T is for

Dear world, although I don't consume swine, I am formally nominating myself as your sausage man.

Cathy and I got back earlier this week from a fantastic jaunt to Austin to where we ate a ton of food and hung out with awesome friends (in that particular order). Upon our return, Cathy declared the food in DC better than the food in Austin. I believe her reasoning is based primarily on the lack of Asian diversity. Speaking of which, we went to a bar our last night there to pick up some food. While Cathy and I were standing at the bar, shoulder to shoulder (sexy, right?), an older gentleman pointed to her but asked me "Vietnamese or Japanese?" I found that it was very understanding of him to both pick countries that were not China, and to ask the question of me, since you just never know who might be deaf & mute & from Asia. Cathy was not amused.

Our first day there was spent in the Czech-settled region outside of Austin. But first we ate some BBQ!



Then we headed out to the hinter-lands where we stopped in on a few of the amazing painted Catholic churches built by these Czech communities 100 years ago.



The next morning was spent in Molton where we went to a family sausage making. The men stayed outside butchering and grinding freshly slaughtered hogs, drinking beer and listening to Texas-Czech polka music. The woman were inside making amazing strudel. What does it say about me that I felt more at home with the ladies in the kitchen? Although I did not consume any of the swine, Cathy ate for the both of us. (although she ate and drank a ton while in Texas, the following picture is not Cathy)













The rest of the weekend was awesome but less picture friendly. We stayed with our wonderful friends Stuart and Larny who are the most amazing, hospitable people on earth. For some reason we ended up with a ton of pictures of Stuart and only one of Larny. What gives?

This is the closest thing I have to a shot of both Stuart and Larny.

J is for?

Oh no.

Josh S just wrote to me to let me know that technically Joshua IS Jesus in English since both Joshua and Jesus shared the hebrew name Yohoshua.

See Etymology below.

But here is the real issue. Cathy's REAL name in Korean means Jesus (since she as born on Christmas) and my name means Jesus (since I guess secretly my parents wanted a Christmas tree or a kid who could turn water in to Manishewitz for cost savings) I guess am living with myself. Oy.


Etymology

See also: Yeshua

"Jesus" (pronounced /ˈdʒiːzəs/) is a transliteration, occurring in a number of languages and based on the Latin Iesus, of the Greek Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), itself a Hellenisation of the Hebrew יֵשׁוּעַ (Yēšûă‘) or Hebrew-Aramaic יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yĕhōšuă‘, Joshua), meaning "Yahweh delivers (or rescues)".^[31] "Christ" (pronounced /ˈkraɪst/) is a title derived from the Greek Χριστός (Christós), meaning the "Anointed One", a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ (Messiah).^{[32][33]:274-275} A "Messiah" is a king anointed at God's direction or with God's approval, and Christians identify Jesus as the one foretold by Hebrew prophets."

I got rid of the beard since I am off to a conference in NCY today. Sorry dudes. Here is a picture of it and my hairy shoulders.

Long John Sliver

Yesterday, after a serious spinning class at the LA fitness (where the instructor referred to me as Mr. Scruffy, in reference to my increasingly face-overpowering-beard) and following the realization that the holidays and my travels packed an extra 9 pounds on my ass, I took a shower.

It was a fine shower with shitty LA Fitness dial soap. My post shower routine usually has me drying off, and then putting on my underthings before I head back into the locker room area, so as not to flaunt my covenant with the lord. Yesterday, however, I wore long johns under my jeans, since it is was cold as Cathy's heart outside. Not wanting to drag my long johns into the shower, for obvious reasons, I opted to walk from the shower into the locker area with my mini-towel held over my person-parts. Then, I decided that it might be embarrassing to change right into the long johns in the middle of the locker room, what with them being baggy, and my desire not to look completely like a mountain man lost in the mean city. So, what I attempted to do was slide both the john and the jeans on AT THE SAME TIME. This was a failure. With three Congolese guys laughing at me (I could tell, even if I didn't understand what they were staying) I tried to insert myself, one leg at a time, into my outfit. My first leg got caught in the johns, and I started to hop around, bare assed, nearly knocking one of the laughing men over with my hirsute backside. Then, when the leg started to go in, my big toe got caught on the underwear and ripped a hole right though, causing me to fall forward, cathing myself at the laft moment on a bench. Finally, after a good five minutes of public struggle I was able to assemble myself like an adult. I hate the winter.

The following is shot of people getting down in Colombia, where it was considerably warmer than 20 degrees F.

Up

Cathy and I just finished watching "Away We Go." Until she hit play, I was under the assumption that this was the movie about the fat kid and the flying house. It turns out that is another movie altogether.

The movie was very sweet and romantic, but Cathy spent the entirety of the film loudly complaining about the soundtrack, which was chock-full of low-level Nick Drake-like drivel. I was able to get past the maudlin music and focus the gooey-stuff, but Cathy held onto that rage like bun to a hot dog.

gee wiz

I know it has been FOREVER. I have been around the hemisphere and back. Colombia, Montana, Virginia, BERLIN NEW JERSEY. What a bunch of weeks.

I have a killer family story tell you all that involves intrigue, skin discoloration, hillbilly masks, and acts of hubris. And my mother of course. Sadly, she has forbidden me to to discuss this story or share the amazing photo. So instead I will put up the equally freakish image of Cathy's niece. Isn't she a monster?.
I started my month heading down to Cartagena, Colombia for a very, VERY last minute trip (I found out about it two days before I got on a plane). It was mostly a talent scouting trip but I was able to sneak in a scuba diving excursion. At least 5 different people I met seemed to be confused about my name, asking if Joshua was English for Jesus? It's not.

The trip to Colombia was amazing and that country has a wealth of musical assets. It reminds me of a compact Brazil. Cartagena was almost unbearably hot and humid, the temp hovering at around 97 with 80 percent humidity. I soaked through most of my clothes while the locals strutted by in jeans and long sleeve shirts.

The next week I was in Montana where it was 7 degrees.

Moving on...

I have taken time off life and worked at my families store in Berlin, NJ since I was 13. The one year I failed to show up to work for the holidays my car was doused in gasoline and burnt to a crisp while parked at the local Jewish Community Center. The blame for this act was placed on some hoodlum for Northeast Philly, but I think my father played a part in scaring me into a work ethic. Maybe it was his recipe for a version of Jewish scared straight. Anti-Semitism+ignoring of filial ties+removal of mode of transportation+being stranded in Northeast Philly=work for the family biz every Christmas for the rest of your life. Thanks pop.

It is always great to see my family in action of the holidays and even if my mother was incapacitated by injuries, she still was able to cook up some mean soup.

It was Cathy's birthday on Christmas day and if you failed to wish her a happy birthday you will burn in Christian hell. As a gift of Santa or Jesus or something, she has those sorts of magical powers.

Hey kid, watch out for Gizint.

A few years ago, when both of my folks were going though an unusually difficult time regarding their health, my father sat me down and talked about grandkids. Only half jokingly, he implored, "I don't care how you do it, or who you do it with, I want grandkids soon. I don't care who it is that you pick-up off the street to make this a reality." How very sweet. He even promised to help out financially since, at that time, I was hardly employed, and the employment stability of the proposed future-mother-of-my-children was directly tied to the level in which the Williams administration punished ladies of the night.

Thankfully, both of my parents have been in great health(physically) for some time, and my sister has since gotten hitched, so the responsibility for reproducing has fallen on her shoulders with the weight of 10 Passover briskets. My mother puts on her best old-Jewish mother voice and kvetches to her other old-Jewish mother friends "Ahch, she will never give me a grandchild!."

Well, all of that changed when a few months ago Bek found out that she will become a mother. My father cried when he found out, mother mother screamed, my aunt did this really funny dance and shouted "all right, all right!." (watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57L0YpsDgQ4)

My sister and I are super close. She is hands down the funniest person I know and we get along very well. But this was not always this case. She and I, especially as children, were very different. She could most often be found crying in public, tears streaming down her face, embarrassed at some benign action of my mothers (grinding with drunken Polish mummers during the mummers parade for example). I on the other hand, was a soft spoken, complacent kid, happy to ponder why tears came so easily to my sister.

As we got older, our relationship took on new dynamics. For example, my folks would often punish her for some transgression or another, and then would put me in charge of carrying out her punishment "Josh, Bek has been grounded from TV for the night, we are going out for a while, make sure she doesn't get near the TV." These actions would often leave me with bruises, broken skin or both.

Recently, she married a man, who like my mother, will happily embarrass her in public. He has a life-size Lawrence Taylor cutout, a once large collection of pleated pants, and a sense of humor directly connected to the degree in which my sister will get red in the face. He is a good man. Last Thanksgiving I witnessed a truly epic fight in which my sister discovered that the peanut butter she uses for breakfast was the same peanut butter that her husband dips their dogs bone into everyday. It was awesome. Back to the point of this long winded tale...

Bek is going to make a rad mother. But she will have to learn to deal with a child that will turn out almost exactly like me. Hairy, drawn to loud music, lover of beefaroni from a young age, critical of most events around him. It should be an interesting fit and one that I intend to laugh at and nurture with smiles, joy, and secret packages of metal records and leftist literature.

Lee Kohn at 70, or, if the world converted its primary energy source from petroleum to fart jokes there would be universal peace

On November 3rd, both the great fulgelhornist, Chuck Mangione and my father, Lee (short for Lee) Kohn will celebrate their birthdays. My father is a year older than Mr. Mangione and would have told him where to shove his flugelhorn if they had gone to high school together (answer: where the sun don't shine).

My father's influence has been vast. Andrew Richman probably would be half the man his is today if it weren't for my father. Ed Brant would have never learned the word "pisser." Rebekah Klipper would have far less jewelry. Berlin, NJ would still be receiving their gold purchases in brown paper bags.

My father has an active and inventive mind. I have hung around my fare share of dads over the years, and generally, they put their mental energies towards your typically fatherly obsessions- golf, piss-poor carpentry, pondering the best shortstops throughout the history of the Phillies franchise (answer: Dickie Thon). These were not activities that ever interested Lee Kohn. Instead, my father has spent much of his down time doing one of the following:
1. Napping: No man can match the athletic prowess that my father shows in his napping abilities. Even Cathy is outmatched.
2. Watching cooking shows: He can watch a mean cooking show. I have only really seen him "cook" boiled hot dogs, shrimp scampi, and an occasional bloody mary, but the amount of cooking he should have amassed over the years would put Emeril to shame.
3. Mediocre financial planning: My father is a champion average investor. Ask him for advice, he will give it to you.
4. Getting manicures: the man likes well-maintained nails, what can I say.
5. Coming up with jokes/stories/insults that would appeal to a 13 year old boy/Andrew Richman: Seriously, my father is king of the bathroom humor which makes him my hero.
This final (and most important) time-consumer leads me to one of my father's greatest inventions, and one of the true great ideas of the last century:

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, SICK THING!

When we were young children, the Kohn family (Sherry, Lee, Rebekah, and yours truly) would take long and painful vacations to such educational destinations as Williamsburg, VA (I purchased a clay pipe, Bekah scowled), Bar Harbor (I purchased tadpoles, Bekah scowled) Niagara Falls (fresh peaches! Bekah scowled) and many a colonial military base (I purchased a fife, Bekah scowled). On these excruciatingly long car rides, my father had to come up with something, anything to keep Bekah from abusing her poor, innocent brother, and thus, the game "Animal, Vegetable Sick Thing" was born. The rules are as follows:

1. Basically, the game runs exactly like "Animal Vegetable, Mineral" but "Mineral" is replaced by "Sick Thing" since seriously, nobody wants to try to figure out that you are thinking of zinc.

2. You get 20 questions, or actually you get as many questions as you want since the Kohn's were never really that good at math.

3. Although the answer might be anything that falls under the three main catagories, the truth is, the answer is always:
1. Enema Bag
2. Diarrhea
3. Vomit
4. Fart
5. Poop (while you might think diarrhea and poop would be the same, they, in fact, warrant their own categories.

And that is the game. The key to winning the game is not getting the answer, but asking the grossest leading question to get to the answer.

Example round (answer is fart)

Bek: Does Josh smell like this?
Dad: yes
Josh: Did Bek just do this?
Dad: Yes
Bekah: When Josh trys to be cool, does this sometimes happen?
Dad: yes
Sherry: Is is a birthday cake?
Dad: no
Josh: Is it ugly like Bek's face
Dad: yes
Bek: Do you want to stay away from it like all of Josh's "friends"
Dad: yes
Bek: Is it a fart
Dad: YOU WIN.

As you can see, my father is a great man.

Happy 70th pop. I hope you eat a lot of meat and do not let one damn vegetable on your plate.