I need to get something off my chest:
This month in the USA, 'Edge of Darkness' starring Mel Gibson will be released. It's Gibson's first movie in 7 years since 'Signs' although he has made some very successful films as a director. Of course in more recent times Mel has been castigated for the antisemitic & misogynistic comments he made to a police officer during his DUI arrest. So now three years on, the charges have been expunged and Mel has returned to acting after publicly apologizing several times during that period. Now I have loved Gibson's movies, and I can forgive a drunk alcoholic for his rants, distasteful though they are to me, assuming his sober behavior does not reflect these views. However, he since divorced his wife and large family (despite his Catholic faith) and is shacked up with his mistress and love child. Also as he promotes the new movie, any doubts I may have had about Gibson's anti Jewish feelings have been clarified. I believe he is an unrepentant antisemite. His interview with Sam Rubin of KTLA 5 left no doubts. When Rubin points out that some film goers will welcome Mel Gibson's return others don't want him back, Gibson leans forward and an intensity comes over him "why?"...WHY????? Come on mel !  He then says that the antisemitic remarks recorded by the officer were "alleged" ...thats a clear denial to my ears, and then he looks at Rubin  and hinting at his Jewish background  says "I gather you have a dog in this fight..are you impartial?" .

If he was in front of me I would say this to him: Gibson you are a bigot otherwise you would be horrified at being thought of as an antisemite. Far from horrified, you won't even admit that you said those words. To publically point to Ruben's Jewishness and see it as bias is disgusting. Do you think gentiles are not offended by your bigotry? Mr. Gibson, you have become a very wealthy and successful man because the public accepted you and gave you that opportunity. It was a gift to you, one that you abused. You seem to think it is your right to get that success back because you now want it back. Indeed in the interviews you have seemed to say that you chose this long exile from the screen...you didn't choose the past three years, we (the public) didn't want to see you. Essentially we fired you. Well now you delude yourself that we should accept you back because you say so and want it so. No sir!  you need to earn that success and even some respect back and that will take a lot of work. You aren't doing a darn thing and I hope you fade away once more, as an anachronism that has no place in the 21st century.

VIDEO OF THE SAM RUBIN / MEL GIBSON INTERVIEW http://bit.ly/9Yby9X

I realized it has been a while since my last blog - odd how that happens, because I regularly think to myself that I need to blog at least weekly but I haven't written anything since May !! So I have been contemplating stuff..pondering...musing..about >???  Yes yes, I'm getting to it! Social networking !! Shock horror I know, but seriously, when I was preparing the review of the Naughties show I did on December 31st, it struck me that Social networking is the story of the 1st decade of the 21st Century, perhaps more than 9/11, Obama and the rest. Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, Twitter and more. Our cell phones are set up to social network on the move, we hear about our friends simchas, dating woes, and health on a daily basis and we even use it to plan our night life and get our news.

I started Tweeting about RustyMike In September. I wasn't sure that it would be anything other than a royal waste of time, but it's now an integral part of RustyMike's marketing strategy. We have approx 800 followers, and nightly at least 50 out of our approx 300 podcast downloads come from Twitter. Thats on top of a combined facebook following of over 1500 people in our different groups. 

Kids seem particularly adept at harnessing the potential of the phenom that is changing the world as fast as the invention of cell phones did in the 80s: A few weeks ago I interviewed three ordinary 14 year old Jewish boys in the US who had managed to get millions of people to join their Hug A Jew day facebook group, which led to college and High School events around the globe; Then there's Justin Bieber, a 15 year old small town boy from Canada with a cute face and a little bit of talent. He posted a few vids on Youtube and got so many fans that today he has a hit CS and millions of 12 year old girls madly in love with the baby face boy;  Charlie McDonnell is a teenager from Bath, England who has  cultivated a massive loyal following on Youtube of millions which has led to TV appearences and he even managed to get his charity song into the UK Top 40 via Itunes in December. I know of plenty of 12 and 13 year olds posting videos about their day to day anxt filled teen lives that a couple of thousand people regularly wait for each week. These kids have the power to communicate with  a  mass audience that has never existed before for anyone not publishing a book or broadcasting on a TV or Radio network. Pirate radio  stations in the 90s would have killed for the numbers little preteen '0zMovies' gets on his youtube channel.These teens quietly speaking to thousands without  many adults even noticing, (I bet you haven't heard of any of the examples I mention here) will soon be running the social networks, and they perhaps understand the potential better than even the creators of  the sites .

What does it mean? Well the power to communicate to a mass audience has never been easier. 14 year olds are talking to millions, careers like Susan Boyle's take off not because of Simon Cowell but because of Youtube. In fact Cowell's Xfactor winner just missed a Xmas number one thanks to  a social network campaign against Cowell. The world has gotten a lot smaller & ideas can travel faster. Remember letters? I had a penpal in Australia...took months to hear back from him. When I lived in Israel in the 80s I would be lucky to speak with my mom once a fortnight. Today she sees my photos and videos on facebook seconds after I take them. Tragedy and joy are played out in Facebook statuses touching millions in minutes. Its intense, a little scary  but come on...it really is fun !

To the outsider Israelis are an irritable bunch, lacking patience, pushy and selfish. You might even think this is a society that doesn't seem to have knitted together well...a people that only care about themselves,& thats  hardly surprising with the entire population at best 2nd generation immigrant. However, over the past few months I've realized that nothing could be further from the truth: This isn't a society, it's one large family, the Children of Israel if you like. It may be a little dysfunctional at times, but what family isn't? A family none the less, so that for at least weddings and funerals it comes together, and whatever broygus there might be, the kids are loved by every member of that family.

What has drawn me to this view of the Israeli people? On Yom Haatsmaut I went with my fiance and friends into town and we parked up  a side street. Above us was a small wall where you could see the top of a man's head and a wisp of smoke as he BBQed. I shouted up "Chag Samaech & Batayavon! [bon appetite]" and the man looked down at the 7 of us and invited us to his family BBQ !!; There's a film on youtube of an israeli guy who proposes on an egged bus. The whole bus starts to sing and dance. A policeman gets on to find out what the hold up is and when he hears he joins in the simcha !

On a more serious level, when there's national tragedy, every single person shares the pain of the bereaved. Its what makes Yom Hashoa and particularly Yom Hazikaron such moving events. The entire country stops to remember. Its intensley powerful to stand next to complete strangers in the street while we cry for the same losses and it binds this family, these Children of Israel. We all feel the absence of Gilad Shalit from our simchas and SHabbos meals because he's family; we all mourn with Rabbi Seth mandel for the loss of little Kobe because he was mishpacha; we see every soldier as our child, or at least our nephew or niece. This isn't a country, its a family, and families argue, get heated, & yes show their worst sides to each other, but beneath that they love each other and wouldn't really have it any other way.

I'm an Oleh Hadash, just 9 months here, but I'm already part of the family. People I don't know tell me its wonderful that  I came & proceed to tell me why, strangers genuinely light up when they hear I'm engaged and want all the details of how we met, where we're getting married and they sometimes will pull out their calendar to see if they are free that day !! Why?? Because I'm family!!

So why don't Jews from abroad see that? They are family too surely, members of the Tribe. Yes they are, but they don't share the collective experience of the past 61+ years, the soldiers are more remote than they are for us here. I say us,because even after 9 months I know dozens of kids in the IDF, and I worry for them constantly. I didn't feel that in such an emotional and immediate way from london or LA. I came here as a tourist and saw the negatives, and at best the Jewish connections, but as an Israeli citizen I can see the more subtle ties that bind us not just as Jews but as Israelis.

This is indeed a slightly dysfunctional family, but its my family...oh and for the record, its very welcoming of new members!!!

Setting up RustyMike has brought an old addiction I thought had conquered years ago, back to full bloom: buying music. I’m like a chocoholic working for Cadburys!!

 

It started back in the days of vinyl, or as we called things back then: records, albums and singles. One of my earliest memories is of my mum & dad’s record player in our living room. It was a magnificent piece of furniture: a big hardwood cabinet, with a lid that opened like the hood of a car [and thinking back, it was about the same size!]. Inside was a player that could stack records ten high ready to play, and I was very proud of my ability to place the needle at the exact spot between tracks for a seamless start. I would play certain albums over and over: things like “Hair” (original London cast of course); ‘Harry Belafonte’s greatest hits’; ‘Connie Francis sings Jewish Favourites’; ‘Dean Martin Hits’ and others. It seemed so innocent back then…just a small child sat in front of a record player absorbing wondrous sounds by greats of a previous generation. Nobody saw the danger signs.  I was about 8 when my late Grandpa Harry bought me a cheap portable mono record player for my birthday. I’m sure he thought he was doing me a favour:  I went straight out and spent my birthday money on my first 2 albums: “Max Bygraves sings I’m a Pink Toothbrush and other children’s favourites” (I was only 8 ok !!!)  & the album that changed my life “The Beatles Oldies but Goldies” (I quite literally wore the grooves out of that record from playing it 24/7 for 5 years).  As soon as I was old enough to go to the local High Street record store, all my pocket money went on 45s: Queen, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Wings, Elton John and much much more ( a brief flirtation with the music of Chris DeBurg for example).

I did go through an 8-track phase after my barmitzva, but tell me honestly: who thought that was a good idea? My dad’s back seat was always full of carts and he only had about 10 of them, all of which broke inside the player & they were huge! There were quadraphonic carts…what was that? If you only have two ears, why would quad sound be in anyway useful??

By my late teens my music collection took up half my room at Hillel student House, and still nobody tried to get me help, although by then I had started a sizeable tape collection as well. In fairness,  I’d started to slow down on the principle that “most of the new stuff is rubbish” and truth be told, I had my favourites and far less time and money to spare. I told myself that I had it under control at last.

 

It must have been the mid-80s when my dad gave me a cd player, and I gradually replaced my collection with disks. I truly understand why CD’s are a huge leap forward: the sound is incredible, they are easy to use and harder to damage, but I have always felt they miss the tactile experience of putting on a record: That clunk as the album drops onto the spinning surface, the “ksch, ksch” sound as the needle tracks the silence before the music…even the occasional skip as a spider walks dizzily over Cliff Richard’s ‘Summer Holiday’!

Cds take up far less space, so I was able to hide my habit more easily. People actually praised my collection! As my Judaism grew and I became more observant, I found answers too many questions in life, but not my music habit…in fact a new section of my music collection grew: Mordachai Ben David, Avraham Fried, & Miami Boys Choir shared shelf space with Led Zeppelin & Hendrix. Living in the US I discovered Country and Garth Brooks, Shania Twain and other CD purchases were made. All along I told myself it was under control, I could stop anytime..oh the self delusion!

 

Perhaps I could have maintained control but a few things happened that threw my self control into the trash: I presented a Jewish music radio show in London, so of course I needed lots more music for that: I would leave Ben Gurion with half of the GalPaz’s stock in my suitcase ! Then the world of music purchase was changed forever by a new concept: download: My self delusion that I could control the urge was shattered: ITunes opened up possibilities for my music collection that I could have only imagined in my youth: every track ever made for just £0.79 (or about 4.5nis). My 120gig hard drive suddenly seemed small, my 8gig mp3 player pathetically inadequate. Today I am equipped with an 80gig IPod and a 250gig portable hard drive just to handle my music…even my phone can store a few hundred tunes!

 

Only two things help me sleep at night: Knowing that my habit means that RustyMikeRadio is going to have an incredible & eclectic playlist of music: I promise that everyday there will be music that makes you say “omg, I love this song” and “wow, I haven’t heard that for ages”. The other thing that makes me able to cope is the comforting knowledge that there is always someone worse off than me…in this case it’s our afternoon presenter Richard Freedman: his cd collection is INSANE. I spent 2 days in his office where he houses it..I was like a caffeine addict with the keys to Starbucks HQ!

 

We are both so excited at the opportunity to share our obsession for great music with you on RustyMikeRadio in just a couple of weeks. I’d love to hear your music loves, memories & requests, so drop me an email.

 

Adam Mallerman 26/02/09

adam@rustymikeradio.com

 

 

Dictionary:

Records: black vinyl discs with music in grooves on both sides

Albums: large format records with multiple songs that came in terrifically designed cardboard covers & played at 38rpm

Singles: smaller format records with 1 song on each side played at 45rpm

45s: another word for singles

8Tracks: huge tapes!

CDs: if you don’t know you are too young to be using on the internet!