Funny, He Doesn’t Look Jewish
Although I’d gotten to know Jussie Smollett a lot better over the past few weeks than I would ever have wanted to, something I had been unaware of until I looked him up this morning is that he is half-black, half Caucasian…and that half is Jewish.
Although I’d gotten to know Jussie Smollett a lot better over the past few weeks than I would ever have wanted to, something I had been unaware of until I looked him up this morning is that he is half-black, half Caucasian…and that half is Jewish.
That led me to wonder how many other notable Americans are half and half. I already knew about Barack Obama and Derek Jeter, both of whom had white mothers.
But it’s a fairly long list that includes actors, actresses, singers and even a basketball player. Just a partial list includes Dwayne Johnson, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Bob Marley, Eartha Kitt, Rashida Jones, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Mario Van Peebles, Jennifer Beal, Smokey Robinson, Maya Rudolph, Vin Diesel, Ben Harper. Grant Hill and Carol Channing. CAROL CHANNING?!
That’s right, although she was only a fourth-mixed. Her mother was Caucasian, her father was half and half.
A bigger surprise was how many of their white parents were, like Jussie Smollett, Jewish. With parentage that is a combination of black and Jewish, they could no more help being liberals than I can help being cute as a button. Albeit, a short, bald button.
What’s fascinating is how dominant the black DNA is, no matter which parent is white and which is black. With the possible exceptions of Maya Rudolph, Jennifer Beal, Dwayne Johnson and, of course, CAROL CHANNING, one would assume the others were black. And, left-wing propaganda aside, it didn’t seem to prevent any of them from achieving success in this allegedly racist society.
Wisconsin’s favorite son, Wayne Brenholt, periodically reminds me that when I complain about the temperature plunging down into the 50s here in L.A. he, as well as most of you, regard that as a heat wave.
The other day, he wrote to say that in February, they’d had 33 inches of snow in Chetek. I made him aware of the fact that everyone knows that men lie about such things and that it was my hunch that it wasn’t more than 27 inches.
I find it odd that Jill Abramson, who was fired by the New York Times from her editorship, and Lara Logan, who recently split from CBS and “60 Minutes,” have received a lot of attention for merely stating the obvious, which is that the American media is liberally biased.
I mean, talk about old news. After all, it was way back in 2001 that Bernie Goldberg published the blockbuster best-seller, “Bias,” that put him on the map. To some of us, it seemed blatantly obvious even then. But in the age of Trump, for two women to garner so much attention for repeating what Goldberg wrote 18 years ago seems almost as far-fetched as creating a stir by pointing out how suspicious it was that the weather hoaxers went overnight from warning us about something as specific as “global warming” to something as amorphous as “climate change.”
In the aftermath of my wife’s death, I came across all manner of things I hadn’t seen or even thought about for many years.
One of the oddest was the following invitation dated April 14, 1980: “You are cordially invited to attend my divorce party on Saturday, April 26th, at 8 p.m.
"There will be booze and cold cuts provided…the quality and quantity of which will be determined by the property settlement announced by the judge early next week. (Lilavati, I suspect, will be having her party catered by Chasen’s.)
"However the judge rules, I will try not to put a pall on the festivities by being bitter and wallowing in self-pity. Instead, in typical Prelutsky fashion, I will get drunk and boorish and pass out by 9:30. In case I’m still passed out under the table when you leave, I hope you will have had a wonderful time.
"I want you all to know that I’m not holding any of you responsible for my present situation. I even take a certain pride in knowing that the children of two lawyers will have college educations and perfect teeth, thanks to my legal fees.
"But enough about me. In the future, you’re all going to have to take some responsibility for my actions. So, from now on, if you even see me within 100 yards of a rabbi, priest, minister, justice of the peace or ship captain, call a cop, hit me with a brick, place me in irons, have me declared non compos mentis or, at the very least, tamper with my blood tests. RSVP regrets (meaning that you can’t come, wise guys, not that you can). As ever, Burt.”
Five years later, I got married for the third time and it was for keeps. Or at least until January 14, 2019.
Speaking of Yvonne, for all her many virtues, the woman was an Olympic-class hoarder. I, on the other hand, abhor clutter. It is, I believe, undeniable proof that God likes a good joke as much as the next guy that men like me who feel hemmed in at the Grand Canyon wind up married to women who can’t bring themselves to toss out old magazines, pieces of string and dresses that have had forty years to make a fashion comeback and have, as yet, shown not the slightest inclination to do so.
Which brings me to my present situation. I have seen hundreds of movies and TV shows and read even more hundreds of books that dealt with the death of a loved one, be it a parent, a spouse or a sibling, and not once have I been told how labor-intensive it is.
They certainly don’t skimp when it comes to relating the grief, the loneliness, sometimes even the guilt and unresolved issues, but, at least in my experience, they never bother letting you know how exhausting it is to deal with the details.
It begins with funeral arrangements and deciding on a guest list, and whether there should be a post-funeral gathering and where it should be. The cost alone will come as a shock if you’ve never been through it before.
But, then, even before you can take a break and sift quietly through the memories accumulated over 33 years, you’re tossed into a whirlpool that includes, but is not limited, to dealing with lawyers, banks, credit card companies, Social Security and attempting to sell a car that hadn’t yet been paid off. I even found myself trying to explain to our dog just what the heck was going on.
Part of the shock was that because I knew that women on average live five years longer than men, I assumed I would go first. Yet another of God’s little jests.
I will close with one of Stephen Hanover’s own little jests.
One evening, a mother is braiding her young daughter’s hair when the child turns to ask her mother if she had wanted to have a little boy or a little girl. “Actually, sweetheart, I just wanted a back rub.”
