Shook the Spot

Toward the end of frigid February, as hell froze over, Shook exchanged three Jacksons for a light eighth of B'Love Special (a.k.a. Ethical Culture Fieldston School tetrahydrocannabinol). This will maybe get me to the beginning of March, Shook thought. It did, and then some. By the power of god, stems, and disciplined rationing, that blessed baggie of weed lasted not one week, but eight crazy weeks! Apropos for this holiday season. Sure, it's the wrong holiday, but fuck Passover. Indeed, it might surprise you to learn that Shook has never really been a fan of the Pesach holiday, despite my middle name . . . yes, we have a Moses Family Seder, but the novelty wore off around 5759. It's just that the whole exodus business strikes me as an extraordinarily tired story, considering how 1) our country has dealt with far more recent and more relevant slavery; and 2) our people have been through far worse than Pharoah. (Speaking of that dude, Harvard Hillel is hosting "Pharoah on Trial" this Monday, and Alan Dershowitz is the defense attorney. Who's the anti-Semite now? Innocent until proven guilty, though, of course . . . )

So, anyway, Shook wasn't exactly looking forward to last night's seder in Teaneck, New Jersey, but that shit proved far more entertaining than expected. Highlight of the evening . . . Cousin Louis, whom Shook thought everybody knew was gay, came out of the fucking closet in the middle of the fucking seder!!! It was pretty amazing . . . Uncle Sam, who was really awkwardly pushing his two books (self-published, it should be noted) on spiritual healing during the gefilte-fish hour, led the seder as usual. And in one customary digression, he started going on about "spiritual slavery" and how Passover is about liberating your emotions and not letting shit build up inside you. Shook reached for a bottle of wine at that point, eschewing the blessing. Sam keeps talking long enough to lose the attention of everyone at the table, including his mother Annie, who watches the Home Shopping Network and plays Scrabble (by herself!) all day back in Florida. But, apparently, Louis was listening, because when Sam opened the floor for others to share their thoughts on "our perennial exodus from negativity," ole cousin Lou was the first to pipe up . . . "I just want to say that I've been dealing with a certain kind of slavery all my life. The slavery of not letting people know who I really am." Juicy dramatic pause. "I'm gay." Just like that. Over at the kids' table (more the relatively kids' table; Shook was the second-youngest there and had to read the Four Questions in fucking Hebrew), the revelation didn't cause much of a stir. But the older crowd, especially Annie and Esther, looked like they'd just turned on the CBS Evening News and found Katie Couric in the anchor chair. Oy gevalt.

The seder concluded without further drama, and Shook managed to get back home just in time for the 10:30 premiere of Centerstage: Jay-Z . . . Yeah, that would be Yankee broadcaster Michael Kay talking to the King of Hip-Hop on Kay's extraordinarily low-budget yet somehow endearing YES Network interview show. (On the drive home, as Shook flipped through the radio dial while crossing over the George Washington Bridge . . . Z100, Hot97, and Power105 were all simultaneously playing Sean Paul's new single, "Temperature." Sick. Like in a good way.) In any event, Jay-Z didn't say anything worth repeating here, but Shook enjoyed the show while packing with the violin with the last, the very last flakes from the bottom of that magic baggie. Time to reup . . .