This morning I had a funny conversation with my youngest son, he is still learning to formulate his words, he always knows what he wants, he just doesn’t always remember to convey it in words.

This credit is long overdue. People, go and check out SerandEz. If you haven’t made his blog a frequent stop on your hourly blog refresh cycles - you should.

Aside from being very sharp, and always on target, he has also made himself one of the best places rounding up all the great stuff on the J-Blog landscape. His daily, sometimes hourly updates on what’s new around the jNETTM are very extensive. He’s only been Blogging for a few months (since June) but already has made his mark, I just wanted to tell you, if you haven’t added him to your daily routine, your missing out. Keep up the great work Ezzie.

Start by reading this post.

If I’m really HASC News Central, I should probably tell you that the HASC website is now fully functional, it’s easy on the eyes, but not much is really there, aside from what we know already. Oh, and there is a countdown clock … Think you have to type Jewish numbers in it every 108 minutes? 1 … 7 … 13 … 18 … 26 … 36

First come the Jewish newspaper articles, and then the big media will follow.

Earlier I posted the Something Jewish article, there was also this new Ha’eretz article, these guys are all getting this stuff out early, because once the real media blitz begins, people won’t be reading the smaller papers to find out about Matis.

I’m really excited about the new album, and I’m excited to hear his guest stink on P.O.D.

Interesting quotes in this article:

Since releasing his 2004 JDub debut album Shake Off the Dust… Arise, Matisyahu has taken the North American rock circuit by storm, despite his haredi appearance and religious lyrics. Between classes at a Crown Heights Lubavich yeshiva, Matisyahu plays all over the continent. He appeared at Tennessee’s Bonnaroo hippie mega-festival, which boasted an audience of 80,000 as well as other rock legends. This summer he played the “Reggae on the Rocks” festival at Red Rocks, Colorado and the “Reggae Carifest” in New York City. He also opened for Phish guitarist Trey Anistasio’s solo project at its Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Indianapolis and St. Louis dates. …………………

Matisyahu explains how his collaboration with Trey Anastasio came to be: “We played at Bonnarroo on Sunday, so I spent shabbes at the Chabad House in Nashville. We were trying to get onstage with one of the main acts. Motzei shabbes (Saturday night), I got a call from Aaron [Bisman], and he said, ‘You’ve got to get back to Bonnaroo, because we got you a meeting with Trey.’

“I met him about 15 minutes before he went onstage. I asked him if I could stand in, and he said, ‘I think it’s a bad idea’ - he already had Bo Bice [American Idol runner-up] going on with him. Then, after I left, he popped his head out of the trailer and said, ‘Do you know any Bob Marley?’ So we ended up doing ‘No Woman No Cry.’ The three of us (Bo Bice, Trey and myself) were on stage. One of the reasons I was doing it was to bring people to God, and the reason American Idol exists is to make people into idols, and Trey was in the middle, so it was an interesting moment.” ……………………………………………

“This time, Matisyahu will be bringing his manager, his own band, his wife and his newborn son. “Were not a band of sex, drugs and rock and roll,” says Bisman. “It’s a Jewish band -it’s a family-friendly environment. His wife travels with him. This is all he wants to do - he wants to be playing shows, and she would never want to take that away from him. His baby rarely cries, partly because he has four of his uncles [referring to the three band members and Bisman himself] on the tour bus with him.”

Read it HERE

Here is another reason if the 2000 Democratic ticket names were reversed I may have voted Democrat. (I say MAY very loosely)

I had no idea that they made a fourth movie in this series. The second and third were bad enough. At this point it’s just embarrassing. How unwatchable do you think this will be?

This picture says it all. Is her 15 minutes up yet? Oh how I wish I could insert crickets sounds into the background of this post.

While I was building something today, I scraped one of my fingers and bruised a spot where there was a scar that I’ve had for many years. I looked at the scar at remembered when I got that scar. It was a busy college night that ended in exacto knife injury.

I almost lost my finger, but thank g-d survived, I have a few of these scars on my fingers. I was always overusing exacto knives for projects, and I was a little too unafraid of the dangers of my hand slipping. By the way, for the record, sharpening a pencil with an exacto knife may seem like a plausible solution to not having a normal pencil sharpener, but its baaad. It’s a very baaad idea.

While I was looking at this scar I had a thought. I enjoy my scars. I like them. I think they remind me of who I am. They remind me of my past. They remind me of the things I’ve done, the times I’ve had. The remind me, that I am me. Time may move forward. Many things may change, but these scars stay with me forever.

They tell a story. The story of me. We all want to be part of something big. We want to be part a family. Part of a friendship, part of a community, but there are times when we also want to be unique. It’s something I’ve struggled with me whole life. I think it’s something we all stuggle with.

I realize this may be an oddly written post. Probably not like anything you’ve ever read on a blog before. A post about scars. But to me, I thought this was a great insight into my world. You see it’s the challenge of finding the balance between wanting to be part of something big, and wanting to be your own person, that drives many people. Yes, I thought of all this, from staring a bruised scar.

Ok, I’ve decided to become “HASC Concert News Central”, I don’t know why, but what the heck …here it goes …

The Hasc website has been changed, and noted additions are that Menucha has been added to the mix, since I’m not as verbally musically intelligent as some of my friends, I’ve learned that “Vocal Ensemble” means they will be this years background adult choir not an actual featured group with songs.

Here is a post letting the cat out of the bag as to why Gerstner is so “chummy” with HASC this year. , citing family ties, but what’s funny is that gerstner related groups didnt appear till last year, nothing on 15,16 or 17, and even on hasc 18 YBC had two short songs. Plus, how come when The Chevra was at the height of their popularity they never got the nod? Funny. No?

This poster tells us that YBC will have six songs and that practice has begun. (this will give all those people out there swearing that YBC lip-syncs a good chuckle)

Then there is “tom” again, this is the guy who had tons of false information last year, but claimed to speak for many of the people involved in HASC and was famous for predicting things that were so obvious that at times it seemed he was in on the joke.

This year, he seems to have some good points, not as many predictions though. I can’t find the original post on the board, i think it may have been taken down, here it is in the email version that gets sent out in digest form.

“And this goes to show you that these producers got no idea on what to do. It amazes me how with all the talent out there this is the best they can do? Give me a Break.

Mbd is not interested. Avrohom Fried got screwed by Hasc more than once and I guess he will never do a Hasc show.

With last years Matisyahu debut 2 thousand people swore never to go to a concert because they got so turned off. I know that a concert in the Theatre is a fortune and last year Hasc did not make much money but that’s because Sheya mendlowitz throws money around like it’s paper!

To go from a 6,000 seating arena to a 2,000 arena says a lot. Hasc CAN’T attract people anymore. It’s their own fault. I love Shwekey but who on earth wants to see him sing the same darn songs again and again. I think Shewkey is burning himself out by being the main person at every single jewish concert in the NYC/ NJ area!

There is so much more to say but we will leave it for others to comment for now!”

I agree with a lot of what he writes, except for the Matisyahu part (duh) if 2,000 people swore off the concert and 6,000 seats were sold, I’d say Matisyahu was a success. 4,000 people enjoyed his appearance. So it would seem like a bad business decision to cut 4,000 happy concert goers out of the show, and only invite those 2,000 upset attendees to a toned down version. Why don’t they do two shows at two seperate venues and keep all 6,000 in attendence?

Tom also takes time to “defend” earlier accusations that portions of the music for HASC were re-recorded. An obvious claim as I was at HASC and Shwekeys entire Ki Hatov was 100 percent redone, the dubbing was very obvious for the vocals and the music was completely different. it was much more wild, and lebidik at the show. Many of the parts of the show were obviously redone, and its funny when they even try to deny it.

This is one guy writing how he can’t imagine the show being the talk of the town, even though this board has been discussing HASC now for over a week, the show is at end of January and we’re not even in December. He thinks part of the backlash is because they had Matisyahu, and the (for real) talk around town about the separate DVD’s which isn’t really such a big talk of the town, and no one has mentioned it since it was initially reported and discussed on a couple blogs a couple months ago.

You know, on a side note, I checked, and there is only one version of the hasc 18 dvd and cd available on sameach’s site. A couple friends outside of NY told me they only saw one version, and it seems the only places that they were selling the second version was in places like Lakewood. Coincidence? I doubt it, they probably figured all those yeshivish kids shouting obscene things at Matisyahu during the hasc show and drooling themselves to tears of joy and inspiration over Shwekey wouldn’t buy the hasc show with the devil on it, so they made one without it.

(Previous … HASC … posts)

Sadly, Pat Marita has passed away. Wax on, dude, wax on ….

Why do some ultra frum frummies wanna pretend like they didn’t even know there was a legal holiday yesterday … If you don’t want to celebrate it, or have turkey, or whatever, that’s fine, but don’t insult my intelligence by pretending you didn’t even know what I was talking about ..

Me: So enjoy your turkey yesterday?

UltraFrummie: What do you mean?

Me: Turkey? Thanksgiving? Yesterday was Thanksgiving, you didnt know that?

UltraFrummie: Oh, I didn’t even realize, I don’t think about these things.

Ya … right … he didn’t even notice …

Ya we’re the bad guys. A tiny little country, technologically, morally, civilly, economically and democratically advanced by decades and decades over all of its blood thirsty suicidal, pledging to “wipe us off the map and spill our blood into the sea” neighbors - and somehow we are always the bad guys.

Story HERE