish background, so I grew up in two worlds. I would explore this more heavily later in life, but at the age of 13, 14, I was more immersed in family every-day problems and trying to succeed academically and socially. In middle school I was in band and in choir. I played percussion, I always wanted to play snare drum but because I had a background in piano and was the only boy who could read music, I was regulated to playing the xylophone, which I considered an embarrassment. I never played sports although considered joining the football team, but I thought I was too small. One teacher that I remember was Mr. Allen, he was a unique man who made sex jokes in class and I remember told one of my fellow classmates he looked like a condom with a certain kind of hat on. I remember enjoying studying American history, especially the Civil War and learning about the various soldiers and their stories. I had a fascination with war and battle and would do simulations Civil War battles in our large backyard as a kid. One friend of mine that I havent seen in a long time, Andrew Swick (who went to West Point and is now in the Military) used to joke around with me about being Soviet Spies and we quoted The Deer Hunter constantly, saying, One more shot, just one

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more. What do 14-year-old boys know about suffering and persecution and being prisoner-of-war camp victims? Quite a lot, actually. In my family, the year 2002 was dramatic and both tragic and celebratory. On my mothers side, my cousin Jessica, in Long Island, had her Bat Mitzvah in October of 2002. We flew into Hewlett, Long Island, for the affair. We were put up in a fancy country club/hotel and the whole affair was very decadent and rich. We wore tuxedoes and I felt like I was at a party at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. Uncle Glenn I think comes from a very wealthy New York Jewish family and it felt great to be part of that social world of rich Jewish New Yorkers. All of my cousin Jessicas friends were kids of Jewish lawyers, doctors, bankers, businessmen who work in New York City and live in the suburbs in Long Island and New Jersey. They were obnoxious and spoiled to me, I didnt think of myself as like them, I wasnt spoiled (although I really was.) It was a great weekend, her Bat Mitzvah, I danced with some of Jessicas girl friends and they seemed to enjoy my company, me being exotic because I wasf rom Ohio and they only knew other Jews from Long Island. I would enjoy this same feeling of being an exotic man in Korea and China in the future. This happy memory was followed by something completely tragic and horrifying only a few weeks later. I remember being woken up at 6 in the morning on November 13, 2002, by my father. He was crying and we were in my parents master bedroom. My father then said slowly, Your Uncle Joel.he died. From cancer. I was shocked. I honestly had no earthly idea that Uncle Joel even was that sick, I knew that he had cancer but the last time I had seen him that summer in New Jersey, he seemed like his old, vivacious self, full of energy and laughter and joy. I was in complete grief, I really loved Uncle Joel, he was such a tremendous spirit who made our trips to New Jersey so colorful and fun. I learned that we would be going to New Jersey for the funeral for three days and I would have to get permission from school to leave. I got my teachers, who were understandably sympathetic, to sign off on it and we went to Jersey to bury my 43-year-old Uncle. These were 3 days I will never forget as long as I live. What sticks out most is just the pure human tragedy that I was witnessing at such a young age, it was so raw and so painful that it was too much. I remember sitting in the kitchen of my grandparents house at 87 Tracy Dr, and my grandfather Seymour, 74 and weak and with an old mans high-pitched voice, telling us in dreadful detail the final days of Joels life. We came back

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from the doctor and went to the house. He said he wanted to take a shower. He couldnt breathe but he wanted to shower. The doctors said no chemotherapy would work. His organs were failing. He collapsed in the shower. He just went on and on and we all wanted him to just stop as he was making himself cry and the rest of us. On a more absurd note, I remember my Uncle Arthur, Aunt Yettas husband, Canadian, trying to tell me about Canada. David, name me five provinces of Canada, no wait, Ill tell you, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia. But it was not a time for laughs. Adding to the tragedy of Uncle Joels death were several things; my grandparents were in their 70s and had lost a son and their source of joy. Uncle Joel was left by two kids, Amanda, who was a 10-year-old girl without a father, and Drew, who was 7 and with such an extreme case of autism and developmental disorder that the idea of him not having a father would be disastrous. Also, my Uncle Steven was there, and he was 49, morbidly obese beyond hope, and looking like he was about to die himself. The enormity of the tragedy and personal despair was overwhelming. At his open viewing in the funeral parlor, I saw his dead body and cried and sobbed. Here he was, this man so full of life and vivacity, just lying there, dead, it was all gone. How could God let someone like this just die? The funeral was the real kicker that sticks in my mind like a nightmare that wont go away. At the cemetery in New Jersey on that somber gray November day, we all stood in front of his grave as they lowered the coffin and the Rabbi read the Kaddish prayer for the dead. As he got to the part where he was saying, And we lay this son, Joel Stuart Friedman, into the earth, my grandmother collapsed to the ground, screaming in unbearable pain and with the pain of a wounded animal, NO! TAKE ME! NOT HIM! NOT MY JOEL! COME BACK TO US! IT SHOULD BE ME! IT SHOULD BE ME! IT SHOULD BE ME! My father and Uncle Steven had to help her up, she tried to lean on Uncle Stevens shoulder for comfort but continued screaming, NO! NO! NO! At that moment so many of the darkest elements of life were coming together; death, family tensions, disappointment, ill health, suffering, it was so dark that as a 14-year-old you just dont know how to deal with it. These are the things your parents try to protect you from as a child, but I guess God had different plans. Another ridiculous aspect of these three days I couldnt get over was my mothers behavior during this whole time. She had just had a stomach ulcer and was forced to wear bandages on her stomach and was in recovery, so she complained the whole time about having to travel to a funeral in this condition. She then tried to lighten the tension (which you cant really in a

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situation like that) by making such statements as, There were the Three Friedman boys, no theres just two. Or, I expect Joel to be coming down those stairs but he aint gonna do it this time. She infuriated my other grieving family members and has a tendency to not know when simply to just shut up. I understood at that age to just be quiet, that this was a tragedy of unprecedented sorrow and the best thing to is to let the people grieve and get through it. Ill never forget my grandmother crying to my Aunt Janice and screaming, He really loved you! He really did and we all miss him! I was also moved by how my Aunt Yetta, who distanced herself from the family after Uncle Joel married Janice, a gentile, said to Janice directly, Im sorry, I was wrong, youre a good person. And it took the tragic death of someone to bring those two people together to a more mature understanding of the sameness of everyone in the world. On the other hand, I also remember hours later my grandmother trying to make me take my first drink of beer and me smelling it and becoming nauseous and her laughing and giggling, which I couldnt believe considering her tremendous grief and tears only a little while earlier. Women; they have the moods of a stock market fluxuation. Following the unthinkable and unimaginable tragedy that had just occurred with my uncles death, I completely abandoned Judaism, God, and a belief in religion. I began to see the world as a cold, cruel, unforgiving and harsh place where horrible things can and do happen to good people. There is no justice, there is no greater good waiting for you in some kind of afterlife. I became an atheist, or just plain didnt care about religion, and refused to go to the annual Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services and my mother and I had many fights about it. How can there be a God when he lets Uncle Joel die? I was sick of hearing the excuse, God works in mysterious ways. It didnt seem very mysterious to me; it just seemed vicious and relentless. Our trips to New Jersey since his death have always been clouded by the somberness of that tragedy. And my grandparents lost their will and spirit, they stopped traveling, they stopped getting involved in their senior activities and just remained cooped up in their little house in New Jersey, hiding from the world, waiting for their own deaths. The summer of 2002 we made another trip to New Jersey, as we usually did in the summers. Now that we lived in Columbus it was a ten-hour drive. I hated those drives, I hated having to sit in a car for that long and just be on an endless stretch of highway going across Pennsylvania. However, I loved being able to go into New York City from the train station by my grandparents house in Fords. Just thirty minutes and your

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thrust into the most exciting and stimulating place in the world, Manhattan, we would usually take the train from Menlo Park to Penn Station on 33rd street. I loved just walking out of the train and onto the vibrant streets of Midtown Manhattan. I can never get enough of New York and consider it a great tragedy that I dont think Ill ever be able to live there unless I become a millionaire. But the times we would spend in the house in New Jersey were boring and sad; I did however enjoy seeing my grandmother, a relic of an old New York Jewish woman, doing her Jewish mannerisms and ways. I always wondered what Id be like if I had her for my mother, instead of my Southern Jewish upbringing. I remember having dinner at the table and my mother complaining to my grandma, Mom, why do you put so much bread on the table? Were not gonna eat all of it. And my grandmother snaps, WHAT DO YOU CARE HOW MUCH BREAD IS ON THE TABLE?! SO IF WE WANT MORE BREAD WELL EAT IT LATER! WHATS WRONG WITH HAVING A LOT OF BREAD?! PEOPLE ARE STARVING IN JAPAN! My bubbe would always ask me non-stop if I wanted more, you want more egg? More steak? More chicken? More milk? More oreos for you to dunk in the milk? And I didnt eat that much, and it made her angry when Id say no. WHY WONT YOU EAT MORE?! I was conscious about my weight and said I didnt want to get fat. Shed scream, Youre not gonna get fat! Youre a growing boy, so eat more! If youre fat, Im a beach whale, now eat! Oy, when I was growing up we didnt have food every night, be happy ya got food, so eat! Seymour, make him eat, open his mouth! They would try to forcefeed my younger brother yogurt when he was 8. I guess thats Jewish culture, eating is the most important thing in life, above all else, you have to have food injected in you every two hours or you will DIE! Who ever HEARD of someone possibly not eating for more than TWO HOURS at a TIME?! NO ONE! THATS IMPOSSIBLE! WHAT ARE THESE GENTILES THINKING GOING ON JUST TWO OR THREE MEALS A DAY?! THESE ARABS THAT FAST FOR A MONTH?! THESE HINDUS THAT DONT EAT COW?! THESE CHINESE WHO JUST EAT RICE AND FISH?! WHATS WRONG WITH THESE PUTZES?! My grandmother whenever wed visit would not stop serving us snacks and would get offended as if you asked her to flash her tits to you when you said no. I just had five steaks and thirty pieces of salami, no I dont want a TURKEY LEG RIGHT NOW, BUBBE, PLEASE! My father told me a funny story of how in 1964 at some fair or festival in Queens, New York, the family went in, and my grandmother, then 33, saw a Japanese couple. The Japanese woman picked up a leaf from the ground and put it in her shoe. My grandmother apparently got in their faces and just screamed, WHAT IS THAT, A JAPANESE CUSTOM?! TO PUT A LEAF IN YOUR SHOE?! Thats my Grandmother for you, and thats New York and thats

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Judaism all rolled into one. I love my Bubbe for her feisty spirit and refusal to take any bullshit from anyone. If the Pope said something she didnt like, shed give it to him straight in his child-molesting groin. My grandfather on the other hand is a quiet, stern kind of guy who I remember hardly ever talking growing up but did enjoy playing with me as a child. Now hes so worn-down by old age and grief that hes practically a ghost of a man. Very sad, but thats life, isnt it? You have to cope with the things you cant control. Some happy memories at home associated with my family are the simple joys of going out on weekends; either seeing a movie, going to a Chinese restaurant or Joes Crab Shack, Olive Garden, Bravos Italian cuisine, Chinese buffets, and just spending time together as a family and enjoying the simplicity of suburban existence. There is a beauty to quiet Suburban living that I didnt truly appreciate till I was older. Some favorite movies we saw as a family together from this time were Catch Me If You Can, Bend it Like Beckham, The Ladykillers, we loved Tom Hanks films, especially Forrest Gump, my family and I would constantly quote that. I was inspired by Forrest Gump, his life story, how much he accomplished in his life, despite being mentally retarded and physically handicapped, from graduating college and being a war hero, ping pong celebrity, millionaire, and father. I wanted to live a life of adventure like that when I was older. But first I had to get through these times. My mother and her illnesses, oy vey, you could go on and on. At this time, she was recovering from her gastric bypass surgery, which did in fact save her life, as she lost 150 pounds and was functional again. However, she suffered from one thing after another, heart attacks, stomach ulcers, chest pains, and a very serious car accident in 2003 which left her back disks permanently impaired. As a teenager my mother was in constant bad health, constantly having to go to the hospital or emergency room, it was not a fun environment for a teenager to develop in, and I guess thats why Im more austere and serious than other people my age, because I was enmeshed in harsher realities than I guess a lot of other suburban kids are. I went to Jewish summer camps two more times in my life, in 2002 and 2003, and then never again because I didnt really enjoy those experiences like the ones in 1999 in Texas. I first went to GUCI camp in Indiana. Although I made friends with some of other Jewish kids in my cabin, in general it was a negative experience. I was ridiculed by other boys, shy with girls, didnt enjoy the social activities and was generally homesick and just wanted to return to Columbus. However, GUCI was

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paradise compared to the next camp I went to in 2003. The next summer before my freshman year of high school I went to Emma Kaufman camp in West Virginia. I absolutely hated it, some of the worst four weeks of my life. All my cabin-mates seemed to universally despise me and insult me, and so did my counselors, I could not find one friend among them all in the wilderness, and the fact that my parents made me stay an extra week only further aggravated the condition. I swore I would never go to Jewish camp again after that. However, I did get my first kiss at Emma Kaufman despite all the negatives; it was a Jewish girl (surprise there) and we were all playing a game of someone mentioning a sexual act and the girl you are matched with has to go along with it. It was sweet, I cant even remember her name or barely what she looked like, but that was one fond memory of an ultimately unhappy experience. I was convinced that other Jewish-American kids were just spoiled assholes, entitled and think because theyre Jewish theyre above the gentile kids and are in some kind of great stratosphere, but theyre no different than those gentiles they ridicule. In addition to those camps, I was also involved in the Beth Tikvah youth groups, really beginning in my freshman year of high school. I would go on field trips to Kings Island, an amusement park in Cincinnati, and to various camp outings in and around Columbus. I enjoyed some of them, my friends Josh and Will were always at the events, but I found most of the girls to be vacuous and annoying, like most of the girls I went to high school with also. I was never much of a socialite as a teenager, I just found the other kids to be obnoxious and over-whelming, I think its the American way, were conditioned to be outlandish jack-asses, thats our culture, its sometimes too much, I would later live in a country where the culture is the complete opposite and everyone is forced to be quiet and subdued. I started high school in the fall of 2003, at Worthington Kilbourne, on 1499 Hard Rd, just across the street from McCord Middle School. My freshman year was tough, as high school is always hard for most people, its a time of awkwardness, selfdiscovery, insecurity, trying to figure out who you are as a person in the world. I remember I would take the bus early in the morning, at around 6:30, to arrive at school at 7:00 and start classes at 7:30. I hated having to get up so early in the mornings and go to the same place every day and be around the same stupid assholes I didnt like. I was not developing into a happy all-American boy; I was turning into a surly, depressed teenager who smiled as often as the Lochness monster raises its ugly head. My parents were concerned about me becoming so

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withdrawn and depressed. I remember one time even threatening to kill myself, holding a knife on the stairway and my father having to restrain me and take the knife away from me as I cried profusely. Thats something that doesnt go away easily. I did manage to take a girl to the Freshman home-coming dance. Her name was Krysten Brown and she was in my history class. I just asked her to go and she said yes. It was a crowning achievement for a short, pudgy Jewish boy to be going to a dance with a tall, elegant blonde Christian girl, I remember we ate at a sleazy Pizza shop for our dinner (smart move) and then went to the dance where I tried to get a little sexual with her but she wasnt interested in it. My mother drove her back to her house and I forgot to walk her to her door and my mother was screaming, DAVID, YOU ALWAYS WALK A YOUNG LADY TO THE DOOR! WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?! My mother always had a knack for embarrassing me and ruining my social development or building up of confidence. On my first day of 7th grade she screamed, HAVE A GOOD DAY, HONEY-BUN! In front of all my classmates. She was such an overwhelming and stifling figure in those years that I couldnt blossom as my own person and I blame her for many of my flaws today, including my inability to be confident and handle problems smoothly. I remember wanting to have sex really badly with this black girl, Cassie, in our school who had huge breasts and I had fantasies of being the white slave-master with the slave-girl in a shed or something. I was perverted to the say the least and was curious about having sex doggy style with the black and Indian girls in my school who were particularly well-endowed. I unfortunately never got to act on it in high school but would get to live out my fantasies years later in an unexpected but delightful way. The summer between my freshman and sophomore year of high school I decided to enroll in Advanced Placement US History and Enriched English, two classes which I enjoyed tremendously. I had to read a total of five books over the summer. FIVE BOOKS! I couldnt read five pages without turning on the TV and throwing the book in the garbage. I had to read a 700-page biography of John Adams, a book about the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 and the drafting of the constitution, the Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyon, A Separate Peace by John Knowles, and The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was these two classes that shaped me in terms of my desires to be a writer and an adventurer. Enriched English was a great class at Kilbourne, I had a blast with Mr. Miller, an older man who had a great passion for English literature, he was an alumnus of Wheaton college in

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Illinois, near Chicago. He infused in me an excitement for literature and I discovered all those books I thought were boring or adult were actually exciting and full of passion and romance, just like the movies I loved. We read The Scarlet Letter, The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I remember performing a monologue from Julius Caesar, actually Antonys monologue after discovering Caesars corpse and swearing revenge, and getting a huge rush from it. I began to enjoy writing detailed essays examining the great works of literature and decided that in college I would study English. In Advanced Placement (or AP) US History, I loved the teacher, Mr. Lane. He was an eccentric older guy who had a wonderful sense of humor, constantly joking with me about being Jewish and veering off from his lectures on random tangents ranging from Dwight D. Eisenhower being a drunk to his supposedly being mistaken for an assassin when Jimmy Carter came to Columbus for a speech in 1979. I remember he once brought in crackers for the class to eat and said, These crackers are from Germany, so none for Mr. David. He always called me Mr. David. He also told us about his cat, Sebastian, who supposedly could speak English and once set a snare of chocolate for him, he literally walked out onto his porch and fell in a puddle of chocolate, put there by Sebastian the Talking Cat as an assassination attempt. Besides the lunacy of Mr. Lanes teaching style, I enjoyed learning about the details of American history, the diversity, the rise from poor farmlands to industrials powerhouses of American cities, the hope and promise of it, the romantic tales of the Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, the Civil War, the Wild West, the Cowboys and Indians. I decided I loved two things in life; adventure and literature. Well, I guess four things if you count black and Indian women. I would write complex 7 or 9 page essays for these classes and enjoyed it. I was fashioning myself an intellectual by this point in high school. Of course it was all a pleasant fantasy life as I look back at it now, but at that time I thought I could sustain it forever. I also participated heavily in the theatre department at Worthington Kilbourne. Although I was terribly shy and had problems with diction. I mumbled and spoke too fast and was never given big parts by the theatre director, Ms. Holly Thompson, because of my speech problems. My favorite plays I acted in in high school were Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest, The Music Man, A Midsummer Nights Dream in which I played Oberon, the Fairy King, Annie, where I played Franklin Roosevelt, a man I admired a lot from my history classes, and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward. I also played Mr.

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Mushnik, the Jewish shop-owner in Little Shop of Horrors, party because I was the only Jewish guy in theatre and would be the only one to understand how to play a kvetchy New York Jew from the 1950s. Ironically enough (oh how my life is filled with irony) my first role in high school was as one of the Nazis who comes in at the end of the Diary of Anne Frank. Yes, I was a 5 ft 1 in. 15-year-old Jew playing a Nazi. Even funnier, the day of the 2004 elections, November 2, was also one of our dress rehearsals, and many random people were voting in the school while I was wearing a Nazi uniform with a Swastika, and people were staring at me in horror in my Nazi costume, to which I responded with an appropriate Seig Heil! I had a good time in theatre, I enjoyed getting laughs and feeling the warmth of an audience. I discovered that I liked writing plays. My first attempts at writing were when I was 15. I was influenced by the tragic floweriness of the Scarlett Letter and wanted to write something like that. I wrote a three part story about a white plantation owners daughter and her tragic love affair with a slave boy in 1842 Virginia. It was totally shlock and bullshit, but it was ambitious for a15-year-old, the black slave boy gets the white girl pregnant, is found out, and is hanged. I thought it was grand and tragic, maybe Ill rewrite someday to make it good, but I think that kind of storys been done before. I also wrote a two-act farce, The Long and Strange Night, about two rich guys in New York in the 1920s screwing around and getting into silly situations. I wrote an intense family drama that I tried to style after Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman and Edward Albees Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? My father and I had seen the 2005 Broadway production of it in New York with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin, it was pretty intense for a 16-year-old, I kept getting into very adult situations at a young age. The play, called Nice to See You, Pop, was about a working class Jewish family in Upstate New York and the son is a failure, like Biff in Salesman, and the daughters a nutcase, and the mother committed suicide, all the vague themes that emerge in American drama. It was vague and hackneyed and sentimental and I would never have it produced, but I was trying at least to start something as a writer. My father was so impressed that I was writing full length plays at this age, that he determined I must become a writer for my profession. And I too realized there was nothing more I wanted to be in life, except maybe to get paid to have sex with beautiful girls all day. My high school years represented a beginning of a bad age in American history. Following 9/11, tension was extremely heightened because of the paranoia about terrorism, airport

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security became much more intense and made traveling by air a huge pain-in-the-ass. Then in 2003 our government became convinced that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and so we began an invasion of Iraq in March that turned into an endless campaign to help better the situation in Iraq, Saddam Hussein, the maniacal dictator, did manage to become overthrown and eventually executed after being found in hiding. Lets not forget the wars the US were involved in in Afghanistan, the War on Terror. These two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were draining the economy and by 2008 America was in trillions of dollars of debt and economic collapse. Pretty grim for a young guy just entering adulthood, thank a lot, Dubya. Dubya is Bush for those of you who didnt grow up in America during this time. In my family, in 2005, we suffered another death, although this one was not so tragic. My step-Grandfather Herman died of kidney failure at age 76. He had severe kidney disease and had been on dialysis for years, having to endure 5 hours a day of dialysis treatment and kidney revitalization. I remember absurdly how I had been in Health class in school, and there was a black woman from the poor part of town who had come in to demonstrate to us about different sexually transmitted diseases. She would show us pictures of a red penis and say, See, yall? This heres what happens ya get GONORHEEA! YALL DONT WANT DAT SHIT, AIGHT?! Very eloquent lecturer there. And then I was called into the principals office and told that my grandfather had died. We went down to New Orleans for the funeral. The unresolved tension between my father and my mothers parents was still a mystery and I remember screaming at my father, I want to know! I want to know why you hated him! And my father replying, He stabbed me in the back. And my mother crying, Herman Kohlman is dead, hes in the ground, why cant you move on? He had a true New Orleans funeral with a Jazz second line. If losing her husband and becoming a widow wasnt enough, my grandmother Helen in New Orleans had another unexpected crisis to deal with. In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans like the plague and devastated the entire city, leaving most homes flooded and the majority of New Orleans folks abandoning the town. My family was included. My Uncle Neil and his family went to Florida to wait it out. My grandmother was passed around among her children, first in Florida, then to Chicago with my Uncle Ira, then she stayed with us in Columbus for three weeks. It was difficult, because my mother and I were fighting about everything, including my unwillingness to date girls (because I thought the girls in my high school were just stupid bitches, frankly, although I look back now and I was wrong and should have given them a chance.) I also didnt try

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that hard in extracurricular activities, she wanted me to on student council and in the honors society or whatever and I was lazy, I was also depressed and melancholy and moody and she assumed I was on drugs. My grandmothers presence only agitated things, as she was 73 with arthritis and very set in her ways. I remember her demanding to have dozens of hand towels at hand and always complaining that there werent enough hand towels. And my mother screaming back at her, Mom, ENOUGH ABOUT THE HAND TOWELS! I also did something incredibly, I was told to take out a bag from my grandmothers luggage and throw it in the trash. I took the wrong bag, the one with ALL OF HER CLOTHING in it and she had no clothes left for her stay, so she was forced to go shopping with her arthritis for a whole day and spend hundreds of dollars on new clothing. Of course I was bitched out royally for that one. Oh, girls, girls, girls, there were some girls I remember wanting to start a relationship with in high school but I could just never get around to doing it, I lacked confidence and I was awkward and just thought no girl would ever want me. There was Annie Schuerman, one of the few girls in high school whom I thought was funny and bright and I could really joke around with. She was also not bad-looking with nice breasts. I used to give her rides home sometimes and wed have a lot of laughs, but it never led anywhere. Another girl I enjoyed was Melanie Cheng, she was a tiny Chinese-American girl who was in one of my government classes and in theatre with me. She was a fun girl, full of vivacity and humor and I remember we went on a government project together at my synagogue and I was making her laugh non-stop, I was killing in that stand-up act, I was in love with her, however, once again, I couldnt be a man and just try to start a romance, which Im sure she wouldve enjoyed. What a shmuck. I lacked bravery and daring. If only I could go back. The one girl I was with in high school was Kelly something, dont remember her last name, in high school. We made out a few times and dry humped, meaning having sex with your clothes on. That was the closest I got to losing my virginity as a teenager. I remember a hilarious Japanese exchange student, his name was Yoshiri, who would randomly scream at lunch time, Dat-uh girl have a da big boobs! He was talking about that girl I was dry-humping. Speaking of breasts, I was very fond of Ashley Kvitko, a Ukranian-American girl a year older than me who was blonde and blue-eyed with large Ukranian breasts and I would have given my shlong and two meatballs to have partaken of. Alas, it never was. If I could do it all over again, I would have been more brash with the girls instead of a shy little boy, which is what I was.

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Learning to drive; oy, what a mess. I was a very neurotic 15-year-old and I could simply not handle driving. Its amazing to me that I got through it all and was able to get my license and in fact work as a delivery driver twice in my life. Learning to drive with my father was a nightmare, the screaming, the tension, the constant mistakes. My father would relentlessly scream in my ear as I was just starting out, TURN! MERGE! SLOW DOWN! LEFT! LIGHT! He would make me absolutely nuts and for a while I refused to learn. I also was required to take classes with Top Driver and had to have driving hours with a random teacher. It was an angry black woman from the ghetto who was very unpleasant to drive with. She would constantly also scream in my face. I somehow got through it. Thats what life is, I think, getting through unpleasant situations that for some reason youre forced to be in. I remember the first time my parents had me drive in city traffic; it was a disaster. We were going to the touring production of Oliver in downtown Columbus. My father of course was doing his usual screaming in my face as Im terrified driving downtown for the first time and constantly afraid of crashing into all the other cars. As we make it into the parking garage miraculously, I get a bloody nose from all the screaming and have to sit through the show with blood on my shirt and a large napkin hanging from my left nostril. I failed my driving test twice and somehow passed the third time. My parents gave me my fathers Saturn 1999 and he bought a new car, a Mercury Sable. In the winter of 2005, on a freezing snowy day, I was attempting to drive to school at 7:00 in the morning. I couldnt see a thing because the ice on the windshield was impossible to get off but I had to get to school. So I drove and hit a woman in the opposite lane. My car was smashed up but she was all right and a kindly lady who didnt press charges or anything. I had to go to juvenile court and pay a 150 dollar ticket however. And my parents, to further enforce my view that I was a spoiled brat, bought me a new car after I smashed up the one they gave me! Come on, dont just pander me like that, punish me! Make me the bad guy, not the victim! What a spoiled brat I really was, and unappreciative, I guess you never learn the important things in life until its too late. My senior year of high school was intense; I was taking three advanced placement classes and preparing for college the next year. However, I drove my parents absolutely bananas because I did absolutely nothing to actually prepare for college. Besides taking the SAT (which I took twice because I did horribly the first time, and only slightly horribly the second time), I didnt apply for anything, didnt take any prep courses, nothing. My parents were terrified and asked me why I

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wouldnt do anything. I would say that I just didnt care. My mother would scream at my father, Does he realize how immature he is?! HE HAS TO GO TO COLLEGE! DAVID, YOU HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE, DONT YOU UNDERSTAND?! Finally, my parents seemingly gave up and it was very tense around the house. Then, when I was opening the mail one day in the fall of 2006, I saw a letter from Ohio State University where my father works at, the letter stated I was accepted into their program. ACCEPTED INTO THE PROGRAM? I DIDNT APPLY! HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?! I asked my parents point blank to explain this to me. They said that if I wasnt going to be mature enough to make the right decision, they would do it for me. And so behind my back they got me into the university. At this age, I just wanted to escape, escape Columbus, escape boring suburbia and blandness and simple people and my parents health problems and money problems and fighting and death and misery and Judaism and the never-ending gripes of my daily life. The idea of spending FOUR MOUR YEARS in Columbus in school near my miserable family was like being put in jail in Brazil. I decided that enough was enough. I turned 18 on October 30th, 2006, and made an incredibly stupid decision that at the time seemed like a wise move. I decided to run away from home to New York and just make it there, cause if you can make it there, you make it anywhere, baby. What an idiot, and what a reality check that was. I turned 18 and decided that I was a legal adult and I could now make a break for it and go to New York and live an exciting life of pleasure and fun, whatever that may be in New York. I had saved 700 dollars from my Bar Mitzvah money, oh boy, going to New York with 700 dollars and no education and being 18, what a smart move, David, you really outdid yourself this time! Anyways, I bought a bus ticket, got a friend to drive me to the bus station in downtown Columbus, and on November 1st, I got on the Greyhound to Manhattan. I get off after 10 hours, its the middle of the night and Im in the middle of New York City, 18-years-old and scared shitless and having no idea what the hell Im doing . I didnt have a place to stay booked! WHAT KIND OF SHMUCK WAS I?! WHAT HELL WAS I THINKING?! DID I THINK I WAS GONNA MAGICALLY BECOME WOODY ALLEN BY BEING A JEW STEPPING INTO NEW YORK CITY?! Anyways, I was terrified of being in New York by myself in the middle of the night, so I just slept at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, luckily no cops bothered me. The next day I woke up amidst the chaos of people busily coming in and out the city. I remembered my situation and decided I had to find a place to stay first.

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Just by chance another young guy came up to me on 33rd and 6 avenue and said, Hey, I see you with your bag, you looking for a place to stay?
th

Yes. Im staying at the Youth Hostel up in Harlem on 125th Street. Its only 10 dollars a night. Its safe, dont worry, Im sure you can get a room. And so, completely against any type of logic or intelligence, I followed this stranger on the subway up to 125th street in Harlem. Now, Id never been to Harlem before but I knew it the black neighborhood in New York, and the idea of being a white 18-year-old in Harlem sounded like being a Jew in 1930s Germany. Would I come back alive? We took the subway up to the 125th street stop, it was crowded with people and noise and I did find it thrilling but also frustrating as I couldnt get a seat and I thought people were just pushy and rude. This was not the romantic adventure Id had in mind when I ran away. Hell, I didnt even tell my parents Id left, I just left! They were probably scared to death and had no idea what the hell happened to me! We get off and step into Harlem. Its a grim scene, rap music blaring everywhere, scary-looking black guys in hoodies standing around playing cards and carrying their boom-boxes, Im more than a little petrified at the moment. Can I trust this guy Im following? I dont even know his name. We walk a few blocks and theres no hostel to be found. Hey, where is this hostel exactly? I ask in my innocence. Just a few more blocks, buddy. Whats a matter? You dont trust me? Hey, Im not black, you dont have to worry. That was a consolation. I guess white people cant be con artists. What the hell was I getting myself into? We walk for blocks and blocks, I hear gunshots, ambulance sirens, people screaming at each other in Spanish and Ebonics, this isnt romantic and freedom at all, I want to go back to Midtown and the Theatre District and Central Park and Rockefeller Center, thats the New York thats romantic, that I love! WHAT AM I DOING IN HARLEM?! The guy brings me to a decrepit building. We step inside. Theres no bellman, theres nothing inside. I realize whats happening. The guy pulls out a gun, I am about two seconds away from peeing in my pants profusely. Give me your fucking money! Come on! Lets go! GIVE ME THE FUCKING MONEY! NOW! OR IM GONNA BLOW YOU FUCKING BRAINS OUT! In total panic I throw all the 700 dollars out of my wallet and at the guys feet. He laughs with glee as he sees how much money hes getting off of me. So, my

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Bar Mitzvah gift goes to a New York tout, very nice, Im sure the Rabbi would be thrilled. Once he collects the money he screams again, Now get the fuck out of here! And dont look scared! You go your way and I go my way! In total panic I run out of the building, just grateful to be alive but also in compete desperation; I have no cash in the middle of Harlem and no way of getting back home. It was a hot day and I was hungry, I hadnt had any food that day and realized I would have no money for food, drinks, or anything. I was literally gonna be homeless in New York, just like all the bums my family and Id made fun of on our trips here in the past. Unable to think, I just walked and walked southward; keep walking towards central Manhattan, towards the romance and fantasy and the parts I loved, and things will improve, Ill accomplish my goal. I walked 60 blocks down 2nd avenue and reached 61st street, then just collapsed in exhaustion. New York has gotten me and eaten me alive. Im so hungry Im tempted to eat garbage. But I cant; I made my stupid decision and now I have to live with it. I asked a few people passing by if they would spare a quarter for me, of course I was completely brushed off. I was seeing all these rich New York society girls and men in their Armani suits and sun-glasses whizz by and wished I could trade places with them at that instant. I was stuck in a horrible situation; I just wanted fifty cents to get to a payphone to call my parents and have them wire me money for a ticket back home. There truly is a God watching over me, as when I was laying in desperation at the bottom of the bottom on 61st and 2nd, who should see me but my Aunt Marsha, out on the town for a weekend of shopping from Long Island. She sees me lying on the ground and screams, OH MY GAWD, DAVID?! IS THAT YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?! WHAT HAAAAPEENNNNED TO YOU?! In complete relief I explain everything that had gone down, the running away, the robbery, the wandering. She immediately takes it upon herself to drive me back to her house in Hewlett and then send me on the next bus back to Columbus. This is not the first time Aunt Marsha would help me with troubles in the New York area. She sent me on a bus to Columbus within two days and I was back home in five. I couldnt escape, my romantic dream had failed. But this would not be the last time I would pursue a romantic escape and then fail once again. Of course when I returned home, my parents were besides themselves with fury and horror. My mother must have screamed at me for hours and hours, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?! YOU JUST TAKE UP AND LEAVE?! AND YOU DONT EVEN TELL US?! YOU DONT

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LEAVE A NOTE?! WHO DOESNT AT LEAST LEAVE A NOTE?! DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED YOUR FATHER AND I WERE?! WHAT IF YOU HAD DIED!? WHAT IF YOU HAD BEEN KILLED AND LEFT DEAD ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK?! DO YOU KNOW THE PAIN THAT WOULD CAUSE YOUR FAMILY?! DO YOU THINK FOR ONE SECOND ABOUT ANYONE BUT YOURSELF?! And my father interjects, This is the stupidest thing you have ever done! It was so irresponsible! My mother has to take over, WE SHOULDNT LET YOU DRIVE A CAR THAT WE PAY FOR, WRITE ON THE COMPUTER WE PAY FOR, EAT FOOD WE BUY, SEE MOVIES WE BUY THE TICKETS FOR, GO TO PLAYS WE BUY THE TICKETS FOR, WEAR CLOTHES WE PAY FOR, GO TO COLLEGE THAT WERE PAYING FOR! UGH! I CANT TAKE THIS! GO TO YOUR ROOM! I went back to my life as a senior in high school, acting in the plays, taking my advanced classes in Spanish, European History, and English. I actually did quite well in Spanish and can speak it halfway decently to this day. Yo realmente disfrutar espanol porque la idioma es mas similidad del Ingles y espero que en el future poderia vivir en un pais hispanico, quiero vivir en Espana por que es el pais de los matadors y Hemingway y las chicas son mas bonitas y la pelicula de Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, es una de mis peliculas favoritas. Theres some Spanish for you. Im Jewish, I dont know a lick of Yiddish and Hebrew but can spiel for you in Spanish, thanks a lot, America. I enjoyed studying European history in detail, my final paper was on Ivan the Terrible of Russia, writing a 10-page research paper using 9 different books on grim Russian history was not fun. I graduated with honors from Kilbourne in June of 2007. My parents made me take my first job as soon as I graduated from high school. My fathers philosophy in life is, Youre either in school or working, or youre a bum. He uses the word bum a lot. Its very annoying. Anyway, my parents got me a job working as a busboy at the Worthington Hills Country Club in my neighborhood. It was a disaster from the start. I hated being a busboy, it was very stressful having to constantly carry trays of glasses and food out to people, I was also a lot younger than the other staff there, who didnt seem to like me that much. But to hell with them, they were a bunch of rich WASP snobs and I was a dirty Jew in their eyes. My manager I could tell just hated me, he even made a comment calling me a stupid Jew once. It was a bitter experience, learning about the prejudice and class difference in the world that bring out the realism and harshness in life. After spilling ice-cold water from a pitcher on an old ladys head, the manager decided to transfer me to working in the snack bar. That job was a lot easier, just stand at a snack bar for 9 hours in a row and sell candy and coffee

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and tea to the club members. However, I was a real miserable prick and wouldnt be cheerful and say, Hi, how are you? and all that other customer service shit that you have to be familiar with. Im not a people person and dont ever try to be. I was also disastrous with working the tea machine and operating it correctly and spilled tea all over the place every morning. It was a horrible job experience and I was frankly relieved when the manager just fired me after 3 weeks. For the rest of the summer I got a gig delivering pizzas at Dominos Pizza in the neighborhood in my school. The job was easy, just haul pizzas from the store to peoples houses. However, the people I had to work with were the bottom of society; poor black people living on food-stamps, hillbilly white trash guys, it was disgusting and grim, and another enforcement of my need to escape, even though I already tried to escape and failed horribly. My manager at Dominos was another crass black woman like the one who taught me to drive and lectured in my Health class. I was learning about how most people were outside of schools. It was pretty grim to say the least. But relief came in September of 2007 as I was allowed to leave the job and return to the sanctuary of school. And a new phase of sinking depression and then rising from the ashes began.

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PART THREE: COLLEGE ONE, BREAKDOWN AND RECOVERY We need to go through everything in your closet and find the best clothes for your dorm. Thus proclaims my mother as we march into my bedroom where she will perform her typical inventory of all my attire and proceed to endlessly criticize me and mentally destroy me for my uncouth treatment of the clothes she spends so much money on. Ive been through this boxing match before, I just have to be silent and take the punches again. She slides the closet door open and there hangs buttoned-down shirts, polos, khaki pants, one blue blazer, one tuxedo, and a suit and pants with a red dress shirt. They are all wrinkled horribly; to my terror I discover one shirt lying on the ground off the hanger and many of the shirt s hanged unbuttoned. Here comes the storm. DAVID! How many times have I told you to take clothes out of the dryer as soon theyre finished?! So they wont wrinkle?! Look at this! Theyre a mess! Youre roommate at college is gonna think youre a retard! A moron! What kind of 18-year-old man whose had a Bar Mitzvah and graduated high school cant even wash his own clothes correctly?! And look at this! Theyre all not buttoned! Do you know what happens to shirts when they remain unbuttoned?! Son, look at me, youre not LOOKING at me! Do you?! I mumble in fear. I dunno. She imitates my deep rumble of a muttering voice. I dunno, I dunno, David, its time to grow up! Youre not a baby anymore! Now we have to go through all these shirts and re-iron them and button them and get all these wrinkles out and youre moving into the dorm TOMORROW! And Im still in my probation period for my new job, this is too much to be worrying about right now, David! Lets go, come on, weve gotta get it over with! And so she proceeds to throw one shirt after another from the closet and onto my bed with an alarming intensity as if we were preparing to evade a nuclear attack. All I wanted to do was evade this scene. She did this before when I was 14 and didnt have any wrinkle-free shirts to go to a Middle School dance with, throwing my clothes all over the room in agony. Nothing changes. And when I ate an entire box of oreo cookies that she just bought and screamed, WE CANT KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS, YOU HAVE TO LEARN LIMITATIONS! And then proceeded to throw the box everywhere. My mother was very dramatic and turned little minutiae things around the house into operatic performances; I think it was all just out of pure boredom and her frustrations with her constant age and health problems. As she was throwing

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my shirts onto my bed, my father came barging into the room in a rage and foaming at the mouth. LEAVE HIM ALONE! HE NEEDS HIS CLOTHES CLEANED AND PRESSED FOR COLLEGE! HES GONNA COME OFF AS AN IDIOT TO HIS ROOMMATES AND TO GIRLS! HES FINE, ALL THE BOYS THOSE AGE DONT KNOW HOW TO CLEAN CLOTHES! BACK OFF! YOURE MAKING HIM INSANE! DONT YELL TRUTH, DONT YOU SHOWS UP TO WORK FROM THREE DAYS! THE WORLD! AT ME LIKE THAT, SOMEONE HAS TO TELL HIM THE THINK?! HES NOT GONNA BE LIKE YOU WHO JUST IN JEANS WITH HOLES RIPPED IN THEM AND STUBBLE HES A MAN NOW AND HAS TO PRESENT HIMSELF IN

HES JUST A GOOFY COLLEGE KID, STOP DOING THIS, YOURE A FUCKING ANIMAL, YOURE A FUCKING ANIMAL! A MONSTER! NO WONDER HE WONT TALK TO YOU! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE! I WANT YOU OUT! THIS MARRIAGE HAS NEVER WORKED! GET OUT! She then hurls a huge pile of hangers from closet at my fathers face. He runs back into his bedroom and slams the door. My mother remains in my room, her fat frame heaving from the screaming and tears streaming down her face. She then says sharply to me through her sobbing, Go in the basement, I cant deal with this right now. And I happily make my departure. This is my last memory of living at home before I started college. Boy, was I thrilled for the escape and living away from home. We drove with my arduously packed suitcase on September 3rd, 2007, down the 315 highway to the Ohio State University campus. For me this was the moment of freedom and escape; even though it was only 30 minutes away from home, psychologically it was like going to Soviet Russia. However, my mother of course had to make a big embarrassing episode like all the OTHER first days and beginnings of my life. As entered my dormitory Id be staying in for my freshman year, Morrill Tower at 1900 Cannon Dr, a large, 23-story Trump-Tower like mega-dormitory for a lot of the athletes, I was a little intimidated. I knew instantly I would not fit into this world; the other students in this dorm were all tall, blonde athletic All-American kids that you see on cereal boxes and in surf music videos. I had grown into my unfortunate short-ish, dark-haired, thick-eye-browed hairy pudgy Jewish banker body, replete with glasses and a chin-strap beard, I was not going to make friends or be the life of this place.

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We entered into my dorm room for the year, on the 18th floor at 1834. I would be sharing the dorm with 7 other guys, four whities, one black guy, one Mexican (who would be in the same room with me), and one Indian exchange student who was 16, from Kolkotta. My Mexican-American roommate, Ernesto Reyes, was from Houston, ironically, and got a full scholarship to study at Ohio State for football or something like that, he was a huge guy, and Mexican, so I was more than a little intimidated by him. So, a Jew with New Orleans, Texas, New York, New Jersey and European influences and a Mexican living together, all we needed was sitcom music and a wacky Italian neighbor and the showd be perfect. The other white boys were all your average-run-of-themill Midwestern American boys, big, obsessed with football and TV shows, they were boring to me, I hardly ever interacted with them after a while, because I was obsessed with escaping this life and embracing the unusual. My Indian roommate, Aniket, was only 16, and was very private and excluded from everything else. Ernesto and I spent a lot of time together, but I found him boring also, to my disappointment, although we did enjoy watching funny youtube videos together and laughing at a Mexican version of the film 300 where a Mexican general shouts, Amigos! Tonight we dine in the Immigration Office! and they charge the immigration bureau in demand of green cards. The Ohio State Campus is sprawling and beautiful, with a stunning central field area, called the Oval, where in the summer you can bask in the lush green fields and stare at the plethora of beautiful girls in bikinis lying around. It has one of the biggest libraries in the United States, the Thompson Library, with ten stories of thousands and thousands of books. South Campus, where Id live my second year, is exciting and bustling and Neil Avenue on the south side has an interesting mix of shops and student life. High Street, the main street connecting to campus, is filled with good bars and Chinese and Korean restaurants in walking distance for the students to enjoy. Some of my favorite haunts from those years were Buckeye Donuts, a Greek-run donut shop, Moys Chinese Restaurant, run by immigrants from Hong Kong, and Amelias, a Korean/Chinese place run by a Korean family from Daegu who had lived in New Zealand before coming to America. Anyway, despite the beauty of the campus and some exciting streets, I was mostly bored at Ohio State and it was the last place I wanted to be; I wanted to be in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago or Miami or London or Paris or Tokyo or anywhere where there was bustle, drama, life, excitement, where I could really experience life in the raw; I would always push for living life on the edge in the future and wanted to start as soon as possible.

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In my first month of college, I felt bored and trapped, but also tried to make the best of the situation. I auditioned for and was accepted into the University Chorus, led by Dr. Tim Sarsany, a 43-year-old Ph.D. student, who was gay and still in school at 43, a life I didnt want, however, I stayed in University Chorus for most of my time at Ohio State, which turned out to be very enjoyable for me. As for the rest of college, I was not enjoying myself. My first quarter consisted of taking classes that were rudimentary and exactly the same as classes I took in high school; I thought it was all pointless and a complete waste of my parents money; they were paying over 15,000 dollars for me to go to school and do things I didnt want to do? But this is the American way; hey, I was going to college cheap, the average American today pays up to 40,000 or more per year for a 4-year-education. And they wonder why most of the youth in America today are miserable and lost and overwhelmed; you only need to look into their bank accounts, which are depleted by these college costs. In my third week of college, my brother Bradley had his Bar Mitzvah, and I was amazed at how fast the time had gone by and it had been over five years since my own, which felt like yesterday. I remember driving back home from campus with my father and Ernesto and the first thing I hear at home is my parents fighting, of course I know Im home. My mother screams, Theres a huge nest of bees right at the back door, Barry! We cant have these bees around when the guests come! So well clear them out with the spray! We dont have any spray! You have to go to the store and get it! I dont have time, I have to clean the bathrooms and windows! Well Im not gonna let my mother be attacked by a swarm of bees, Barry! So you have to get rid of em NOW! DAVID! ERNESTO! Get some spray and buckets and were gonna get these bees out of here! NOW! Boy, theres no place like home, and no better feeling than to get the fuck OUT OF HOME! The bar mitzvah was similar to mine, another big family gathering with all my relatives from all over the country, even some relatives who were in their late 80s, early 90s and on stretchers and on the verge of death were there, Mazel Tov to them, I dont think Ill even make it to that age. Uncle Steven was there and was so fat that time and with his moustache, I

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couldnt distinguish him between a walrus and an Orthodox rabbi. My bratty Lawng Island cousins Jeremy and Jessica were also there, Jessica was starting her freshman year the University of Michigan, which made no sense to me considering she could have gone to one of the many great universities in New York as an instate student instead of paying out-of-state tuition for Michigan, which is astronomically expensive. But I guess thats why its good to be rich. I knew I would be stuck going to college at home for the RELATIVE cheapness of it, but I was growing so full of boredom and contempt and rage that I couldnt hold onto any form of patience. After the Bar Mitzvah I returned to campus and tried to make some kind of enjoyable life at Ohio State, bored as I was. I spent time with my roommates, mostly Ernesto, watched a lot of Youtube, watched a lot of porn, which Im not ashamed to admit, I spent many hours discovering the joys of free porn videos which abound on the internet, I especially enjoyed episodes with naughty secretaries, doctors, teachers, MILFs (Mothers Id Like to Fuck), gym teachers, whatever, I was into all that kinky stuff and spent more time watching these videos than actually trying to make the real thing happen with girls on campus. There were two girls in my dorm that I probably could have had something with, but, once again, I was too immature to see the light; Olivia Lane, she was black and lived two floors down and was in my Spanish class, she was beautiful and tall and busty and I wouldve loved to have been her white imperialist conqueror. Then there was Tessa something (last names fade with the years), she was a corn-fed tall blonde girl (I always go for the blondes) from New Hampshire who was on the rowing team, she lived next door and was very nice. But I just was an idiot and too caught in my own need to escape to try and make something out of the life I despised here. Idiot is a word I would apply. What was I so morbid about? I was 18, 19, these are the best years of your life, who cares about starting a career or accomplishing things? Just have fun, enjoy it, be social, get with girls, have sex, get drunk, laugh, enjoy life before its taken away from you, never to return! What a total and complete moron! I became depressed, severely depressed as the first quarter dragged on and I hated my classes, couldnt make friends and fell into loneliness and isolation. I would spend most nights just sleeping alone in the dark in my dormitory room. I would also spend a lot of free time visiting my father in his office on W. 18th avenue and whining to him about my depression and wanting to drop out. Oh, my father and his eternal patience for putting up with my never-ending complaining, plus putting up

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with my mother, I dont know how he does it, there must be a gene for Jewish men where we are designed to tolerate the most massively irritating and draining experiences that can be devised by mankind. Id later find out that the Chinese probably have the same gene, as theyve got their load of garbage to put up with every day. Typically we would have these exchanges; Me: I hate it here, I have no friends, I have no life, I want to die, I dont want to live anymore. Dad: Oh, stop it, just stop it, everythings okay, youre young, youre good-looking, youre smart, so just make the best of it! Me: No, youre wrong, youre an idiot, Im not good looking, Im short, fat, ugly, Ill never get sex, Ill never enjoy life, I hate everything, I wish I was never born, I wish you and Mom would have just gotten an abortion, would have saved us a lot of troubleDad: Oy vey, this talk againMe: I know you dont take this seriously but if I keep having to live like this I will go insane, and whats after the four years here? Law school here? I cant handle that, Im trapped, dont you understand? Dont you see? I cant stand it! Dont you get it?! Dad: I dont know! Me: I want to die! I hate it here! People here are so simple! Ill never be satisfied intellectually here! Dad: Too bad! Put up with it! Grow up! Me: You dont care, I guess! You dont care about my well-being! Im wasting my time here! Im supposed to be in New York being a major writer! Why am I still in Columbus?! Theres nothing happening here! Dad: Just be patient! You can go to New York in four years! Me: No, thats too long, Ill already be 22 by then, Ill be an old man! Dad: Oy, 22 is old, yeah, fine, if youre gonna continue like this, I dont wanna hear it, I have work to do! Me: Fine, fuck you, Ill just continue to live in misery and you can do nothing about it, watch your son crash, I guess you dont care!

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Dad: David, II cant deal with this, I need to work. Then I would storm out of there in a pool of tears, walk by to my dormitory across campus in the freezing winter, get out my frustration in a porn video and fall asleep, trying to forget everything. Then I would wake up the next morning to do everything all over again, the classes I hated, the whining to my father, avoiding my roommates who always wondered why I wouldnt talk to them, and then the porn movies and episodes of Inside the Actors Studio with Robin Williams (which I was obsessed with and would watch repeatedly) and Morgan Freeman and Nathan Lane. In November of 2007 I had a breakdown; I had reached a point where I thought I was truly trapped into a life I would hate and there was no escape except death. This was one of my darkest periods. The memory of it still strikes with such raw pain, pain at the damage its caused not only to me but to my parents and other friends. And the truly sad aspect of it is that all of it was in my own head, that there was no need for sadness and depression and I shouldve just been happy and wellfunctioning and knew that I could grab the world by the balls if I wanted to. But I did what I did and the regret I have for it is still profound and haunting to this day. I looked at my future as a nightmare; I would spend four more years in complete boredom and loneliness at Ohio State, taking classes I wasnt interested in, being isolated from the other college students I considered sports-obsessed mindless spoiled brats, and dreaming of a life of excitement in New York that was passing me by. After college it would be law school, another three years of excessive expenses for something I didnt care for, then a life as a lawyer in the suburbs, and being resigned to boring office work I would hate and just declining into old age and death through this life of conformity and narrow-minded emptiness. It was too much for me to bear; and I felt that there was no choice for me, no alternative; this is where my life would be headed. I decide death would be a better option than spending the next sixty years declining into death while my mind corroded in this bland American life of materialism and emptiness. I tied a belt to the top of my bunk bed, and proceeded to try and hang myself with it. Once again there is a God watching over me, as just as I was putting my neck in the improvised noose, Ernesto came into the room. Of course seeing me in this position he immediately called the Campus Emergency Services, pulled me out of it as I was screaming at him to let me die. But he was big and brutish and

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held me down while I cried that he was ruining everything and I knew that death was the right thing for me at 19. Three people came into the room and brought me by car to the Ohio State Medical Center Psychiatric Ward. They sat me down in the waiting room and told me I would be examined first at the front and then I would be admitted into the ward for some time until they determined Id be safe enough to return to the outside world (meaning I wouldnt make another suicide attempt.) At the front desk, a young white girl, probably not much older than me, and pre-Med, was interviewing me calmly. So, Mr. Friedman, why are you here today? I wanted to kill myself. And why is that? Because I hate my life, I have no friends, I have no fun, I have a miserable family, I just want to escape it all. Ah, thats too bad, can you please sign this form? then hands me a green form to fill out for the doctors in ward with a million questions on it. So much for sympathy this place. My father then appeared at the front room and me. I said nothing to him. He then approached me. She the in saw

WellI guess youll be staying here awhile. I could see the tears running in his eyes, but he tried to be strong. This will be good for you. I didnt say anything back to him, I was too full of shame and humiliation to be able to muster up words. I just wanted to get this all over with; I knew I had no choice and would be confined to this ward for some time after attempting suicide; that was something I couldnt escape. A young black guy appeared after my interview was over and my father walked out. He was to be my escort into the ward. We got in the elevator . He wrapped bandages around my wrist. The guy had a Caribbean accent. Okay, boy, yous gwona wear dese tings around your wrists, you can never take dem off, yunderstand, my man? You cannot cut de wrists, we keep close watch, you will not make any more attempts on your life in our ward, ya got dat, my man? Dont look so nervous, man! You gwona have a good time here, dont worry, da Doctors gwona make you all better! That wasnt reassuring. I wasnt prepared for the grimness and reality I saw when entering the ward. We get off the elevator at the fourth floor and walk into the ward area. Its horribly depressing and I immediately hear

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the sounds of the other patients; mumbling nonsense, screaming, crying, bellowing, I can tell these people are truly insane. I see old ladies, middle-aged men, other college students, some kids, some teenagers, people who look like theyve really gone through intense trauma in their lives and make my situation look like a day at Disney Land. The ward looks like a prison; bare and grey and the atmosphere is very claustrophobic. I immediately regretted my decision to attempt suicide and realized I would go insane myself being in this environment for a long time. But I had no choice; I was stuck in this mess I created for myself and there was nothing to be done. The black guy brought me into a private room with a cot and some white sheets, it was isolated, closed-off, quiet, like a prison cell. This gwona be your room, man, you stay here from da hours of 9 in da evening till 6 in da morning. I gwona go get you your robes now. You stay here, man. He then disappeared. I sat on the bed and realized the horror of what I was experiencing; I was gonna be a resident in a psychiatric ward, just like all those nuts I saw in the Jack Nicholson film One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, I didnt want this, I knew this would be useless and hopeless and just wanted to get the hell out of here, I was truly regretful of my decision and understood the wrong-ness of it and just wanted to go back to real life and change everything of my own free will. The Jamaican guy came back in with the white robes. Right, you gwona go put this on now in da bathroom. I went into the bathroom, in shame put on the robes and returned to the bedroom. Okay, come with me, boy. I followed him into the main area again where all the other nuts were lounging around. There was a little cafeteria area and a meeting room on the side, a lot of magazines and a TV in the center. And of course the psychotic cases everywhere just making your stomach churn. The black guy proceeded to give me the house tour. This is da main room, in your free time you can watch TV or read a magazine or just sit around if you want. You have your meals three times a day served on a tray over dere. He pointed to the cafeteria. There are no snacks here, they are bad for da blood sugar. I cant live without snacks. Right now you are gwona rest in your room and tomorrow you will meet with Dr. Fasood and have group terapy. I was relieved that I would just be allowed to return to my room and hopefully fall asleep and forget the mess I was in for the time being. He led me back to my little room and I immediately cowered into the bed and cried long and hard and wondered how the hell I would get out of here, running my whole life through my head and agonizing over how Id gotten to this low of a point that Id been admitted to a fucking psychiatric ward! I was not Michael Meyers, I was a healthy 19-year-old all-American boy who had written full-length

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plays and had a Bar Mitzvah! So what the hell was I doing here?! Trapped by my own misery in the prison of my mind?! It was too much and the over-powering beauty of sleep took me over as I fell into a coma on the white sheets. I slept and slept that first night, I must have slept for 18 hours or so until I was woken up by that same Jamaican man. I never got his name but he came clamoring into my room at exactly six in the morning, yelling, Good morning, my man wid da hair on his chin, its time for breakfast den you gwona have da meeting with Dr. Fasood, we gwona cheer you up good, man! I dragged myself unwillingly into the main area again. I was confronted with all the other patients and their insanity and at six in the morning this was just too much to bare. I tried to tune it all out, they had the TV playing the morning news, I tried to focus on it, of course the story was about the death of a 7-year-old girl who drowned in a river, what a perfect thing to show psychiatric patients! Please, Mr. Friedman, take your breakfast, says my Rastafarian friend. I proceed to the cafeteria area where a crew-cutted white guy coldly is handing out dishes. He gives my tray to me, I notice its just eggs and some cereal. I mumble meekly, Can I have any sausage? The white guy harshly replies, No, you only get eggs and cereal. Thats standard procedure. We dont want any trouble. Just follow procedure! I didnt realize Id gone from Ohio State to West Point here. Anyways, I begrudgingly took my food and ate it without any enjoyment. I saw something very sad while eating. A huge, middle-aged, bespectacled, bearded man who looked worn out by life was walked in by attendants. I heard the attendants talking to the doctor. This man tried to kill himself. We have a problem. Hes too big for any of our wardrobe, we dont have robes in his size. Whats he going to wear? The suicidal man than started screaming. ILL WEAR WHAT IM WEARING NOW! WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM?! THAT IM BIG?! MY WIFE THOUGHT I WAS TOO BIG, THATS WHY SHE LEFT ME! IS THAT THE ISSUE WE HAVE HERE?! I CANT TAKE IT! LET ME GO! LET ME GO! This gigantic man then pushed two attendants down and attempted a break for it but was ultimately restrained by all four in total and dragged kicking and screaming into his room in the corner. The other patients lounging around looked completely distraught and I didnt dare try to make any contact with them. Oddly enough I saw a book by Jerry Seinfeld on the shelf and was leafing through that while waiting for my appointment with the doctor. I was determined during this

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appointment that I would just tell them point blank the suicide was a mistake, I was fine, Im not depressed at all and I just wanted to be released as soon as possible, I didnt need any help and was totally capable of functioning in life, just release me, thats all I want. I waited around the lounge for a few hours until Bob Marley the Second appeared, Mr. Friedman, man, Dr. Fasood is ready to see you. Go into room 409. I was allowed to walk BY MYSELF for once in the last 48 hours to room 409. As I entered the room, I saw not just Dr. Fasood, but two other people. They all looked grim and incredibly serious and I felt as if I was being judged by a Communist regime or something. I was very nervous. All right, I had acted in plays before; I would have to put my acting skills to the test and convince these people that I could be released from the ward ASAP, that I was not like the other patients who were truly meshugennahs and people that NEEDED to be removed from society. Dr. Fasood was a middle-aged Indian man who began to question me soberly. Mr. Friedman, Ive read from your report that you attempted to hang yourself two days ago. Thats right. And why did you do that? It wasit was an accident. The three looked weary and unconvinced, Im sure theyve heard this before. An accident? Yes. My belt happened to be hanging from the top of the bed and my head justfell into it, it was all a big misunderstanding. Im not suicidal at all. You are not suicidal? No. Are you depressed? No. But we have records of you telling our receptionist that you were unhappy with your life. I was just speaking in the moment, Doctor, but its not the truth. We all say things in the moment sometimes, things that are an exaggeration.

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I dont believe you, Mr. Friedman, I believe you just want to avoid discussing the main topic. I can understand; it is a painful thing, suicide, depression, but ve must discuss these things because it will save your life. I was losing my patience and was full of anger and helplessness at the idea of not being able to be released. Look, Doctor, Im FINE! Theres nothing wrong with me. Im telling you, it was just a freak accident and my roommate took it the wrong way! I dont want to kill myself, I dont want to die, I love life, I embrace every minute of it! I write plays, I see movies, I laugh with friends! Why dont you just believe me?! I dont belong here! Im not one of these people! Just let me leave, all right?! Release me from the ward today, please, just release me, I promise, I wont make another suicide attempt, believe me, thats the LAST thing Id want to do, just let me out! Let me out! The three people remain unnervingly calm, theyve probably gone through this process a million times before. We cannot do that, Mr. Friedman. You have attempted suicide; that is a very serious thing. It would be immoral and illegal for me to just release you without proper treatment. You will remain under our care for a period of time until we feel you are fit to be released and will not make another attempt on your life. You will meet with me once a day and in group therapy for at least the next three weeks, maybe longer if we feel you so need it. I am fuming with rage and frustration. Look, I just explained that Im FINE! I dont need this! Just let me out of here! I just wanna get out of here! Let me out! Let me leave! Let me leave! Im begging you, dont make me stay here, Im begging you! Ill go crazy here! Ill go crazy! I love life! I LOVE LIFE! I LOVE LIFE! I continued to scream I love life! as three attendants grab and intensely drag me back to my room where they prop me on the bead and proceed to strap me into it with chilling harshness. I scream in their faces while they strap me like a caged lion, You motherfuckers get your hands off me! IM NOT SUICIDAL, IM NOT AN ANIMAL, IM NOT A NUTCASE, LEAVE ME ALONE, LET ME OUT OF THIS FUCKING HELLHOLE, I DONT DESERVE THIS, STOP PINNING ME DOWN, STOP SAPPING MY FREEDOM, MY LIFE! I HATE YOU! I HOPE ALL OF YOU DIE AND ROT IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY! I WANT YOU ALL TO DIE! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD! YOU SHOULD BE DEAD! After Im strapped and still screaming one of them sticks a needle of tranquilizer medicine into me and I fall into a deep sleep.

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The group therapy sessions were very awkward and painful to get through; what was most horrifying was seeing the depths of despair the other patients had sunk to and that I might sink to myself if I kept at this path for much longer. There was one girl who weighed 100 pounds but was convinced she was a wooly mammoth and would scream about her mother who would deny me food, she wouldnt let me eat cause I was so fat! I was SO FAT! SO BIG! Id never get married, never enjoy life, so I just decided to top her and took twenty pills and now look what she gets! The big man who couldnt find the right robes would complain about his wife, She would push me to lose weight, but I couldnt! Ive got big German ancestry, my family, were big people! I cant help it! She was a fucking bitch, a nagging whore who cheated on me anyway, I just couldnt take that succubus of a she-devil gnawing at my soul day in and day out! IT WAS ENOUGH! I had to suffer through video after video about depression, about the clinical seriousness of it and the chemical imbalances affecting my brain. It was worse than the classes I was taking in college. These were hard things to witness; little did I realize that four years later Id be living another kind of insane asylum, a city in China. I would endure humiliating sessions daily with Dr. Fasood and my parents sitting in the next chair observing. Oy, its enough to have to discuss the most intimate details of your depression with a strange Indian guy, but also your parents have to be in the room? Ghandi and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? Here we go. These sessions were deep and painful but I want to examine them as I covered all the main issues of my life. DR. FASOOD: David, why are you depressed? ME: I dont know, everything. DR. FASOOD: What do you mean by that? ME: I mean exactly what it means. Everything. Look at all the suffering in the world. It starts from my family, my mother suffers, shes fat her whole life, she has a million illnesses, shes angry, shes bitter cause she never sees her own family and cant make a lot of money. And I had to LIVE with that bitterness all throughout growing up. You know what that was like? To live through such bitterness and anger? As a child? As a teenager? When you just want to be in a world of joy and pleasantness? Not adult resignation to a life of bitter acceptance? My father suffers with gout and kidney stones. People in India live in slums, well, Im sure you know about that. People in Africa starve, in Bangladesh they starve, in

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Europe they have genocides, in Uganda they have genocides, they have typhoons that killed millions in Indonesia. I mean, theres so much death, death, death everywhere! Thats what gets me, Doctor, just the knowledge of death, of my own death, I will die one day, I will stop breathing, stop existing, just be a skeleton in the ground for an eternity, and that really crushes my spirit, Doctor, that takes away my happiness. How can I live when I know I will die? How can we go on with life and go to school and work and make money and have parties and drink and laugh it all away when we know in the back of our minds that were all on Death Row?! And then the knowledge that my all too BRIEF time on earth will be spent doing things I hate, being a lawyer, being bogged down my constant financial limitations, getting older, getting sick, that my time in life before death will be wasted in unhappiness. Where is the happiness? Its nowhere to be found, Doctor, so I just sink into morbidness. Im trapped by my familys misery, I thinks it the Jewish condition, the Jewish blues, we had slavery in Egypt, the Holocaust, the pogroms in Russia, the isolation in the Middle Ages, the poverty in New York, the assimilation in the suburbs and just emptiness. I couldnt take the emptiness of my life, everything is emptiness and darkness and despair. There it is, Doctor, now can I leave? Can I please leave? Of course this display of bravado and fireworks didnt get me off so easy. My mother would bring me McDonalds sometimes, sneak it into the room during visiting hours. I would cry when shed be in the room, Im sorry, Im sorry for what I did, Mom, I.II dont know why I did it. My mother would try to be sympathetic. Oh, David, I justI just hate to see you suffer like this. But WHATS WRONG WITH YOU? YOUVE GOT YOUR WHOLE LIFE AHEAD OF YOUR, YOUR NINETEEN, FOR GODS SAKE, YOUR HANDSOME, YOURE SMART, SO WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? IT DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE! MAYBE YOU DONT UNDERSTAND, MAYBE THIS IS WHY IM LIKE THIS, MOM! IF YOURE GONNA BE THIS WAY THEN GET OUT AND STOP VISITING ME! IVE HAD IT! My mother cries at the idea that shes lost her son to a terrible force beyond her control. Fine, David, stay here, be a ward of the hospital forever, if this is what you want, Im not gonna stop you, you make your own decision. Finally, for the first time I hear you say that. Just leave me alone. I coldly turn away from her and eat my McNuggets in misery.

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To my astonishment, after the three weeks prescribed by Dr. Fasood, the hospital decided to let me out. And boy was I relieved beyond possibility. All I wanted was to return to real life; Id learned my lesson the hard way and was ready to start all over again and embrace a new attitude. I wanted to be able to walk freely wherever I wanted, eat wherever I wanted, have my own schedule, all of these simple pleasures that I took for granted in the past were denied me for three weeks and I was so unappreciative. It took staying in a psychiatric ward to shock me into gratefulness. Well, I was grateful, grateful to my parents for putting up with it, to the doctors for their help, to the other crazy patients who made me realize my life was pretty normal in comparison. On December 1st my father came into the ward to check me out. I was so rushed. He signed the papers and calmly said, Do you need to go back in the room to get anything? I screamed, God, no, lets get the hell out of here! And we were off faster than shooting sperm, which ejaculates at 35 miles per hour, according to my black Health class lecturer in high school. I was never so grateful or relieved over anything in my life up to that point, to just be released from that place of isolation, repression, misery, insanity, and absolutely no individual freedom. So I still wonder in awe why I chose to go to China four years after escaping a confining police state? These are the grand ironies that make life so mystical and truly expound the expression that real life is stranger than fiction.

PART FOUR: RECOVERY AND THE FIRST NEW BEGINNING

It took a rollicking descent into complete breakdown and living among psychotics to shock me into gratitude for life. Even if my life was not the ideal I wanted, I wasnt living it up in total excitement 24 hours a day 7 days a week as a

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lothario celebrity with George Clooneys looks and Gene Simmons libido, I would have to learn to accept my limitations for the time being and embrace my life and be grateful. Returning to my college life, I was filled with joy, I found ways to love the simple things, got involved in my choir activities, English activities, started to make friends, although getting laid was far from the list of accomplishments at this time, but the Midwest aint really a place for sex anyway, is it? How many sex farces or romps ever take place between Illinois to Pennsylvania? I decided to try and get involved in the Jewish social world of Ohio State. I figured this would be a great way for me to find some type of acceptance and social blossoming into a new life away from the painfully shy and horrid past of my adolescence. Id maybe find another Jewish girl like me, who shared the same neurosis and sense of alienation in this world of stupid White Anglo Saxon Pricks. Alas, like many things in life, it was another disappointment. I first attended a fraternity party for Alpha Epsilon Pie, or just AE Pie, the Jewish fraternity and one that my father, Uncles, and Grandfather had belonged, so I was a legacy. I went to one party and was immediately disillusioned by it all. The other Jewish kids were no different than the stupid gentiles, it was just like my time in Jewish summer camps, just a party full of drunks who squander their parents money on booze and care more about football and soccer than studying Hebrew or being the intellectual giants of their time. After about an hour at the party, I decided the Jewish fraternity was not for me. My mother wasnt pleased (but shes never pleased) and screamed at me afterward, You need to make Jewish friends! Dont you get it?! Were the only ones in this world who are smart! So make more Jewish friends! Itll be good for you in the long run! Your mother is always right! When I told you to take advanced Spanish your freshman year of high school, you didnt do it, even though I told you to! And I was right! But no one listens to me! So be a good Jew for fifteen minutes and join that frathouse! ITLL BE THE BEST TIME OF YOUR LIFE! I decided instead that the Hillel, or Jewish Student Center, would be a better option. It was located on E. 16th Street off of high street, right by a seedy little corner full of bikers with mullets and tattoos, not very reminiscent of a shtetl in the Old Country. I also felt uncomfortable at the Hillel too, I found most of the other Jewish kids to also just be belligerent and over-competitive and aggressive, the girls were really vacuous and spoiled, one girl point blank asked me how much money my father made for his living and when I answered

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under 100,000 she abruptly cut off the conversation. I went to a few Shabbat Services but I was mostly bored and un-interested in the religious part of Judaism; I only went for the social reasons, because its easy to make friends with people from the same background as you, or so you think, but not when youre in an environment that wipes out the Jewish identity and replaces it with an American one, which is nothing, thats America, a country of big money and small identity, peoples individual culture is wiped out by the need for mass consumerism and wealth. You can call it sad or call it inevitable, like death. One good friend I made from my Hillel days was Greg Dorn. He was three years older than me, from Chicago, and was a genuinely nice, intelligent guy who got me and my Jewish neurosis. We would meet up sometimes in Brennans Coffee Shop on High Street and have pseudo-intellectual discussions about TV shows and movies and have our dreams of becoming Hollywood bigshots along with the Weinstein Brothers and Jeff Katzenberg. Were Jewish, how could we NOT succeed in Hollywood? You think a gentiles gonna be able to put a movie together? They cant even put a sentence together when theyre son Teddy crashes the car in drunk driving, they dont know how to punish, they just throw money at him in hopes that the problemll just go away. Greg was a great guy and I was genuinely sad when graduated that year and I never saw him again after that. Our discussions were fun. GREG: The problem with Jewish girls is their spoiled and entitled. Theyre fathers are all accomplished doctors and lawyers and bankers who make over 150 K every year and so they think thats what they deserve. Theyre the worst. I avoid them. Dont even try, David, just go after the Chinese and Korean girls here on scholarships, theyll treat you right. ME: I know, how often did you see Jerry on Seinfeld ever date a Jewish girl? GREG: Never! Because he doesnt want to deal with all their bullshit! ME: We should write a TV show together like Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm, go to Hollywood, make a million bucks, I dont know why the fuck you wanna stay in Columbus, its dead here. GREG: Im just here for a one year program, but then I go back to Chicago for Law School, after Law School Ill become an entertainment lawyer in LA, represent all the big celebrities, make my contacts, and strike out on my own as a screenwriter. When you graduate in 2011 you can join me, but first you have to go to Law School.

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ME: Why do I have to go to Law School? GREG: Thats the only way youre gonna make a decent living in America, David, is by going to Law School, you know how much lawyers charge for cases? ME: I dont know, I never had to hire one. GREG: A lot! Like 100,000 for one case. So if I have my own firm in LA where Im charging that much for one client and I have 200 clients at once, Im a very rich man. You need to think about practicality, David. Dont just rush off to New York and say, New York, here I am!, and think youre gonna get somewhere. Youre not. My cousin Mike ran away to New York to be a bohemian and 2 months later he was calling my Aunt Margaret and Uncle Jim from a phone booth in the Bronx or something and begging for them to let him come home cause he had no money left. Its brutal out there. Stick to practicality. ME: But practicality is boring, I want to have excitement in life. GREG: Excitement doesnt pay the bills, David, thats what my father taught me. You have to accept it. Be a Jewish lawyer like all the other ones and youll be happy. ME: My mothers a Jewish lawyer and shes not happy, shes an angry hippo. GREG: Not all Jewish women are fat food-pushers. ME: Just 80 percent. GREG: The other 20 are the half-breeds, so the gentile genes make them pleasant. ME: Yeah, pleasant and prime for being the ultimate spoiled Prima Donnas on the planet. GREG: Someones gotta do it. I had begun getting back into my writing and even tried to dabble in stand-up comedy. I wrote a three page monologue about Hitler in hell playing cards with Ghandi and Genghiz Kahn or something and them all having a competition who was the most evil and I also included jokes about Bush putting the Weapons of Mass Destruction in a Catholic Mass church as a demonstration for how they were literally of Mass Destruction. I performed at one Open-Mic night and it was a complete flop. I realized I would not be a stand-up comic, leave that to the blacks, who are

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over-taking the art form from the Jews for sure. I wrote a tenminute play called The Wedding Night, about a newlywed couple on their wedding night and everything goes wrong: the groom reveals to the bride that he has incurable cancer and will die within the next six months, and overcome with the grief, kills himself right before the doctor calls to tell him he made a mistake and that the cancer was in fact benign. Yeah, thats pretty dark, but I wanted to write something edgy like that. I also wrote another ten-minute play, Incident at a Train Station, about a white Mid-Western guy from Indiana and an Iraqi woman getting into a violent confrontation at Grand Central Station and it culminates in the white man, after attempting to rape the Iraqi woman, getting killed. I was trying to comment on the danger of Americas continuing ignorance and forcing its way into other world affairs, but its sloppy work and maybe Ill re-work it. My Mexican roommate Ernesto was having a rough time; he slept through all of his classes and was flunking three out of five of them, he didnt seem to care, and he was going there on a full scholarship as an out-of-state student! Why do these minorities waste their opportunities our government gives them? At Ohio State there were numerous black kids from the ghetto neighborhoods who were given full scholarships to go, and what do they do? Just get high and skip the classes and wear their hoodies and listen to rap and just bring down the quality of the school and classes. While middle-class white kids have to pay out the ass for their education. But if you dont give the blacks their free education, theyll burn down the cities and make havoc in society. Welcome to America and our education system, how fucked up it truly all is, at least I had my art and my friendships to escape into. Ernesto by the end of our freshman year was denied his scholarship to return for a second year and subsequently went back to Texas and was out of my life by March and I lived by myself. I was elated at having my own room again and fell into more isolation. I found comfort in just being by myself, not having conflict, not having to deal with anyone else and their crises and problems and bullshit, its hard enough dealing with my own bullshit. I took an English class I enjoyed where we read Edith Wharton and Edgar Allen Poe and Guy de Maupassant and James Joyce. I enjoyed English classes because I found you could just bullshit your way through them and somehow get an A, unlike most of the other classes in college. I hated, HATED having to take Math and Science classes in college, I thought by high school its all over and you can take what you want! YOURE PAYING 15,000 DOLLARS FOR CLASSES YOU DONT EVEN WANNA TAKE?!

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THATS LIKE PAYING 1,000 DOLLARS FOR A 70-YEAR-OLD WHORE YOURE NOT EVEN GONNA FUCK! I flunked a required science course in Physics and was forced to take it over the summer and I absolutely hated it, I hated college, being a prisoner in the Midwest, away from life and accomplishments, something Im still trapped by now but on a never-ending quest to escape from. One positive of this time was meeting my future roommate and good friend, Mark Temple, a boy from a lower-income family who was in one of my English classes. I would find out he was also gay and I think had the hots for me but Im not sure (and we never acted on it, believe me, I may be a lot of things, but a faygele aint one of them.) He was effeminate, with a high voice, awkward haircut, terrible hygiene, and a swishy way of walking. But he was kind, and intelligent, and one of the few people in my life I would never run out of things to talk about with. We could just go on for hours and hours; I would joke about being Jewish and my crabby Jewish mother and grandmothers and he would spiel about being gay and poor; these are clearly topics for good humor. He was the youngest of four in a family that saw its share of problems; his father was an ex-hippie who struggled for years as a cab driver and a pizza restaurant manager, Mark grew up in the slum areas of Columbus and he told me he had to work on a newspaper route early in the mornings since he was 13-years-old, and I could sense the bitterness of someone who faced lifes limitations from an all-too-young age. His oldest brother worked at Target at age 30, his sister was a Film Student at Boston University and his other brother was in the Navy. He was a geography major and had aspirations to be an Urban Planner in Germany. He had a love of Germany and wanted to live there for some reason. I dont know a gay American swisher is gonna make a living in Germany, but good luck there. Anyway, we became fast friends and I would spend a lot of time in his dorm room, watching DVDs of Mork and Mindy and different movie musicals, we watched Fiddler on the Roof and Yentle, he loved Barbra Streisand, surprise, surprise. What is it with gay gentile men loving a Brooklyn Jewish girl? Howre they gonna get anywhere with them? Ill never understand the fascination, but, hey, what might be right for some is not alright for others, or however the Different Strokes theme song goes. Anyways, I would say I was creating some kind of satisfying if not lonely life at Ohio State; I would occasionally get involved with the Jews, the Gays, I would pop into the Indian Exchange Student club a few times just to try to sleep with Indian girls, but that never worked because I was the only white guy there and a Jew among Indians is not a good way to get sex.

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I saw a poster on campus for the Birthright trip to Israel. This was a special program funded by the Israeli government where Jewish-American college students would get a free trip to Israel for 10 days on a guided tour to the Holy Land. I decided I would apply and see if I could get it. I loved the idea of travel to an exotic foreign country like Israel in the Middle East, it would be Arabian Nights on the Lower East Side, a mix of Jewish and Arabic culture, I would get to see another part of the world besides bland Americana. Why not try it? I went to the office of the Hillel and inquired about how to get into this Birthright program. They gave me a form to fill out and I entered it into the general application box. After a week of waiting I was interviewed by an Israeli woman, I think her name was Zohar or Shofar, Ill just call her Shofar cause its funnier. She was heavy-set and ugly-as-sin, like a lot of Jewish girls. SHOFAR: So, David, tell me, vy do you vant going to Israel on ze birthright? ME: I just want to see it, see the Holy Land, go to the Wailing Wall, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, learn about real Jewish culture, all that stuff, you know. SHOFAR: And are you yourself religious? Chave you studied ze Holy Scriptures and Talmud? Do you know ze Old Testament from memory? ME: Not most of it, its been a few years since I acted in the Broadway production of The Ten Commandments. SHOFAR: Im sorry? ME: Just a joke. SHOFAR: But you had ze Bar Mitzvah, yes? ME: Yes. SHOFAR: And you celebrate ze Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur and Sukkot and Paysakh? ME: Yes. SHOFAR: And you can speak and read Hebrew? ME: Not really, I used to when I was younger. SHOFAR: But you are a Jew and cannot speak Hebrew? Dis is a shame!

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ME: Well, Im American, what can I say? But I genuinely want to see Israel and learn more about my own culture. SHOFAR: Vell, ve vill see, I vill be contacting you in maybe a week and you will find out if you have been chosen. Ve select 40 students in total for our June trip on Bus 762, ten of zem will be from ze Ohio State, ze ozers vill be from Princeton, ze University of Denver, Harvard, New York University, University of Delaware, and ze University of Georgia. ME: Hm, quite a collection. Gives the Luv a run for its money, huh? SHOFAR: Vat? ME: Nothing, American humor. A funny anecdote from this time was when Alan Rich, a semifamous Jewish-American actor whod been around since the dinosaurs and had been in various movies and TV shows, including Serpico with Al Pacino and Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David, came to speak at the Hillel at Ohio State about the Holocaust. It was a lunch affair and we would have a sit and chat with Mr. Rich after he gave his speech. Unfortunately, I had to take an exam for a Spanish class so I could only be there for the first hour. Mr. Rich, I remember, was talking on his phone before his speech to someone in Los Angeles, he was screaming in his 80-year-old Bronx Jewish-voice. Hello?! Yeah, Im in Columbus, fucking Columbus! Im amazed they have buildings here! Ive gotta do this college thing, Ill be back on the 10:30 flight tomorrow, dont worry! I even talked to this man, this is my first semi-celebrity Ive ever spoken to. Im shy and soft-spoken. You, you were on Curb Your Enthusiasm, right? Right, right, what do you care about that?! I just loved that episode where you play the Holocaust Survivor with the glass eye. Whats it like working with Larry David?! Hes a bald shmuck who got lucky, what about me?! His speech in front of the Hillel guests was equally as passionate. The fact that the young Jewish people in America today dont know the first thing about the Holocaust is DISGUSTING! Its NISHT GIT! Not good! How many young Jews today know how to speak Yiddish or Hebrew or know anything about Jewish culture?! Nothing! Not one! Im trying to educate you shmendrecks out here

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in the country in OHIO! I thought Jersey was bad but didnt know what hit me till I came here! WE HAVE TO EDUCATE THE YOUNG JEWS, BECAUSE THEYRE ALL WE HAVE LEFT TO STOP THE WORLD FROM FALLING INTO IDIOCY! I stood in up in my own idiocy at this point to go to my Spanish exam. Mr. Rich pointed me out in front of the whole room. Excuse me, where are you going in the middle of my speech?! II have to go to my Spanish exam. No, no, you dont go anywhere, tell your mishpuca Spanish teacher to cancel the exam, take the whole class and bring them over here! Cause what Im talking about is more important than their Spanish mishegas! You hear me?! Fine, go, be like all the other Americans and ignore the truth! Bleah! And with great embarrassment I skulk out of that speech. He was an old school New York Jew like my grandparents, a world I pretend to understand but in reality have no connection with, I guess Im really a Mid-Westerner at heart. I found out the next week that I had been accepted in the Birthright program and would be going to Israel for FREE for ten days in June. I was beyond excited and couldnt believe I had actually been accepted because I was afraid I wasnt Jewish enough to be accepted. These Israelis have to make sure youre really a Jew and not some meshuggeneh terrorist whos PRETENDING to be a Jew so he can get into the country for free and blow the whole thing up in the name of Allah or the 700 club! I had to go to a little pre-orientation meeting at the Hillel with Shofar and the nine other Ohio State Students Id be traveling to Israel with. The nine other students were just like the other Jewish-Americans; vacuous, vain, obsessed with getting into the top Ivy League Schools after Ohio State, one girls last name was McCready, come on! Thats about as Jewish as a BACON CHEESEBURGER! Howd she pass the test to prove that shes a real Jew?! How many Jews they got in Ireland?! There was one guy, David Frankel, who was studying to be a rabbi, he smoked cigarettes and drank and didnt seem very Rabbinical in his behavior. I was a little disgusted but not surprised. Shofar told us how the trip would break down; wed fly from Columbus to JFK in New York, where wed meet up with the other 30 students and then wed all fly from New York to Israel, be in Israel for 10 days, starting with 3 days in Jerusalem, 2 days in Tel Aviv, 1 day in Haifa, and the rest in the North by the Sea of Galilee. It sounded like a great dream trip to me, but, like everything else in my life, it didnt go exactly as planned and everything was a complete fucking nightmare, but I came away with new

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knowledge and experience, if you wanna call it that. Or you could call it coming close to death too. I finished my freshman year of college with the experience of going to a psychiatric ward after a failed suicide attempt and re-discovering my passion for writing and the promise of a future of foreign travel and new friendship; life had not turned on me and there was more promise on the horizon; my Mexican roommate had failed but I would NOT fail and not give in to desperation again! I was on the move to a new chapter of accomplishments, or so I thought, but the nightmare of my time in Israel merits a whole section in itself.

PART FIVE: ISRAEL- DELAYED FLIGHTS, ILLNESS, AND TERRORISM The three days it took me and my fellow Ohio State travelers to actually get to Israel was probably as arduous and strained as the Hebrews in the desert for 40 years before they got their milk and honey. It was a common occurrence actually with most flights going into the New York area. But it created a huge frustration and I almost didnt even go to Israel, if not

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for my mother and my Aunt Marsha rescuing me and pushing their Jewish faces into the mess to make it work. On the second Thursday of June I was all packed and ready for my great life experience I thought I would have in Israel, the only country in the Middle East Id dare to set foot in. Id packed my Summer Middle-Eastern weather clothing- lots of shorts, lots of sunscreen, a Team Shakespeare Hat, lots of Tshirts, and lots of water bottles. Id also affected a huge beard at this point and looked like the Jewish Bin Laden. Not really a smart move when youre going into Israel. Oh, well, live and learn. This beard affected a lot of things. As I went through security at the Columbus airport, I was pulled aside while the 20 or other regular looking white people just passed through with no problems. They thoroughly searched me three or four times, I found it very annoying, I guess if you look in any way Arabic, youre a possible threat, cause it would never occur to a white person to blow up a plane, theres never been any recorded history of a WHITE PERSON COMMITING ACTS OF CRUELTY AND TERRORISM OR GENOCIDE WITH NATIVE AMERICANS, HAS THERE?! I DONT THINK SO! HOW STUPID OF ME TO BE ANGRY ABOUT THIS?! THEYRE RIGHT, ONLY THE ARABS ARE THE TERRORISTS IN THE WORLD! I had a biography of Eric Clapton and another biography of Woody Allen to keep me company on the plane ride. There would be three other Ohio State Jews with me; Sarah, a year older, Scott, two years older, and Arielle, a year older. I didnt really like any of them, although Im not much of a people person and its a flaw I have to work on in my life. Sarah was nice but I think very simple; Scott was a short but muscular crew-cutted blonde guy who looked as Jewish as Red Grant in From Russia With Love. This guy passed as a Jew to go to Israel? What is the world coming to? Arielle had a Russian mother who didnt speak English and she could speak Russian fluently, which I was impressed by, but she wasnt impressed by me and didnt like me from day one. I tried to be nice but it failed horribly. My humor was out of place in their world. I was too Jewish, they werent Jewish at all. While waiting for our flight to New York, I chatted with two random guys on the flight with us. One was a guy going to London from New York on a trip, another was a guy living in New York who was returning after visiting a friend here. These two random gentiles were more interesting to talk to than the Jews that my mother said were supposedly so smart and sophisticated. Then it started. We boarded our plane and we sat there for an hour, two hours, the captain kept said wed be taking off but we never did, after three hours of waiting we were told to get off the plane, wait at the gate, and they would work out some kind of traffic problem in New York. We waited

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there until midnight and finally at midnight they said they cancelled the flight. They waited SEVEN HOURS to tell us the flight was cancelled! In a rage I asked the flight attendants, who were understandably tired, if this was normal, they said theres always problems with planes going into New York. I was fuming and realized that I wouldnt be able to make it to New York in time to catch the connecting flight to Tel Aviv. I phoned my parents and told them what had happened. They told me to get another flight to New York the next day and they would work it out with the company to rearrange another flight to Israel. I said to them not to do that, that it just didnt work out and I would go to Israel some other time. My mother refused to accept that and pushed me to book another flight, so I finally, with the other three, booked a flight to New York in the morning. I slept in the airport that night in a wet leather chair listening to the sound of a vacuum cleaner and Somalian janitors, not a great start to a vacation. Our connecting flight in New York would take off at 3:30 a.m. that morning and here I was still in Columbus sleeping in a chair. What a shmuck. At 6:00 a.m. that morning we boarded another plane and finally got into New York at JFK two hours later. When we arrived in New York, we discovered that the plane to Israel was gone and the company hadnt booked us another flight and threw up their hands and said that we just had bad luck and would have to go to Israel the next December, as the program was a winter and summer deal. My mother was furious and screamed on the phone to me in tears, THEY CANT DO THIS, DAVID, YOU HAVE TO GO TO ISRAEL! THEYRE BOOKING ANOTHER FLIGHT! THEYRE IDIOTS! AFTER ALL YOUR PREPARATION YOU WENT THROUGH! SO ILL GO TO ISRAEL IN DECEMBER! NO, DAVID, YOU CANT JUST GIVE IN TO THIS, YOURE GOING TO ISRAEL AND WERE GOING TO FIGHT WITH THIS COMPANY TO GET YOU GUYS ANOTHER FLIGHT! STAY WITH AUNT MARSHA FOR A NIGHT IN LONG ISLAND AND THEN YOURE GOING! ALL RIGHT! While at the International Terminal in JFK, we were standing in line with all these various Indians and Pakistanis and Bengalis wearing their traditional clothing and looking very uncomfortable; I felt sorry for them, these are the people who really suffer in life; their own countries are horribly corrupt and impoverished and under-developed and they flee to firstworld-countries but cant adjust and are hated by the white

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people. When does the suffering ever end? I tried to deal with an angry black woman at the desk to get another flight to Israel. She told me it was MY fault for missing the connecting flight because I shouldve done it back in Columbus, I shouldve known beforehand there would be traffic problems. Howm I supposed to know this, lady? Im a Jew, not a psychic! Nonetheless, I could not get a flight booked to Israel, and on top of that, my luggage had been left behind in Columbus and I had to go to the baggage service department where two more rude black women feistily told me the luggage would be coming on a flight the next morning. So I had no luggage and no flight booked and was stuck in JFK airport for the time being. I guess this was Gods way of recreating the wandering in the desert, except you replace the Sinai with Queens and Manna with McDonalds Chicken McNuggets and Camels with Carts! My cell phone had died and in order for me to have communication with anyone Id have to sit by a charger in the terminal with my phone charged in. My Aunt Marsha drove into the airport from Long Island and once again came to my rescue as she had two years ago on the streets of Midtown Manhattan. She came up to me in her brisk style, her voice more hoarse than ever. All right, youre gonna spend the night at moy house and youre gonna have some bagels and in the mawning youll come back heah and get on a flight to Israel. Lets go! You got your things? No, they didnt get my luggage here. Are you kiddin me?! Dese airlines, dey just wanna make it IMPOSSIBLE to fly ANYWHERE! Come on, youll sleep in da guest room! And so we drove down the Long Island expressway to her house in Hewlett. I didnt think my trip in Israel would include staying in a guest house in Long Island, that wasnt on the itinerary! I slept in the guest area on a tiny cot while listening to my Aunt Marsha and Uncle Glenn bicker about financial issues. The next morning I woke up early, ate some bagels, took a shower, and Aunt Marsha drove me back to the airport. During the car ride, in which she almost got us killed cause she was crossing in and out of every lane constantly, she was ranting about the government. You see, David, the airports wanna make it hard for college students cause of Obama! They dont like Obama runnin for office, they dont like all da college students supportin him so dey refuse you your flight and your ticket and make you suffer like this! Its cause youre a good liberal Democrat Jew and a supporter of that great man,

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Obama, and you dont work with the cowboy hick idiots who like Bush! Thats why youre not gettin your flight to Israel! As I made it back to JFK, ALIVE to my disbelief, I walked back up to the International Terminal, they had brought my luggage back. I met up with Scott, Arielle, and Sarah again, they all stayed in a hotel in Manhattan, their parents shelled out the dough, maybe I shouldve done that instead! I found out that we had been re-booked and would be going to Tel Aviv in about eight hours. So we had some time to kill in the terminal at JFK, I felt like Tom Hanks in The Terminal, an Eastern European immigrant whose forced to live in the airport because hes not recognized as a citizen of any country. I now know the JFK International Terminal like the back of my hand. We had to go through security again in JFK, oy vey, it was a huge pain in the kishkas and I had to remove my shoes, my belt, my socks, maybe they shouldve asked me to just take all my clothes off and then all the chest and stomach hair that could be hiding a terrorist bomb! Im going to Israel, after all, what other purpose would one have to go to Israel other than to blow it up?! Huh?! Isnt that what the media wants you to think?! Anyway, I passed through it, had to go through customs, they looked at my beard, took my passport away from me and examined it for a while, maybe I resemble the latest Terrorist of the Week. I got questioned by an Israeli security guard. What is your purpose in going to Israel? Just traveling, on Birthright. Are you Jewish? My name is David Friedman, what do you think? Excuse me? Yes, Im a Jew. And what are the four questions at Paysakh then? Holy Moses, are they really asking me this? I didnt know I had to take a seminary to get through customs to go to Israel! Come on, man! The beard, the nose, the hair, and the name dont let me pass?! Youve got a blonde guy named Scott, go interrogate him, hes the more likely faker! Why is tonight different from all other nights? Um I trailed off and genuinely couldnt remember. I tried to laugh it off. Its been awhile since I studied, honestly.

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But you are Jewish? Yes! Sir, do not get excited, please, we have to ask these questions. After scrutinizing over my passport with the other guards, they finally waved me through. The waiting area was so crowded and bustling and overwhelming, I just wanted to lie down somewhere quiet. At the gate, I met an older Orthodox man named Mikhail who told me he was visiting his son in Jerusalem. I really didnt have much else to say to him; Orthodox Jews are about as relatable to me as Japanese people. We finally boarded the plane to Tel Aviv after what seemed like hours. On the plane, I sat next to an elderly middle class New York Jewish couple. The husband was nice but the wife wasnt. Their friends, another Jewish couple, sat in front and they chatted endlessly. I remember the wife complaining. We went to Portugal last year for free from our frequent flyer miles, and we flew first class, and it was terrible! They didnt have a donut or a bagel to nosh! And no big screen television! And weve flown first class to Spain and France and England and Germany and they always had donuts there before! Then the husband would cough a lot and shed yell at him, Harry, take your pills! Youre coughing again! I dont need the pills! Cough, cough, cough. Take your pills, whatd the doctor tell you?! I dont need pills! What am I, an old man?! Yes, youre an alter kacker and I gotta put up with it! The older Jewish guy next to me started up some conversation with me. So, whatre you going to Israel for? Im on the Birthright trip. Oh, very good, I think its a wonderful thing for a young Jewish boy to see Israel, the Holy Land, learn about his culture. I guess. You dont sound like a New Yorker. No, Im from Ohio.

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Ohio? Whats there? Nothing. They have Jews there? Well, at least one. This is my first time going to Israel, can you believe that? Im almost 60, never went. Then his wife busted in. HARRY, LEAVE HIM ALONE, HE WANTS TO WATCH HIS MOVIE! I was watching a movie at the time but I didnt mind the chatting. The plane ride was filled with old people coughing and babies crying; twelve hours of non-stop noise. I hate long plane rides and dont know why I keep getting myself in situations where I have to endure them. I slept off the fatigue of our two day ordeal with the airports and watched some movie about an American guy traveling to India to deal with the out-sourcing problems and everything going wrong. Foreshadowing perhaps? We finally landed in Tel Aviv International Airport twelve hours later. The first thing that struck me upon walking off the plane was the heat. We were in Israel in June and it was hotter than the Equator and Africa combined. The airport was modern and convenient enough, when to my total ignorance as an American Id assume any country NOT America would be a third world disaster zone. Walking through the long runway into the main airport was another long journey that required a camel, plus the sweating under 115 degree heat didnt make the challenge any easier. Id braved a psychiatric ward and growing up with a Jewish mother, I could do this too. I had to stand in a long queue at the customs in Tel Aviv airport and finally approached the customs officer. It was very brisk and very different from the way customs work in American airports. You have ze passport? Yes. And vere are you coming from? The United States. And vat is your purpose in Israel? O Moses and Joshua and Aaron rolled into one, what do you think my purpose is? Do I

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look like an international businessman or a member of Al Quaeda or Hezbollah? Just travel. Okay. You can go. She swiftly stamps my passport and I make my way through to the gigantic baggage claim area. The other three students meet up with me there along with an Israeli woman, Zafir, who was our guide from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. She had a bag of cookies, I remember, and I was famished after 12 hours going across the Atlantic and Europe. Hello, I am Zafir, I vill be taking you to your tour group in Yerushalayim. I have cookies viz me. Does anybody want some? I happily dove in and ate what mustve been ten delicious Israeli cookies, they certainly surpassed any American cookies by far. We picked up our baggage, which this time hadnt been missing, thank God, my Woody Allen biography mightve fallen out of the plane and into the North Atlantic to be buried next to the Titanic. We were escorted outside to the pick-up area and the exotic beauty of Israel really struck me profoundly. Palm trees, desert landscapes, Middle Eastern sun, the noise and bustle of the streets outside, I truly felt like Id gone somewhere completely exotic and foreign to me. But how can Israel be foreign to me as a Jew? It should be in my DNA to fit in completely in Israel. The four of us were put into a large white van with Zafir and she shouted something in Hebrew to the driver. As we drove off from the airport onto the highway I was able to take in the lush beauty of the Israeli countryside, the old temples and ancient buildings and ruins, the golden sand, the endless amount of palm trees lining the side, I saw Bedouin desert dwellers and Arab sheiks hustling their trades of camels and teenage daughters. However, another panicky thought rose up in me; what if this driver was actually a Palestinian or Egyptian or Syrian terrorist under cover who was deployed by his country to infiltrate groups of Jewish-American travelers and pretend to be their drivers at the airports and then drive them to a remote place in the desert and dispatch of them? Was I going to die at this moment at the hands of one of those evil Arab terrorists that my countrys media has been jamming down my throat for the last seven years? The next hour of the drive I was tense with fear and paralyzed at the thought of this driver pulling out his AK-47 and blasting us all away in the name of Mohammed. I stared intensely at the driver and said nothing to the other three and Zafir, who were all perfectly calm. We finally arrived in

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Jerusalem with no occurrence of murder. Maybe I made an error in judgment. We were dropped off in the center of Jerusalem, and it was definitely overwhelming but at the same time enchanting to me. Our street was right by a major marketplace and the sounds and bustles of a Jerusalem marketplace cannot be described accurately. It was so crowded and noisy with the sounds of chickens, screaming women and men, coins being exchanging, frantic bantering, shops after shops, vendors after vendors, I knew I had wandered into another planet entirely. In my stupidity, I just wanted to get a coke and went up to the first vendor. He only spoke Hebrew and my knowledge of Hebrew was as extensive as my knowledge of aeronautical engineering. I knew how to say one in Hebrew, Achad. So I proceeded to ask the Israeli vendor for one coke. Achad, achad coke, bevakasha. Achad? Yes, one coke, please. I guess I had to revert to English, Im not the worlds master linguist here. At least I knew how to say one and please. The vendor looked angry and just screamed in my face. Achad shekel! That means one shekel. I understood that! In my complete American ignorance I pulled out my Discover credit card my mother had given to me and handed it over to the vendor, who just waved it away from my face coldly. He was screaming in Hebrew in my incomprehension and I realized I could only pay in cash. I pulled a measly one shekel out of my pocket and handed it over in exchange for a life-saving Coke in the midst of the brutal heat. We walked back to the main street where the other 35 Jewish-American college students were waiting for us. These kids were all the same as the kids in Ohio, some were Californians, some from Colorado, New Jersey, Delaware, Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia. But they all had one thing in common- they were the product of the Jewish diaspora into the emptiness of American suburbia and I knew within an instant they would be just like all the shmucks at the Hillel and AE Pie. But, hey, I wasnt going to let my fellow travelers bother me, I was going to enjoy my time in Israel and enjoy the exotic foreign culture and take in everything I could, how many times in your life are you ever in the Middle East anyway?

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My two roommates in the hotel in Jerusalem would be two guys in their mid-twenties, much older and more sophisticated than me, one was from Los Angeles and was blonde and tan and wore sunglasses and had a mega-watt smile that could blind Ray Charles. The other was an ultra-thin geek Jewish boy from Massachusetts somewhere, the contrast was pretty startling, a slick Hollywood hotshot and a loser from the sticks of New England. My hotel room was stunning, there was a balcony on the veranda and I wandered over to look out at the amazing view of the ancient buildings of Jerusalem with their Roman columns and uniquely Israeli structuring. The sun-shine was eminent and Id never been in an environment so warm and Mediterranean before, this would spark a life-long love affair with Mediterranean countries and cultures- Spanish, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, etc. I love the passion and allure of the Mediterranean and the wine, exotic food, loud and passionate people, its so wildly different from the staid and cold Midwestern environment I had my formative years in. Our group was introduced to our tour guide, a short, bespectacled Israeli man named Mati. I remember him being absolutely hilarious because he was blunt and said whatever was on his mind, a purely Israeli cultural trait that would not go down very well in Ohio or in Korea or China for that matter. Mati had already served his mandatory three years in the Israeli armed forces, as all Israeli citizens must do because the country is surrounded by crazy Arab nations that want to constantly destroy it! I never understood the concept of giving the Jews their country right in the middle of all the Islamic countries and putting them in constant danger and at constant states of war and tension. Thats like establishing a black nation in the heart of Alabama or putting a rich New York stockbroker in the middle of a Tanzanian city with all his credit cards out! I would soon see how tough and harsh Israeli people are, because its the environment of living in constant tension and worry over possible terrorist attacks. I would probably not survive living in this type of environment. Mati would constantly tell of our peepee breaks, Israelis like to say peepee instead of just going to the bathroom, it could be a cultural or linguistic thing, I dont know. Our first night in Israel was actually quite charming and I enjoyed myself. I walked with my nerdy Massachusetts roommate, who was actually quite a nice guy that I got on well with, around the charming streets of Jerusalem. It was probably as close to a European city as youll find in the Middle East. There was no street crime, no sense of fear, no crazy black people scrounging around on heroin and living off welfare. It

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was much more peaceful and comfortable than any American city, which is quite sad considering the media pits Israel as a dangerous nation to be extra cautious in. I tried buying icecream on the side of a bustling street in downtown. The man at the counter couldnt understand my English and shouted at me in Hebrew to probably fuck off and study my Hebrew before I try to buy ice cream from him again. So, I wasnt going to get my ice cream, I guess. I found a McDonalds on another street amidst a crowd of young Israelis playing on their i-Phones and shouting at each other in Hebrew. Yes, I was in Israel and was going to a McDonalds, it was more out of pure curiosity, I suppose. As I approached the front of the McDonalds, a stern, older Israeli man with a gun stood at the doorway, he was security, I would learn that every public building in Israel has a security guard because the threats of bombings are truly genuine. I hope America doesnt degenerate into this state and make our tax dollars go beyond what can be endured. The guard made body motions to me to empty my little knapsack I was carrying with me. Is the whole country of Israel a fucking airport now?! I did and he saw that I was bomb-free and let me inside. I was able to order my meal in the McDonalds in English, to my surprise, although it was awkward and I could tell the young Israeli guy was angry about having to accommodate to me, the stupid American, who cant speak Hebrew but he MUST speak English. I can understand, if when I was working in a restaurant in America and some Arabic man came in and couldnt speak English, what am I gonna do? But he must be served! This is the problem with the globalization these days, even though its a beautiful thing! I took my meal of Israeli chicken nuggets to the upstairs dining area and ate alone. I didnt feel like being social with the other spoiled brats on my trip and wanted to enjoy Israel alone. As I was eating my meal, there was a sudden thud and then a barrage of screaming from downstairs. I sprung from my seat and ducked my head to the downstairs area, staying up front. To my horror I saw what looked like a young Palestinian man holding a bomb or a knife, I couldnt tell. The older guard had restrained him but he was wildly fighting to be free. An Israeli woman with her small son stood in the corner petrified. I saw the Palestinian man indeed had a knife and with a sudden force thrust himself from the guard and lunged at the small Israeli boy, screaming wildly in Arabic. He was able to plunge his knife the boys stomach, the mother screamed in a wild horror that reminded me of my grandmothers screaming at my uncles funeral five years earlier. I couldnt believe what I was witnessing, Id never seen a murder before, especially harm to a small child. I prayed, as Im sure the mother did, that the boy

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wouldnt die. As soon as the knife was stuck in, the guard fired from his gun at the Palestinian man, who fell to his death in the middle of the McDonalds. I was absolutely astonished and wondered 1) what would become of the boy and the mother? And 2) how the hell would I get out this mess and back to my tour group and not be involved in this situation? The mother took her son in her bloodied arms and ran up the stairway towards ME! I was beginning to panic and just wanted to get the hell out of there and out of this pit of death and misery. I was on vacation, I was here to enjoy myself, not be witness to thousands of years of hatred boiling over! The woman saw me and pleaded to me for help with her child, in Hebrew, and I didnt understand a word of it. I just stood there watching the woman collapse again to the ground and crying with an intensity that was just frightening and unbearable to watch in all its profundity. One day in Israel and Ive seen tragedy, I guess the media isnt lying to us after all. I held the bleeding boy in my arms, and started to tear up myself but I knew that with proper medical care the boy would recover. I made my choice to abandon the two and just run straight through the front. I handed the crying, bleeding boy back to the heart-broken mother, and said quietly, Ashem alekhem, which means, God be with you. I made a mad dash out of the McDonalds, the insanity of what was happening around me made the security people totally ignore me and I was back onto the streets of downtown Jerusalem, running for blocks to meet up with my tour group at the main square. It was the first night of the Sabbath and there was a celebration where the Orthodox Jews were dancing the traditional dances in a circle in the square. Most of the American students were indifferent and didnt participate in the dancing and were drinking beer and singing the Don McLane song, American Pie and Elton John and Beatles songs. However, I was pulled into the manic circle and was dancing wildly with the fellow Orthodox men, as only the men are allowed to dance and the women must be separated, as Israel is still a very conservative country. I was trying to lose myself in the insane dancing with the Orthodox men but the image of that dying child was haunting me and the other boys in my tour group tried to sing Elton Johns Tiny Dancer with me afterwards but my heart was being crushed by that boys stabbing. The other Americans were drinking wildly at the hotel later that night on the veranda. I was uncomfortable being on the balcony with all the other drunken students and I felt shy and awkward around the girls. As I went into my bathroom to take a leak, one of the other girls was in there making herself throw up and she screamed as I had already had my zipper undone.

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I was disgusted at how the other Jewish kids didnt seem to care about Israeli culture or anything like that and just wanted to get drunk and act like they were at some frat party back in America. The next day I was taken to the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall in the center of Old Jerusalem and it was amazing if not embarrassing experience. Walking in the old neighborhood in the blistering heat with the exotic vendors and cobble-stone sidestreets was enchanting and exhausting enough. Israeli people like to scream at each other profusely and it does grate on your ears after all. I had been brought to the Western Wall. However, I made a horribly stupid mistake that shows just how ignorant I was an American Jew. I wandered into one section of the wall, and I noticed I was the only man among thousands of Orthodox women. The women came up to me sternly and were screaming in Hebrew for me to get the hell out of there and go over to the mens side! Did I not learn from the night before that men and women are SEPARATED IN ISRAEL?! ITS AN ORTHODOX COUNTRY, HERE, YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE MENS SIDE AND BE WITH THE OTHER MEN, WE CANT HAVE CONTACT WITH ANY MAN THATS NOT OUR HUSBANDS, WHATS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU AMERICAN ASSSIMILATED SHMUCK?! I ran back out to the outer entrance and was severely laughed at by Mati who probably muttered in Hebrew that I was an American idiot. I found my way towards the mens section and was walking through the crowds of Hasidim towards the actual wall when I was stopped by an Orthodox man who spoke decent English. He asked me if I was Orthodox myself, I said no, and then brought out the tzfilin and the gabardine and tied it to my arm and told me to pray seriously to the Wall. I was reluctant at first and didnt care less about actually praying and just wanted to see the wall, touch it, say that I had stood in a historical landmark. The Orthodox man refused and wrapped the tzfillin around me tightly and led me to the wall. I tried to muster up some sense of religion but there was nothing and I was really going through the motions to satisfy this pushy frimmie. The short Frimmie next to me was intensely praying as if he was possessed or something. I did read through the Hebrew prayer they gave me but just felt no revelation or connection to God and I still thought back bitterly to my Uncles death and the cruelty of life and how there can be no God in the face of such unthinkable tragedy, just like the tragedy of that small boys stabbing the night before. But it was stunning standing in the square of the Western Wall and seeing people who are so devoted to their religion and find such fulfillment in life from it, its very moving and inspiring.

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Later that day we drove in our tour bus to Tel Aviv and would spend one day and one night there. Tel Aviv was absolutely stunning and is definitely one my top-ten list of amazing cities in the world. It as modern sky-scrapers and all the amenities of a slick modern world city like New York or Paris but is also distinctly Israeli and exotic. The marketplaces we went to were so vast and mysterious, I was lost in the array of textiles, clothing, spices, smells, vendors, and frenetic insanity. I was determined to live in Tel Aviv one day, although that hasnt come around yet. If the city of Tel Aviv was stunning, the beaches on the Mediterranean coast were the absolute of all beaches. I was totally and completely in love with the beach and just wanted to stay there for the rest of my life. It was paradise, the palm trees, the crystal blue water, the perfect temperature, the waves, the beautiful Israeli girls in their bikinis, the huts, the exotic-ness of it all was absolutely overwhelming. Swimming in the Mediterranean sea, I was lost and I was escaping from it all; from the over-whelming burden of being a young American today, in todays world of fast-paced modernity and overcompetition and technology and economic crisis, from being a Jew, from being from a dysfunctional family, you could escape it all and just float in the beautiful blue water and let the world pass you by and be lost in the gorgeous aesthetic pleasure of it all. After I went swimming I wanted to use the bathroom. There was one bathroom on the opposite end of the beach and I walked over to it in just my bathing suit. A withered old Israeli man sat at a table next to the bathroom and shouted at me for achad shekel. To my astonishment, I learned that you had to pay one shekel to go to the bathroom on the beach! WHAT KIND OF CRAZY COUNTRY IS THIS WHERE YOU HAVE TO PAY TO MAKE PEE PEE, AS THE ISRAELIS SAY? WHY SHOULD YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PERFORM A NATURAL BODILY FUNCTION? SHOULD YOU HAVE TO PAY TO BREATHE, TO FART, TO TAKE A SHIT, TO WAKE UP, TO BLINK, TO RUB YOUR STOMACH, TO DIGEST FOOD? ONE DOLLAR TO DIGEST THAT MEAL YOU JUST PAID THE TWENTY DOLLARS FOR! ITS A DIGESTION TAX FOR THE DIGESTION TRACK! SO WERE GONNA MAKE SOME EXTRA DOUGH BY PINNING YOU WHEN YOURE MOST VULNERABLE, YOURE AT THE BEACH, YOU HAVE TO PAY! I didnt even have any money on me because it was on the other SIDE of the beach and I wouldve had to go back and go in my wallet with my wet hands to collect one lousy shekel to pay to go take a leak! Out of anger, I decided to walk back into the beautiful Mediterranean water and just pissed in it, yes, I peed in the Mediterranean sea, hows that for a life experience? Its something Ill always be proud of! Its my way of getting my sick

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revenge for the man charging me one shekel to go to a public bathroom! The amazing experience of the beach in Tel Aviv was eclipsed by our journey to an oasis in the countryside where King David supposedly hid out after slaying Goliath. The trek to get to the Oasis was a journey of a life-time; four hours of uphill climbing on a steep path of gorge and rocks. I thought I wouldnt survive and was wondering what the hell we were going through all this for. I soon discovered the treasure at the end of the journey. We approached the oasis and it was the most paradisiacal place you could imagine. Lush green waterfalls, perfect crystal water, absolutely isolated, peace, content, escape. The 40 of us with our tour guides swam in this beautiful Oasis, I didnt pee in it this time, I had respect, and it was profound and beautiful to be in this magical oasis and forgetting the world and life and problems and misery. Going to the Dead Sea was a similar experience; draping myself in oil and swimming amidst the salt and floating water was more painful and stinging than beautiful, but I certainly had my fun amongst the wondrous water areas of Israel, it is a stunningly beautiful country geographically. We spent that night as a tour group in the Israeli desert, somewhere between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. It was absolutely gorgeous, so open, so flat, so arid, just like the movie Lawrence of Arabia, I was expecting the theme tune to be playing along with it. I loved the vast openness of the Arabian desert, the feeling of just being lost in it for years and years and being cut off from the insanity of modern society. I encountered an Arabic man who had four wives, all under the age of 15, they ranged from 12 to 14, I think. My tour guide Mati, who spoke Hebrew and Arabic fluently, translated for me when I cheekily asked him how much for one of his underage wives. He said that if I had four camels, hed give me one wife. I was amazed that he took something like that seriously and shocked at how women and marriage was treated so differently in this part of the world. That was quite a lesson in culture clash there. We all rode camels in the desert at sundown, it was exactly as romantic as you can imagine a journey through the Middle East can be. I was assigned to ride a camel with a Russian/Israeli soldier, Alexsander, who was crew-cutted and stern and wasnt a very fun riding partner. Although I rode a horse as a child at Jewish camp in Texas, I had no earthly idea how to get on a camel and handle it. I couldnt maneuver my legs around the camel and kept falling off. Alexsander shouted at me in his thick Russian-accented English. Dont be fucking pussy, just

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get legs on! After a long struggle I was able to hoist myself onto the camel and we rode for about two hours throughout the desert. It was a great, soaring feeling to be free in the desert on a camel, as if youre living in ancient times, maybe Im a peddler wandering through to the next marketplace to make an exchange of spices of prostitutes. Im going from the Silk Road in Xian, China, to Italy to meet up with Marco Polo and discuss my adventures. This sparked for me a love of the open, unexplored places in the world in Asia, Arabia, Europe, South America, being lost in the wild jungles or exotic forests or oases, places where society is gone and lost. At night, we had a traditional Arabic meal in a tent with the Bedouins. The tent was large and spacious with Oriental carpeting at the bottom. We all sat on the floor behind a large square table made of wood and cotton wool. At first the Arabs passed around some distinct Israeli tea and were very hospitable. I took one sip of the tea and almost threw up, but it would be a great insult to their honor and hospitality to refuse the tea, so I drank all of it, much to my disgust. I was taking more punches for the greater good of the experience. I was amazed by the peaceful co-habitation these Arabs were making with us Jews, the media was wrong, its only a small minority of Arabs who are violent and want to wreak havoc on the Jewish community and the world. I saw a universal brotherhood that was profoundly moving to me. As we sat under the stars in the Arabian desert that night, I found myself questioning a lot of things about life; what is the meaning of life itself? What is death? What is the point of anything? Why is there Judaism and Islam and Christianity and Hindu and Buddhism? Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why in my life have I been subjected to seeing such horrible tragedy yet at the same time Ive had it easy my whole life? Ive been brought up in affluence never had to experience poverty, famine, homelessness, I never had to STRUGGLE to SURVIVE in life, why have I been shielded from the horrifying reality? Being in the desert at night sparked such manic thoughts as to why I was even given life, what was my purpose in the world? I was a student but also a low-level worker, so what would I be in the grand scheme of things and in the world? It was mystical and mysterious and one of my most unforgettable experiences in life. That night everything went straight to hell. We were sleeping in a large wooden tent and I awoke with a soaring fever. I must have been at least 105 degrees and I was sweating in droves and absolutely delirious and started wandering around

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the desert area desperately searching for help. I felt that I was going to die and that this was it, I was gonna DIE in the Israeli desert at age 19 from fever, that my life was over, Id lived, this is the end, beautiful friend, the end. To compound this, as I was wandering in complete delirium, all these other American students were singing, Bye, bye, Miss American Pie, drove my chevy to the levi but the levi was dry, them good ole boys were drinking whisky and rye singing, Thisll be the day that I DIE, thisll be the day that I DIE! I couldnt stand it and begged Shofar to take me to the hospital. She, being Israeli, just told me not to worry about it and I would be fine. I disagreed, manically pleading with her that I was DYING and needed to go to the hospital right away! She wasnt sympathetic, she screamed, That screws up our itinerary! You are fine! Just have some falafel! In total desperation I climbed back into my tent and lied down and waited to die as the other students kept singing American Pie. Finally I was allowed to be taken to the hospital in Israel. Shofar arranged with Mati that Id be driven with her in a cab two hours to Jerusalem in the middle of the night to go to the nearest hospital. In the cab Shofar and the driver spoke non-stop in Hebrew, the sounds of harsh and guttural Hebrew grating on my increasing fever. I truly felt I would not survive in the cab ride, this was the end, Id be dying in a cab in Israel with a fat Jewish girl, I thought Id be dying sixty years later in bed with an fat Jewish girl, how ironic life is. We arrived at a hospital somewhere in Jerusalem in the pitch-darkness of the city. I was completely discombobulated and could barely walk, not to mention I had laryngitis and my voice was completely gone. So I was about to go see a Hebrew-speaking doctor without being able to speak. I couldnt speak Hebrew anyway, so what did it matter? Shofar escorted me into the waiting area of the health clinic. It was completely barren and gray, just like the psychiatric ward Id stayed in not nine months ago. Unlike waiting rooms in doctors offices in America, there was no colorful wallpaper or People or Entertainment Weeklys to breeze through while you waited for the Docs pointless checking up. It was grim to say the least, but I was in the Middle East after all, its the Home of the Brave, certainly, dont know about the Land of the Free. Shofar entered my information in Hebrew to the receptionist, who was a stern Israeli woman, it seems all Israeli people are stern and tough, theyre the New Yorkers of the Middle East, while I guess the rest of the Middle East is New Orleans.

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After waiting in silence with Shofar because I couldnt speak a word of English or Hebrew or Yiddish, I was told to walk into the doctors office, by MYSELF! Shofar would not come in to speak for me? What kind of shmucks are these Israelis?! When the doctor asks me whats wrong, hows he gonna get an answer? Charades? In Hebrew? I cant even play charades in English! Oy, get me the American Ambassador right now! The doctor entered, he was a fat, oily, sleazy-looking Middle-Eastern type with a deep voice and slouching droopy eyes. He was smoking a cigar and would occasionally press the end of it onto the bed I was sitting on. He spoke in broken English to me. You have zevat is wrong wit you? I made hand gestures suggesting laryngitis and a fever, although I dont know how you suggest a fever. Okay, you have ze fever. You vill take ze pills I chave here, and zen you vill feel ze better in von day or two. Okay? His cigar ashes spilled onto my leg. You can go now. I was more than relieved to get out of there. After a nights sleep in a decent hotel back in Tel Aviv, I felt completely recovered the next day and really was able to enjoy the sojourn in Israel much more. For the last two days of the trip wed be going to Tiberias in the northeast near the Syrian border at the Sea of Galilee. It was definitely beautiful and exotic; we walked along the edge towards Syria, looking onto Demascus, but were warned by the soldiers accompanying, including the vulgar Russian Alexsander, to not cross over or else wed be killed. This was the second time Id been in a situation where I could have been killed, wait, third time if you count being robbed of 700 dollars at gunpoint in Harlem, by a white guy. We attended a wine tasting in Tiberias, sampling all the different flavors of Israeli alcohol, I personally have never had an affinity for drinking and thought they all tasted sour and sore. We then attended a traditional Shabbat service, much longer than the ones Id been accustomed to going to growing up as a Reform Jew, these services involved customs I didnt even know about, like throwing pieces of candy at the new people who have become Bar-Mitzvahed, I just simply thought they were handing out candy and started eating it, and the Orthodox people were yelling to not eat but throw. After the services we were taking to a bar in Tiberias where a drunken Israeli man wanted to play pool with me and bet whod win or lose over 5 dollars. I won the first round but he was angry about that and refused to pay the 5 dollars. I didnt really care which way but he was not happy about losing and nearly got in a fist-fight with me until Alexsander intervened and screamed at him in Russian, ebat s

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, p yany idiot.

pridurok! I think that means fuck off you drunken

That night I sat on a cot facing the Sea of Galilee and it was one of the most beautiful and magical thirty minutes of my life. Just me in a chair alone facing the beauty of the sea in that Mediterranean setting. Staring out into the ocean was like looking into a great abyss or the future; life is in front of me, and that life can be any number of things; it can be hardship and suffering and misery or it can be a sea of joy, love, accomplishments, happiness, ecstasy, the waves of the sea rollick back and forth just like the waves of life, swinging like a pendulum from periods of great tenderness and warmth to the lowest depths of despair, from psychiatric hospitals to the love of my father picking me up and throwing me around while kissing my neck as a 9-year-old to being heart-broken at the dysfunction of my fat-unemployed mother to the overwhelming serenity of King Davids Oasis.

PART SIX: THE POLITICIAN. SOCIAL OBSERVER AND PIANIST After being treated like a member of Al-Quaeda, then being discovered as an ignorant Jew, then witnessing the possible murder of a little boy, swimming in the greatest beach in the world, and nearly dying of what could have been malaria or cholera or just fever, I had returned back to the good ol United States of America a supposedly more worldly or educated human being. Frankly, I just returned grateful, grateful to be in a country where I could speak the language and was not treated like an outsider (well, in not a completely blatant manner like in Israel.) I would come to know these feelings a few years later to my great irony upon returning to and from East Asia twice! When I returned home in the summer of 2008, it occurred to me that Id have to get another summer job. My two work experiences so far had been negative; being a busboy/snack bar attendant at an anti-Semitic country club, where rich snobs look down on me, and then being a delivery driver at a low-class pizza joint where poor nutcases look down on me; these are the only options for young Americans I guess who want to advance themselves. I was terrified of having to repeat these experiences. Luckily (or just mercifully) I stumbled upon an ad

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in the Jobs sections of the Columbus Dispatch that was looking for people to work as grassroots campaigners for Barack Obamas 2008 Presidential Election. I decided to apply and called the number and was then called in for an in-person interview. I had to drive to a somewhat impoverished section of Columbus for the interview. The office was on East 5th Avenue off of High St., a lot of poor black and white people lived in welfare in this area and I was more than a little terrified of leaving my car parked alone in this neighborhood. As I walked into the office, there were three other middle-aged black women sitting, looking timid, I guess they also were looking for work and desperate. But 2008 was not a good year in American history. I remember watching on TV the sad news that the stock market had nearly collapsed as badly as it had in 1929 and business after business were failing and things just looked hopeless, we were supposedly entering the worst economic crisis since the great depression. To further compound these problems, the United States was now at a 3 trillion dollar deficit following the manic spending the Bush administration had allowed for the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. People all over the country were losing their homes, being foreclosed, being forced into poverty and homelessness, it was bleak and grim, and I was looking at the future and realizing myself and my generation would be inheriting this mess, and this man, Barack Obama, a half black/half white senator and former lawyer from Chicago who grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia and went to school under Affirmative Action at Columbia, was going to somehow be our righteous savior with his promise of change and YES WE CAN. Theres a great joke that someone made once about Obama, Another black man asking for change. Of course all the college students supported Obama because he was black and it was a hip and radical thing to do to support a minority politician and make America look like the pre-eminent progressive and liberal country in the world. But in my estimation he was just another empty suit with empty promises and things would just become more disastrous whether he won or not. His main opponent was John McCain. John McCain was a long-running Senator of Arizona and a former Prisoner of War in Vietnam, which was his main card he played, drawing on what a war hero he was and how much suffering he endured. Hey, Obama had to grow up black in Indonesia, Asians dont like blacks, talk about suffering! McCain got all the righteous Conservative Americans votes and his old-age and dignified demeanor might have won him the race. However, his tragic mistake was his Vice Presidential Candidate, Sarah Palin, a moose-hunting former model and mother of six, and the Governor of Alaska. She was the ideal of feminine power,

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beautiful but at the height of government and with a husband and children, but she was hated by all the feminist groups who had supported Hillary Clinton, the Democratic female leader. I thought it was hysterical how McCain choosing a female Vice Presidential Candidate all but DESTROYED HIS FEMALE VOTE! WHATS WRONG WITH WOMEN?! THEY BITCH AND BITCH ABOUT WANTING TO SEE WOMEN IN POWER AND THEY GET A WOMAN THERE AND JUST TURN ON HER? IF MY GRANDMA BUBBE COULDVE BEEN IN THE ROOM SHED SLAP EM ALL AND CALL EM A BUNCH A SHLAMAZZELLS WHO DONT KNOW THEIR TUSHIES FROM THEIR KAPS! I tried to keep my personal opinions to myself at the interview. A balding, 20-something man named Matt was questioning me. MATT: So, tell me, Mr. Friedman, why do you want to work for the Barack Obama campaign? ME: I want toto help out with the election, insure Mr. Obama has a chance, that he can rise to the top. MATT: Do you think Obama is the right choice for President? Are you going to be committed to this cause 100 percent? ME: Of course. Obama is the only one who can see the light and bring America out of this mess and lead us into a glorious future where we wipe the insanity and tragedy of what Bush has done to us out of the history books forever. MATT: I like your enthusiasm. Youre hired. Youll start next Monday. What youll be doing is this; youll be assigned to a team and to a certain neighborhood around Columbus for the day. Youll spend about seven hours going house to house in the neighborhood, every house, and whoever answers the door, youll give them the same speech that we have prepared, basically asking for a 100 dollar donation for the Obama campaign. If you cant raise at least 100 dollars by the end of the day, then we have to terminate you from our team. Is that clear? ME: Yes, I understand. MATT: All right, great, see you on Monday. So, basically, I was to be a salesman for the Barack Obama corporation, going door-to-door, making cold calls, my grandfather was a salesman his whole life, he did okay. However, Willy Loman was also a salesman and things didnt work out so well for him. And the guys from Glengarry Glen Ross didnt seem to be the happiest bunch of lads in the world. Whatever, it was just a Summer Job and when the summer ended Id be back in the

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warm fantasy world of college, where youre shielded from having to be an adult in the cold, cruel world, scraping to somehow get by every day, and its relentless. The political office was busy and bustling when I started the next Monday. I was assigned with a team of other young people from around Columbus; I remember there being one heavyset black guy from Vermont who went to Dartmouth College, what the fuck was he doing in Columbus, Ohio? Was he that desperate to help Barack Obama that hed move to another state to be his Sales Executive? There was one busty girl (I always remember the busty girls) in our crew that I wanted to pitch my sales plan directly to, I dont even remember her name but she was a nice aesthetic addition to the job. Our crew leader was named Andrew, he looked as Jewish as one-quarter of Barbra Streisands nose but was not a Jew to my shock. However, he told us stories over lunch of how one old woman he had gone to the house of made a calm statement, Youre a Jew, arent you? Oh, well, at least youre handsome, even if you are a Jew. I was excited that these would be my customers to deal with. Customer service jobs are not for everyone, erase that, they are not for ANYONE! Because having to deal with the common man is the most unbearable type of work; you are forced to have to deal with raw human truth constantly. The speech we were given to persuade poor people in the ghetto to give us 100 dollars right at the door; Barack Obama is the right man for you, do you believe in a President who will erase foreclosed houses, a depressed economy, a collapsed stock market, massive unemployment, foreign debt to countries such as China and Saudi Arabia, and revive the economy with stimulus packages and greatly improve the quality of the work force in this beloved Land of Freedom and Opportunity? All we need from you is your slight donation of 100 dollars or more to our great Grassroots cause and you wont be sorry! This speech was not very inspiring to our various customers. I had all types of people I pitched my soft-sell to. One older hick woman just rudely blurted out, The guys middle names Hussein. Barack Hussein Obama. Yknow what that means? Hes a sandnigger terrorist, just the like the rest of em! I wouldnt give one cent to that towel-head murderer! Another hillbilly man blatantly told me, I dont like niggers, why you think Im gonna give my hard-earned money from my trucking company to a nigger who wants ta just fuck us up even more? Get the fuck off ma property before I shoot yo ass! Sometimes no one would answer in person and let their dogs chase me for

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blocks and blocks. The weather was brutal; the sun was swelteringly hot and after five hours of being rejected by people in unrelenting heat you want to lay down and die. The first sale I got was to my great surprise from an Arabic family, who looked like they were not very well, but they gave me a fifty dollar check straight away! The very people all the whites were afraid were helping me out much more than any of those supposedly good and righteous Christians! One well-off black man said blankly, Im a republican, sorry. I responded, Youre black and youre not supporting Obama? You dont wanna see a fellow brother up there in power? He looked ashamed and just slammed the door on me. Another heavy set jovial black man said laughingly, MAN, I DONT GOT NO MONEY TO BUY MY GROCERIES, PAY MY BILLS, PAY MY MORTGAGE, DE BANK GONNA TAKE MY HOME FROM ME, YOU THANK IM GONNA GIVE YOU SOME SCRILLA?! There was one random Australian guy living in the neighborhood who said, That Obama, hes a right nut, aint he? Yaint gonna spend the whole die trying to get loot off him, are ye? Youll get nothing, Im tellin ya! One couple was kind enough to let me have a cup of water after wandering in the Sinai desert of the Midwest for six hours. It was the hardest work Id ever done in my life and I was terrified at the thought of having to do that for the next three months; I now got the experience in life Id craved; seeing human suffering, feeling suffering, struggling for money, being one of the common folk removed from affluence and comfort, a world Id been forced to grow up in my whole life. I heard gunshots and violence; people leaving their houses abandoned or the houses being cleaned out by contracting companies because the banks have taken them. It was as miserable a reality you want to experience and Id had enough of it and decided that I would tell the bosses this gig as a political salesman was not for me, even though miraculously Id earned over 100 dollars that day and had proved myself a capable campaigner. On our ride back to the office after the long days work, the big-breasted girl in our group related a story of her time studying abroad in Italy. She was on a train in Rome waiting to go to Florence. It was 5:30 in the morning and the train was completely empty save for her and a random Italian man who apparently showed more than a local-help-the-tourist interest in her. He had been ogling her and touching her breasts and calling her bellissima for many minutes, in the Italian style. The girl fell asleep and when she woke up she saw to her horror the Italian man masturbating to her. She tried to get the attention of the nearest Italian cop but apparently they didnt care at all and laughed her off as a prudish American. After hearing that story, I decided I would move to Italy if you could act

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that way to women in public and get away with it, just touch their breasts and asses and call them beautiful and lick their faces and that was the social norm. Anyways, I soon quit my campaigning job and decided to leave the world of reality behind me for the time being. I got a job as a Student worker in the Chemistry labs at Ohio State, where I was mainly responsible for filling little vials with powders and stocking chemical bottles in their proper shelves. It was the easiest job Ive ever had (except teaching at a Chinese university, Ill explain that later), and my boss ironically was a Korean woman, could this be Gods hilarious way of foreshadowing in the never-ending farcical play that is my life? Her name was MJ Han and she was a nutcase who couldnt speak English or communicate with me. She would always ask me to do something but very vaguely and I wouldnt be able to figure out what exactly she meant. Go get paper. What paper? Paper! What? Printing paper? Construction paper? Notebook paper? Nothis-uh- paper! She would then angrily run printer with hundreds of white pages on it and throw show me how much of an idiot I was for not realizing the PRINTING paper. Another time I was eating a cake workers, and apparently I was using her fork and she me for it. WHY YOU USING FORK?! She screamed. to the it at me to she wanted with my coexploded at

After a long silence I replied, cluelessly, Because Im eating a cake. Why use this fork-uh?! I dont know, I saw it, it was there. Long silence. Finally she related the mystery to me of why the fork was forbidden. This my fork-uh! So it was HER fork after all! Why didnt she just say so?! Then I wouldve left it alone! I would soon learn that this was the Korean way, to not say the things that are really important because it would cause conflict or embarrassment, but Ill go into that later. The job itself was still a breeze, most of the time I would just sit in the gray and stultifying laboratory, smelling of odiferous chemicals, and read a book or watch episodes of The Office or Family Guy with the other student workers. I thought most of the other student workers were stupid and annoying, this is a habit

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throughout most of my life. They were just dumb Business majors or Communications or Economics students that were interested in sports, big cars, money, things I wasnt concerned with, being an aloof artist living in my own intellectual sphere among cowpeople. Then there were the Chinese and Korean international students who I didnt speak to at all because their English was as embarrassing as my sexual performance abilities. And there was my Korean boss who was as predictable as American economics. A sad co-worker at the lab was Lisa Sheckman, a middle-aged, fat, dumpy woman from the sticks of Ohio who had two sons and an ex-husband who had left her for the baby-sitter. I would learn that her oldest son would turn into a louse that refused to work and eventually stabbed her and was sent to prison for attempted murder after Lisa testified against him in court. Thats hard. Anyways, the work environment was an example that I could not escape reality even though youre working in a university and are away from the real world for the time being. I discovered one of many loves of my life that summer amidst the chaos of jobs and reality; the piano, a rediscovering of the power, beauty, excitement and pure drama of classical piano music that Id been missing out and dismissing since I was a five-year-old boy. It started off with playing Beethovens Eight Piano Sonata, the Pathetique, with its grave and dramatic opening prelude to the fast and furious first movement with its bell-like harmonies and angry passages of rage to the tranquil and calm and tear-inducing second movement to the stately but exciting third Rondo movement. I would soon delve into the other great classical music composers with ferocity and a willingness to play pieces Id thought impossible before. I got all the great music of Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Grieg, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Gershwin, Schubert, Schumann, Bach, and as much of Beethoven I could grab my hands on. I fell in love Chopins Ballades, Scherzos, Waltzes, Sonatas, Impromptus. His Ballade One, played in the 2002 movie The Pianist with Adrien Brody about the Polish pianist Wladyslaw Spzilman, whose forced into hiding in the Holocaust, was profoundly moving to me. I began to see these piano pieces as great plays with periods of calm building to storms of dramatic climaxes and resolutions. The notes swirled in frenzied rages and it reflected the turmoil of everyday life. These pieces were written hundreds of years ago but I could feel the agony, grief, joy, bitterness, serenity, and pure raw emotion expressed by all the Great Composers of the past as if it were today. Liszts Mephisto Waltz, Hungarian Rhapsody 2, Un Sosprio, Walderschrachen, and many others became challenges I was determined to conquer. I didnt realize the amount of hours

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I was putting into piano, I would spend hours and hours in practice room just escaping into the notes, going to another world as Id wished Id had in reality but unable to make it work in real life. I would find release in the flourishes of Brahms Scherzo No. 3 or Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue or Tchaikovskys First Piano Concerto and Piano Transcriptions of his Symphony 4. And 6, two of the most stunning pieces of music Id ever heard in my life. I was harnessing incredible sight-reading and concentration abilities by being able to just sit down and look at an extremely complex and fast Chopin or Liszt piece and flash through it without giving a thought to the tempo or volume. I drove my mother crazy in the house as Id be banging away at the piano for hours and hours and shed scream, DAVID! ITS ENOUGH! STOP! I HAVE A HEADACHE! IM TRYING TO WATCH THE BIGGEST LOSER! ITS JUST BANGING AND NONSENSE! PLAY SOME BEATLES OR BILLY JOEL! ENOUGH CLAAAAAASICAAAL! But, no, Ma, you dont understand, Mommy dearest, the Jewish Joan Crawford, Lady Macbeth with a Menorah, you dont understand that classical piano was like everything else, the writing, the acting, the sex, the fantasy, the suicide, it was an escape from you and your ignorance! Your pure and total ignorance over anything that was of importance! You know your Biggest Loser and the Amazing Race and The Bachelorette in Hawaii or whatever the fuck mindless TV shows you rot your aging brain with, but you dont know Chopin or Mozart or Dostoyevsky or Dickens or Gaugin or Monet or things that have lasting value and make deep statements about human life! And you dont care! So Ill bang out on this box the 88 keys of my personal liberation and sexual violence of expression to you to show you what a big grown up Intellectual Jewish American man Ive become! And youll learn about something outside your own mindless American existence of Fast Food restaurants and High Tax Dollars to Feed the Blacks Who Wont Work and Pay the Mexicans One Dollar an Hour so the hard-working WHITE college students cant get any work because of their lack of experience, hear the piano, hear the Chopin ballades, hear the Rachmaninoff Concertos banging loud into your fat Polish-Jewish lawyer head and your ulcers and your whining and your spoiled selfishness, hear the music clanging its gorgeous melodies into your thick skull! This was my statement of creative escape once and for all!

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PART SEVEN: FIRST LOVE WITH A NEW YORK JEW

After confronting the brutal reality of what me and my generation were facing in the aftermath of the 2008 economic collapse, I had tried as best I could to find ways to just escape it all and lose myself in the happy fantasy life of what college had to offer. Women, parties, clubs, drinking, friends, movies, classes, just immerse yourself in your literature, your videos, your music, the fantasy is all I had going for me to protect me from the pangs of adulthood. And so I fell in love. Her name was Anya Milakova, I thought she was a blessing sent from whatever is Jewish heaven (a complete deletion of taxes and high prices anywhere, especially delis though.) She was in my General History class that was required for me to receive my degree. We studied ancient China, India, Japan, Egypt, Messapotamia, and went all the way through the foundations of Buddhism, Islam, Hindu, Shintoism, and a little but o Judaism to top it all of. Anya was in my class and I immediately was ravished by her beauty. She was a tall, slender, curly-haired Ukrainian dream like you would see in a Russianbride dating website. She had a flawlessly gorgeous face with perfect thin bone structure and an elegant way about her which a lot of Russian women have. Her parents were from the Ukraine, just like my great-grandfather was. Unfortunately, I looked more like the short Jewish peasants sewing the clothes that her beautiful Ukrainian princess Great-Grandmother would wear. We started talking when our teacher, a stupid and obnoxious graduate student from TEXAS of all places who had a disdain for anything not Texas (so why are you in Ohio? Go back to your

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cowboys and your hats and your spears, who needs it?), was explaining the history of the Jewish people. That she didnt mention The Marx Brothers or Tevye from Fiddler or Barbra or Bette Midler or Harvey Fierstein once made me convinced that only I was suitable enough to teach a class on Jewish history. Anyway, I had mentioned to everyone in class that I was born in Israel (not quite true, I would also fabricate on my facebook page that I was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, which may or may not actually be true.) After the class was over, Anya approached, which I was amazed by; this was the first time a stunningly beautiful girl on par with a Sports Illustrated Model spoke to me at her own will; I didnt quite know what to make of it. It was as if youre being approached by the President or by the Creature From the Black Lagoon. So, you were born in Israel? I detect from her a slight Brooklyn accent. Shes not an Ohio girl after all, is this my dream come true? Has Ashem sent a New York Jewish girl for me to go back and re-discover my people and my roots and deliver me out of the slavery of the American Midwest and back to the promised land of over-crowdedness, high prices, pushy people, and general misery and stress and blintzes? If only she could bake blintzes! Yes, I was, right in the heart of Jerusalem. Cool. I was born in Odessa, the Ukraine. Nice. We didnt say much as we continued walking along the starry romantic High Street at night filled with black vagrants and trash and tattooed people with mullets. I finally had to start the conversation. So, your names Anya, right? Right. Where are you from? Im from New York. Oh, wow, Ive always wanted to live there. I love New York. Yeah, well, its expensive as hell, Ive always wanted to run away from it. I like it in Ohio, its quiet, people are nice, everyone isnt so stressed out all the time and obsessed with making money, like my Dad. Hmwhat part of New York?

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Brooklyn. Bay Ridge. I dont know Bay Ridge. My fathers from East Flatbush. Ugh, Im sorry for your Dad, Flatbush is terrible. I wouldnt go there. Hows Bay Ridge? Its cool. No probs. Its cool? No probs? Im talkin about fuckin New York, New York, here, lady, not some stick in the mud place down in Ala-fucking-bama! You need to give me a tenpage travel guide about all there is to do in the Big Apple and the Borough of Brooklyn! Come on, your better than these Ohio farmer hicks! Get to it! Anyway, I like to meet other Jewish people here at Ohio State. I dont really wanna be with nonJewish guys. Like, my fathers really against it. Yes, I understand. My hard-on is starting to rage all the way up to my head. Could I be finally getting what I was denied all throughout high school? A girl who looks like those beautiful shikses but is in fact one of my own? And she doesnt even talk like my Grandmother, whose a real Jewish ball-buster! Shes just like those nice gentiles girls but shes like me and she looks nothing like me! Her nose is flat, her teeth are pearly white, her skin is flawless, shes above five feet tall, how does this happen to a Jewish woman?! Please, somebody get the top scientists in Austria or Switzerland or wherever the fuck they congregate to study this girl because she is an ANAMOLY to all that is normal and Kosher in the Jewish world! Anya plays with her i-Phone while I try to continue conversation with her, in vain. So, Anya, what do you study here? Like, I study Russian literature. Oh, Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? Chekhov? Yeah, like, those guys. Its pretty dark, though, kind of boring, I might switch to fashion design. Oh, wow, from Russian literature to Fashion Design, weve got a winner here, ladies and gentleman! Actually, a degree in Russian literature is probably a million times less useful than a degree in Fashion Design in New York, so maybe I shouldnt judge this goyim brained Jewish girl so quickly. What do you do, David? Oh, I wanna be a writer. Oh, what kind of writer?

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You know, plays, novels, short stories. I wanna right about the problems we face in the world as Americans and Jews and be funny at the same time and I wanna have a big life in New York and win Pulitzers and Tonys and be the Jewish Truman Capote except for the gay short alcoholic effeminate part and the next Woody Allen also except for the short part. She doesnt seem to understand my line of thinking. Wow, thats cool. She then goes back into her i-Phone. I decide to just take the plunge and do something Ive rarely done in the past. Do you want to go Shabbat Services at the Hillel on Friday night? Okay, yeah, sure, I dont, like, usually go, that stuffs boring, but, whatevs, well go. Success! Im going out with a Jewish girl whose in no way Jewish, Ive cheated the system and found some warped loophole, if only all the beleaguered Jewish men in the past could see me now and take notes on their Cell Phones of what I have accomplished! They would grovel at my feet and just give me all the money from their Manhattan and Los Angeles Law Firms and Banks and Doctors Office and I would never have to work another day in my tortured life! We went to Shabbat services on Friday nights and I took comfort in her inability to be an annoying Jewish girl and her embracing of the quiet Midwestern ways that I guess I was inbred with growing up. We started to become close and would usually go to Hillel functions and just talk about our history classes, my writing, her Ukrainian family, her fathers strange and eccentric interests in dead mice and collecting money for the Jewish National Fund in New York. I was falling in love with her and I thought Id found the right woman to satisfy me for the rest of my life. The thought of marriage was not far from my mind. We moved in together in an apartment at 275 E. 15th Street about three months into my sophomore year of college. I had saved some money from the various jobs Id worked at and she was working in the Office of the Russian Literature and Studies Department. I would say I had found true happiness in the brief time we lived together. We never shtupped or fucked though, which was something I always regretted. I wanted this girl to be the one Id lose my virginity to and completely give my body and soul to. But this never came to fruition and at most maybe wed spend thirty minutes to an hour making out. She was also unwilling to fork over her vagina unless I made the commitment

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to marry her. She was still a traditional Jewish girl in that aspect, and at age 20 I was in no way prepared to marry anyone or enter any kind of binding legal contract. In March of 2009 we had spring break and I went with her by Amtrak to New York (again in New York, I always have strange experiences in New York, first it was being robbed in Harlem, then being held prisoner in JFK airport, now I was gonna meet the Russian gangsters whose daughter Id been fingering and necking with and sharing a home with for the last three months.) We got off the train at Grand Central Station on 42nd Street. It was muggy and crowded and I immediately realized what Anya had meant when she said she HATED New York. I could see in her eyes the strain of having to return to the place you hate after living a fantasy life out somewhere else; Id come to know this feeling of hate in the future when Id return from foreign travels over and over again back home. We hoped the D line from Grand Central into Brooklyn and down into Bay Ridge. Bay Ridge is in the Southwest of Brooklyn and is now a residential Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish neighborhood. No blacks or Hispanics anywhere, which was a huge relief and surprise for me. Id always been under the impression that Brooklyn was a dangerous hub of violent minorities and that if you walked in there as a white person, FUGGHEDABOUTIT! I was proved wrong, as I often am proved wrong in life. We got off the subway and walked across the cool and concrete and grass-less Brooklyn streets with no trees, I thought there would be at least one tree in Brooklyn, thats what the James Baldwin novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was about, that one tree actually grew there and it was a monumental event in the Boroughs History! Anya lived on the bottom floor of a duplex apartment that she told me cost $1,000 a month for a two bedroom. She told me that was a good deal for Brooklyn, while our one-bedroom back in Columbus was only 500 a month that we split between us. Walking into her parents home was like walking into Soviet Russia. It was grim and smelled like borscht and cabbage; there were pictures of stern Russian people not smiling at all. Anyas mother, to my shock, was not also tall and elegant but a short and fat and big-boned Russian peasant type. She had a thick accent. She and Anya talked to each other in Ukrainian while I stood there a little miffed that they were totally ignoring my presence. Anya, tse khto ? Vy ne povidomyte nam potribno prynesty insho khaty. (Anya, whos this? You didnt tell me youd be bringing someone else home.)

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ama , ne khvylyuy sya , vin prosto khlopchyk zi shkoly, vin yevrey , y oho dobre. (Mom, dont!worry, hes just a boy from school, hes Jewish, its okay.) A ne lyublyu prosto choho chuzhi tut. nas ye til ky dostatn o zhi protyahom tr okh! kazhit y omu, shchob pity perebuvannya v Waldorf (I dont like you bringing strangers home. We only have enough food for three! Tell him to stay at the Waldorf!) And with that Anya and her mother proceeded to fight coldly back to each other while I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on. Her father, a big, mustachioed Ukrainian man, wearing a green dress shirt and suspenders, ran in the room and screamed harshly. Kozhen tykho ! A namahayusya vvazhaty dokhlykh myshey ! A znay shov p yat u parku prospektu!(Everyone quiet, Im trying to count the mice! I found five dead ones in Prospect Park!) For the rest of my time at their house Anyas parents didnt speak one word to me. Anya forgot to mention that they didnt speak English and I was the American ambassador in Kiev for the time being and she was the appointed interpreter. I was forced to sleep on the couch, they wouldnt allow me to sleep in the same room as Anya. The parents were cold and harsh; and being in Brooklyn was also cold and tough; I felt as if I would never really be able to function as a New Yorker; this world was just so different and harsh than the world Id been raised in; a world of suburbia and movies and pleasantness and calm. Maybe I really wasnt meant to be a Jew, and being with Anya had shown me that. Things with Anya fell apart after our time in Anyas home in Brooklyn. Coming back to Ohio we just fought and fought; I was running out of money for the apartment; she wanted me to become pre-Law or pre-Med like every other Jewish guy at the school so I could eventually make a lot of money and pay for her i-Phones and Make-Up Kits and expenses and she wouldnt have to work. I was lazy and I wanted to fuck her. I wanted to penetrate her Ukrainian meat-hole and get it over with and enjoy the fruits of my labor with the labor of my banana fruit. I wanted to taste all of her exotic Eastern-European beauty but she was like her New York environment cold and stand-offish in the long run. Her elegance and coolness had for me just become plain-old coolness. I would suck on her toes, she let me one night suck on her nipples and her breasts as well as succulently kiss her sweet pink lips. I finally had had enough. Anya, were having sex tonight.

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No, David, thats not happening. You know my rules. Like, I save myself until marriage. But, so what? We live together already, youve let me do everything except stick my shlong in you! So why not?! We need a marriage license to fuck?! Youre disgusting! Get off of me! In fact, get out of the apartment! Im going back to the Sorority I was staying in! I dont want you to talk to me ever again! When I go back to New York this summer you dont contact me again! All you want from me is sexugh, like, thats gross! Ugh, like, thats gross?! Thats human, baby, thats all men, you aint gonna find one heterosexual man in all the world whose gonna not wanna shtup your brains out and be the Vronsky to your Anna Karenina except make it into a Porn Film! Whattaya think Im gonna want after months and months of build up and foreplay and kissing and caressing and loving? To just have nothing? To leave my massive hard-on with all its semen waiting there to jump but with nowhere to go? Theyve been in training since I was 13 to leave the ship and shoot off into outer space! So why not make a Russian landing?! Huh?! Why are you denying this to me, baby?! Give me your Jewish beauty and gentile thinking and I-Phone addiction and New York coldness, I need it, it makes my cock rock-hard and I explode into a million pieces of orgiastic joy! Anya, just have sex with me once then Ill leave you alone, youre right, its all I want, just let me stick my penis in your vagina once and itll never call again, Ill put a facebook block on it, I promise. This didnt work and within the next few days I was back home with my parents and without a good woman in my life. You need women to get you through as an American man. The pressures of being an American man are so great the release coming from fucking a gorgeous soft girl and caressing her smooth skin and soft, silky hair is like no other stress relief you can imagine. The economy is down, but my dick is up, and when the putz is up you gotta make it come down again and no job is gonna provide me with such aesthetic pleasure! Come on, Maria Sharapova, Milla Jovovich, Natalie Portman, make me the happiest little Semitic boy that ever set foot on this planet! But no, go, leave me to fend for myself amongst the wilderness of quiet gentile girls I have nothing to say to and stupid American jocks I am afraid of but at the same time wanna be! Leave me to wallow in debt and joblessness without your comfort! Go on, now, go, walk out the door! I will survive! Plenty of OUR PEOPLE WERE SURVIVORS IN THE PAST AND ILL SURVIVE AGAIN, YOUR JUST REPEATING HISTORY YOU REPLACED A

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TALMUD WITH AN I-PHONE YOU SPOILED NEW YORK JAPPY BITCH I HATE YOU DIE! DIEEEEEEE!! After the debacle with Anya my first and I thought only love, I met another girl in a theatre class. Her name was MaryAnn Zofky, she was blonde, Polish, blue-eyed, pale, thin, and the nicest girl Id ever seen. There were many girls like her in high school but for some reason I was smitten. She was from Dayton, Ohio, and was certainly not the most exciting personality, but then neither was Anya. Hey, Mary Ann, wanna be scene partners in Closer by Patrick Marber? Yeah, sure. Youll be Natalie Portman as the stripper and Im Clive Owen as the dirty doctor obsessed with sex chats on the web. Okay. Oh, yes, youll be the dirty stripper your ideal of Gentile Blonde Beauty that I cant get anywhere near! Why does this happen with women and myself? I see a nice girl and I turn her away at the chance that Im NOT GOOD ENOUGH! Just like mother would say when I was growing up, youre NOT GOOD ENOUGH, DAVID! Youre short, youre fat, youre ugly, youre hairy, youre if WOODY ALLEN GAINED 100 POUNDS BUT WITHOUT THE WIT AND THE CHARM! Woody Allen without the wit and the charm? So what is that? Just a whiny loser who alienates everyone around him with his moroseness and his solemn view of the world. Yes, theres suffering, but so what? The shikse girls will still fuck me and make me a happy little Pillsbury Jewboy like George Costanza! Come on, dont let the slums of Mumbai you saw in Slumdog Millionaire stop my erection from reaching the far ethos of the Himalayas of your sweet pussy. Come on, Anya, Ukrainian, Mary Ann, Polish, let me go on a tour of Eastern Europe and the PostSoviet Mountain Ranges where the final post is you! I lay my tent in your camp grounds! Were having a blast, arent we?! Forgetting reality and adulthood and enmeshed in sex? Forget cultural difference, Jewish versus Ukrainian Catholic versus Polish Catholic versus plain old drunken world without religion! Mary Ann, do youdo you have a boyfriend? Yes, but he lives in Dayton. Oh, so, youyou wouldnt mind being with guys here at Ohio State?

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I guess. But, like, no sex, thats not until marriage. Oy, vey, what is with these American women and their no sex before marriage MISHEGAS?! Its craziness and insanity! Sex is a basic part of humanity and we need to HAVE IT and have it over and over again! Im going crazy because theres all the beautiful girls everywhere with their large breasts and voluptuous shapes and Im not getting any of the enjoyment of those bodies and blondeness and asses and tits and curly hair! Just let go of the inhibitions brought on to you by staid Midwestern conservatism and Christianity and Judaism and forget what the Bible says, forget the Talmud, forget the Torah, just go at it like Adam and Eve did! You think Adam and Eve said, Oh, no, we cant shtupp because Godll get mad! No, they shtupped! What else were they gonna do? There was no MTV or Fox News or CNN, no Michael Jackson or Justin Bieber, no I-Macs or MP3s or Apple Phones, there was just a Tree of Knowledge and a Tree of Life and a Fucking Snake with Legs! They had to fuck out of pure boredom! It says be fruitful and multiply so thats what they did! So whats wrong with you female shmucks in denying me your goods and damages?! Give in to the power! Ive always thought blonde women were the best. Thats a great way to flatter a woman. Um, thanks, I guess. She doesnt seem to complimented by that. So, why Ohio State? I got a full scholarship, and, like, I wanted to go to a big city like Columbus. Columbus is a big city to her? I guess one mans New York is another womans shit village in Zimbabwe. Look, Mary Ann, lets go to a movie at the Drexel. I like you. I think we could go out and make a good pair. Look, David, Im sorry, but, youre not Catholic, are you? No, Im not, Im a Rastafarian. Right, well, I can only date Catholics, like, my Dadll kick my ass totally if I dont date another Catholic boy. You understand, right? Good luck with being Rastafarian. WHAT?! Catholic Polish fathers beat their daughters still?! Is this generally known?! They should put down on the nightly news on FOX! THIS JUST IN! US ECONOMY COMPLETELY DEAD, EVERYONE IS UNEMPLOYED AND STARVING TO DEATH AND POLISH DADS STILL BEAT THEIR KIDS FOR ANY INTER-FAITH DATING! What the hell kind of

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world is this where people still get BEATEN UP for daring to show any kind of romantic interest in someone who doesnt believe in the same fucking FICTIONAL deity as their own?! I dont understand this kind of logic or thinking and I cant fathom the Ukrainians in New York or the Polish in Dayton. Its a mad, mad, world out there and the fantasy life is ever more appealing! Following my debacles with women, one a fellow Yid and one a fellow Midwesterner, I withdrew further and further into my own little isolated world of youtube videos, porn, movies, and spending my free time with my gay friend Mark and Tatumba, a Nigerian exchange student Id met in one of my history classes. Tatumba was interesting but a little clueless. He would always insult people for being very Christian at Ohio State, which is a big problem as Ohio is a very white-bread, Christian conservative area. I had loved and lost, so I guess it was better than not loving at all, as Confucius once sad. Or maybe it was Vladimir Lenin. One of those two wrote about romance and sex a lot I think. Or maybe its from the Kama Sutra. I moved back in with my parents in the summer of 2009 and felt defeated. Id watched the economy in my own country completely fall apart and my dream of marrying the ultimate New York Jewish beauty also collapsed out of my own sexual impatience and neurosis. Everything looked blank and bleak and I was back to my pattern of thinking when I had been in the psychiatric ward. There was going to be two next Great Depressions, one nationally that would affect 300 million people and then one internally that would affect 800 trillion brain cells.

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PART EIGHT: FAMILY ADVICE, NEW JERSEY AND NEW ORLEANS STYLE In the summer of 2009 we made a trip down to New Orleans, just my mother, brother, and myself, and I hadnt been down there since 2005 for my step-grandfathers Jazz funeral. Only in New Orleans do white people get Jazz music played by black folk when they die. When a Jew dies, the family sits shiva and grieves for 11 months, if theyre Orthodox. When a New Orleanian dies, they just play some Louis Armstrong, have some beigniets, and pass a gud time, bebe, remembering the joy that person brought into the world. I could see the damage and destruction brought on to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. We were driving from the Louis Armstrong International Airport through the various areas, the 7th, 8th, and 9th wards and into downtown, Canal Street, the French Quarter, and the various neighborhoods leading to Uptown where my Uncle Neil now occupied the house at Valence Street my parents got married in. Most buildings were in squalor and covered in graffiti; poor black and white people everywhere looking like they had next to nothing and wearing ghetto hoodies and sweaters and clothing that was probably sewn by themselves. The poverty was immense and I was frightened. I had heard about the increasing murder rate in New Orleans and that it was the murder capital of the United States, and this is where my mother wanted me to grow up! Thanks, Mom, talk about endangering your children, you want me to become a gang-banger and druggie and thug and rapper wannabe? I aint slated to be the next Miles Davis, at best Im a dead ringer for the next Tennessee Williams or other Southern writer although I have no connection with the South REALLY. We arrive at first at the hospital on St. Charles Ave. because my grandmother Helen has had a debilitating cancer in her uterus and shes just had an operation to remove her uterus, at 77, oy, being 77 is hard enough but they have to take out a uterus? I dont even have a uterus but if they had to cut off my balls in the name of health I dont know how Id cope with that. I see my grandmother being wheeled into the hospital waiting room. She looks like a ghost; pale white, shocking gray hair, emaciated. Nonetheless, shes still the same old fire-cracker. My boy, look at ma two boys!! Give your Graaaany a hug! My brother and I lean down to give Granny a solemn kiss. She then hands out wads of Benjamin Franklins for our enjoyment.

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Here, take it, enjoy yourself, go have sex with a pretty girl before youre too old! Thanks for the advice, Granny, Ive been working at it but its a lot easier said than done, maybe you can give me some grand advice on how to seduce young women of the Millenial Generation who think they are entitled to EVERYTHING and have to work for NOTHING! Maybe you can show me some smooth moves to woo he ladies whose heads are buried in their I-Phones while your head was buried in a gramophone listening to Glenn Miller and Count Basie and theyre bopping away to Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus! What advice does the Old Jewish Oracle of the Bayou who knows Hasidic Voodoo Magic where they only pin you in your TUCHUS know about bewitching the spoiled Gentile and Landsmen women that I so crave to stuff my kielbasa up their young and sweet snatches! What is it, Granny, what?! At my Uncles mansion on Valence street, I play a little with my two cousins, Jacob, and Ella. Jacob is 11, a normal kid whose rambunctious and likes to play guitar with me, mostly Jimi Hendrix songs. Ella is 8, fat, spoiled, she already is telling people off, most notably me, telling me, I dont like you! I DONT LIKE YOU! I DONT LIIIIKE YOOOOU! Shes not the first woman to scream that at me to her surprise. Both Jacob and Ella go to private schools in New Orleans because the public schools are beyond repair and if a white kid goes there they aint gonna come out alive or with all their limbs intact. But private schools aint cheap either and I guess people pay for what they get. Are they spoiled or are they a product of their time? Who knows? Aunt Hannahs still a pleasant and lovely woman; I always liked her, she would always be a calm voice of reason whenever I had trouble with girls or life. She once consoled me when I complained of being the new kid in Columbus. When I was 14 my father moved us from Washington D.C. to New Orleans, I had a very hard time adjusting to it all, the heat, the culture, but overtime I made friends and a life for myself. You just need time to adjust and embrace the new and unfamiliar. Aunt Hannas father was a lawyer who was partner at a major Downtown Firm in New Orleans and her mother had actually just recovered from a bout with cancer in which she was forced to have her leg amputated. Oy, she has one leg, my grandmother has no uterus, what is it with people in my family needing to have things RIPPED out of their bodies as if God was not satisfied in his creation and just wants to TAX you and AUDIT you in every way?! Leave them alone, God, whatd they do to you? What did my Uncle Joel do that you should take his life away at 43 with

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colon cancer?! What did my Grandma do that you should cut out her uterus?! My Aunt Hannahs mother, what did she do that shes now a one-legged old woman?! Why do these people suffer so in life?! And to top it all off you have the one-legged womans husband cheat on her with a 30-year-old mistress and they go on trips to Hawaii or Tahiti or Bora Bora while shes laying up in a hospital getting her leg sawed off by a Voodoo witch doctor from the Caribbean! Shame on you, lawyers, shame on you, Americans, who value your money and your cars and your women over what is truly IMPORTANT in life! Bleah! I enjoyed walking around the French Quarter in New Orleans with my two Uncles, Neil and Ira, and my mother and brother. We went from Canal Street into Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is always vibrant and filled with street musicians, mostly black, playing jazz and soul tunes on the saxophone, trombone, trumpet, some guitar, some keyboards, they have dozens of outdoor bars where you can sit and watch a heavy-set black woman sing her heart a la Aretha Franklin or Ella Fitzgerald or Queen Latifah or Monique or Jennifer Hudson. I love watching big black women both sing and fuck, I guess Im determined to marry one of them and form a singing duo and a sex partnership. We wandered along the different side streets of the quarter, the Rue Iberville, the Rue Toulouse, where Tennessee Williams lived as a gay alcoholic playwright in complete poverty in the 1930s, the Rue du St. Phillip, and down towards Jackson Square, in memorial of Andrew Jacksons victory at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. Victory?! The fucking war was over! The British soldiers thought they were going HOME! And thats when the American troops under Jackson decide to ATTACK, when the other side has no plans of FIGHTING! So of course the Americans are gonna WIN! What, you think a gang of 10 SCHWARTZES comes up to one unassuming Frimmie in Brooklyn with knives and guns and the Frimmies gonna win in that fight? NO! SO WHY IS IT A VICTORY WHEN ITS JUST A CHANCE BATTLE AFTER THE WAR?! TAKE DOWN THE FUCKING STATUE AND ERECT A MONUMENT TO THE PEOPLE WHO SURVIVED THROUGH KATRINA YOU STUPID BLACK MAYOR RAY NAGEN JUST LIKE THE OTHER STUPID BLACK MAYORS OF D.C. MARION BARRY COCAINE WITH A PROSTITUTE ON NATIONAL TELEVISION AND DAVID DINKINS OF NEW YORK MAKE IT THE MOST CRIME-RIDDEN AMERICAN CITY OF THE 90S STOP FALSIFYING GLORY YOU DARK-SKINNED IDIOT SHMUCKS FUCK-FACES! Anyways, we were having breakfast with beigniets at the Caf du Monde in the French Quarter by Jackson Square. I love that section of the Quarter, its very quaint with its FrenchVictorian Architecture, unique collection of horse-cabs and regular taxis, caricature artists, river-front cuisine, Cajun

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and Jazz music playing in the background. The waiters and waitresses here used to be all black, now we have a Chinese waitress in New Orleans. Okay, I bring you beigniet three order! The Chinese are everywhere, what, theyre taking over the Voodoos now? Are they gonna apply their evil Martial Arts skills to Voodoo witch doctor practices? FU MANCHU AND DR. LEONCE PONTELLIER TEAM UP TO STRIP PINS INTO THE DOLLS OF EVERYWHERE NON-CHINESE AND NON-BLACK IN THE WORLD! My Uncle Neil was asking me about my life and what not. David, where you gonna live this here? An apartment with your buddies? Nah, Ill live at home. Live at home? What, are you crazy? Live with some buddies, find a girl, dont live your Mom and Dad. Bradley, you keeping up with the Buckeyes? Yeah, looks like Greg Odens gonna be the top player this year. Think theyre gonna top the Saints? The Saints WILL get to the superbowl this year, theres nothin stoppin em. We had two quarterbacks replaced this year and I think its time for a comeback victory. My Uncle Ira is absent from the conversation, as he usually is absent and lives in his own world. Its a world of sarcasm, fantasy, Broadway shows, and homosexuality. That night at the house in Valence my Uncle Ira and myself were playing cards in the attic with my cousins, Jacob and Ella. He was trying in vain to make conversation with me. So, whatre you gonna do, David? I dont know, maybe be a writer. Oh, yeah, a writer? You wanna do that? I dont know, its not an easy profession. Your Granny wouldnt want it. Well, nothings easy, right? Right, well, things costs money in life, you have to think of that. What about women, you getting with women? Nah, not really. Im fat and ugly, so not much chance. Nah, youre fine, youre a good-looking guy. Look, you want ice cream? Wanna go around the block and get some icecream? I know its a scary neighborhood here and all but I think

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well go and well meet some women for you. We walked around the block of the house in Valence street and my 40-year-old gay uncle in Chicago was trying to advise me on how to pick up women. Is that worse than a 77-year-old Jewish Scarlett OHara? I dont know, you can be the judge of that. The next night we all saw a play at a local New Orleans theatre that was a send-up of Valley of the Dolls, the cheesy 1960s movie with Sharon Tate about a bunch of pretty models in Los Angeles who are on drugs or something. All the women were played by men and there were a lot of weird gay people. I realized that this was the profession I wanted to enter into for my life and decided immediately to get a gun and put myself out of my misery. I had written some one-act plays, most notably The Hoffman Session, about Hamlet seeing a Jewish therapist, it was kind of like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, except without any of the wit or cleverness. My grandmother, whos 77 and old and just had her uterus out, is trying her hardest to read with me and give me her true constructive criticism. Now, theres a SEEEEX JOOOKE in the first page. I dont think so, you need to CUUUUTT THAT LINE OUUUT! But its essential to the script. Youre just going for a cheap laugh, my GRAAAAANDSOOOON. Okay, what about the rest of it? Weve only gotten through the first page. It took us 10 MINUTES to get through one page! We got 45 pages to go, lady! I aint payin you for this, ya know! You need to change this line, Hello, to something more SOPHIIIIISTIIICATTED! Its to PLAAAIN! All right, Granny. You know, my boy. She grabs my hand intensely and shes full of sentiment and tears. When I was 17-years-old in New Orleans in 1949, a Hollywood producer came here. He noticed me and wanted to cast me in pictures. Because I was tall and beautiful and had a wonderful deep voice. But my grandfather was a poor immigrant running a tailor shop and he forbid me to go. He said I had to stay at home and help run the shop. And so I turned down the producer. And I never fulfilled my promise to be a great actress. When I lived in Dallas in the 1950s, I wrote plays for the Jewish Community Center, I wrote a parody of My

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Fair Lady. I could have been a great artist. But I had to make a living, my boy. I was the first woman to graduate at the top of her class from Law School in the state of Louisiana. Ive lived a long time, I intend to live longer. The tears were streaming out of her. You NEED TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL! Youve gotta make money in this world, its great to be a WRIIITER and all that, but you have to make an honest living, and the only way youll do it is to go to LAW SCHOOL! Ill pay for it if you need the money. I was poor when I was younger but now I have plenty of money, dont you worry, ma bebe Cherie. The winter of 2009 we made another family trip into Fords, New Jersey to see my fathers parents. My grandfather Seymour was 81, my grandmother Goldie was 78. They were getting worn down although my Bubbe was still as much of a ballbuster as could be. We also paid a visit to my Aunt Janice, Uncle Joels widow, still living in East Brunswick. We didnt have much to talk about with her. She mentioned the changes at the gas station down the hill. Deres dese Iranian guys took it over from Mr. Farantelli, and deyre probly gonna blow us all up! She also talked about the Governer of New York, Pataki. Pataki went and saw da Producers on Broadway, not one laaaaf da whole show, didnt smile once, not much of a sense a huma on dat man! We were in Jersey celebrating Hanukah as it was December. We had a big dinner at the house in Fords on Tracey Dr, chicken, latkas, lots of bread, always lots of bread, turkey legs, steak, so much food and food. Mogen Dovid wine and Manischevitz 57, oreos, snacks, milk, salami, lots of salami, my Bubbe would always be there to offer salami to us. She was started to crack under the strain of the death of her youngest son. As we were exchanging gifts for Hanukkah, she was handing mine to me. I smiled and she cracked, DONT GET CUTE WIT ME, DONT BE CUTE! YOU WANNA GIFT, YOU DONT LAUGH LIKE THAT, STOP DA GRINNING! We were asking about the family. Hows cousin Riva in California? Eh, she dont call, so I dont ask, who needs her? Let her drive her Porsche and wear her sunglasses or whatever dey do out dere. Hows Uncle Arthur and Aunt Yetta in Vegas? What do I know? They tell me? They sit in da Casino and watch tigers at Sigfreid and Roy all day. What am I, a news reporter? You wanna know about dem better YOU SHOULD CALL DEM! WHAT ARE YOU BOTHERING ME FOR? IM AN OLD WOMAN WHOS LOST ONE CHILD, IM NOT LOSING ANOTHER! My grandfather and I were

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sitting at night on their computer in the house. He was asking me about my post-college plans. His voice his weak and crackling cause hes over 80. What are yous gonna do after de uhde college? WellIm gonna try to be a writer in New York. I dont hear you. Im gonna try to be A WRITER IN NEW YORK!

Okay, yous listen to me. You tink da woild is open to yous. You tink you can do dese tings. But its not. Dis is reality. You gotta go to law school, open up your own practice, you gotta make a living. Okay, Gramps, yes the WOILD isnt OPEN TO ME! Thats why your parents went from poverty in Eastern Europe to New York way back when and were able to work at jobs in shops and get married and have children and survive and eke out a somewhat enjoyable existence? But the world isnt open to me?! Howd I get to Israel then, climbing over a barbed-wire fence?! Howd we get from Texas to Ohio to New Jersey, theres no way to get in, ITS CLOSED, YOU DONT SEE DA SIGN?! I drove with my grandparents to the grocery store in Fords and it was one of the saddest experiences of my life. My grandfather insists on driving even though me being SIXTY years younger might be a better choice. Theres a lot of construction and Jersey traffic and my grandpa cant see in the rain and my grandmas shouting, Seymour, look! Seymour, WATCH! Youre gonna kill us all! Okay, okay! Is watchin! We finally make it to Wegmans grocery. Its so crowded in the store and every cashier is Indian, I think this part of Jersey has become Little Mumbai. New Jersey has now the highest concentration of Indian immigrants in the United States. I was walking with grandfather while Bubbe went by herself, looking defeated, to go shopping. My grandpa and I were walking among the meat section. He looked solemn and appreciative of simply being alive and was touching all the meat products with wonder and awe. You used to be a red-head, right, Zayde? Yes, I did have de uhde red hair at one time. My Zayde and I waited up at the cashier while my Bubbe was standing in line going through being scanned by an Indian. She looked sad and as if she knew her time in life was up. The Indian asked, Hello, how are you doing today? She replied, Im good. But she wasnt. She was a shrunken old lady and she knew it. I could

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see she was on the verge of trying not to explode and lose any hope of having good spirit in life. My grandpa looked at me and said warmly. Look, David, I know right noweverytin looks bleak. But I promise.thing will come togedder, deyll woik out. Youll find your place. We went into New York by train from Menlo Station into Penn just like in the old days. We spent the day walking around the Lower East Side near the Brooklyn Bridge and had a wonderful meal of authentic New York Pizza. I decided to affect a Brooklyn accent when ordering the pizza from the Italian looking vendor. Hey, yo, can Is get two slices? Yous want two? No, wait, tree, give me tree slices! Okay, tree slices, tree slice a what?! Tree slices a sawsage! Tree a sawsage? Eight dolla! Just like the toll booth attendant upon entering New Jersey from Pennsylvania, she just screamed, Tree dollar! They must confuse three and trees a lot in this part of the country. That night we saw the Broadway revival of Gypsy with Patti LuPone as Mama Rose and it was tremendous and revived my love for musical theatre. When she belches out Roses Turn and Everythings Coming Up Roses and Some People with her Italian artistic glory, I felt as if the earth was shaking. After the show we were back on the manic streets of Times Square by the Broadway district. We needed to catch a cab back to Penn Station to head back to Jersey. Heading back to Jersey from Manhattan is like going back to Hell when youve had a day at the Playboy Mansion. Our driver was a skeletal thin African immigrant. My father always liked to talk to the immigrant cab drivers. Where are you from? I am from Africa. What part of Africa? I am from Somalia. Ah, whats Somalia like?

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Its a good place. I like it a lot. He likes Somalia a lot? So what the fucks he doing in New York he likes a thirdworld country ravaged by political fighting, corruption, and desert heat so much? Tell me that Mr. African cab driver! All the cab drivers in New York are black and from foreign countries now! What, no white college students can get gigs as cabbies, people that can speak English well and arent trying to rig the meter every chance they get? We are whizzing through the streets of Midtown in all its people, lights, neon, theatre signs and magical glory. We finally get off at Penn Station. My father, brother, and I get out of the cab with no problem. My Mom has issues as her permanent back disks and arthritis make getting out of a New York cab a slow and painful process. As she is still getting her foot out of the door the cab begins to drive off and her right foot is almost run over. My mother screams. Hey, hey, HEEEEY! YOU ALMOST CRUSHED MY FOOT! WHATS WRONG YOU?! The Somalian driver stops and looks indifferent. Maam, I need to go to get udder fares! You almost ran over me, whats your name?! WHATS YOUR NAME?! Abuja Abdullah Moharitiki, maam. Okay, MR. MOHARATIBUJAH, IM CALLING THE NEW YORK CITY CAB SERVICE AND YOURE GONNA HEAR FROM ME, YOUC ANT JUST START DRIVING OFF WHEN THE CUSTOMER HASNT EVEN GOTTEN OUT OF THE CAB YET! THATS JUST DANGEROUS AND DOWNRIGHT STUPID! YOU COULDVE KILLED ME! YOU NEED TO PAY MORE ATTENTION! Okay, have a good night, maam. Abuja drove off and we were on our way on a train back to Jersey. My mother was complaining the whole time. I cant believe they let the4se immigrants just work professionally like this without giving them proper training, who knows what theyre gonna do! When we got back to the house in Fords, my grandfather wasnt finished lecturing me on every part of my life. I affected a huge beard at the time to look like an Orthodox or just a Terrorist to provoke outrage from people. My grandpa disapproved. I was sitting in the living room with him while my grandma was busy washing dishes in the kitchen. David, yizyiz need to shave de uh..de beard off. Why? I like it.

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If you dont shave it, de uh.de uhbacteria is gonna grow dere and yiz gonna have de goims grow and yiz gonna get a disease. But I shower every day and wash the beard with shampoo, just like my hair. So whats the big deal? Yiz need to cut it off, it dont look right, what are you, one o dem beatniks like dat live in da village? Yiz need to get rid a it. My grandma then shouts in from the kitchen. SEYMOUR! LEAVE IM ALONE! YA MADE YA SPEECH, ARIGHT?! OY, IF HE WANTS TO HAVE A BEARD, LET IM AVE IT, WHATRE YOU, A COP?! Oy! I looked at old photo albums in the house in Jersey. One was my Uncle Stevens bar mitzvah album from 1966. Another one was my grandparents wedding in Brooklyn from 1951. My grandpa looks like a young Vladimir Horowitz and my grandma a darkhaired Marilyn Monroe. I was shocked to see two people Id known in my lifetime as old and worn-down to be so young and full of vitality. And it really struck home with me that I will get old and I will die and I will suffer in life no matter what. And how do you avoid suffering when suffering is inevitable? That was something I clamored to find out and still search for to this day.

PART NINE: ANOTHER JEWISH LAWYER During this time of self-examination and coming to grips with the realities of aging, my mother had gotten me a job being a file clerk for the law firm she worked at in downtown Columbus at 2 Miranova Pl. off of West Mound Street. The firm, Karr & Sherman LPA, was run by two Jewish guys (ha ha, the stereotypes that clutter my life just abound. Ive got Jewish grandmothers, mothers, lawyers, doctors, angry Russians, sexed-up Italians, crazy blacks, crazy Mexicans, what dont I got to make a collage of generalizations?!). Mr. Sherman had passed away by the time I came but Mr. Karr was the head of the firm. He was in his early 50s, gray, paunchy, one time in his earlier life he was a big

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playboy. He didnt get married till he was in his mid 40s, his wife was a tall blonde beauty and a prize possession for any self-respecting Jewish lawyer. Mr. Karr claimed he was Jewish but his mannerism and behavior were completely Mid-western. His firm was a civil law practice that handled mainly car accidents, property disputes, and divorces. In his office was himself as the main attorney, a young guy named David Cuthert, from Cleveland, about 29, who was his assistant but only earning about 9 dollars an hour. Hed been let go from a major law firm in Cleveland following the 2008 collapse and was struggling in his life. My mother was the paralegal and also only getting paid about 9 dollars an hour too. There was a secretary who worked in the office, she was Russian, her name was Milena, she was, like Anya, another tall, stunningly beautiful Eastern European treat for the eyes. And for a sex-obsessed 20-year-old having to work eight hours a day next to a woman that looks like THAT was nearly impossible. The actual job was unflattering and unpleasant. I learned the truth of what it is to be a lawyer. The kind of clients Mr. Karr had to cater to were real lowlives and scumbags; white trash people with tattoos, sixteen-year-old unwed mothers from trailer homes, poor black folks living on welfare, former junkies just out of rehab. It was my job to answer the phones and many of Mr. Karrs most insane clients would call in demanding their settlement money. Thank you for calling Karr & Sherman, this is David, how can I help you? Man, this Linda Henderson, WHERES MY FUCKING MONEY?! I BEEN WAITING FOR MY SETTLEMENT MONEY FOR OVER A WEEK AND IT AINT HERE YET, BABY! WHERE DE SETTLEMENT MONEY?! Well, we have to wait for the insurance company to make their decision and that may take some time. I DONT CARE BOUT NO FUCKIN INSURANCE COMPANY, BABY, I GOTS TO PAY MY BILLS, GOTS BILLS TO PAY, YOU TELL MR. KARR ITS BEEN OVER A MONTH AND I AINT GOT MY MONEY, I WANT MY MONEY NOW! These kinds of calls would abound in addition to the other stressful duties of my job. I had to collect all the mail for the day and organize them into the various folders we had for our hundreds of clients. I had to scan them into the everannoying scanning machine that would never function properly and would just jam up all the papers! You stick it in properly and press all the right buttons and the machine just EATS IT UP and wont let you just pass it through to be scanned into the

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COMPUTER! WHAT KIND OF MESHUGENNAH MACHINE ARE YOU?! YOURE SUPPOSED TO MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR US WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING AND YOURE CAUSING US MORE UNDO STRESS! Mr. Karr was troubled in his personal life. Hed usually show up at the office angry and upset. His step-son from his wife was apparently getting drunk every night and trashing up the house. I hate that fucking kid, once hes 18, hes out on his ass! I dont care what that bitch of my wife says! And my wife is spending 10,000 dollars a day at Nordstroms! She thinks I have that kind of cash?! What am I, made of money?! David, how old are you, twenty? Oh, man, oh, man, if I was twenty again, Id be hitting up all the cafes, chatting up all those hot college girls, saying, Hey, baby, what you readin? Id be screwin im left and right, man. Mr. Karr had a robust sense of humor if you wanna call it that. When I was 18, I lost my virginity to a woman in the country club who was 42. Every day after the golf games Id go over to her house and screw her up the ass. He liked to tell stories of his Jewish immigrant family. When I was in my 20s, my grandfather and Uncle Harry from Russia were sitting at the table. Uncle Hary was in his 80s and was asleep. My grandfather asked me if I was dating anyone. I said I had a girlfriend. Uncle Harry suddenly woke up and screamed, DID YOU SHTUPP HER?! I remember a chilling moment with my mother. One client had come in with an accident report to give to her to present to his attorney Mr. Karr. I apparently said something that was insulting I cant remember and as soon as the client left my mother screamed at me, Dont you dare talk like that in front of a client! This is a big case! This firm is gonna make a lot of money for us, David! You wanna have less debt when you get out of college? How do you think we provide for that, huh?! Gee, Mom, I dont know, I guess you and Dad make SALARIES that pay for the tuition or you couldve just had me not go to college at all and I wouldve just studied my material on the Internet for free instead of paying 5,000 dollars a year to fuck around and watch Youtube videos and completely waste my time! But youre the one who wants to pay a fortune for me to just sit around and waste time! Mr. Karr would call in Milena the gorgeous Russian secretary into his office for private meetings. I wonder if he was fucking her or not. I never heard any sounds coming out of the office but he probably was. She thinks she can land a rich American man and insure her that shell never have to go back to poverty-stricken Russia and be beaten by a caviar-eating Vodkadrinking Ivan or Dimitri or Yuri ever again. There was another

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Russian secretary in the building, Irina, who worked on the sixth floor. Theyd both meet up with each other and have lunch and just be yakking in Russian. Id imagine theyd be saying things about me. IRINA: Vy khotite yebat , chto mal chika ryadom s vami, ne pravda li? (You want to fuck that young boy next to you, huh?) MILENA: Akh, da , ya khochu, molodo chlen , ya ne khochustary advokat tol ko za svoi den gi , poetomu ya ne pridetsya byt prostitutko bol she.(Ah, yes, I want young cock, I dont want to be with an old lawyer just because he has money and get me out of being a prostitute.) IRINA: a byl brachnykh . Vy dolzhny byt prostitutko . Prosto delat to, chto ya sdelal , bylo mnogo menyee boleznennym ! (I was a mail-order bride. You were a prostitute. Just do what I did, it was a lot less painful!) MILENA: ne nravitsya byt prostitutko . ne platyat , chtoby letet v eksiku ili Italiyu, vse, chto nuzhno sdelat , eto seks s chelovekom , i ya poluchayubesplatnuyu poezdku i gostinitsu. Chto v etom plokhogo? ( I like being a prostitute. I get paid to fly to Mexico or Italy, all I have to do is have sex with the man and I get a free trip and hotel. What's so bad about that?) IRINA: No prosto vy ti zamuzh za odnogo iz tekh urodlivykh yevrye skikh bankirov , kak v oskve , to vam ne pridetsya yezdit tak mnogo. (But just marry one of those ugly Jewish bankers like in Moscow, then you won't have to travel around so much.) I was in love with Milena, because of her Russian beauty and her intelligence. She was a smart girl, she knew a lot about life much more than any ignorant American chick who just knows about cars and make-up and TV shows. She told me about growing up in Vladivostok, Russia. I have go to school for the ballet and the opera, I sang in Eugene Onegin and the Queen of Spades and Boris Gudonov. I studied English, French, and German. She studied opera and German! Whats she doing working in a fucking law firm with a bunch of American idiots?! She should be at the Met or Covent Garden or La Scala in Milan! Or she could just be a fucking supermodel! Instead shes a law secretary by day and a high-class traveling escort by night! She had a boyfriend supposedly, a big construction worker guy from Wisconsin that she apparently lived with and was engaged to. Their marriage plans came to an end when supposedly the guy ended up cheating on her. Milena ended up moving to Las

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Vegas, we never knew why, although I think it was to advance herself in the prostitution business. Maybe shed become a Mamasan eventually and run her own crew of delightful little whores who can draw in big business, give Hugh Hefner a run for his money! Thats what the business world is, all competition! Come on, you sexy Rusky, drop that Communist thinking once and for all and embrace the American way of pushy competitive Capitalistic greed and emptiness and all for the rich and none for the poor! Embrace this one and only convenient way of life after years and years of grim Communist oppression and equality among the masses in your dreary little village in Soviet Russia. Now is your chance to shine and rise as the Ultimate Number One Russian Escort on the Internet and in the World! Borats sister is number Two! Mr. Karr was very intense and business-oriented and overwhelmed by getting older. He couldnt handle it. I remember him coming into the office early one morning with just me around. Hey, kid, did you get my fucking files organized right like I asked?! Yes, sir, Mr. Karr. Really? Well why is the Simmons demand letter in the fucking Kellerman folder! How hard is it to get right?! Youre in fucking college now, right?! So you dont know a K from an S?! Im fucking busy, you little shit, I have a wife and two kids and a house to pay mortgage for, and you cant be fucking my law practice because its costing us money! Im sorry, sir. No, youre work here is inexcusable. If you werent your mothers son, if you were just some random shmuck off the street, Id fire your ass right now, but I know if I do that your Momll leave and I couldnt find anyone else to do the work shell do such low pay. Now get your ass to work and dont fuck up anymore. With that Mr. Karr coldly walked out of the coffee room and I immediately detested this man. Here was a man who represented everything that was wrong in America. He wears his clean-pressed suit and tie and looks neat but its all a lie. Hes a slimeball, a cheater, a loser, he wants to manipulate people for as little money as possible, hes a real champ, a real base hitter, the pride of the American way! Fine, pay my mother minimum wage to work her ass off for you and get no reward! While you live in your palace and have your blonde girlfriend and your golf games and your lunches with doctors and

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bankers and other businessman! I despise the wealthy because you rob yourselves of true happiness or understanding! Mr. Karr took a lot of time off to play golf and have lunch at the New Albany Country Club. One frustrating day I was assigned to put together a folder of different evidence documents for one case. My mother insisted on re-doing the folder for me and completely fucked everything up, causing papers to be put all out of order and making go through hours and hours of re-working the folder. We were in the office until midnight screaming at each other. Mom, I already organized it, you just put everything out of order! I WAS JUST TRYING TO HELP, DAVID! YOURE NOT HELPING, I HAVE TO HAVE THIS ORGANIZED THE WAY MR. KARR WANTS IT BY TOMORROW AND IM GONNA BE HERE ALL NIGHT BECAUSE OF YOU! IM SORRY BUT I KNOW WHAT IM DOING! YOU DONT! YOU DONT KNOW WHAT YOURE DOING AT ALL! JUST STOP! STOP IT, FOR GODS SAKES! My clients confirm doctors job consisted of calling the hospitals the different had gone to for treatment for their accidents. I had that these bills were correct and had to speak to the and receptionists. Some of them were flat out stupid.

Hello, this is David Friedman, Im calling from the Karr and Sherman Law Firm on behalf of Mr. John Stafford who received treatment from you. Who is this? Im calling from the Karr and Sherman Law Firm, Mr. Karr is the attorney representing Mr. Stafford. Yes, and what is this regarding? I need to confirm the bills for this hospital. Did he receive treatment on June the 1st, the 3rd, and the 5th? Just one second, let me transfer you. Waiting and waiting and waiting for transfer. The waiting never ends. Hello, Dr. Hollins practice, how may I help you? Yes, my name is David Friedman, Im calling from the Karr and Sherman office to confirm the bills for Mr. John Stafford-

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One moment, let me transfer you. Oy vey, I dont want a transfer, Im not a major league baseball player here! I just want to confirm my fucking bills! I got hundreds of people I gotta confirm bills for today, lady, in addition to putting all the hundreds of files away physically and in the computer! You think my lifes a fucking picnic? Ill tell you about sometime at lunch when theyre done transferring me! I had to go through these processes every day for hours and hours. I remember having lunch in downtown with the other David and a friend of his from law school. They were discussing the paths they had taken since them and how things had turned out following receiving their Law Degrees. Man, I thought by now Id be almost Junior Partner at a major firm, and here I am just basically a secretary for some asshole who pays me barely more than minimum wage. Yeah, Im luckier, at least theyre letting me work on the actual cases and go to court. Im at least making 40 k a year by this point. Both men are nervously putting out cigarettes. Its tough out there. I was working for a major firm and they had promised me advancement to junior partner in a few years but then the recession came and totally fucked me out of that. Now Im stuck in this role and I dont know if I can dig my way out of it. Im almost 30. Me too, bro, me too. And Im doing criminal law, deal with real psychos. I gotta man who killed his own old daughter and he told me hed kill me if I couldnt verdict to be innocent! You know how hard its gonna be convince a jury that a man who killed a little girl is sympathetic and should just be found guilty? having to 5-yearget the to still

Ah, and the demand letters! I absolutely hated writing the demand letters for accident cases! You have to look at the accident report, write down the specific date and locations, write down the weather at the time, what kind of car both the plaintiff and the defendants had, you had to then write out a summary of what happened and how much money they demanded and had to send it out to the insurance companies and wait for their response. Then I would also have to go to the downtown courthouse and put in letters of complaints and files for court. I was very stressed out by being in a legal environment and in that type of atmosphere. I realized I would never, never, EVER be a lawyer if my life depended on it, even though my mothers entire family were lawyers and they seemed to think that was the only way a man could make a decent living.

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I learned some harsh lessons in life working in that law firm; that life is always a struggle, and having all the financial and material possessions you could need doesnt mean your life still wont be a mess. The clients were poor and messes; Mr. Karr was rich, a country club big shot with his golf games and big connections and beautiful Blonde wife and allAmerican dream, but it was all a lie. He was still a miserable fuck who cried in the bathroom while taking a shit. I was terrified of becoming like the other David in the office; a 30year-old law school graduate working for minimum wage and unable to get himself out of it. I didnt want to be just another working shmoe like that who ends up in the garbage can, as Biff Loman would put it. I wanted to go beyond that and achieve a life outside of banality. But you can never avoid banality, can you? Walking around downtown Columbus Im approached by many homeless black people. Hey, man, you give me some change, brother?! You believe in Jesus, doncha, son?! Young ma, you feel like givin some money for the homeless? I got a Columbian hot dog from a vendor outside the courthouse. I hated the sight of seeing derelict people on welfare in downtown Columbus; its grim and not joyful; although when is reality ever joyful? I got through the rest of the summer working at the firm and putting up with Mr. Karrs misery, Cutherts worrying, my mothers hard work for terrible pay, and the absence of my beautiful Russian work-partner who I could fantasize about being Peter to her Catherine the Great and eating caviar off of her bare vagina and drinking Stolichnaya out of her perfectly trimmed asshole. A plus of this time was a side gig I got playing piano in a Chinese restaurant on the weekends. My Chinese bosses had me play on Friday and Saturday nights and told me to play things, Only quiet. No roud. Little did I realize this would not be my only time working with Chinese people. This gig was my most enjoyable job I ever had. I got paid 40 dollars in a night to just play quiet piano pieces, some classical, some Jazz, some Broadway show tunes, while the customers ate the AmericanChinese gourmet food in the elegant setting and enjoyed their meals. If I could only do that for a full time living, Id be the happiest man in the world. Sometimes I got 15 dollar tips and sometimes people would come up to me and tell me I was the shittiest piano player in the world and I should just stop all together. One older guy in a New York accent frankly told me,

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It needs WOIK! Thanks for telling me it needs WOIK! You know what needs WOIK?! Your attitude and your manners, Mr. New Yorker! Go back to Manhattan and be a neurotic! Go back to your Broadway Shows and your lunches at Tavern on the Green and your obsessions with making a lot of money to pay for you 10,000 studio in Tribeca or the Upper East Side! Who needs you?! The Chinese people in the restaurant would rarely talk to me, but thats cause they couldnt speak English that well and were embarrassed. Therefore it was hard for me to understand why one not they asked me to simply stop playing. They said something about a cousin from China coming but didnt give details. When youre dealing with the Chinese mafia, they only make you offer you cant understand, not refuse. That was a bittersweet time for me, coming to terms with getting older, with the realities of what people have to do as Americans to earn a living and get by, how do you deal with the emptiness of your own existence after you have the money you need. If life in America is all about making the big bucks but theres no religion, no spirituality, no intellectual enlightenment, if its all about things, than what is it but just pure and simple emptiness? I realized Id been reared from day one to think like this and I would devote every ounce of my personal energy to never thinking like this again in my life! I would break out and become something that would transcend any type of empty life, be it American or Italian or Russian or Ukrainian or Jewish or Hindu or Shinto! Nothing would hold me from being a pure and uplifted HUMAN BEING, H-U-M-A-N, pure and simple! Thats all we are, baby, from the day we are born till the day we go in the grave, so let the good times roll, let your spirit fly, dont be bogged down by the present and limitations, its all fleeting, its all gone in the blink of an eye! Dont let life pass you by you fat Jewish klutz with your sight problem and confidence issues! Go out there and take what you want before it aint there no more! To the moon, Alice, to the stars!

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PART TEN: WHATRE U GONNA DO WITH YOUR LIFE? ON THE ROAD TO KOREA THROUGH CHICAGO Whatre you gonna do with your life? Thats the question that reverberates around the disoriented household my third and final year of college. Im living at home and forced to drive a thirty to forty-five minute commute along the endless stretch of barren highway down to the college campus and then park twenty minutes walking distance away from any of my classes because they wont let students with student parking passes park in any of the garages up close! That question haunts me like a neverending sniper from a rooftop grazing down on you! What ARE you going to do with your life, young man?! Is it business school, an MBA from Harvard, is it Medical School at Johns Hopkins or Law School at Columbia or the University of Chicago or NYU joining the Peace Corpse and serve two years in some shit-hole third-world country where youll really learn about life and how to rough it and be a real man or are you gonna join the Army the Marines the Navy and serve your country in Afghanistan or Iraq and be a real mensch or be stationed somewhere in Alaska or are you just gonna stay in your home town and wallow in self-pity that your life is going NOWHERE fast and work at McDonalds with the Mexicans and accomplish nothing whatever talent the Lord Ashem decided to espouse you with! I dont know, I dont know, will you stop bothering me with these questions?! I scream as my bellowing mother is standing over me in the house with her unceasing anger after Ive quit the job at her law firm which she insists would have led to me getting into a good Law School and laying a solid foundation for the future. David, you have to the think of the future and all its implication! Why did you quit that job?! Whatre you gonna do now?! Huh?! Have you thought of that?! Have you given one shred of consideration that once college is over youll be an adult out in the big bad world and wont be able to just clown around

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watching Youtube videos all day and will have to take care of yourself?! Do you think that everything is just handed to you when youre an adult like when you were a kid?! I said Ill look for jobs! I dont know! What do you want from me?! I want to know what youve been doing with whatever money youve saved so far! I know you havent been frugal, havent been saving, I check your bank statements! You check my bank statements?! Thats my private property! Thats my mail! You have no right to do that! When you pay your own mortgage and bills for your own house and arent a child anymore you can open your own mail! I saw that you withdrew 600 dollars in one month for spending! You withdrew 180 dollars at one time! What do you need 180 dollars for, David?! TELL ME! DID YOU GET ANOTHER SPEEDING TICKET THAT YOURE NOT TELLING US ABOUT?! DID YOU GO TO A PROSTITUTE AND DONT WANT TO TELL US?! WHAT DID YOU DO?! The 180 dollars? Yes, the 180 dollars. I gave it to a charity, these two girls were on the street and they were promoting a charity for sick kids from the Make a Wish Foundation to go on a trip to Greece and Italy before they died You WHAT?! You gave 180 DOLLARS to some strange women on the street for a CHARITY?! YES! Those kids were sick and dying and I wanted to help them out, give them one last happy memory before they die because at least someone is entitled to a happy memory in life, if not me, Mom, thank you very much! Oh, how dare you talk to me like that! Were letting you stay with us for free, a lot of other parentsd just throw you out ON YOUR ASS, you ungrateful little pisher with all your whining and moroseness! And you quit your job and you spend your money recklessly without consulting me! BARRY, come in here, I want you to know what your son the genius writer has been doing with his money! My father saunters in wearing his University of Alabama sweater and looking rumpled and unshaven, he hasnt dyed his hair today, its as white as Michael Jackson post-1992. What? What is it? I was listen to Brazilian folk music!

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Your son gave 180 dollars to a charity on the streets that two girls just told him about! They were obviously scamming you, David! You did what?! Thats so irresponsible! You dont just give that much money away at one time! Who do you think you are?! You think you can just throw away money like that?! You need to save! Save! Thats what I told him but he wont listen! We paid for a meal plan for you at college and you still used MY CREDIT CARD like crazy on McDonalds, Wendys, KFC, Papa Johns, Dominos, this restaurant, AMC movies, the list goes on and on and were not doing so well financially right now David its hard enough paying for your school and our mortgage and bills and were gonna have to put your brother through college too you think money is just indispensable! You NEED TO LEARN TO CONTROL YOURSELF AND NOT BE WILD WITH YOUR SPENDING OR ELSE YOULL NEVER FUNCTION IN THE ADULT WORLD! Your mothers right, David, that was incredibly stupid to just give money to those girls like that. How did it go about?! I dont remember. My mother bellows in with all her Olympian might. HOW DID IT HAPPEN, DAVID?! We need to know every single moment of this transaction! Tell us, NOW! BEFORE I RIP YOUR GODDAMNED HEAD OFF AND HAVE YOU SENT TO MILITARY SCHOOL! Send me to Military School?! See what kind of outrageous parents I had to deal with growing up?! I didnt break the law, I didnt get a DUI, I didnt vandalize any proper, I didnt kill anybody, and already with the MILITARY SCHOOL! AS IF THAT HELPS, THE MARINES GET JUST AS ROWDY AND DISGUSTING AS ANYBODY ELSE, MA! BUT YOU WOULDNT KNOW THAT! Thesethese girls said the price, 180, and I went to the ATM and just took the money out and gave it to them. So you just handed 180 dollars to strangers on the street? Yes. ARE YOU THE BIGGEST FUCKING IDIOT THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN?! WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! YOU CANT JUST THROW MONEY AWAY LIKE THAT! WE RAISED YOU BETTER!

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THE GIRLS HAD BIG TITS, I THOUGHT MAYEB WED HAVE A LITTLE FUN AFTERWARDS, WHATTAYA WANT FROM ME?! I start to run upstairs in desperation to avoid this conversation. My parents follow. David, give me your ATM CARD, you are BANNED from using, we dont trust you! Right, Barry? Right, youre too irresponsible with your money. Thats right, give us your card now and no more spending your money unless we say its okay and you have our supervision! And whatre you gonna do about a job?! I dont know, Ill do something in writing! My father chimes in his 2 cents. No, youll work in any job you can get! I saw Paneras and Papa Johns were hiring for managers, youre gonna do that! Fuck that, Id rather be dead than work in another food service job! Well, deads what youre gonna be if you dont take those jobs cause well throw you out in two seconds if you dont wanna work and be a respectable human being! What makes you think youre so special?! You cant work with the common people, or something?! So why the fuck did I go to college if Im just gonna end up working at low level jobs like I did BEFORE COLLEGE?! WHAT WAS ALL THAT MONEY FOR?! You can get a better job in the future but for now you take any job you can get! No, thats horrible, thats a waste of my time in life, I wanna enjoy my life! Well, tough shit, everyone wants that, but thats what being an adult means, David, you cant just have fun all the time, you have to WORK and struggle! Your great-grandparents had it hard their whole lives, they were peasants in Poland and Russia being beaten up by gentiles every day and them they came to America and had to work 18 hours a day as tailors and shopowners in New York, you think THAT WAS EASY?! You dont know what hard work is! And youre gonna start learning now! YOU THINK THE WORLD OWES YOU A FUCKING LIVING BUT THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS! Its time to stop being spoiled and start being productive and stop whining about everything and whining whining whining!

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Were not gonna send you back to the Psychiatric Ward this time, we cant afford it! I slam the door and retreat into my old bedroom where I furiously begin to pound on the blue pillows of the bed with an unrelenting anger and frustration with the world. Time has abandoned me and childhood is really over and I have to face being an adult in the real fucking world! I never thought this would happen! And yes, Dad, rub it in my face how brutally my Jewish ancestors suffered and how easy and nice you made my life for me by providing an easy existence in the Suburbs with quiet lawns and movie theatres and sprawling shopping centers while they were living in slums serving liquor to blacks and Puerto Ricans and Anti-Semitic Germans taunting them that Hitler was gonna take over America and finish off the Jews on this Side of the Atlantic too! Im sorry I never suffered, Im sorry I prefer to have it easy and jerk off to images of coconut-equipped black women in Italian flower dresses getting screwed doggy style by their white bosses or Greek Goddesses dressed as Wonder Woman getting shtupped up the glory-hole by Danny DeVito than work at a sandwich shop! I wouldnt work in sandwich shops! You ever smelled those places?! Its a sewer, its a GARBAGE DUMP! The head is sprawling with ideas on how to escape this life of misery, escape, escape, escape all one can do in life is dream of how to escape but never actually achieve this reality. You cant escape reality because reality is always there and always finding a way to creep into your blissful fantasy life and CRUSH IT INTO A MILLION PIECES! I dont wanna work! I wanted to take those two girls on the street I gave that charity money to and enjoy a three-some, a triumvirate where I eat all kinds of different Italian and Arabic pastries and baklava off of their pussies and tits. I wanted to squeeze their tits till whatever milk they had stored for preparation for adulthood and motherhood was parceled out by my farmhands and I was rejuvenated for life. We get a room at the Hilton and I take turns eating them out, fingering, I come in one of their assholes and the other ones mouth then take ones vagina as my emptying hole while the other has her lips on my asshole licking my bare shit into her teeth and grinding my Jewish waste into her Christian mouth! Take that you Gentiles for all the times you told you KILLED MY LORD but I didnt but now youre gonna literally be eating my shit because I had to spend my whole childhood eating yours! When I was in 8th grade English class and my teacher was doing her unit on the Holocaust and said, In the Holocaust, six million Jews were killed. And suddenly a boy in the back screams, Yeah, and we shouldve killed em all! And Im IN THE CLASSROOM! MY LIFE WAS IN DANGER JUST BY BEING A JEW

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IN OHIO! DONT YOU UNDERSTAND, MOMMY AND DADDY, WHY I HATE WORKING AT JOBS HERE?! WHY THE PEOPLE ARE SO ADEPT AT HATING ANYONE WHOSE NOT A CHRIST-LOVING CHRISTIAN?! WHEN THEY WROTE JEW IN MY TEXTBOOK AT THE END OF MIDDLE SCHOOL DIDNT THAT GIVE YOU A SIGN THAT AMERICAS HEARTLAND AINT THE PLACE TO BE FOR THE YIDS MIT DE SCHNOZZES AND DE INTELLECTS?! No! No! You cant blame me for laziness, blame my ethnicity, blame my minority status because it was HARD! Youre wrong, Pa, I do know about suffering and hardship, you think it was easy being the ACCOUNTANT, the BANKER, when the Junior Prom tickets were stolen in high school it was a joke around school that I DID IT for the money cause I was a money-grubbing KIKE whod do anything for an honest dollar! Every year people wanted to vote for me as CLASS TREASURER because naturally a nice Jewish boy is gonna handle money best even though I failed every math and economics class I took! Do you see what Im up against? Golly Gee, no wonder Im a mess! Gee, Officer Krupstein Middle-Aged Jerk Off Jew Faces, KRUP YOU! First decision made in my attempt to escape: join the navy. The military. Maybe a stint in Uncle Sams beloved corps of stern young men with shaved heads, intense rigid conformity to the standards of every harsh rule under a relentless drill instructor like Sgt. Gunnery Hartman in Stanley Kubricks Full Metal Jacket would straighten out this neurotic Mid-western Yid wrapped up in his literature and his fantasy world and turn him into a well-built, muscular, All-American with the confidence of a strong gentile to succeed in a harsh corporate American environment! I also was in love with then thought of being in the Navy and getting stationed somewhere exotic like Hawaii or the Philippines or the South Pacific and fall in love with a beautiful island girl like Marlon Brando did or Lt. Joe Cable in South Pacific except I didnt want to experience the getting killed part. I just wanted a way to run off and have an adventure somewhere exotic and just get lost in the environment and escape from yourself. I drove to a US Army recruiters office not far from my parents house and walked into the office. Within seconds I realized Id made a huge mistake but decided to proceed. I walk in, me, a skinny little vantz with no muscles and thin arms and an awkward, shy demeanor. Theres five huge muscular intenselooking men and women sitting at desks in army uniforms looking like they wanna murder me. One of them screams sternly. May I help you, son?! I weakly reply, my voice cracking like a 15year-old.

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Y-y-yes, Im interested in j-j-joining the Navy? There is a pause and every single person in the office EXPLODES in laughter from what Ive just uttered! Yes! Imagine that! Me! Mr. Sensitive Intellectual Jewboy who wants to be a famous writer, the Academic type, who cant even stand to work in a low-class job with the common folk, is gonna be the next Military Leader of our time! The Jewish Ulysses S. Grant, instead of a drinking problem itll be an addiction to all types of pig products! Joe Lieberman made the first step as a major Jewish politician now Ill be the first Jew to shoot down an Iraqi first hand without using any Jewish guilt weapons! One of the beefy guys curtly answered my question. Okay, take a seat in the back room! Mr. Russoll be with ya in a second! I promptly walked through the crowd of big people who could easily kill me in one punch and sat in the back room behind a desk. The aforementioned Mr. Russo walked in, he was an intense-looking middle-aged man with no hair and shiny eyes. But he was actually quite amiable. So, tell me, you wanna join the Navy, is that right? Yes, Im interested in serving in the Navy. And whys that? You think you have what it takes to serve Uncle Sam and bring glory to America? Yes, I do. Well, lemme break it down for you how the system works. First; youll have eight weeks of basic training at our boot camp in Ft. Branning, Illinois, about 20 miles north of Chicago on Lake Michigan. Youll be subjected to harsh conditions; youll learn how to shoot machine guns, operate a U-boat, operate under intense pressure; if you survive this basic training youll be graduated and sent off to one of our many naval bases throughout the US and abroad. Would I get shipped to Spain? I dont know. He seemed to be irritated by that irrelevant question. The place is not important, son, whats important is how YOU can serve your fellow man and be a great American! Do you understand me?! Now, from the looks of you youre not in the best of physical shape, but thats okay, eight weeks of the most hardcore and intense physical training of your life is all that is needed to straighten that out and the Navy will make a man out of you! You will probably be entered as a private and will have to perform basic duties such as washing the latrines; you will not be given positions such as musician

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or sound-board operator or entertainer or writer; you have to achieve officers status for that and that takes many years. Is this something you think you can handle? OF COURSE NOT! What the hell was I thinking that I could join the military?! What, Im gonna shoot people?! Im gonna kill innocent human beings? I cant even stick a hook into a fish for bait when out in the lake behind the local supermarket! My mother went berserk that night when I mentioned to her that I might join the Navy, even though my father supported it. You want to let him JOIN THE NAVY?! ARE YOU CRAZY, BARRY?! DAVID IN THE NAVY?! Thats the funniest thing Ive ever heard and Ive heard em all! Itll be a good thing for him! What?! Hell learn discipline, hell learn to be a man! Are you kidding me?! Hell learn death at 22, hell learn having a mental breakdown! Did you forget that not three years ago he was in a psychiatric ward for attempted suicide?! Yes, and this is the best way to snap him out of it, itll force him to grow up and handle stress! Im not letting him go off to join the military! Its OUT OF THE QUESTION! NO! WHY ARE YOU SUCH A CONTROL FREAK?! HELL NEVER LEARN TO MAKE HIS OWN DECISIONS IF YOU KEEP STALLING HIM LIKE THIS! THISD BE A HUGE MISTAKE! Whats he gonna do, man a submarine?! He could barely understand geography! I cant BELIEVE youre even considering something like this, Barry! Are you nuts?! Are you DENSE?! Are you an idiot?! NO! Im just trying to think of options for him! He doesnt have that many! Hes graduating college in one of the worst recessions this countrys had in a long time! So what?! Thats your brilliant solution?! Just send him off to the Navy?! Were in an active war right now, Barry! He could get sent there and DIE! Do you want him to die?! They dont send the Navy guys to Iraq! They get stationed in Hawaii or California! Its practically a free vacation! And how do you know that?! How do you know that, Barry?! You were never in the military! You just went to your stupid

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Grad school to run away from your parents! Five years in the sticks of Texas getting a fucking Ph.D., it was just an escape! And what are you but a LAWYER?! You wouldnt even take the bar here in Ohio and get off your lazy ass and try and really practice! You wanna talk to me like that?! You get out of my house! You dont even pay the bills for it which we can barely afford! I know you take money from my mother every month, dont fucking deny it! And Im not gonna live with the stress of my oldest son off in Iraq getting shot at by terrorists! End of discussion! Youre just a baby, youre a child mentally, itll be great for him! I dont care! Hes not doing it! Hes not doing it! Id rather KILL HIM MYSELF than watch him go off to die! Second choice in my quest for complete freedom; go back to Israel to live. Sure, I almost died and witnessed an attempted murder and got yelled at by drunken Russians while falling off a camel, but maybe a second time around Id really enjoy myself. And I did love Tel Aviv. I made enquiries at the Hillel about how to get into a program. I applied for MASA, an Internet based group that placed young Jewish-Americans with jobs in Israel. There was one tiny problem; the person would still have to shell out about 8,000 dollars to join! I was interviewed over the phone by an Israeli guy, I could barely understand anything he was saying. Hello, zis is Dawid Friedman? Yes? I am Yoni, I chev received ze application for ze MASA Good Earth program. You are interested in vorking viz us? Yes. We chev a program vere you will spend five months on ze kibbutz in Israel and zen 4 months in India, in Kerala vorking wiz ze poor people zere. Ve are villing to accept you. But you vill need to pay for your own round-trip flights, plus your food and expenses vile in Israel and India. I spoke to the local Rabbi at the Hillel, he was from Los Angeles. RABBI: You should do it. Five months in Israel and four months in India seems like an unforgettable life experience for me. So

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what if you need to pay 8,000 dollars for it? Ask your parents to help you out or appeal to the National Jewish Federation for a grant or ask your local synagogue to help give you the money. Or go ask the other Synagogues around town. Oh, sure, Rabbi Hollywood, its so easy to just raise 8,000 dollars for poor Jewish college kid who doesnt want to work at a real job and just wants to fuck around in Israel and India as a way to escape from the pressures of Middle-Class American life! Go back to LA and advise the actors there on the best way to enhance their Botox and their plastic surgery! Go give Angelina and Brad a geht so they can finally put an end to it and she can be alone with her 70 million adopted Cambodian or African children or whatever the fuck nationality they are and he can go back to fucking Jennifer Aniston and enjoy himself! Go back to enhancing the careers of the fat Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen whod neverve made it in Hollywood without being Jews! Youre gonna tell ME to just spend 8,000 dollars on something where you wont make the money back?! Why dont you give me the money then, Mr. Wonderful Sunny California Rabbi who studied at Yeshiva University in the Bronx and decided to settle in flat cold Ohio to further enhance the Judaism of the already so wonderfully assimilated and EDUCATED Jewish students here?! Give me the dough, I could definitely use it, not gonna lie! Cause Im already up to my ass in overwhelming students loans of 15,000 dollars! You gonna cover that, Rabbi?! Rabbis are supposed to help out their fellow congregants but I dont see a big fat check coming from you any time soon, Rabbi Pasadena, Rabbi USC Shmuckface with your sun-glasses and spacey attitude and eternal palm trees and sunshine! Forget Israel! Forget India! Forget Yeshiva in the Bronx! Forget you all, Judaism! Thus.Asia! My third and final decision as to what I would do to completely escape my life in America and in neurotic American Judaism. The idea of going to live in China, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, it suddenly materialized in my mind as the perfect solution to my problem! These places are as far away in geographical distance from the United States as I can imagine and I should just put such distance between myself and my parents! And thisll solve everything! Thisll be the magic ride thatll give me my adventure I want! Id decide to teach English in China, Japan, or South Korea. I didnt have a clue as to what I was doing but as the end of my final year of college approached I realized Id have to ask fast. The Navy was out, Israel and India were out, working at a job at home was a DEATH SENTENCE, Asia was the only logical choice. I wanted to go to the magical play world of

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Disneys Mulan and Dragon Ball Z and Tom Cruises The Last Samurai. Id live in a land of tea ceremonies and docile women in kimonos and white make-up serving me at my every whim, quiet, no conflict or emotion or fighting over the Hannukah candles and how much bread is on the table and having to go to Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur services when you find them boring as hell and have no emotional connection to them! Theres no forcing of stress and Judaism and American business competition on you in Korea, is there, David?! I can just be my own man and be at peace with life and do whatever I WANT! Live life on my own terms without the stigma and strain of being a minority, Ill be a different kind of minority, but to Asians Ill just be another whitie, not anything more! They wont hate me for not believing in Christ because when they see my last name they wont know the difference! The fact that theyre happens to be Swastikas all over Korea is IRRELEVANT! Because Swastikas at one time were a Buddhist symbol of peace before that SHMENDRECK Hitler had to distort everything! I scanned the internet for jobs in the three main oriental nations. Communist China, Technologically Advanced Japan or Korea, a country I knew absolutely nothing about, except Id already had a Korean boss and she was a huge pain in the ass to deal with, so maybe Koread be the last choice. Did I want to be a Sumo wrestler or a Communist? Hm, tough choice to make. The jobs in Japan seemed to pay more but the idea of living in China seemed like much more of a real rugged adventure. China was huge and mysterious; there was so much to see that just a year thered cover only 1 percent of what I could take in. Japan seemed fun though and no-stress. I applied and applied to jobs in those three countries. I got connected to a teaching agency for South Korea and was contacted by an agent. She was a Korean-American from Chicago now living in Ilsan, a satellite city of Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Within a few weeks, to my astonishment, I was hired by a private school or hagwon in Cheongju, the capital city of Chungcheongbukdo, a province in the center of the country, about an hour and a half south of Seoul. I couldnt believe Id actually pulled it off! I got a job on the other side of the world and would get the escape Id been dreaming of since I was 14! And when I read the contract for the school I was even more ecstatic; free apartment! 2,000 dollars a month salary! And the school would PAY FOR ME to fly from America to Korea and back! It would be a year commitment! My head was swimming with ideas from this! All right, so, save 1,000 dollars each month, take trips to Japan, to China, to Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia, enjoy

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life, go to Tokyo, go to Shanghai, go to a geisha, go to a Sumo show, go to an opium den! Who knows who Id meet me? Maybe Id shtupp Lucy Lius distant Korean cousin! This opportunity was tremendous and I couldnt believe my luck in life and how quickly things can turn around. The process to get the visa for Korea was very arduous and irritating to make an understatement. I would have to drive down to my university, get three copies of my transcript, then go to the Diplomas office and get a copy of my diploma. I also had to order a National Background Check, meaning I had to drive downtown to the sheriffs office, give em my fingerprints and pay 60 dollars for a check and wait a week for it to arrive in the mail. Once the check arrived, I had to go downtown again, pay 5 dollars to park in the garage because theres no good public transport in Columbus fucking Ohio! Once I get downtown again I have to go the Secretary of the State of Ohios office and have her apostille the fucking background check! After its apostilled by her I have to go to the courthouse and have a clerk of courts also apostille it! Then I had to go to Dr. Fleibishs office and have a check-up to make sure I wasnt on any type of serious medication or infected with HIV or AIDS or Swine Flu! Then I had to mail all this crap that it took weeks and hundreds of dollars in parking tickets to ATTAIN to my agents office in Korea, so I had to park on the street illegally for a few minutes outside of Kinkos, and some asshole pedestrian yells at me, Hey, buddy, you dont see the sign?! NO PARKING ANY TIME! Hey, shmuckface, Im only going in to mail off something internationally for one fucking second! Get the fuck outta my face and dont bother strangers whore trying to make something out of their empty lives! This is America, the land of the free or the land of the nosy yentes who wanna get strange people they dont know in trouble for no reason?! Anyway, all my paperwork was sent out and I had to wait for the Immigration Office in Korea to approve me to then apply for the Korean visa. After 2 weeks, I had gotten approval and the next step was to send in my passport and visa application form to the Korean consulate in Chicago. It had to be Chicago, not New York, because the state of Ohio falls under Chicagos jurisdiction for American Korean consulates. The consulate REQUIRED that I come in for an IN-PERSON interview! For WHAT?! Why cant I just mail in my documents?! Ive already been approved in your FUCKING COUNTRY! I dont wanna drive six hours to Chicago just to have an interview for something I know is already gonna happen! Im not moving to Chicago, you slant-eyed mongoloids, Im moving to Korea! Get it right!

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Anyways, I called the Korean consulate in Chicago and scheduled an interview. I took a Megabus from downtown Columbus to Chicago and after a difficult six-hour bus ride through Western Ohio and Indiana I finally got off at Jackson Street in the heart of the Loop in Chicago. Id never been to Chicago before and was amazed at what I saw. Chicago had just as much vibrancy and energy and crowds and amazing skyscrapers and oldAmerican Money architecture as New York and I was totally blown away by the music and the winds of human life that surged through this somber Mid-Western hub of economy and business. Chicago I knew was the Home of Second City Comedy and Jazz and Blues and had a very distinct culture separate from New York. I was to meet my Uncle Ira, who worked downtown for the Illinois Court of Appeals. I would stay in his house, which he shared with his partner John, in Northern Chicago on Wolcott Ave. by the Damon El Train stop. I wandered up Michigan Ave. looking for the right street amidst the crowds and crowds of people and it was hot and muggy; Chicago summers and winters for that matter are not for the faint of heart. I finally met up with my Uncle who came out of his law office in his suit and tie and looked strained. My plan was to stay with him for a night, go to my meeting in the morning at the consulate, then take the bus back to Columbus that next afternoon. Uncle Ira treated me to a great meal at a fancy restaurant in the Loop. He got a 24-dollar steak and bought me a 29-dollar filet mignon. So, youre gonna take a lot of money from your parents, right? Why? Just ask them for 5,000 dollars and go travel around China and India and whatever. Thats what Id do. Youre young, just go for it. I wouldnt want to do it. Id feel guilty. Oh, you need to get over that. Life is expensive. If youre parents have money to give you, take it. Dont be proud, being proud just gives you problems. Well, Ill be making plenty of money at the job. Youll never have enough money, David. It costs a lot of money to live. Anyway, hows your sex life? I know you had trouble with girls in the past. If you just get a haircut, work

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out a little, youd be fine. Find a beautiful Jewish girl from a rich family, thatll sort out your money problems. Im not really comfortable talking about that with you. What about you and John? Fuck that. I never see him, hes always travelling with his investment firm. I spend more time with my Hookah than with him. You get high? Oh, yeah, every night, Im stressed out of my mind. What about sex? Doesnt that relieve stress? I just had sex a few weeks ago with some Egyptian guy I met in a bar in Wicker Park. He was cute so why not? Johnny wouldnt care anyway. I was amazed at how nonchalant my Uncle was about sex, money, relationships. We wandered through downtown Chicago, around the loop and towards the Chicago theatre. I was in love with it, it had a certain gritty charm and smooth exterior that made it fascinating to me. And the people in Chicago were still Mid-Western and relatable as opposed to totally neurotic and stressed out of their minds New Yorkers. My Uncle continued to procure advice to me. David, you have to settle for things you dont want in life. When I was your age, I wanted to be a film-maker in San Francisco, but Granny didnt want that. So she made me go to Tulane Law School in New Orleans. And I was bitter. I was miserable. I hated working for law offices and being a clerk. When I was 26, 27, these were some of the most bitter years of my life. But I had to put up with it because you never get what you want in life. But maybe I can. He just scoffed cynically at that while lighting a cigarette as we strolled down grimy Michigan avenue s the sun began to set on that somber and hazy metropolis known as Chi-town. We took a cab back to his charming two-story house on Wolcott Ave. off of North Ave. and Wabanzia. There was a Ukrainian village nearby and a lot of interesting ethnic restaurants to choose from in the area. My Uncle looked tired and as we entered the house he immediately went to the TV. He told me every night he usually went to a play or watched TV by himself. You wanna check the Chicago Tribune and see whats playing? I think theyre doing a production of Chinglish tonight. Wanna see it? Chinglish was a new play by David Henry Hwang, the celebrated Chinese-American writer of M. Butterfly who wrote about Asian-American themes and the clash of East vs. West, Jackie Chan meets Tennessee Williams! We saw the play the

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Chicago Theatre downtown, taking another expensive cab. The cabbie, an Iranian, crashed into another car along the way and shouted out that the guy was fucking asshole! The play turned out to be an ironic foreshadowing for me; about an American businessman from Chicago who goes to China to do business and work with a Chinese form in Guiyang, Guizhou province to improve the English translation on their signs for foreign tourists. Things dont go well and theres constant awkward culture clashes as well as a forbidden Chinese-American romance. The American learns he has no concept of the complexities and corruption of modern China and is totally lost. Would my experience in Korea be exactly the same? Only time would tell. Later that night we returned back to the house on Wolcott, my Uncles partner, John, returned home. He was on business in London. Those stiff British assholes werent impressed by my presentation. It was so stressful, after making the 12 hour flight into Heathrow and then to have these pretentious snobs looking down on you cause youre American. Its like, Hello, Im the one handling your investment money, I can totally give you the wrong advice and fuck up your life completely. I slept in the basement which was nice and cozy with my own TV and entertainment system. The next morning I woke up at 8 oclock. I walked two blocks to the Damon Blue Line El stop and hopped the train up to Jackson Street in downtown. I loved being able to just walk out of the house and on to a means of public transport, it was so efficient, so reliable, so CONVENIENT! Thats what I really wanted in life after all! Convenience! I found my way through the myriad of downtown Chicago and to the Korean consulate, which was on the sixth floor of the NBC studios there. It was a little intimidating and the Korean woman at the front desk was stern. Hi, my name is David Friedman, Im here for an appointment about my work visa. Okay, give passport and application, then sit down and wait! She swiftly grabbed my passport and visa application form and pictures and I sat in the waiting room. I mustve sat there for hours and hours but it was really only twenty minutes. I was very irritated that I had to go through all this just to get a work visa. They must really not want people coming to their country after all if they make you go through a fucking RING OF FIRE to get there!

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Finally I was admitted by a pretty young Korean woman, oh, she was so thin and elegant and lovely and I wanted to just kiss her and fuck her up her yellow asshole and marry her right there! But I had to be a gentleman and restrain myself, I would indulge in this kind of behavior once I got there. I was led into the main office and an older, bald Korean man in glasses was sitting there waiting to interview me. At least he was smiling. So, you are wanting to-uh go to de Korea? Yes. And what is-uh youre uh moti-ba-shee-un? UhI have a job there, Ill be teaching English. Whats my motivation?! What am I, a fucking actor?! Im not going there to blow it up, thats what the Iranians are for, right Aunt Janice?! Im not a North Korean spy! Do I look like a North Korean?! Do they allow nice Jewish boys to be the accountant for Kim Jong Il?! Come on, what is with these ridiculous questions?! Ah, okay, bery good-uh. What shitty? Im sorry? What shitty in a Korea? Oh, Cheongju. Ah, Cheongju. I know this prace-uh. Well, isnt that just wonderful?! Good for you! Im glad you dragged me six hours away from home to Chicago to tell me how much you know about your home beloved country! Can I go home now and get a free pass to the mini bar?! What is your plan af-u-tuh de time in da Korea? Oy, even this Oriental guy has to ask me what Im doing with my life?! I thought at least the ASIANS would be reluctant and not wanna get involved! I dont know, maybe Ill go to Graduate school. Ah, yes, my daughter is in the Graduate School for de-uh chemi-su-tu-ree in New York-uh, the New York-uh University, de uh Ph. D., she is very genius-oo. Oh, isnt that great for your daughter?! Send me her fucking Thesis, Id love to read it, Im sure itll be a New York Times best-seller! Look, Im hungry and tired and wanna eat and get the hell out of here, so unless you got an important question to ask me, Im about ready unleash a Samurai sword upon your bald yellow head! Behold the wrath of

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the angry Millenial Jew as he kills the older Asian guy for asking questions only his SHE-DEVIL OF A MOTHER should unleash upon him! Okay, bery good-uh. That is all. With that he bows and Im released from the consulate. Thats it?! Thats what I came all the way from Columbus to Chicago?! To discuss this shmucks daughters graduate school and him to tell me knows where the city of Cheongju is?! Any idiot can get into the country now! They didnt do a drug test, they didnt to a psychology test, is this how people get into the Army now?! Hey, you might be a Palestinian terrorist or a psychopath or a child-molester or a NECROPHILIAC but well let you into our beloved Korea! No problem! Step right this way, we welcome all levels of psychopaths from killers to frauds to embezzlers to Jewish lawyers because we know every Jewish lawyer is some kind of criminal! As long as you know about my daughter spending five years getting a Ph.D. in New York at NYU in Chemistry and that Im a bald asshole who makes people wait in hunger to hear about it thats all you gotta have to qualify to work in Korea! You can molest as many Korean orphans as you want! No ones willing to adopt them anyway, theyre useless to us and we have nothing else for them to do! Lets go! Times a wasting! Get em before they grow up and it aint no longer CHILD MOLESTATION! Ugh, I was so angry at the situation, that THIS is what I had to go through to reach the point of exuberance and happiness and freedom. Is this what the Buddha had to pass through before he reached Enlightenment? Is this what Moses and the Israelites upon wandering for years in the Sinai Desert had to experience before they got to the Promised Land?! Are the years and years of my life, the suffering, the misery, the depression, the family tragedy, the squabbles, the money, the schooling, the laughing, the crying, plays, friends, movies, cold winters, harsh realities, exams, academic pressures, economic breakdowns, business closing, homes foreclosed, homeless people, early deaths, mental retardation of more than one cousins, difficulties with women, horrible jobs, is it all the test of some sort of deity, whether it be a Buddhist or Jewish or Christian or Muslim or Sikh or whatever the fuck the Roman or Greek God JUPITER is it all a way to lead to some moment of Nirvana and endless suffering? Have I been put on this journey to be brought to Asia and out of the strain and hardship of life as a Westerner and into the peace and contentment of a Buddhist Monk? Am I the next Dalai Lami? Am I the DELI LAMA? THE JEWISH MONK WHO TAKES A VOW OF SAVING MONEY NOT A VOW OF SILENCE?! Am I gonna be the First Frimmie in Asia?! Im gonna make all the Koreans not use chopsticks on the Sabbath and install chopsticks

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as the pointer on the Torah! Im gonna turn those Geishas into Ball-buster, they aint gonna be docile to the rich Japanese businessman, theyre gonna tell them whose boss and shove MatzoFish Balls down their throats with make-up kits! Its time to put some blood and passion into those soulless and quiet East-Asians who seem to take all problems in life with complete PASSIVITY! Its ALARMING and its ENOUGH! Some kid standing at the bus stop on Jackson St. next to me while I wait for the bus is playing with his new Apple I-Phone equipped with every convenience, Wi-Fi access, pictures, cameras, and this kid looks like hes seven-years-old. When I was seven I didnt have the mental aptitude to handle any type of advanced technology. Kids these days, theyre so much smarter than Ill ever be. This kid is with his mother and hes got his head buried in his phone. The mother is screaming at him amidst the chaos. Stevie, the bus is coming! Come on, put your i-Phone away! Shut up, Mommy, Im TWEETING! The voice screeched so loud that it caught my ears in a blaze and I dropped my suitcase and almost fell to the ground. And the mother just passively replies. Okay, darling. What kind of Mother is this? Not a Jewish one! If it was my Mom and I told her to shut up I wouldnt be alive to tell the tale the next day! I took the Megabus back to Columbus, or so I thought. Of course our bus broke down in Indianapolis halfway there and I had to spend three hours waiting at the Indianapolis downtown bus station like an idiot with all the other shmucks on our journey across the Midwest. The black bus driver told us it would only be fifteen minutes but it turned into three hours! We finally got back on the bus and back to Columbus. I was furious at all Id gone through and when my father picked up I was the poster-child for the angry young man. It didnt help that the black bus drivers were screaming at me to find my suitcase which had been buried way in the back of the bus shaft and Id been rummaging through it for ten minutes. Come on, nigga, move! We gots to get bus rolling! We gots other place ta go to, boy! Find yo bag and get da hell on wid it, son! Im looking, I cant see it!

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What it look like? Its black! Dey all black, nigga! Mothafucka, MOVE! Finally I found my bag and moved to the area where my father would pick me up. I was beyond the point of rage and just unleashed my wrath on this poor beleaguered middle-aged New Jersey Semite. I had to wait for hours in that fucking consulate just to be asked IRRELEVANT QUESTIONS! Then they didnt even indicate if Id been ACCEPTED to go to Korea in the first place! Then I come back and the fucking bus breaks down in INDIANAPOLIS and these black guys are shouting in my faces and being totally rude to me! IM SO FUCKING ANGRY I CANT TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE I DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT GOING TO KOREA ANYMORE IF THIS IS WHAT I HAVE TO GO THROUGH TO GET THERE! JUST LET ME FUCKING DIE ON THE STREET NOW! THROW ME OUT OF THE CAR AND PUSH ME INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC AND LET ME GET FUCKING RUN OVER AND BLEED TO DEATH AND JUST PUT EVERYONE OUT OF THEIR FUCKING MISERY ALREADY!!!! A week later my passport was returned to me with my Korean visa stamped and ready to go. Id have a year before the visa expired, from August 2nd, 2010, to August 1st, 2011. Within a few days the school in Korea had booked a flight and paid for me. Id be flying from Columbus to Chicago OHare (oy, Chicago again!) and directly from Chicago to Incheon Airport in Korea on August. I just had to wait out the time before then. The rest of the summer passed quickly. Of course my mother had her usual apprehensions. David, are you sure this is the right thing to do? We looked over the contract and I was concerned. Can you trust these people? You didnt do any research! You dont know who these people are! This is the other side of the world, after all! You dont know whats going to happen to you! I didnt say anything to her but in my mind I had my Gettysburg Address, my Declaration of Independence, my Emancipation Proclomation: TO ALL JEWISH MOTHERS IN AMERICA: Your sons are liberated and free and no longer your slaves wholl have to set up Mah-jongg tiles for you cause theyre going to the land where Mah-jongg came from! Your son is now going to be on the other side of the world and away from your smothering and obesity and turning him into a spineless jellyfish that cant succeed with women or in life because hes so afraid of his big lawyer Mommy who strangles him with her

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over-controlling and her over-bearing and her unwillingness to let him make a decision that the only FOR him to learn to be free is to go somewhere where YOU cant control any of his actions, its IMPOSSIBLE! Ive done it and Im out and the next time you hear from me will be in e-mail form only, youll never have your precious baby boy to coddle again, Im a big man in Asia now, Im a Jew in Korea wholl turn Jewmo wrestling into the next great art form, itll be Woody Allen as a Samurai, Im gonna SLIP MY JEWISH WANG INTO EVERY ASIAN PUSSY I SEE AND YOULL HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT AND THERELL BE NO JEWISH GRANDCHILDREN AND BAR MITZVAHS AT THE COUNTRY CLUB because they DONT HAVE BAR MITZVAHS in KOREA, MA! GET OVER IT, IM OUT, WHATRE YOU GONNA DO, CALL THE NATIONAL GUARD TO CHAIN ME TO THE BEDROOM?! GOODBYE, MA, GOODBYE, PA, GOODBYE, RABBI ASSHOLE, GOODBYE, JUDAISM, GOODBYE, OBAMA, GOODBYE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND 10 PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT AND INCREASING TAXES AND FOUR DOLLARS A GALLON FOR GAS AND BAD PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE AND REVERTING TO SOCIALISM! GOODBYE, MY STRANGLING AND EMPTY LIFE THAT I SO LOVE AND HATE AT THE SAME TIME! ILL SEE YOU IN HELL AFTER IM FINISHED IN ASIA!!!

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PART ELEVEN: THE EXPATRIATE WHOREMONGER Theres a great joke I heard Uncle Junior telling Bobby Baccalieri on The Sopranos: A Chinaman is at the eye doctors. The doctor tells him he has cataracts. The Chinaman goes, I no have a cataract, I have a Rincoln Continenter. Then Bobby doesnt laugh and Junior goes, What, you dont get it? Bobby earnestly replies, Yeah, he drives a Lincoln, so what? This is how I envisioned my time in Korea as I was flying over the Pacific Ocean from Chicago through California and into the Sea of Japan to reach Incheon International Airport. I really thought every Korean person would mix up the ls with the rs, that theyd have no understanding of modern life and be completely ignorant of English, of white people, of anything not having to do with chopsticks, martial arts, Kabuki, Akira Kurosawa, Jet Li, Kim Jong Il, or erotic massages. The 14-hour plane (oy, another 14 hour plane ride like the one to Israel two years ago, I cannot STAND being on a plane for that long! You gotta put up with babies crying and people smelling like the worst imaginable body odor!) However, this plain ride was more pleasant as the Koreans were a lot more quiet and reserved than the Israelis and New Yorkers Id had on the first flight. I felt such a RUSH of liberation on this flight; I had achieved what Id wanted to achieve for years and years; complete freedom, the ability to do anything I wanted in life without ANYONE ELSE telling me what to do, not my parents, not my teachers, rabbis, friends, doctors, presidents. It was terrifying and thrilling and I believed myself to be entering a new optimistic and fruitful and productive phase of my life. This liberation didnt come so easily; outside the gray security gates at Columbus Port International Airport my mother still cried and said, As soon as you get to Korea you email exactly what your apartment is like and who your boss is and make sure to let us know youre alive and not into any

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trouble, you dont know what kind of hatred there is in the world, the badness out there, I dont want you to fall into anything bad there, who knows, maybe drugs or God knows what now give your Mommy a kiss, please. Oy, is this how Marco Polos Mother was when he set off on his 24-year-voyage to Asia? Or Christopher Columbus upon his passage to India through undiscovered America? Or Vasco de Gama or Magellan or the two guys who climbed Mt. Everest? Give me a break, Im a grown man, I can handle the pressure of living in a foreign country and no I will not fall into anything illicit or dangerous (boy, was I wrong about that one.) I had my 350-dollar used laptop propped up on the tray in the airplane seat, and was trying to write a one-act debating farce where a Flaming Gay God has Judaism and Islam work out their issues on stage with everybody, while on a flight to Korea. There was a nice young Korean man, studying in Chicago, sitting next to me. His English name was Tim, I think his Korean name was Chong Dong Eul. I immediately felt sorry for him for having the word Dong in his name. I soon learned that Dong is a common word in Korea, its the word for borough or neighborhood in a city and many Korean men are named Dong. Its very childish of me I guess to laugh at that, but, hey, Im still a 12-year-old boy mentally despite the many years passing. I asked Tim or Dong, whatever you wanna call him, to help teach me some basic phrases of Korean. When I look back now, I was SUCH AN IDIOT SHMUCK MORON PHILISTINE ASSHOLE BUM LOSER! Who goes to live in a foreign country where they dont speak English, but WONT LEARN THE LOCAL LANGUAGE?! SHMUCK! Howre you gonna get around?! Howre you gonna buy food and take the bus and taxis and schmooze the girls and make contacts and live a real productive life?! YOU THINK ALL KOREANS KNOW SIGN LANGUAGE OR YIDDISH?! IDIOT! Shut up, Ghost of my Great-Grandmothers, I know what Im doing, Ill learn as I go! Tim taught me how to say hello, Anyong haseyo, or anyong hashimnikka, which is more formal and polite. He also taught me how to count in Korean, il (1) ee (2) sam (3) sa (4) oh (5) yook (6) chil (7) pal (8) goo (9) and ship (10). Boy, ee, goo, yook, sa, Korean sounds like such a sophisticated and beautiful and romantic language. Like uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez! Dont you love these foreign languages and how wildly different they are from the staid and logical English? I would soon learn that Korean was an IMPOSSIBLE language to understand if you were a native English speaker. Tim told me a little about his life. I study in the University ob-uh Chicago, under-gu-raduat-oo. I am go home for 3

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week, because my gu-rand-u-pat-uh is a sick-oo. He hab the cancer. He may die. I felt a little sadness for this guy, he had to go home to Seoul, where hes from, to take care of his sick grandfather. So he is a human, these Asians arent just robots manufactured in factories throughout China. The fact that he took seven hours to explain to me different things about Korean life and culture was moving to me and made me think Koreans were an extraordinary type of people and culture. The Korean currency is the won, it starts at 1,000 won, 1,000 won = 1 dollar. So in Korea if you make 2,000 dollars a month, you got 2 million won a month, youre a millionaire! Everyones rich in the land of Kimchi and the Morning Calm! Tim told me you must always take your shoes off when entering a Korean home and taught me to read a little bit of Korean symbols. Another idiotic thing, as I learned later that Korean is one of the EASIEST writing systems in the world to learn! Oh, how many times in life do you realize too late what you should have been doing ALL ALONG? Tim taught me how to say What time is it? in Korean, Myot shi imnikka? I decided to test it out and tried asking one of the elegant Korean stewardesses it. Excuse me, uhmyo shi imikka? The ever-polite stewardess just looked at me blankly, having no comprehension of what I was talking about. Im sorry, sir, may I help-ah you? She always had a smile. Yesmyo shi imikka? More blankness and incomprehension! Come on, Im speaking your language, Im blending in like one of the locals, aint I?! So just answer my question and dont delay the awkwardness. Im sorry, sir, Im no understand. Suddenly Tim spoke up for me to explain the misunderstanding as we were at the United Nations, just like with Anya and her Ukrainian non-English speaking parents. Kunun kugotee mu ot en ji shigun ul ara boryago hamnida.(He just wants to know what time it is.) Jangmalyo? Ottokae halsu issumnika? (Really? How do you know?) Ku saram e ge yaegi hago isosoyo. Nanoon kurul hangook kangwae hago issoyo.Kunun meegook iniya. (I was talking to him. Im teaching him Korean, hes American.) The stewardess than seems confused but decides to cover up any form of awkwardness and just glaze it over with politeness to not lose face.

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Oh, okay, it is seven-thirty. You good practice! She then saunters off back up to the pilots area. I can now see how the year in Korea is really gonna be, it aint gonna be adventure, its gonna be never-ending culture shock and language barriers and me as Gulliver among the little yellow people or Vincent LaGuardia Gambini the brash Italian Brooklynite in Hicksville Alabama or a Swedish man in Samoa or I dont know but its not gonna be romance, its gonna be hard, and tough, and a challenge, like of all my life before me and all my life that is ahead of me! I had a smooth and problem-free entrance into the land of South Korea. The Republic of Korea or Dae Han Min Gook is located off the north-eastern border of China and is a peninsula democracy state about the size of New Jersey. It was incomprehensible to me, coming from America, a gigantic country with 50 different states each completely different from the other and with a huge variety of cultures, people, languages, dialects, income disparity, and architectural layout, that Id be living in a country the size of just one of these states and itd be completely 100 percent genetically homogenous, just Koreans, Koreans, Koreans. I was a real pioneer like my ancestors before me, maybe Id open the first synagogue in Korea, instill Passover as a holiday here, instead of eating unleavened bread you just eat uncooked fish, thats all these Koreans and Japanese eat anyway! The major cities in Korea were Seoul, the capital, home to 10 million people and an economic and cultural powerhouse in the world, then there was Busan, a port city of 3 million the city with a lot of international business and Russian prostitution and human sex-trafficking. Daejeon was the 3rd biggest city in the Southwest, Gyungju, in the South East, was the old-city, much like Philadelphia or Boston, with all the ancient Korean temples (although these temples are all over the country). South Korea has a population of 50-million and most live in the cities and hardly any live in the country side anymore. Most Koreans are affluent or middleclass; theres no suburbia, no welfare, no black people, no Hispanics, no street crime as Id see when I got there. The country is technologically as advanced (if not more) than most Western nations. Incheon Airport was sleek and as modern as they come and just like an American airport, the first thing I saw was a KFC, how exotic, what an adventure Im having here. Every Korean I see has an i-Phone or Apple i-Mac with them and their little yellow fingers just keep pounding away on them. The men are all slim, slim, slim wearing tight clothes and looking as effeminate as the stereotype allows. The women are slim too but elegant, a

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lot of them are tall, except for the older ones who are all the short Asian farmer-peasant types you see in all the stereotypes, while the young ladies are the Me So Horny Girl from Full Metal Jacket. I wa met at the airport by my agent; oh my God, despite the supreme beauty of most Asian women, shes hideously ugly, like an Asian pig and short with thick glasses. We made some small talk and she swiftly bought me a bus ticket. Id be going from Incheon to Cheongju, about a three bus ride. I remember when walking around at the crowded bus terminal being a bit overwhelmed at seeing SO MANY Asian people at one time, it was like Id stepped into a Godzilla movie or I had gone to a society where everyone is a clone of everyone else, like some sick version of a George Orwell or Alduous Huxley novel. There was one super-Japanese looking man in a slick three-piece suit and a pony-tail who looked like he could be a Sumo wrestler on a business trip to increase sales in Western countries and appeal to the Disney corporation to make Sumo wrestling more kid-friendly. On the bus it was me, one white Ashkenaz with brown hair and straight eyes, and a bunch of Koreans locked into their technology. It was quiet and pleasant and I slept away the three hours driving through the Korean countryside into Chungcheongbukdo, towards Cheongju. The bus pulled into the city of Cheongju and I had never seen a city layout so unique. Just one high-rise after another, and each high rise has one business stacked on top of another, doctors offices, banks, massage parlors, karaoke rooms, bars, restaurants, shopping malls, just one more and more as if it just went on for millions of years and was a capitalists paradise, this city seemed to have so much more development than anywhere else in the world, I was truly stunned at how so much could be packed into so little. And I thought Korea was a thirdworld country! What an ignorant uneducated spoiled American brat! Read a fucking book sometime you ego-maniac! I got off at the Shinae Bus Terminal in downtown Cheongju with my bags and was immediately stricken with panic and culture shock. I was now standing in the middle of some bus terminal in the middle of South Korea on the other side of the world completely far away from everything Ive ever known. There are thousands upon thousands of Koreans everywhere screaming their heads off in Korean and I have no idea what anyone is saying or what any of the signs mean and Im starting to lose all sense of self-control or self assurance. The bus terminal is full of steamy food shops full of old Korean ladies selling different Korean delicacies and steam-buns and bread-rolls and Kimchi and rice. The scene is hectic and the sounds of so many Koreans

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speaking at once sounds like Farm animals. Yes, this is Animal Farm, this is a George Orwell novel of mono-culture Communist utopia and nightmarish closed-mindedness! What hell am I doing here?! Ive made a huge mistake, I wanna go home, I wanna go back to Judaism and Competitive Capitalism and Ethnic Diversity and Comprehensible Language! Let me go back and not be stuck in this strange land as Moses was a stranger I was wrong I dont want the freedom anymore I want the familiar! A random Korean man saw me and smiled and shouted at me in his native tongue and reached for my bag and my immediate response was hostility and hey GET THE FUCK OUT MY FACE YOU SLANT-EYED GOOK but I tried to hold back any feelings of inherent prejudice in me. I also thought it was hysterical that the word gook, like dong, was another common word in Korean. After thirty minutes of waiting in the manic bus station, a short, middle-aged Korean man came up to me, he was wearing a golf-shirt and looked pleasant. Are you uh-David? Hmlets take a look around here, Mr. Kimusabi, shall we? Do you see any other people in this bus terminal who could in any possibly way look like a descendant of Eastern-European Jews? Do you?! I dont see any! I dont think a Yid couldve pointed through the Holy Scriptures with slanted eyes, he cant see so good to do his studies! You think the one white-skinned person in this entire bus terminal of thousands of screaming people aint gonna be named David?! Yes. Hello, I am Sam. I am director of hagwon. Come, we go to school. Very short and sweet in the Korean style, I feel like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation except Im not an international movie star and not having a sexual liaison with Scarlett Johansson as much as Id like to more than anything in the world! Oh, Scarlett, come rescue me from this Korean nightmare and take me with you to Tokyo to wander through the Karaoke rooms and screw in the Japanese Soap Baths! We drove through the city of Cheongju and once again I was amazed at the amount of business and free practice of industry and commerce and shopping that abounded in a Korean city. It was colorful, on every street there was a barber pole and neon lights and food-stands, vendors, shopping carts, clothes, I had never seen such an amalgamation of people and money and exchanges before, not even in Israel. It really is a dynamic and varied world out there, isnt it? I struggled to come up with

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conversation with this strange Korean man whod be my boss for the next year. This is your hometown? Yes, I from here. We said nothing else for the rest of the ride and I realized Id be having this kind of relationship with my boss for the rest of my time here. Maybe thats a good thing, your boss cant speak to you, he cant ride you and harass you and turn your life into one long endless nightmare of misery and frustration! We parked his Hyundai (what else is a Korean gonna drive but a Hyundai? I guess a Kia? But not a Honda, for we hate those Japanese! They are evil!) in front of our school. The school was in Geum Cheun Dong (Dong again), a neighborhood in the North-east part of Cheongju, far from the downtown area, something I wasnt happy about. But, hey, Im free and its an economically developed country and its interested, so shut your complaintative kvetchy Jew mouth and just be happy with what ya got, you ingrate! Our school, the Boston Hagwon, under the Little Fox corporation, was located on the fourth floor in one of the thousands of high rise buildings that cluster a Korean building. Below it was a piano school and a hair salon and Veterinarians office. So, other countries besides America have doctors and hair salons and businesses and life too? How bout that? I didnt have any clue! We took the sleek elevator into the school on the fifth floor. Upon entering the school I was struck by its cleanliness. I would soon learn cleanliness was of the utmost importance in Korean society. The words Boston Campus sprawled at the front over the desk in Korean and English letters. There was a huge poster of the Boston skyline on the wall also. There was a front desk with clutters of papers and two computers next to it. How advanced, how modern, this countrys got the money, for sure, it aint a third-world-er, I guess Im not gonna have the Peace Corps experience I thought I would. There were nine classrooms in this small private school. I felt some trepidation and nervousness at what I was getting myself into and the somewhat cold environment of Koreans. But, hey, this is my great adventure, Im Huckleberry Finn in the Orient, the Jungle Book passed through the Art of War and The Chosen. The next person I encountered was not a Korean but another whitie. I saw a young white guy with bushy blonde hair in a tshirt with holes in his jeans and looking ratty and hung-over sitting at the front desk. He immediately sprang to life and spoke to me in what I thought was an Oceanic accent.

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Hey, mate, how ye doin? You the new bloke here, are ye? He extended a gregarious hand to me. Yeah, Im so happy to meet another white person, honestly. Oh, yeah, mate, had the same response when I got here first, proper, been here three months, its proper mental but brilliant, wicked, youll adjust, just takes time, man, its a good school ere, mate. You from Australia? No, mate, Im from England! He laughed a little awkwardly. His name was Jack Morrow and he was from Northeast England, Middlsebrough, a city voted on the internet as the Shittiest City in all of the UK. I guess he was happy to be away from home. He was a wild card and a wanna be rock star and fashioned himself the next John Lennon, John Mayer, Russell Brand, and Brad Pitt all in one. He wanted to be a comedian, musician, and male model and male escort all at once. But for some reason here he was teaching English in Korea. We immediately hit it off as two white Western people thrust into a strange and alienating Oriental world which wed never really understand. I met the other co-workers at my school, all Koreans; the boss Sams wife, her English name was Beneditta (like Benediction in Catholicism; as Korea is a newly intensely Christianized countrygrrr.the Christians have to come all the away over here and ruin these peoples culture with their stupidity too?!) She was a short and thin little Asian woman in glasses and intensity and moodiness that was exasperating to deal with during my time there. She was the real boss and wore the Real Kimono in the house. She spoke better English than her husband and I could see she was a shrewd and calculating businesswoman. There was Daniel (all of them have English names and would never reveal their real names because that was top secret-oo or something like that, I guess I was really working for the Korean CIA.) He was 28 and had lived in Australia for ten years and spoke perfect English. A lot of affluent Koreans study English in Australia because its the closest white English-speaking country to them. There was Joanne, another English teacher who I honestly thought looked like an alien with her facial structure. Anna, another teacher, was short and frumpy and would always sit next to me and whine about food and shopping. There were two other male teachers. Ian, a short little guy with a whiny female voice (like a lot of Korean men)

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was married with two kids and I dont think had any personality (well, with Koreans, its hard to tell if any of them have any concept of gregariousness.) Then there was Wayne, he was 34 and I could tell a severely miserable and wounded person. The last woman working there was a secretary, Mrs. Park, a middle-aged woman with glasses who was very nice but didnt speak a word of English except for teacher. Jack and I went the first night into a local bar where hed frequented in the neighborhood. We played pool and drank some beers and listened to Beatles and Led Zeppelin songs. He was manic and I was thrilled at making friends with a strange British guy, Id never had the chance to do something like this at home. Yeah, mate, been ere since June, I was working in a bloody call center back in England, miserable, my Mam threw me out, I was livin in me mates car and was just like fook it all and couldnt be bothered stayin there, so I got this job ere, proper quality, been shaggin bitches left and right, its proper easy to get squiff ere mate, although youre lookin like a fat little Jewboy. Just jokin, mate proper banter. Youre actually quite a decent-lookin chap, got a strong chin, its Russian, innit? So its a good school to work for? We always get paid? I ask as we polish our cue sticks while Stairway to Heaven blares in the background. Yeah, mate, proper. Always got paid, kids are brilliant to work with. Just gotta know how to talk with em, remember, theyre just kids. Dont be a knob about things and youll be fine. The owner of the bar, a short Korean man with a goatee, his English name was Jane, dont ask me why, sat with us. He gave us free meat sticks and drinks and I was overwhelmed by the hospitality! He spoke some English. He asked me what I thought of the meat. It smells a little funny. Like alike ahow you say in Engrish. He then reached for his own crotch and made motions like a vagina. Da woman have. Jack than piped in. You mean goshigi? Goshigis Korean for private parts, mate, Ive had plenty o em since I been here. Ive got a Film and Video Degree from York St. John Uni, Im gonna be a filmmaker, songwriter, do it all, mate. Just gotta save a load o

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quid ere in Korea. Went to Mudfest in Daejeon this summer, proper brilliant. Everything seemed pleasant and set out to be a wonderful experience. But it turned into a nightmare! I discovered that the reason Id been hired was to replace at the last minute a girl already working in my spot and living in my room! She was black from Los Angeles, Raina, and we were forced to share the apartment until she could get another job, as she wasnt working there anymore. She looked worried and explained to me that Koreans didnt like her cause she was black. Im gonna have to get another job, I hated working here, cause I was black all my students wouldnt cooperate and work with me. It was a nightmare. So I was living with a black girl in Korea, this is like Invisible Man and The Teahouse of the August Moon, the farce goes on and on. My apartment they provided was actually quite wonderful. It was three bedrooms, spacious, with the Japanese style door-shades, a kitchen, stove, TV (which I never used) and balcony area. There was no dryer; in Korea and most Asian countries people dont have dryers, you have a washing machine and when youre finished you put your clothes on a line in the good old days. So I was returning to my roots after all, just a little off geographically! I was going back to ancient times but with i-Phones and high rises and whining girls and boys! Ah, the whining! The way Koreans speak I would soon learn was just long whine and whine and bray and complain and kvetch! I thought my people were the masters of wallowing and complaining! No! Every Korean speaks like theyre incredibly irritated all the time and everything is just so terrible! My students in the hallways of the school during the breaks make the entire place sound like one large brothel and theyre all whores faking their big orgasms! At 2 in the morning youre trying to sleep and the Koreans are crowding the streets and whining to each other when theyre probably just saying, Hey, wanna go to a movie??!!!! OKAY!! LETS GO!! ILL SEE YOOOU TOMORROWWWWW! And thats how it goes, foreign cultures, strange people. Working at the Boston Campus turned out to be a complete nightmare and one of my most difficult working experiences. My co-workers completely ignored me and were totally stiff and made the working environment very awkward alienating. What was incredible to me was how they would brush me off while AT WORK but everyone at 9:30 had to leave the school together and walk into the elevator together; if we didnt all take the elevator

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together, say goodbye to everyone together, and walk out together, then youve horribly offended their Korean honor. One time I dared to leave without saying goodbye to every single person who worked and I was bitched out by my boss as being rude. You must say goodbye everyone! Ah, that boss, that Beneditta, the Korean Jewish Mamale Ballbuster of them all! She makes my Bubi and My Own Beloved Mommy Dearest seem like Carol Brady! The complaining to me about everything, your clothes are too wrinkled, all the time wrinkled (of course theyre wrinkled, I gotta wash them without a dryer so when you leave clothes hanging out wet theyre gonna be wrinkled! I dont have an iron! Ill get one!) Nothing was ever clean enough for her! I had to sweep and sweep my classroom for hours every night before I could leave because it was never CLEAN ENOUGH! You must clean up good! It is clean you Korean idiot, wheres the dust? The computer is turned off! Get off my fucking back before I have you deported to North Korea, than youll learn about filth! When I had to correct my students English homework on line, shed complain that I wasnt doing it right, even when I show her infallible evidence, NO! YOU DO IT WRONG! Shed walk into my classes at a moments notice, because my classroom was right across from her front desk where she sat all day watching me like a hawk and a Soviet Spy and if my students were ever too noisy (cause theyre CHILDREN, Children have been known to MAKE NOISE and be ROUDY thats the nature of children), shed barge in like Gestapo and scream, Why you making noise?! Make them be QUIET! Wae gurotkae gun soriro dwaenungoya?! (Why are you screaming?!) Then my bratty students would scream back while Im struggling to control all the insanity, Nan David-kyosa shiro! Nemsae! Nanoon jalsaengin waegookin kyosarul wonhanda! (I dont like David teacher! He smells! I want a handsome foreign teacher!) Those students! Those whiny, bratty, one-child, technologically over-ridden Korean shits that I grew to despise! They all hated me, I smelled, I was ugly, I was dirty, I couldnt touch one of their textbooks without them screaming in my face and weeping and then me having to scream at the top of my lungs to get them to just SHUT THE FUCK UP AND DO YOUR WORK! All I wanted to do was read through the Textbook lesson for the day and do the activities and they couldnt just calm down with their prejudices and tell me to Go back America! America bad! or You should die! You die! I hate you! My father is President of Samsung! Your father is loser on the street, he is poor Filipino who live in box, you poor, you dirty! No, youre dirty, youre polluted, you cant even insult me in English well you spoiled Asian brats with your super-advanced country and

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technology whatta you know about SUFFERING? NOTHING! IVE LIVED,BABY, IVE SEEN IT ALL! God, it was so maddening as the months past and my students had their stonewall of racism and pure fear and shyness and endless monotony, and repetitiveness against me! It was grueling to spend hour after hour dealing with these mindless Asian kids and their xenophobia day in and day out! The burden that fell upon me as a ENGLISH EDUCATOR! Wait, did I say educator?! More like a clown! An entertainer! I was there to be a comedian, its the Catskills in Korea, its the Laugh Factory, I was the funny white person that well make fun of for his idiocy! But, but, let me humanize them, there were a few students that I adored and found to be wonderful people that I grew attached to. There was Jack and Dina, two kids whose father ran a small chicken shack near the school that I used to eat an 8 dollar chicken dish at all the time, it was the most delicious barbecue chicken Id ever had, much better than in Memphis or New Orleans. Their father was a very nice balding Korean man who didnt speak a lick of English, well, just like most Koreans there. There was Judy, a fun-loving nine-year-old Korean girl with dark-skin who would be a great beauty when she grew up, she always wanted to play practical jokes with me but would then burst into tears when I needed to get down to serious work. There was David, a teenager who was very curious about America and would always ask me questions. David teacher, do you like pushee? Do I like what?! Pushee? Why would you ask me that?! That very inappropriate! President Pushee? You mean George Bush? Yes-uh. OF COURSE NOT! Luckily, Korea is a country of a thousand endless pastimes and pleasures to relieve the stress; for Koreans work hard and long hours, its normal for an average Korean to stay at work for 12 hours a day, and when those 12 hours are over, you go to a bar and drink yourself silly than to a Karaoke room norebang in Korean and sing a Korean K-Pop tune, ughK-Pop is terrible! They consider this drek music?! Whats wrong with them?! Its just

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pre-pubescent boys whining like women about love! Its worse than any of that American boy-band crap! I tried to immerse myself in the social expatriate world of Cheongju. Most of the expat bars were located in the Choongdae Joong Moon district of the city. Jack, the manic Brit, introduced me to many other English teachers. Lots of Brits, Irish, Canadians, some South Africans, and some Americans. Most were in their 20s and 30s, people just off of graduate school or going through quarter-life crises or people who just didnt know what to do in life so theyre in hiding from the real world here in this fantasy life of free rent and easy money. It was a pure escape into fantasy, drunken revelry, music, idiocy, I was a child again, I was lost in a haze of sexual confusion and darkness, and drunkenness, whatever could take my focus off the current reality. I loved that area of Cheongju in Choongdae, at night it was trash and filth and exotic marketplaces, colors, music blaring from boomboxes on every street. One of my happiest memories is trying some meat from a stand served by a smiling older woman. When I tasted the meat, it was so fucking spicy that I immediately spit it out all over the place and onto the womans laughing face. I laughed with her at the recognition of a new happy phase of idiocy and adventure in my life. Some of the notable other expatriates I met in my time were Kendra and Natasha, two British girls from London, Kendra was a doll from Leicester originally and I really thought she was a lovely girl that impeccable posh British accent. Natasha was a real cunt bitch from South London who didnt like me because I was American and all American are stupid and ignorant and etc. fuck her, yeah, go back to London, go back to your fish and chips and trolleys and bad teeth and rain and misery! Gahead, who NEEDS YOU?! There was Tanu, a Nigerian girl also from London who was so beautiful that I couldnt contain myself from wanting to just rape her and be the slave-master enjoying the fruits of his African hunt. There was Ronald, a short, bullish South African guy from Port Elizabeth on the Eastern Cape. He was in his early thirties and had been a car salesman before coming to Korea four years earlier. I could sense he was someone who was a mess in life and he got drunk all the time and was flailing and wild, but also one of the kindest souls out there. Then there were the two black guys from New York, Adonis and Tyrone, not making them up. They were from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn. Adonis had a math education degree from Queens College and told me about his porn preferences, I like to watch Asian girls getting fucked in the toilet by black dicks. You can get websites for

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that. Its pretty easy to find. There was Gina, a short, bigbreasted blonde girl from Yorkshire with horrible teeth but a charming Yorkshire accent that I loved. Shed say things like, Me teeth are frozen or Y awright, innit? Jus a poor lad with no blud, I know yer ungry. It took many moments of repetition to understand what the HELL SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT! There was Alan from Liverpool who had a real scouse accent and loved to break my balls about being American, Yer a real American coont, aint ye? Ive been to America and its all a load abollocks! He would spit a lot, I guess its a Liverpoolian thing. There was Rori from Belfast in Northern Ireland. His speech was completely incomprehensible to me, I just been jambin wit me Mam in me parla per diem fer de logs in da forrest! How the hell did this mumbling Irishman speaking in GAELIC get a job TEACHING ENGLISH in Korea?! Dont they want somebody, who, I dont know, can SPEAK ENGLISH?! MAYBE?! I DONT KNOW, THAT MIGHT BE A QUALIFICATION FOR BEING AN ENGLISH TEACHER, YOU GOTTA KNOW THE LANGUAGE, RIGHT?! The Halloween party on October 30th, my 22nd birthday, was so joyous and Id say one of the happiest nights of my life. All the English teachers in town gathered at MJs, the favorite foreign haunt in the Choongdae area. Everyone was exuberant, there was a live band playing with a black guy, Norbert, also from New York, who had achieved a professorship at a Korean university. All was jolly and merry and the music and good feelings and vibes was overwhelming. When some other Canadians learned it was my birthday they HOISTED ME UP on the pool table and had a special dance for me! I felt such exuberance and as if all the pain and loneliness and sorrow of my past with depression and suicide was coming to an end and life was now a joyful party of love and serenity and friendship and pure ecstasy! I tried making moves on a British girl dressed as a sexy nun with her two large melons protruding out of the habit. I think you need work on your dance moves before Id do anything with you. Damn, struck out, but thats okay because if at first you dont succeedyoull never succeed, damn it! I spent the early hours in the morning after the morning chatting up an Irish girl, Ruth, who had been in Korea for the second time after coming back again from an economically collapsing Ireland. It grows on you, I luv it, at first I tought it was all disgustin and off-puttin, but Koreans are all loverly people, aint dey? And Irelands fooked, its finished, its in da ground. We played baseball in the 2 dollar batting cages in the freezing cold weather and Id found the kind of companionship and acceptance that I couldnt get in America because of all the stress and competitiveness of my life

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back in that overwhelming democracy of freedom and individuality. SEOUL My first trip into Seoul from Cheongju was exciting and I felt like I was really seeing the world or somewhere truly exotic, just like when I was in Israel. I had a five-day holiday in September for Chuseok, or Korean thanksgiving. All the other expats were going to Japan or Thailand, but I wanted to see Seoul and spend five days and take in all I could of the megacity. Seoul was the second most densely populated city in the world after Tokyo (just a stones throw away), so it had to be worth seeing. The pictures showed a lot skyscrapers and people and traffic and noise, I love big cities and the energy and excitement of them all, you really feel like youre a part of a community of man when youre walking the hectic streets of New York or Chicago or London or Paris or Tokyo or Seoul; theres nothing that revitalizes the spirit like taking in the glow and energy of a big city first hand. I pity small-town folks who dont understand this kind of thinking or are able to grasp this experience. I took a 2-hour bus from Cheongju Shinae Express Terminal in Seoul Gangnam (downtown) Express Terminal with Shaina, another black girl from the Bronx but who went to college in Arizona, she was also a writer. Two blacks girls named Raina and Shaina, Charles Dickens couldnt make this up. At the bus terminal Shaina complained to me about how blacks are treated here. Its like, yeah, I got dark skin, whatre you gonna do about it? I aint gonna hurt you, Im shorter than all of you! And, yes, I can speak English cause Im black, I aint an African savage, Im from South Bronx! Getting off at the Gangnam was thrilling and I was overwhelmed by the huge terminal that was a transport hub for subways and busses in the Seoul metropolitan area, stretching from Busan, Suwon, Incheon, Ansan, Goyang, Ilsan, and other satellite cities on the Seoul subway line. Walking through the sprawling terminal was like being thrust into another planet; the noise and confusion with millions of hurrying Koreans scurrying past me while whining in that peculiarly Korean way into their phones and all looking immaculately neat and clean. There are hundreds of stands selling everything from phones and make-up and Korean pancakes and glasses and jewelry and the old Korean ajumas scream, Yogiso! Pal chon on! ogiso nun dae!!! (Here, here, its only 8,000 won!) It was an arduous journey through all the noise and bustle of the terminal to reach the

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subway to take to my subway stop. Standing at the platform for the orange line 3, I was looking at the map on the wall to find the ChungJungNo stop where my hostel was. A random young short Korean woman with a big smile approached me, speaking in perfect English. Excuse me, can I help you? Yes, Im looking for the ChungJungNo stop. You just take the Line 3, transfer at Shilim to Line 4, and ChungJungNo is five stops. Thanks. Unbelievable, in a manic, crowded big city like this, like New York, where everyone is rushed and pushy and obsessed with their jobs and their money and their appointments, this one woman takes time out to help out a visitor! My faith in humanity is restored, for the time being, I begin to see the light and realize its not such a cold, bad world out there, that life is more complex than this! The subway in Seoul is fascinating and mysterious; jampacked with Koreans who stand perfectly still like ornaments and statues; they dare not making noise on the subway, thats a violation of Korean etiquette and a huge sign of rudeness; everyone is stiff and emotionless, the motion of the subway car swaying to the speed of life and time. The only noise are the Korean salesman who meander through the subway cars and try to sell their CDs, Brittany pears-oo imnida! Brittany Spears-oo! Ship-oh man on imnida! (Brittany Spears! 15,000 won!) The Koreans on the subway are all round-faced and pudgy and slanteyed, of course, some are shrunken old men and women in visor and pink jump-suits, other are Yuppies in their 30s and 20s with their business suits and serious demeanors. Some are high school students in private school uniforms giggling in their iPhones to Justin Beiber. Some are beautiful city girls with knock-out legs making me think of the most perverted things I could do to them in mind, everything from blowjobs to rim jobs to the Dirty Sanchez and Reverse Cowgirl! Come on, be a Korean cowgirl wholl ride her white conqueror and make him the most satisfied Western man to ever set foot on Eastern Soil! I get off at the Chungjungno stop with my suitcase, and walk up the clattering stairs towards the outside streets. Of course its pouring torrentially in a sweeping rainstorm and remains that way for an hour, so I spend an hour literally waiting on the stairway for the rain to clear while every Korean person whizzing by me stares at me in confusion as if to say, Whatre you, a fucking cat?! Just GO! Finally the rain passed

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and I was on a major street in central Seoul. The traffic was manic and the horn-honking was relentless; although not nearly to the extreme it would be in China. The sheer amount of Koreans on the street and the K-Pop blaring everywhere was of course overwhelming. Theres something mysterious and fascinating about Seoul; its a major city but at the same time it can be quiet and mellow and staid, just like the Korean personality. But Seoul is anything if not unique; after checking into my hostel I spent the rest of the day exploring the city and being enchanting; the Jong-no downtown district is financial and full of bustle and neon lights, barber poles, mystery on every corner, I went to the Gyungbokgung palace in the Jongno Sam Ga district, its the Imperial Palace of Ancient Korea now restored for tourism. This is where the King and Queen of Korea would fuck each other and complain about kimchi and shopping back in the old days. The Insa-dong market place outside of Gyungbokgung is exotic and mind-baffling; small mazes of side-streets with quaint shops and unique brown architecture surrounding by a dynamic major street of Starbucks and always bands playing live music on the streets of Korean traditional music while circles of people stand around applauding. This is the Orient, this is mystery, and endless fascination. The restaurants at night in Seoul get so crowded and filled with screaming Koreans that your sanity is pretty much beyond any hope of being retained. I tried eating in a chicken and beer joint in North East Seoul. I think a 1,000 man factory in New Jersey was quieter. Hundreds of Koreans drunk on Soju and Mekju and other Korean beers screaming their lungs out as if it was the last day theyd ever live. The older woman at the front running the restaurant was trying to take my order but was having hard time controlling herself. ME: Yes, I want half chicken meal. KOREAN WOMAN: What?! Hap-u?! ME: YES! HALF! KOREAN WOMAN: OKAY! HAP-U! YOU SIT! She manically tries to serve my meal while old Korean men on all side of me are SCREAMING at their families as if theyve all done something horribly wrong. What did they do? I dont know, I guess they were born, thats enough to merit punishment these days I guess. THE WHORES

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I hopped the subway up Line 6 from North east Soeul to Yongsan by the Yongsan Military Base, where theres a large American military presence due to the still on-going though nonviolent war between the North and South. Maybe America and Korea are interlocked into similar history and circumstance; both are countries that have been through civil wars and reconstruction and re-development and rapid and overwhelming technological advancement. I got off at the Itaewon stop. This was markedly different than the rest of Seoul. Itaewon is the International District of Seoul, where any and all foreign cultures converge. Walking around Itaewon at night was like being in a swirl of Twilight Zone episodes and an acid trip and Peter Sellers movie. There was an Egyptian eatery next to an Ethiopian bar next to a Russian club next to a Turkish place next to a Japanese sushi joint next to a Thai massage next to an All-American diner next to an Irish pub and yadda yadda yadda. Its an overwhelming assault to the senses, Itaewon, as the drunken revelers from all over the globe converge in an insane swirl of alcohol and sex and drugs. I wander around aimlessly in alienation from the noise and the smell of the garbage and the odor of pure sweat and sex. I sat down on a bustling side street with dozens of old ladies selling their Korean meat stewed in pots right outside where you can sit on benches and chat with your fellow eaters and people watch and relax and just enjoy life. There were four other white guys. They were all American and were describing living in Daejeon and that they were on vacation. One of the older American man laughingly said to me, You gone to a whore here yet? Me? No. A whore? Me? Of course not! That is the most disgusting, degrading thing a person could do! I was raised by Rabbis and Jewish parents to never divulge into any kind of sin such as drinking or prostitution or illicit fornication, its not Kosher, its not right! Why would you even bring that up? Are you crazy? Are you a drunken MANIAC?! Well, you walk up that hill two blocks behind you, you got your pick of the best of the best. Of course its pricey, at least 200,000 won. You want cheaper but still good quality, go to Yongsan or Cheongyangni, you get pussy for maybe 100,000 won or less if you negotiate well. I was stunned by this information and my curiosity was of course peaked. Could I really do it? Enter a seedy underworld of prostitution? Degrade my body and my soul by participating in the worlds oldest profession? It was all so intriguing, its an adventure, Im in a

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foreign country, why not try it? Its the allure of the Asian concubine, its special, this isnt a crack-ho on the street suck yo dick for five dolla! This is an elegant Korean mistress wholl treat you well and make you feel happy and powerful and alive! Im gonna do it, why not?! You only live once, so live big and bold! I wandered up the hill the older man pointed. Every bar on the hill had suggestive names like, Candy, Happy Days, Tiffanys, and Sex Club, these are very subtle and Im sure elude the police (because prostitution is illegal in this country.) I meander through the hill and look into each bar. Its quiet and I see nothing and disappointed. Where are these mysterious Asian ladies of the night he was talking about?! What are they on a dinner break, are they playing mah-jongg and kvetching about work?! Oy, this ones penis is too big, this one wouldnt pay enough, this one was beating me, I cant get good clients, Im giving up the business and being a dry cleaner like all the other Koreans! Suddenly I see a soft and supple and beautiful young Korean woman sitting in a pink-bathed bar on the hill. She quietly motions me to come in. You. Come in here, please. Its so enticing and mysterious and my heart is racing a mile a minute. Theres this luscious long-haired beauty and then two other young Korean girls. I stand in the front room with a TV awkwardly wondering where to begin. Hey, baby, wanna have good time? I almost lurch with laughter at this stereotype being thrust into my face but I proceed. What kind of good time? You come back room, we discuss. So the first girl and I depart into the backroom hidden behind a curtain. What am I doing?! Maybe theres a Korean gangster hiding back there waiting to kill me with a Tae-Kwon-Do deadly stroke! Dont go! But she opens the curtain and we are the two of us alone and theres no one else around except for the exotic pink lights and sounds of the two girls in front laughing about me and how nervous I am. I am a virgin after all. The girl sits on the couch with me and begins to caress my crotch and speaks seductively, You want sex? Huh? Im so contemplative but Ive gone this far in my quest and Im 21 and its time to become a real Jewish man by losing my virginity to a Korean prostitute. Yes, yes, I do.

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Oh, you have strong voice, its good. Whatre we talking about my voice for?! Name the price, I pay, lets get this rite of passage for every American male over with before I lose my nerve you stupid businesswoman! Its 200,000, okay? 200,000 won? 200 dollars?! That aint cheap, but then it aint that expensive either. And shes gorgeous and a fantasy and Ive got the money. Suddenly one of the other girls comes in the room and the first girl tries to entice me. 50,000 more and you and me and Lucy? We have a fun? The two girls are trying to surround but I have to stand my ground. No, just you. But we have fun, three of us. No, just you! This puts a damper on the mood and the second girl, Lucy, apparently, with hurt feelings, go back to the front of the room. The first girl tries to recompose her hostess mentality. Okay, baby, but I need 30,000 more won. You know, to pay for house. Fine, whatever, Im dishing out the dough, you Korean hoor, take your 230,000 and lets get this over with! Its all about money, isnt it?! I hand her the money and she goes into the front to supposedly deposit the cash. It takes a few minutes and Im left in the back thinking what an idiot I am for getting myself in this situation. I peek into the front to see whats going on. The girl is indeed putting the money and when she sees me checking up on her in nervousness she and the other two girls laugh, Oh, you funny boy! The girl returns to the backroom and takes off her clothes. I nervously, shaking to the bottom of my core remove my clothes too. I dont know why Im so nervous, maybe because Im in a foreign country doing something illegally and losing my virginity and alone naked with a beautiful girl, something I dont have much experience with. The sees me shaking and gives me a boastful hug. Oh, baby, why you nervous? Its okay. Shes consoling me and kisses me on the mouth and I enjoy the kiss; even though shes a whore and that mouths been on countless other cocks before me. But the girl is gentle and soft and soothing and Im buying into the fantasy. Lie down, baby. I lie down on the couch and she produces a condom from the drawer. Im so nervous that I cant maintain my erection. Come on, its been so easy in the past to just spring to life and make my shlong hard as a rock! Whatre you doing, boy, get up and make yourself known to the lovely lady! The girls a little impatient

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with my inability to get a real hard-on. You okay, baby? Just relax. Im sorry, Im nn-n-nervous, Ive never done this bbefore, and youre so b-beautiful. She laughs with glee. Oh, thank you, baby, you is handsome. She then proceeds to suck on my flaccid member. Her tongue is moving in exactly the right motion to stimulate the penis shaft and its working. Its sensual and slow and she makes gentle moaning sounds to go along with it. Shes a professional. This starts to make the little Friedman jump to life and Im finally able to get something out of the jelly fish zone. She straps the small and tight condom on. Its too tight, its choking my cock. The condoms too tight, its too small. No problem, baby. She proceeds to straddle herself on top of me and grabs hold of my shaft and sticks it in her soft Korean vagina. Oh, its such a warm, wonderful place and this is the first time Ive ever had the sensation of being inside a young womans wet pussy like this. Its so erotic and wild and I cant believe how life has driven me to this exact moment where Im lying with a whore in the middle of Seoul, South Korea, riding on my cock. I wonder if my great-grandparents in Poland would ever have predicted this. What am I thinking of those people when Im having sex? Idiot! You wanna lose your hardearned stiffie?! The girl moans and lets me suck on her soft pink nipples and French kiss a little bit. Her breath was sweet and smelled like green mint. She was a fantasy come to reality and I couldnt believe the luck I had in life. Honestly, it was my first time and I didnt last very long, being completely overwhelmed by all of it. All of her purring and the nipple sucking and the tight squeeze of small vagina got my explosion of sperm out pretty quickly. She let me lie there prostate postcoitus after I came and giggled that I did a good job. I guess, it was only about 3 minutes, baby, if I wasnt so nervous in this situation we could go on for maybe 30 minutes at most. You aint seen nothin yet, Swanee! We got dressed and said our goodbyes. Baby, you come back again, maybe I can have your phone number? Give a prostitute my phone number? What? She wants to be friends? She wants to form a relationship with me? Why the hell does she give a shit about me? SHES A HOOR and Im just another john givin her a score.

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I dont think so. The girl then got very upset and start screaming at me uncontrollably. I was shocked at the abrupt mood swing. Fine! You get out! Dont come back, you no want my number! You go now! Jesus, all right, Im sorry that I dont want to form an emotional attachment to a prostitute! I thought youd be tougher, the business youre in! I walked away having lost my virginity, it took eight years after my Bar Mitzvah to REALLY become a man and know a womans body, her vagina, her warmth, her breath, her tits, the joys of pleasure and sex and wild eroticism. I strolled back to the subway feeling guilty and full of shame. As I was on the subway I felt as if everyone knew what Id done. YOU! JEWBOY IN KOREA WENT TO A WHORE STUCK HIS CIRCUMCISED KOSHER PUTZ IN A YELLOW HOLE YOU TRYING TO EMULATE WOODY ALLEN OR SOMETHING? MARRY ONE OF EM THEN! The guilt started to pile up and I became overwhelmed and collapsed on the floor on the Seoul Station, the millions of Koreans whirring past me and occasionally staring at me with confusion as I was writhing on the floor feeling as if I would throw up. The next day I woke up in my hostel revitalized and no longer filled with shame; I felt like I had a purpose; I would use these whores in Korea to have my sexual experiences, make myself better at sex than I could ever imagine Id be. I had plenty of money from my pain-in-the-ass job to just throw away on them and they were beautiful and it was safe and it was enjoyable and I wanted sex. I wanted so much, there was so much desire just sprung from my loins from all the years of watching Beyonce and Megan Fox and Elizabeth Hurley and just the hundreds of beautiful women youre exposed to as an American boy growing up in this day and age! In the day I explored the two other red-light districts of Seoul; Yongsan and Cheongyangni. First Yongsan. The blue line 2 goes to the Yongsan and Shinyongsan stops in central Seoul, not too far from Itaewon. I get off at the huge and mostly high-tech Yongsan station, which has one of the largest electronics department stores in the world inside its mall. But I wasnt focused on that; I wanted sex, sex, sex, I was a hunter, like poachers in Africa, I was lapping up all the Korean cunt I could find to discover how far I could go in my sexuality before Id exhausted the drain of cock and pipe.

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Walking along the manic streets outside the Yongsan station, I stumble to find my composure and the red-light district; I knew it was around here somewhere in the side streets. To my surprise I saw a short, fat white guy in a University of Texas sweatshirt standing at the crowded intersection. I stared at him in confusion. He looked back, What the fuck you lookin at, Hot Shot?! I wandered two blocks past the streets filled with traditional colorful sit-down Korean restaurants where everyone takes off their shoes, sits on the floor and cooks the meat together in the stove at the center. Its a very group based society. Anyway, after two blocks I stumble onto what is for sure the Yongsan red light district. Its a street filled with pink neon windows with beautiful Korean women dressed like Arabian princess with white and satin smocks standing there at attention waiting for their customers. I move through in total wonder; Id never seen a place like this before, this is Sexual Disney Land revisited, this is Caligulas house, this is complete perversion; these women are just standing there waiting for any man to come along. I pass by several beauties at their windows, they are all texting on their phones or look distracted. One girl completely brushes me off! Brushes me off! What, Im not good enough for you, you whore?! You harlot! You common tramp! You slut! But I see youre taking the geriatric Korean man on a stretcher, Im sure hell prove a better lover than me anytime! Yeah, thats right, be a respectful Confucian and fuck the old man because hes the highest in the chain of society! Ill just take my sexual longings elsewhere and youll just lose profit for your business you slanty racist cunt! Get some business sense and become multicultural! My ranting is cut short by a very busty and stout older whore, maybe her late 30s, but definitely making me bulge in my pants, calling out to me. You want sex? Come on. Okay, time for round two, I had sex last night, it wasnt so great, but this time Im gonna prove myself. We go inside the window where she draws the curtains and were in a pink-lighted room just like last night. This woman is not as cordial as the first girl. Shes very uptight and rushed. Come on, pay money, take cloth off, come on! Okay! How much? 90,000, come on! WHY YOU WAITING?! Maybe I should get the fuck out of here but Im in too deep now in my quest. I hand over the moolah and my clothes come off faster than the stock market crashed in 2008. The woman just lies on the bed on her back with her legs open ready for me. I ask her, Can we do you on top? Or maybe doggy? WHAT?! You know, I no like me on top. JUST DO IT, LETS GO, IM BUSY! Im at a loss; I know if Im on top I cum too fast and

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thats the last thing; I want to be long-lasting and really enjoy it and have a real intense build up to a seismic orgasm. But this old lady aint havin it. YOU SEX NOW, COME ON! She was angry Im sure. But her tits were stupendous and her arms were big and fleshy and I was definitely not feeling limp or impotent. So the condom came on and I stuck it in her while she lay there and began to scream to my annoyance. AH! APA! APA! I dont know what shes saying (I later found that means it hurts). Her screaming is so rough and her vaginas even tighter than the last girl that I cant control myself and within seconds have erupted inside her. She pushes off of her in disgust. You go! Ugh! YOU NO GENTLEMAN! Hey, you shouldnt have been screaming at me like that, whats a guy gonna do? I tried to ask her for a re-try. I pay more, one more time? NO! YOU FINISH! YOU GO! But I wasnt finished, not nearly in the slightest and I still wanted to really ravage one of these working girls and enjoy and have a fulfilling experience. So I sauntered down further to the B rows of the district and within minutes another short, roundish Korean woman with sizeable breasts who was willing to take for only 70,000 won! A real bargain, Ladies and Gents. And with this one we went through the same routine, the pink room, the undersized condom on, first three minutes of a blowjob. Then the rest was fantastic. I had achieved what I wanted, complete domination over a woman in sex. We did every position and I was able to last and last and I made this woman scream. I sat on the bed with her sitting on top of me with her legs wrapped around me and pumped it into her as she screamed with pleasure and seemed to be genuinely reaching a climax. I picked her up off her bed and was fucking her standing up (she was little enough for that). She had a mirror on the left side of the room and I watched her face as she was struggling to handle my youthful energy and forcefulness and overpowering strength to her little frame. It was great to see someone being so wrecked, so dominated by me, Id never wielded power like this before in my life. We then went back to being on the bed and her on top and moaning. I was actually having TROUBLE reaching orgasm when usually it comes in the blink of an eye! Ten minutes in and the white boys in the scrotum sac are still waiting to launch! This is great! Im the Energizer Bunny or Whoremongers! The poor girl is getting tired and anxious, You finish yet? Oh yes I am ready to have my finale and we returned to Missionary where I thoroughly let loose and pumped her as hard and fast as humanly possible to achieve my cosmic ejaculation; and cosmic it was as she bellowed like a Chinese banshee and was almost overwhelmed by the intensity of how fast

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I was stroking my cock into her; and most intense build up and release of experienced throughout all the years masturbation and lied, spent, in the room. She then swiftly kicked me out client.

finally I had reached the my semen Id ever of wet dreams and womans arms in the pink to get ready for the next

O I am Captain America and Captain Israel just conquering these Korean ladies and coming in their asses as Im paying out my own to enjoy it! But Im loving the ride! Every minute of it! I feel the real liberation that had only been hinted at up until now! Theres nothing like sexual satisfaction, the feeling that youve had a great fuck that cant be mastered until next time when you do it again and again and again and again. And that I did. I took the subway up the Cheongyangni station in a poorer area of North-east Seoul. Walking out of the subway station I was a little scared; there were a lot of weird-looking Korean beggars and people that seemed down on their luck. But there was an overwhelming amount of fruit sellers and watch sellers on the hectic huge busy street right before the district. The Cheongyangni Red light district was located behind the Lotte Store. It was much larger and more sprawling than the Yongsan was and it was almost like a maze; I thought Id get lost, I need a tour guide to find me whores. Please, can I get a Lonely Planets or Frommers Guide here? It was the epitome of exotic; the rich pink windows like the other one, but it was grimy and dirty with open sewers and filthy water leaking everywhere. Old Korean men lurched around the windows as the young Korean whores called out, Oppa! Oppa! Maybe I shouldnt fuck one of them here; Ive already had two today and should save my energy (and money) for the future. I am approached immediately by an old woman who is practically dragging at me, if shes a whore, I aint buying! You, come, come, Russia girl, Russia girl, 50,000, okay?! Shes saying shes got a trafficked Russian woman in her window. Out of complete morbid curiosity I wander in; Im in the Heart of Darkness here, this is what Joseph Conrad was really hinting at. We enter the room and its a girl who looks like shes 14 or 15; shes crying and has bruises on her arms; and I am immediately stricken with horror and grief. The old woman is pushing me, You buy, come on! Shes good! Russia girl! Russia girl! GET OFF OF ME, YOU OLD HAG, I AINT A CHILD MOLESTER! And I bolt out of that red light district in shame; of course it would not be the last time Id frequent that establishment.

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That night I withdrew 700,000 won from my bank account and went wild with the whores; I must have gone to five or six prostitutes in a row but it all went by in a haze that I cant remember really whose hole was getting and whose hole wasnt. I was back in Itaewon, I was curious as to what other merchandise was out there. It was an insatiable spiritual quest to taste as much of womens beauty and sensuality as I could muster. The first (well, I guess technically its the third of the day but the first of the night) is a woman straight out of my fantasies; this is the mother-load of them all, the perfectlooking woman; she was tall, beautiful Korean face with the slanted eyes and the exotic beauty but with huge natural tits, a great voluptuous figure, I couldnt believe such an Asian woman existed. And here she was all for my enjoyment! I went up to her and immediately walked into her bar Happy Days. We sat in another smoky back room where she lit a cigarette and was stroking my more than hard dick. Okay, baby, you want me? Oh, yes. 150,000. 150,000! Thats the 50,000 than the other girl and shes a million times more attractive! Ive hit the jackpot and Im going to have the most thrilling sex of all with the young beautiful Korean with the body of an African queen. My heart is pounding as I hand the money to the Mamasan at the front and this girl escorts me to her apartment in the back; its seedy and dirty too but Im so focused on the girls thick, luscious ass, strong legs, huge tits, pert lips and general dream-like fantasy body that Im about to enjoy. All the years of struggle in my life have paid off to this moment and Im reaping the rewards by reaping her! It was the best sex Ive ever had in my life (and Id only had it three times up to then.) We started off with five minutes of sensual foreplay where she let me just kiss her and fondle her breasts and ass and legs; then she went down on me and it was a phenomenal her talent for blowing I thought I was gonna pop then but was able to hold it; then we proceeded with the Horizontal Mambo and she was on top of me; she spoke English well, her English name was Cherry. She was more American in her behavior than the other girls and I was going wild. I violently drilled my manservant into her from the bottom like an oil rig and she moaned with pleasure and I could feel HER gissum going down my leg, it wasnt mine, I know for sure, and I was so proud of myself of what I was accomplishing at this moment; yes,

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I could write plays, I could graduate with honors in school, I could teach, and boy could I fuck best of all and I was really getting a tutorial! It took me forever to finish this time and I was destroying her as we went from missionary into doggy style and back to missionary and finally she was exhausted and said, You have to finish, okay, baby? Im trying, Im trying! You drinking tonight?! No, no drinking! Then come on, we only got five more minute, baby! I finally, finally finished off in her with doggy style while she purred and moaned like an actual female dog, but a bitch she was not. She was so gracious after we finished, she offered me sliced oranges as a gift from within her refrigerator. You like? Oranjee very good. No thanks. I would be coming back to her, forget the others, they were too unsatisfying, but she left me complete. I went to four other girls on the Hill in that same vicinity. I didnt care, I was completely uninhibited and without logic; just one after the other to quench my unquenchable fire of lust which then compounded into shame; but all four other girls werent as busty as that Cherry, didnt have the same level of graciousness and charm and sensuality that that girl possessed; I mean she had a real talent for it and I couldnt stop thinking about her! I was in love! This prostitution business became a constant habit as the month in Korea progressed and the winter came; the winter was brutal and I was starting to fold under the strain of having been in a strange foreign land where the language barrier is just too much. But I had developed a hedonistic and mindless existence of dredging through my awkward and constantly mercurial job to hopping into the neon-lit streets at night into a sleek Korean taxi cab driver. The cabs in Korea were great; every single cab driver was gracious and courteous and would constantly be asking me in broken English, Where you from? You handsome! And not just the cab drivers! So many Koreans would randomly scream out to me, Mr. Ugly Jewish Fat-Faced Banker, that I was handsome, teenage girls in fast food joints, college boys in 7-11s, middle-aged businessman in suits, everyone was so blunt; blunt in a way that is completely absent in American culture. This bluntness translated into a Korean bath or jimjilbang, where you enter a large complex complete with locker rooms, hot tubs, springs, spas, massage rooms, showers, and rolling boards. I loved being to immerse yourself into a cleansing experience; especially after losing my innocence to those prostitutes I felt like I could reclaim my purity by washing the sins off with the soap. Of course I could never follow the strict rules in these places and the Korean bosses would always sternly scream in my face (Koreans are not

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subtle people.) Mon je shyawa rul han da! (You must shower first!) Hey, leave me alone, Mr. Asian wise guy, Im trying to relax and purify myself of mounds of Hasidic guilt that have been bred into my bones since birth! Do you realize what Ive done? Ive committed the sin of fornication in the worst possible way, over and over again, Im a horrible atheist nonreligious person and theres nothing I can do about it except to lather in this fantasy of water and luxurious bubbled hot tubs; its an experience one must have to purify the soul and leave you alive and complete once again One of my best friends from that time was another expatriate English teacher, also British, but much more polished than the others; his name was Daniel Rose, he was from Manchester and got a degree in philosophy from Manchester Metropolitan University; hed worked for the BBC in London doing something technical but apparently was not suited for it and was now hiding out from a collapsing UK economy in Korea for over two years; he was 26; he considered himself a lothario and loved Asian women; they were more elegant and pleasing than Western women; I thought that was all complete bullshit as I found Korean women (not the whores) not that much different than American women except more uptight and couldnt speak English. He had a motorcycle and would often give me rides around Cheongju; me sitting on the back of a Harley Davidson in the middle of South Korea with a Brit; what more adventure did I want in life? We had many discussions in the smoky bars full of cigarettes and lost dreams. Mate, Im never going back to England, its finished. Western civilization is crumbling. I think thats kind of an exaggeration. Its the truth, mate. London is rubbish; just a bunch of Nigerians, Indians, Pakistanis, Bengalis, Arabs, all crowding the place and turning into a third world country. I dont doubt therell be riots and a complete collapse in the city yet. And the rent is so bloody high there, cant get a flat for less than 500 pound a month. But you have to go home eventually, dont you? Who says? I aint going home, mate. Im staying in Korea. People in Korea are nice and polite; theres a strong structure and society here; people work hard and want to be happy and make a harmonious life for everyone. In England theres just lazy sods and gangs and shit and horrible weather; its miserable, mate. And the economy all over Europe is just fucked in general.

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Spains rubbish, Portugal, Greece, mate, I went to Athens right before the fires and riots; Athens is fucking worse than any place in Africa probably, just squalor and starvation now; its literally ruins. No, mate, Koreas on top and one of the best countries right now. Just stay here, man, proper, dont go back to America. But America will always be strong, I think. Were just going through a rough patch. Americas a mess, too, mate. You blokes lost it all in 2008 and I pity any young lads that have to inherit that monstrosity of a mess that Bush knob-head left you all. Read political theory, man, its all over the Net. All these bloody corporation and the Masons still control everything in economics. They have all the fuckin power, man. The common folks are at a loss. England is failing, Americas falling to bits and pieces, Canadas worse, the Western world is truly in decline; Nostradamus probably wrote about this ages ago, but its true. We dont have a choice; therell be a huge flocking of us Westerners here to Asia; Chinas gonna supercede everyone. China? Yeah, mate, Chinas gonna be the number one superpower; I might be headin over these meself after a few years; although I love it in Korea, mate. Free apartment, plenty of money to do what I want, loads o brilliant travel opportunities, great food, beautiful girls, I couldnt ask for anything better. But what about when you get old? You cant stay in Korea forever. Dont think about that, mate. Just enjoy your life. Death is death; itll happen whether I stay in miserable England or whether I stay in dynamic and beautiful Korea. Have a beer, mate, lifes short, drink up. The profundity of his ideas struck me with a burning desire; I was torn between two lives I wanted; a life of freedom as an expatriate with no responsibilities and pure fun and joy and sex and escape; or a life of seriousness and industriousness where I pursue my dreams in the good old US of A and become a renowned man of the world wholl set everything on fire with my righteous ideas and indignation. I spent an entire day at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Cheongju. Ive always been intrigued by Buddhism; its the only of the five major religions that doesnt focus on deities

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or an afterlife but is solely concerned with the handling of suffering in this life alone. The first tenant of Buddhism is that life is suffering; there is death everywhere, everyone is born and grows old and dies and no one can pass through the course of life without experiencing pain and frustration and loss. And people try to elude suffering by building up in them a psychological barrier with their success; their money, their cars, their houses, their health, their family; but its all a passing faade as time conquers everything and eventually youre body falls apart into death. Sitting in this ancient temple with Buddhist monks praying besides me, achieving Nirvana, was profound. These men have found the truth to life; you must overcome the suffering and be at one with the universe. I considered thrusting myself into this world for the rest of my natural born life; abandon the modern world Id been reared in for ultimate contentment and bliss. Follow the eight-fold path to Enlightenment. The Buddha was like me; born a prince in ancient India, he grew up in wealth and was shielded from all the suffering in life; then when he came of age he chose to abandon his luxury and live among the poor, the struggling, the ill, he was exposed to raw human tragedy; and he learned, like me, the hard truths of life and death. Some of us sulk into pleasure; others retreat into their work and their art. I question the fundamentals of my life and society while kneeling in the temple with my hands in the Buddhist position; could I cast off Jewish neurosis for Asian tranquility once and for all? A transformation was accruing before my very eyes and I was helpless to stop it. One final escapade in my stupid life of misadventure and dysfunction and then Ill top off the reasons Ive gotten to this tragic point in my putrid existence. It was a bitingly cold winters day in March. I was sick with the flu; I was tested to the point of madness by my job and by my language barrier and my general melancholy; as the months dragged on in Korea, I realized how empty my life had become; it revolved around going to the same prostitute Id become addicted to in the last two months; I only singled her out because she was the most caring and loving woman Id ever known in my life; and tender love and care is all I really craved, just like we all do. Her name was Min Ee, her station was in the far left row of the Cheongnyangni district; I discovered her one early January morning after one of my many late-night romps in Seoul with the Brits and South Africans; I usually was ignored by all the girls in Cheongnyangi as Korea is the only country in the world with RACIST PROSTITUTES! Im gonna petition the Korean government to

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enact a civil rights law so that all may enjoy in the land of the Free and Prosperous and Slant-eyed. Which is the Communist police state again? I sometimes forget. Anyway, Min Ee would stand there in her slip and she was short but had the perfect amount of thickness and exotic beauty to her that I loved; her smile was infectious and she seemed to show genuine interest in affection in me. Although her English was non-existent she could say, I love you over and over again. I went to her many weekends in the freezing cold weather, blaring through the elements and brutal cold in my giant yellow raincoat to enjoy the complete bliss and Nirvana of those thirty minutes with Min Ee. Id never had a woman treat me with such graciousness. I would slowly and silkily remove her clothes while shed let me passionately kiss her with our tongues intensely matched together. There was a true connection of lust and pure and raw desire gushing out at the mouth between us; even though she was a whore I built it into my head that we had a real love that transcended all barriers of cultural differences and social background (the girl was poor obviously.) And the sex, the sex was beyond compare, and I did everything to this girl. The most drawn out and sensual blowjobs where I pulled and tugged on her hair as she moaned with pleasure; then the positions going from intense doggy style where I would usually just put in her ass as she screamed in a joyful pain and I submerged myself in complete degradation; just like that Korean girl at the consulate in Chicago Id wanted to fuck up the ass I was now making the fantasy a reality; you always have to realize your fantasies in life. Then the missionary with me standing and her lying on the bed and her complete raw reactions of pleasure as she reached her orgasms and was in genuine delight; I loved her delight; wed then roll around the bed in violence as I picked her up and with all my Dionysian might gave her as much of my rod as could be imagined and we usually finished with Korean Woman on Top where Id pump as furiously as I could to have the most Volcanic Orgasms in the History of Man; the Marquis de Sade or Casanova or Philip Roth couldnt dream up such releases of frustration. On this March day, I was in Itaewon with my flu and could barely see straight let alone really get it up to fuck a girl. But I had my weekend routines and found myself in the bar Candy. I was alone and drinking an Orange Juice to help alleviate the sickness. Suddenly a beautiful big-breasted black woman in a black silk dress sits down next to me. She has a thick African accent. Hello. She sounds a little stern.

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Hi. I dont quite know what to say at this point. What does this woman want with me? Are you here alone? Yes. I sneeze violently on her dress. Im sorry. I grab a napkin and begin wiping at her tits. Dont worry, boy, its okay. She removes my hands and takes care of herself. So, you in Korea for business? No, Im an English teacher. Another sneeze, this one goes in her hair. Shes trying to keep her composure. What the hell does this African woman want with me? Okay. You want to have some fun with an African girl tonight, man? Ah, a schvartze hoor here, dont have to go to Harlem or South Bronx now to get the black harlots, do we? Right here in good old South Korea one can attain black pussy of the greatest busty beauty. How much? 300,000. For the whole night. For the whole night? Yeah, man. And we can do anything? Anything you want, man, just dont kill me, man. Hm..never fucked a black girl, Ive only known white and Korean lusciousness; yes, I will go for it, Ill continue the raucous adventure and liberation; fuck a black girl, suck on those chocolate nipples, those huge black lips, enjoy the exotic romp in the jungle with Dorothy Dandridges great-grand-daughter left behind in the homeland! Okay. Lets go. I swiftly came off the bar, still sneezing and my nose running like hell, and we went on to the main street and I called a cab. The African whore and I got into the backseat. She was all business. Okay, boy, before I go anywhere wit you, you have to give me money. Now. All right, all right. My voice is flem-ridden and my hands are sweaty and shaking but I hand her the wad of 300,000 won as later Ill be giving her my real wad. This is the real adventure of going to Asia; intercourse with dark girl, this is

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Apocalypse Now and an old man, shakes him as best I can, pal ka juseo. (Go

A Bronx Tale meshed together. The cab driver, his head in complete skepticism. I shout to still wheezing and ill. Cheongyangni oh pal to Cheongyangi, please.)

Odi? (Where?) Cheongyangni oh pal pal. Nanoon kugoteh kaji maseyo. (I dont go there.) The African girl pipes up. How far you want to go man? Because I got to report back to my pimp, you know. You said we could do whatever I want, right? Another sneeze on her tits. Good God, Boy, you is a mess! I return my attention to the driver. Kwenchanayo, Cheongyangni take me to Cheongnyangni Station.) ok ka juseo. (Okay, just

Okay. And so were off. Ive already given the African girl her money so I proceed to enjoy myself. Im grabbing her large coconut breasts and fulfilling even more fantasy. She tries to play along but I can tell shes tired and bored and is just putting in hours at the office. Nonetheless my hands are all over her body; how often in life will I get to enjoy a thick black woman? Why are we going to Cheongyangni? You said we could do whatever we wanted. It took about thirty minutes to get back to Cheongyangni. While fondling her breasts, which got old frankly, I tried to make conversation, I was genuinely curious as to what this black girl was doing in Korea. Why are you working here? What?! She just laughs and turns her head away, waiting for the night to pass so she can have her money and survive. No, really, why are you in Korea and not Africa? Why you think, boy? Is you stupid? Ha, you want to pay me da money for just talking? Just keep feeling my breasts and shut up. Do you like being a sex worker?

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Its better than starving in Nigeria. Now shut up and lets do dis ting, boy. We pulled up to Cheongyangi in the glow of the glaring neon lights and my hands remained on the black girls gozungas all the way out of the cab (coincidentally while I was paying the driver and opening and closing the door.) The girl was starting to become suspicious and weary. Boy, what is we doing here? Weve finally made it this far and Im not going to let the golden opportunity to pass me by; have a black and an Asian woman at the same time. Were going to have a menage a trois. What?! What is you talkin about? I dont speak da French, man, Im African, baby. You know, three-some, two girls, one guy. Woah, woah, woah, you want to make da sex with me and anudder woman?! Boy, is you crazy, you is sneezin on me and dyin and you be wanting two women? Dat gwona cost you anudder 100,000 dan. I am flabbergasted. What?! Im not paying 100,000 for that. It should be free! You said we could do whatever we wanted! SNEEZE! Huge sneeze on her face and she falls to the side of the road manically wiping herself in rage. Boy, you want me to make sex with anudder girl, you gwona haf ta pay, or I call my pimp to come here and he gwona kill you, man, he will, he dwont care. So what you gwona do den, huh? I was at a loss, how much money was I willing to fork over to achieve my ultimate sexual liberation? This was not the Two Girls For Every Guy Surf City fantasy Id had in mind. This was a nightmare and I was thoroughly ashamed at how depraved Id become. But I gave the girl another 100,00. Lets go, den. The tall buxom chocolate queen and the pale Yeshiva student strolled through the glaring pink-lit night streets of Cheongyangni. I was hoping Min Ee would be standing at her usual spot that night and she was; every single prostitute was staring at us in complete confusion and consternation as the two of us entered into Min Ees window. There I was; me, a black whore and a Korean whore. I gave the instructions and was trying to dominate the situation even though I was deadly ill. I first ate a banana off of the African girls breasts to show her what a Monkey I could be. Then I had Min Ee go down on me while playing with the black breasts; this almost made me cum right there. I then had the African girl bend over and I finally got to feel sweet black pussy while Min Ee licked my balls and chafed them with orange peels (every Korean prostitute has orange peels!) Finally I let Min Ee ride me cowgirl while squeezing the Nigerian girls nice round Ebony ass and was able to squirt my load onto both girls tits as they kneeled on the ground. I enjoyed watching both a black girl and an Asian girl munch on Jewish cum. While Im naked and reeling from the next sexual adventure, suddenly a huge African man (I assume this was her

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pimp) burst through the door to Min Ees room. Min Ee screamed in complete shock (she had just been completely delighted.) The African man grabs my neck with his thick black Banana hands and pins me to the wall. YOU TAKE MY GIRL THIS FAR? WHY YOU DO DIS?! Im sorry! Im sorry! She said it was okay! YOU WANNA TO DO WID MORE DAN ONE GIRL, YOU TALK TO ME, UNNERSTAN? THIS NO ACCEPTABLE! YOU GWONA HAVE TO PAY ME 700,000, RIGHT NOW, LETS GO, BOY! I dont have 700,000 on me! Go to ATM, get da money, Im not playin, boy, I kill you! He had a gun on him; a Walter PPK, like the ones Id played in Goldeneye 007 when I was a little boy. I didnt know what to do, so I just begged for my life. Please, please dont kill me, Ill get the money back to you, just let me live, Im sorry. YOU THINK THIS IS JOKE? I NEED TO MAKE THE MONEY, MAN, SO GIVE ME THE 700,000 AND IS NO PROBLEM! Suddenly I heard a babble of Koreans and the room is swarmed with every other prostitute in the district rushing in and checking out what all this ruckus is about. They are all screaming in shame and wailing and calling out for the police to stop this insanity with the foreigners. Korean police soon swarm into the room. Im on my knees naked while they handcuff me and the condom filled with my spooj is still attached to my body. They have their feet on my back and are screaming at me, me the whole time totally not comprehending what the hell is going on. I suddenly black out and the next thing I know Im sitting in a jail cell. Then the Skype video from jail comes on. It is my mother and father; they look angry and upset and know what a naughty little boy Ive been. Mammele is the first to speak. DAVID! I knew it! The minute you get away and have your freedom you go ahead and pull something like this! Going to prostitutes in a foreign country, getting arrested, forcing your father and I to pay international bail, WHATS WRONG WITH YOU, WHAT KIND A SHMUCK ARE YOU?! You couldnt go to the Chabad House in Seoul and meet a nice Jewish girl! You had to stick your little wee wee into every whore in the country! And for what? Did it get you off?! Are you satisfied?! Wheres your money now?! Wheres your future?! We are so ashamed of you I cant even say, youve made us an embarrassment in the Jewish community, I cant go to my ORT or Beth Tikvah clubs anymore, I cant play Mahjongg with my girlfriends any more, youre coming back to our house and NEVER LEAVING AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? NEVER NEVER NEVER! But, Mom, I was just expressing a healthy sexual appetite for young males of my age, I was just exploring and having fun and figuring what life is all about, sex and Buddhism and

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Coconuts Breasts! Dont you understand? It was vital for my coming of age! And if it took all the years of your misery and dysfunction to lead me to this place in my life, locked up in a Korean prison for solicitation on multiple accounts, then Im damned happy about it! You understand?! Dont make me out to be the villain here, I wasnt and I aint! I was back home in America and away from my insane life of whoremongery and Buddhist enlightenment within a week.

PART TWELVE: THE COMMUNIST

Two days in China, I feel a little disoriented. Ive been in the Peoples Republic of China (not the Republic of China in Taiwan, an entirely different entity and something you should never confuse), for over 48 hours now. The journey to get to China from the US was arduous and strained. A four hour plane ride from Columbus to Los Angeles, pretty uneventful and standard. I arrived in LAX at 8:30 and walked to the Thomas Bradly International Terminal. I was incredibly nervous because I had to check in athe China Southern airlines counter with only a tourist visa on my passport even though I would be going to China for ten months to work. The Chinese attendant at the counter swiftly looked over my passport and visa and graciously gave me my two boarding passes for Guangzhou and Wenzhou and wished me a safe flight.I made my way through security into the International boarding zones, found my flight at gate 138 to Guangzhou. I am immediately immersed in Asia world, even though technically still in Los Angeles. At this boarding area, mostly Chinese and Koreans. There are several flights leaving to China and Korea. I notice these Asian people have a certain strain to them. They are perpetually uncomfortable in the USA, theyre staying within their clans and their English is an embarrassment. As I was sitting at the gate, the only white man among a bunch of Chinese, who were partially glaring at me, a young Chinese man came up to me with his ticket itinerary. He looked

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lost and frightened and asked me, meekly, Excuse me, I dont know this meanis right? He pointed to his flight number, exactly the same as mine, he was also going to I guess he was an exchange student going home. I swiftly told him, Yes, correct. I gave him a thumbs up, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. Im sorry, my English not so good. He chuckled a little. We now had nothing to say to each other. I go back to sitting in silent contemplation about what I was doing; I was going to go live and work in China, a vast county with the highest population in the world; a country with an enormous and complex history; a county that has been through hell and back in the 20th century. China went from being a grand empire to being divided by civil wars in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s between Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuomintang and the Communist parties under Mao Zedong. By the 1950s, mainland China became totally communist. Maos plans for the Great Leap Forward were disastrous; the next twenty years were brutal, millions of Chinese died. By the 1980s, Deng Xaoping, the president after Mao, made radical reforms and now its 2011, China is supposedly one of the great world powers. My mind is baffled by China, however, looking around the airport, they seem to be a very stern, harsh group, living with the strain of their brutal history behind them. I boarded the plane bound for Guangzhou. The fight attendants were all tall, thin, elegant looking Chinese women with a faade of perfect calm masking a storm within I sat next to a middle-aged Chinese man who seemed very disinterested in me or anything going on Mostly Chinese on the plane, the ugliness and brutaliy of the Chinese language raging loud and clear. For the entire fifteen hours of the flight, the Chinese people would not stop literally screaming at each other in their native tongues. I felt as if I was on a plane full of roosters, ducks, pigs, and other various farm animals. a Chinese, saying the equivalent, Be quiet, stop making noise, you are bothering me! To a six month old child. And she did

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this continually throughout, treating the baby with a chilling harshness. Im glad my mother didnt do that to me or I wouldnt be sitting here writing this. I slept for the first seven hours, even though it was really hard to sleep with the Chinese screeching at each other the entire time. I had to go to the bathroom, number 2, so I went to an unoccupied lavatory. I like to take my time, go slowly, enjoy myself in the bathroom. About nine minutes into it, I hear a cackle of Chinese women right outside the bathroom door. I finish wiping, wash my hands, open the door, and four old Chinese ladies are standing there, looking furious and cackling like patients at a mental hospital. I guess theyre all waiting to use the bathroom. They immediately smell what Ive left behind and look outraged. I try to shrug it off and return to my seat. However, these women followed me back to my seat. They started scolding me in The flight attendant screams back at them to forget about it, I guess shes on my side. So, what, Chinese people dont shit? They dont know thats what bathrooms are used for? China, or if people just go on the street, like in the Middle Ages. This is definitely going to be a challenging ten months. Finally, after what seemed years, the plane lands in Guangzhou. I am immediately stricken with fear and panic; Im in China, Im here, on the other side of the world, so far away from my home. My understanding of Chinese language and culture is basic at best. Ive past the point of no return and have to go on in, cant go back. I quickly walk into Guangzhou International Airport. Its humid and boiling; were in I follow the group towards the customs and immigration clearance. I stand in line for the foreign nationals checking. I am incredibly tense because I have to get through with just a tourist visa and maybe the immigration officer will get wise. I approach the counter, its a thin, bespectacled Chinese woman, shes smiling. She looks at my passport, obtained three years ago, when I was twenty pounds heavier and had a Middle-Eastern like beard, so, I look completely different.

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I am able to walk to the baggage claim with no trouble at all. All the signs are in Chinese characters and English. The airport is clean, but not air-conditioned, so the sweat is coming out in droves. Waiting at the baggage claim is an event in itself. Its crowded and the Chinese people push each other out of the way to get their baggage first. When a Chinese person picks up the bag, they toss it five feet across to their friend to put it on the cart. While the Westerners would calmly just pick the bag up, put it on the ground and move forward. China would be an easy task. I am able to get to the International-to-Domestic baggage check in. A Chinese woman attending on this first speaks to me in rapid Cantonese when my back is turned to her, but as soon as I turn around and she sees m Guangzhou is a lot quicker than in U

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Jeez, they sure like to rush ye, dont they? I smiled at her I find that bizarre, usually in LA who were partially glaring. I spot a Persian-looking man sit down a few rows away, its somewhat of a relief. Once again, these Chinese lads and ladies look stern, worn out, devoid of warmth and joie de vivre. Im now getting more nervous about living in this environment for ten more months. We board the plane and its nice enough. Im getting a splitting headache. I try to sleep it off, surprisingly its very quiet on this plane ride. I guess domestic flights are better and more comfortable, the people dont feel the need to gab endlessly. The hour and a half passes quickly and the plane lands Airport I was worried that this being a small domestic airport in a nonmajor Chinese city, it would be very difficult to get around, but it was surprisingly easy and pleasant, and there were English translation. Once again, the rat race to get your baggage was manic. I was really taken aback this time at how the Chinese seem to have no concept of waiting in line, helping

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another person out, things that are just common courtesy in Western cultures. My bag arrives without fail, I have to push through a Yellow Sea of Chinese to reach it, haul it over their heads. Although it is stereotypical,am much taller than everyone else at the airport right now, and Im average height by Western standards. As I reach the exit area, I see two Chinese people with a sign that reads, David China. Its a short, thin, mousy-looking Chinese woman in Im guessing her thirties and a short, bald, super-Oriental looking Chinese man whose smiling as if hes on some sort of laughing gas. The woman speaks in a loud Chinese accent, but with confidence. You are Dawid Fried-a-man? Yes. I thought that was kind of an irreverent question, because I was the only non-Chinese person in the airport at the time. Wouldnt take too much intelligence to figure out Im the one with the Yiddish last name. Anyway the woman is very nice and animated and speaks in a rollicking singsong of English. Hello, I am Xu Haiying, but you call me Sandra! Okay? We go to University campus, take you apartment, you get familiar, okay? The smiling man offers to take my suitcase for me, he looks so eager, he doesnt seem to know any English. We walk outside of the airport, this is the big moment, I will now be seeing what China is really like. Im struck by how clean the exterior of the airport looks; I was told China was very dirty. Its a bright, sunny, humid day. It doesnt look that much different than an China, that all rules and logic, waiting at red lights, giving the person the right of way, are completely absent.

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The Chinese man, who called Jin, puts my suitcase in the backseat, I sit in the back while Ms. Xu and Jin are in the front, with Jin driving. I am feeling pretty well as were driving along the highway and Im getting to observe the Chinese city layout. White high-rise apartment complexes abound on the side of the highway, its very green, very mountainous, there are many green palm trees, then streets of stores and businesses in Chinese characters that I dont know. We are driving for a long time. Ms. Xu and Jin joke around with each other Otherwise, completely ignored. Seeing how far we were driving, I asked Ms. Chashan, thirty minute away, where you will be. I hadnt realized Id be living thirty minutes away from the city, this news struck me hard. I was looking forward to living in the middle of a Chinese city, but now I will be stuck on some campus isolated far away for ten months, this made almost want to jump out of the car, go to the airport and fly home. As we drove on through, we had to pass a tiny village on the outskirts, and this was the moment when the reality of being in China set in. We passed by several run-down and dilapidated little stores, where the people inside looked famished and starving and on the verge of having nothing. There was one girl, clearly she was prostituting herself on the sidewalk. There was garbage and filth and soot on the streets everywhere in this village. I realized that China is not all majestic Asian culture, martial arts, tea, loveliness, its harsh poverty, backwards thinking, brutal. I felt so bizarre passing through this bleak village in a posh black sedan with two Chinese people who are laughing and joking while observing the drudgery of these poor peoples lives. I guess these two are nouveau riche Chinese, they look down on the Chinese that havent learned how to live in a modern middle-class way. It was a little sickening to say the least. We got out of the village and back onto the main city streets. I was immediately charmed by the rickshaws, yes, many rickshaws, like you see in India, driving the locals around. Also, yes, everyone was riding their bicycles and many women were walking together in unison with umbrellas and straw hats. I now felt as if I was really in China, images of little yellow

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people with slanted eyes on bicycles, straw hats, rickshaws, these are the things that appealed to me. In the car I see the rich, in that village I saw the poor, on the streets I see a convergence of ancient and modern. We finally reach the University, I am now a little bothered at how far away it is from the main urban area. This is not good, I am afraid of being totally isolated and cut off from society. We drive into the dormitory area where Ill be staying for the duration of my contract. Its a little bizarre, to make an understatement. The apartments are white and each has seven floors. The way the rooms are set up, they are divided into three buildings per each row. My apartment would be 402, in building 12. There is one apartment across the hall from me. There is no elevator, Ill have to walk up and down four flights of stairs every time I want to go in and out of my apartment. Its very noisy living here, theres hundreds of Chinese always walking around the area, students, middle-class adults, old ladies, old men, children, babies crying. I see a Chinese woman bathing her baby boy in a little tub with a hose, screaming at him harshly like the woman on the plane did. I guess thats just their culture. We enter my apartment. Its surprisingly spacious, whitetiled porcelain floor, theres a small kitchen, a bathroom with a laundry machine inside, a bedroom with a pink-covered single bed, and a room with a computer and printer already inside. Ms. Xu told me it was my computer for free, provided by the University. However, I will not have Internet for a week or so because the last person who lived in the apartment cancelled the Internet account and they have order a new one. This is a huge frustration, I must have internet in my apartment. I cannot live without Internet. I guess this is where my adaptation skills come in. The living room has a TV, According to Ms. Xu, there is no light in my bathroom and in my bedroom. Also, to turn on the air-conditioner in my bedroom, in t

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Upon dropping off my things, Ms. Xu, Jin, and myself walk through the idyllic and breathtakingly beautiful Wenzhou University campus. Theres something so enchanting about seeing thin skeletal Chinese men riding waifish Chinese girls around in a plastic blue rickshaws against the backdrop of luscious green fields, majestic mountains, a large lake and nicely sculpted foliage. The Chinese college students we pass all without fail stare at me and laugh and point their fingers and say

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Many delicious Chinese foods here! I look over the white laminated menu, luckily theres pictures of everything so I can just point to it without having to say anything. I know how to say I want this, Wo yao zheige, but I cant really pronounce it correctly. I spot a corn pepper steak with Chinese herbs, decide on that. Ms. Xu says this to the waiter in

I knew that to mean yes or right in Chinese.

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Will I have a textbook or something? Yes, you will have manual, I will give you schedule. And I teach all my classes where exactly? Maybe you will be mostly teach in our Chashan campus over here and one in downtown. Ill have to go downtown? Because I cant read the Chinese characters.

Yes, of course, we will help you. All China is very safe.

Yeah, but, Im sure there are parts of the city, like in any city, that are not good to be in. You can get robbed, right? Thats what I read. No, I do not know of these situations. This will never happen, Is she trying to lie or is she a robot? Hard to tell. Either way, my discomfort is growing. A country that has over 1.3 billion people, and most of them crammed on the Eastern side, has to have major problems and high crime, thats inevitable, a society that large is going to stem disorder and dysfunction and criminality, its human nature. The sullen waiter appears again and says something very long to Ms. Xu. Your coke is not have ice. Is okay? Yes She tells the waiter my response and he wordlessly goes back to his station. There are a few minutes of awkward silence; what the hell am I, a twenty-two-year-old Jewish American, gonna really say two these two middle-aged Chinese people whove never left their homeland? The waiter returns with a bowl of mysterious-looking balls. This is a fish, eatimplores

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We go through a long array of Chinese appetizers to a meal, fish balls, pan noodles, rice, crab, and finally my steak comes. Its like a Ch Canada, they meet over Internet. He come to China to visit her, his first time in

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3 RMB and shoves the bottle across the counter to me. I am appalled. In every other country Ive been to in my life USA, Israel, South Korea, people working in stores and restaurants are always well-mannered and gracious and smile for the customer, they say, Hello, how are you? Heres your item, thank you for shopping here, have a nice day, etc. I guess this kind of mentality is non-existent in China. Or maybe theyre polite to each other but any outsider gets the full racist treatment. I take my coke and walk back to my apartment, my headache being compounded by the sounds of babies, mothers screaming harshly, people dumping water off their balconies, pop music blaring, students shouting at each other, and the brutal heat. I make it to my apartment, swig a huge sip from the Coke, and plop down on the bed. I then remember I have to plug in the airconditioner again and so do it. Its 2 p.m., Im in Is this going to inspire me in life like I hoped it would?

II

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I wake up at around 10:00 p.m., my headache is completely gone, but Im reminded of my current situation, Im stuck here in horribly racist, dirty, backwards 21st Century China. Out of complete boredom and restlessness, I decide to explore the surrounding areas of campus. I walk back to the main road where my complex gate is, ZhongXinLu take a left towards that college cafeteria building we ate in nine hours ago. Theres no one out right now, not a soul, its eerily quiet. At the street light theres a massive mall-like area with a f I came, return to my apartment, and lie in the dark bedroom for hours awake, because Ive slept for a long time. And I feel total

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desperation, what am I gonna do? I hate this environment, this is absolutely repulsive, miserable, this is the reason why so many people from here go to the US, UK and Canada At about 10 am, the Sunday, I hear a loud knock on my door. It takes me a few minutes to get dressed, and the knocking goes on and on and on. Im afraid, is this the police doing a check up on me because Im a foreigner? Holy shit, thats a great deal. 3 dollars to buy the phone, 15 dollars on the phone card. Thats

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China for you, one of the perks of being a developing country, not developed. As Ms. Xu is speaking in loud English to me, all the other Chinese look angry, I can sense they hate hearing another language besides their beautiful Chinese being spoken in their presence, its a great insult to their culture. The woman asks Ms. Xu something, she then says to me, Your passport give her. I unfortunately left my passport at the apartment. Ms. Xu says we can get a phone tomorrow then. Its now off to the office to meet the staff. We walk through the path that I treaded last night by myself. I now see the beauty of it in the clear light of day. I am amazed at the contradiction in the natural beauty with the ugliness of the urban life and the peoples behavior. We go through the large gate bearing Wenzhou Universitys name. The campus area is idyllic looking, theres four statues of Chinese men, I guess famous professors here, at the front. We walk quite a while to finally get to our building, the Wen or air-conditioning s Chinese culture and English. I spot two Chinese men in glasses, and three Chinese women. Two of the women are younger-looking and quite pretty, the other is much older, really short and little, glasses. As were walking in, no one says a word to me at first. I sit down on the leather couch at the end. Ms. Xu talks to the older woman in Chinese for a while and I sit at the couch being ignored. Finally, one of the men comes up to, stands in front of me, smiling, doesnt say anything though. Doesnt speak English? Ms. Xu then introduces him. This is the Dean of our College, George. George reaches his hand out, his manners are so exaggerated, Im trying not to laugh. Finally, George speaks in a thick accent.

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What country you are from Im from America. Ah, America! I been there! I went through many state. What state you from? Ohio. I dint go there. Ohio. Hm Theres a long pause. I dont quite know what to say, just keep smiling, thats all you can do when dealing with people from different cultures. I finally try to make a joke out of it. Not much to see, so it doesnt matter. What? Ohio, its boring, not much to see. Ah. He didnt get the humor. Im wondering if the Chinese have humor. Definitely not sarcasm. George then swiftly goes back to his computer, talking to the other man in Chinese. The older woman in glasses approaches, shes smiling widely, Ms. Xu once again makes the introductions. This is Peggy. Peggy? Peggy responds very enthusiastically. Yes, Peggy is a my name! She also shakes my hand vigorously. After the hand-shake, Peggy swiftly goes back to her computer and says nothing more to me. The other teachers in there dont speak to me at all and seem completely uninterested in my presence. They walk by me and speak to Ms. Xu in Chinese. Hm, its not like Im going to be their co-worker for the next ten months or anything. They dont have to meet me or know I exist. I sit down at an empty computer and use internet for the first time. I send an e-mail of desperation to my father, telling him that I made a horrible mistake coming to China, that I hate it here, the people are nuts and racist, that Ill go crazy, and that I want to leave immediately. Ten minutes later or so he replies that I have to just wait it out and things will get better, that at first its tough to adjust but in time Ill be comfortable here. I told my father that was hard to believe because China is just too different and harsh, and if the people around me are not welcoming and accepting, Ill never be comfortable here.

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Ms. Xu then tells me, Okay, we go have lunch now, cafeteria downstairs. We take the wooden elevator with flies back down to the bottom floor. We then walk across the street to a cafeteria. Its complete chaos, its so loud, the students and other faculty are screaming at each other. Standing in line to get food, everyone pushes ahead of us and rushes for their dishes, its like a bunch of kids who see a bag of candy and jump all over each other to get it first.

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China during the contract period. And I am not allowed to lodge anyone in my apartment. This contract sounded like it was taken out of a Communist work-assignment memo. This is true brutal oppression here, what have I gotten myself into? For some reason, despite my experience living in Korea, I had complete culture shock in Wenzhou and immediately was repulsed and wanted to leave. There was something about the way Chinese people acted that just made me incredibly uncomfortable, combined with the isolation of the University campus I lived on, and the general chaos of being in a Chinese city, which is overcrowded, dirty, every local person seemingly angry and screaming, and my inability to communicate with anyone even when trying to speak Chinese and them screaming in my face when they couldnt understand. I felt I had made a huge mistake and wanted to just return to America and put this Asia fascination behind me and start a real life. However, within a month I slowly began to calm down and adjusted to some kind of weird life in China, it was a life of more boredom and seriousness than the one in Korea, even though I quickly saw the charms of Wenzhou, a 10 million person city (small by Chinese standards) that was bustling, rich and glitzy like Manhattan or downtown Chicago in some parts, and horribly poor and slum-filled in others, the marketplaces and streets were exotic, filled with chickens,

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rickshaws, horse-carts, endless noise and insanity and people, and the traffic in Wenzhou was an adventure in itself, I soon began to see my life in China not as a nightmare as I did at first but like I was on some insane roller coaster ride or 3D adventure, as thats what a bus ride in Wenzhou felt like. I made friends with some of the other English teachers and foreign exchange students, I found the Ghanans and Nigerian students to be the friendliest, while the Russian students I met were very cold and distant, as were the other Americans. Except for George, a 40 year old English teacher whod been in Asia for 15 years, he originally was from Santa Rosa, California, but married a Thai woman and at 25 moved to Bangkok, worked as a landlord and English teacher there for 4 years, then moved to Taiwan and then Ningbo, and finally came to Wenzhou, starting at the same time I did. He lived in the apartment two doors down from me. We spent nearly every night in my 2nd month in Wenzhou walking around campus, passing the time with him telling me about his many adventures in traveling to Cambodia, Laos, Burma, the Philippines, and different parts of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He had a love for Asian women and was always trying to meet Filipino brides on line and had been to the Philippines 5 times to meet with a local woman for marriage, but it never worked out. By the 2nd month, I was adjusting to Wenzhou, enjoyed taking rickshaws and eating cheap meals from the interesting marketplaces, but my heart was telling me to leave China and start a serious career in publishing or theatre in New York, that it was now or never and so I impulsively booked a flight home from Beijing back to Columbus for November. In early October, 2011, after being in Wenzhou for a month, I took a train to Shanghai for a Chinese national holiday and stayed in Shanghai for five days. My first day in Shanghai was great; I thought it was charming and full of modern convenience but also interesting culture and I enjoyed walking around the Bund, Xintiandi, the French Concession, and Pudong, the Wall Street like financial district. I realized that China was becoming the America of the East. However, my second day was a disaster, I fell victim to a scam, I followed a Chinese woman to a Karaoke room, because she was beautiful and I thought I would get sex out of her, and of course within 10 minutes, the girl disappears and three thuggish Chinese men stand in the door and tell me I have to 17,000 RMB (3,000 dollars) for drinks or else Id go to jail for prostitution because the girl happened to be a prostitute and they will tell the police I solicited her and its their word against mine in China. Out of complete terror and panic, I gave them all the money in my wallet and from some divine act of God, I somehow escaped from that room and felt like a complete idiot and disgrace. I returned my hostel and

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spent the rest of the day in misery at all the money I had lost because I stupidly followed a total stranger in a big city just because she was a beautiful girl. Luckily, there were many interesting characters in the hostel; Lucio, a black Brazilian musician doing contract work in Shanghai, who was very feisty and trying to cheer me up, Romi, a Finnish businessman working in Shanghai and with a Chinese wife, Joseph, a New Yorker living in Beijing as an English teacher and student on vacation, and Jan, a German college student doing a five day layover in Shanghai on his way to New Zealand and then Oregon of all places for some exchange program. I had a blast for the next three days, walking around different parts of Shanghai with Jan or Joseph, taking the motorcycle taxis around Nanjing Lu, a major shopping street, then going to comedy shows at night on the Bund and joking with around with surprisingly cosmopolitan young Shanghai-ers, I even hit it off with a Chinese woman who got my email address and sometimes contacts me, her English name was Jenny. I came back from Shanghai and decided to leave the job at Wenzhou because I really hated my classes; I found most of the Chinese college students to be either rude or just very shy and refusing to speak English, so it was very difficult to get through the 1-1 hour classes. I didnt like the complete disorganization of my classes and lesson plans and being treated like a clown. However, I did get some valuable life experience when one of the Chinese English teachers, Mr. Miao, gave me private lessons to teach at his apartment on weekends, he lived in a poor area and I would take the bus on Sunday and Friday nights to teach children, walking through poor streets filled with beggars, graffit, and filth, and having to climbs six flights of stairs to get to his place. I got the unique experience of seeing a Chinese family in their home. I also developed favorite places among Wenzhou to frequent, such as Ren Min Lu (Peoples Street), an area full of bustle and interesting marketplaces and streets, I enjoyed especially one very nice old lady who would shine my shoes thoroughly for just 5 RMB (1 dollar.) And I could eat delicious Chinese delicacies for a little more than that. I had already booked my impulsive flight and regretted my decision by the end of the 2nd month, soon starting to see the odd charm to Wenzhou that I was at first repulsed by and realizing how time and patience brings you happiness out of the discomfort. I, however, couldnt change the flight plans and had to leave. My last week in Wenzhou was very intense, I had to awkwardly tell my Chinese bosses that I was quitting, putting them in a tough position, and I felt terrible; my Chinese co-workers were very helpful and kind to me and I didnt appreciate it, however, it was too late, and I made my decision to go home and that was final, I now regret, believing

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if I had not left, I would have had an even greater spiritual experience. Anyways, in my last week, my friend George from California introduced me to a Filipino woman, Marya, living in Wenzhou and working at a private kindergarten. I thought she was uniquely beautiful, with that exotic South East Asian look, I also thought she was maybe just 10 years older than me, so I was attracted to her and wanted her. She was also very fiery and passionate and unlike most women Id known before, except my two grandmothers. I was able to eventually go on a date alone with her, where we had a very deep discussion about the importance of religion and I was able to get physical with her. I spent the night in her apartment downtown where we had wild, erotic sex and she cried and begged me to stay with her forever and never leave China. She didnt know that I would be leaving in the next week. The next night I also spent the night with her where we had more erotic sex, it was the most intense physical experience of my life. To my horror the next day George told me Marya was 48, when I thought she was 35 at most. I couldnt believe I had slept with a woman only 7 years younger than my mother. The next time I saw her I was repulsed by her and wanted nothing sexually to do with her. At the same time, I was seeing the good nature of a lot of my students I at first thought were rude and racist towards me and realized that I would probably have started to really enjoy my classes if I had stayed longer. But, I had made my travel plans to spend a week in Beijing and then return home and there was nothing I could do to change it, and I also thought destiny was calling me to go to New York and make it big, the Now or Never thing. So, I took a two day train ride from Wenzhou to Beijing on November 1, it was fascinating, being the only foreigner in a compartment full of Chinese, everyone staring at me, many of them trying to talk to me although my Chinese was so limited. When I got off in Beijing, I was in love, the area where I was my hostel was, Qianmian, was so uniquely bustling and Chinese, with odd melancholy music playing and exotic back alleyways filled with unusual sights, rickshaws, and ancient Chinese temples on every corner, I had a blast, exploring the Wangfujing marketplaces, the Summer Palace, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Chaoyang district, the Hutongs, or old alleyways, taking rickshaws, and chatting up British and Eastern European girls in my hostel, one black British girl from Manchester I came close to sex with but alas her friend dragged her away. I decided to stay in Beijing, a city I was now in love with and applied for many jobs there, even trying to go to one interview at a mall in the Beijing suburbs which I got lost in and couldnt make it. On my second day in Beijing I went with my hostel and some other hostels on a tour of the Great Wall of China, to the Mutianyu section, where

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I took a cable car to the wall from the base, met a very nice couple from Los Angeles, and walked along that historic and iconic monument for 5 hours. I also went to a Beijing opera performance and a Chinese acrobatic show. I had a blast walking around Ghost Street near Wangfujing, seeing the lanterns and exploring the city at night with a lovely blonde Czech girl who was studying abroad in Hong Kong and on vacation in Beijing. I felt like life was so full of promise and I could go back to America with supreme confidence to blast into New York and make my fortune and artistic glory. I flew home from Beijing. And immediately life became a nightmare. I realized I would not have enough money to move anywhere from Columbus and the job market was terrible. I resigned to working at Wendys for the time being, which I found to be unbearable work, working in the kitchen with the Mexicans doing dirty, manual labor for 9 hours at a time with no break, it was humiliating, to go from the glories of working internationally and courting beautiful European girls and feeling like the King of the world to working at a fast food restaurant, I quit after a week. I then did an incredibly stupid thing in late November of 2011, getting in a car accident and then driving off from the scene, getting caught, and getting charged with a hit and run. I had to hire a lawyer, go to court twice, and just evaded going to jail. I was required to do 20 hours of community service and volunteered at dinners in downtown Columbus at a church, mostly feeding derelict blacks and a few whites in a dangerous neighborhood. It was a tough experience but I also felt some joy in helping feed poor and lost souls. I also had to deliver pizzas, once again, at Papa Johns, which I did from January to April, 2012. I was at a very low point, I lost my ambition and happiness and reverted to a state of mindlessness and misery, where I worked at my menial minimum wage job while living at home, masturbating and watched TV in my free time, and did no writing or nothing mentally stimulating, all the while fretting about my apparent hopeless future and having no idea what to do next, as I did not want to go back to Asia and felt like getting a real high paying job in America was still an impossibility (and something I was afraid of) due to the economic situation. My luck changed in mid April as I quit Papa Johns, unable to handle the constant stress of the busy hours of driving and dealing with drugaddicted maniacal co-workers and the general humiliation of being 23 and still just working at a shit job that is designed for other low-life ex-convicts, white trash, or high school and college kids. One day after quitting, I got hired by a contracting company to do data entry, which is the job I currently work at. Its boring, tedious, repetitive, but it has given me hope that things can turn around because the job is

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nice, in an office, and I get along with the co-workers. I still live at home but am preparing for a glorious future after the tumult, mistakes, moments of joy and moments of great sinking depression, of my stupid and colorful past.