REDEEMING BORAT - PLUS THOUGHTS ABOUT PLEASURE OBJECTS

In December of last year I filled out an eHarmony questionnaire. No, not to play the field - there's only one pair of panties that I want to get into - but just to see what would turn up.

I filled out the questionnaire on behalf of Borat Sagdaiev. As a favour to the man. More or less. Just haven't told him yet.


[Mentioned in this post: Hairy Sex Beast ]


The answers I gave to the eHarmony questions were more or less guesses, based on how I understand Borat's personality. I had a framed photo of him wearing his electric green stretchable mankini in front of me while going through the questionnaire, to make certain that the many facets of his sparkling personality would be reflected in the answers.

I kinda went ape - some of the answers were ....., well ....., errrm ....., your know.


Now, ten months later, and eHarmony is STILL sending Borat breathless news about women who wish to be hitched to a man obsessed with anooses, chrams, Gypsies, and Jews (though not the anooses or chrams of Gypsies or Jews).
Plus offers he really should not refuse.

Dear Borat,
Fall is just around the corner, and it's a new season full of great possibilities. To help get your fall off to an exciting start, we are offering you this special opportunity to save.
Get our best deal ever and save an extra 75% on our 3-month plan. That's just $9.95 a month!
Borat, give yourself the opportunity to fall in love this season and join eHarmony today.
Offer Ends Soon!



Their faith in Borat's innate lovability is touching. On behalf of the man himself, I shall be touched. I never though of Borat as a pleasure object, but someone does.


NOTE: The term 'Pleasure Object' is also a high-fallutin' term for vibrators and dildoes.
I found this out yesterday while at an emporium near my house - I was discretely listening to half a dozen young Philippinas talking in front of the display of 'Pleasure Objects'.

Snippets of overheard conversation:
"How many batteries per week? Oh, about six, sometimes eight or ten." "This one plugs into your computer - must be for business people." "The g-spot is the female equivalent of the prostate - hah, they haven't felt either!" "This one comes in two sizes - the extra-large one must be for blondes." "You can hide that one in a bowl of bananas." "Which end is the wrong end?" "Sounds like a dentist's drill." "No, not the pink one - too teenagy; purple and black are more assertive". "Lifetime warranty? What the hell do they think I'll be doing in sixty years?" "Size like a dump truck." "It's not how it feels in your hand that counts."


Between the six of them, they spent over a thousand dollars. Mostly on the stealth models - the ones that don't sound like a band-saw.
Ergonomic, plus European design.

They've got their priorities screwed on right.
More power to 'em.
Borat is NOT part of their welltanshauung.

BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN

For those who might be unaware, Borat is a character played by Sacha Baron Cohen. The movie was meant to be comedic - if you didn't get that, I am sorry. Maybe you do not belong to the target audience? Or possibly you belong in an Arab country; excepting Lebanon, it was banned everwhere in the Arab world.


BORAT

The man is a comic genius and a loose cannon. Especially worth noting were the scenes expressing oddness or disruption of logic - the fierce bear scaring the kids running alongside the ice-cream truck, the wistful statement that they should've stayed in New York, because at least there are no Jews there.

Also hugely enjoyable is the utter vulgarity of the nude wrestling match in the convention hotel, and the consternation of the pretentious Southern dinner party guests at Borat's behaviour - especially when the hooker arrives.

Imagine Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road' combined with William Burroughs distorted reality.


The movie itself doesn't say much about America and Americans. Stereotypes, yes, but extreme examples. It should be noted that Sasha Cohen always deals with such extremes, and is far less vicious in jabbing the soft-underbelly of his subjects than many comedians, who leave little whole or unbleeding of their victims.


The movie can also be seen as a retelling of a mediaeval quest epic. Our hero leaves his poor native village on a long journey into the unknown, accompanied by a faithful troll. Together they have many adventures in strange lands, acquire an animal companion, battle dangers. They split up, our hero pursues the princess, and when all is lost, he and his faithful troll companion meet up again. He finally realizes what he's really been looking for, and goes back to the hinterland settlement to woo the ugly peasant girl with a heart of gold, with whom he returns in triumph to his native village.

The only loose end is the question everyone asks: how do you cook a bear?


Like many movies, it is also an exorcism. It shows that which is feared in a way that denatures it, and by doing so, it renders the monster harmless, the dark unthreatening. The ending which ties up loose ends and reinterprets the plot motiefs functions as a settling of uncertainties, and returns the daemons loosened in the retelling to a stable and completely circumscribed state of stasis.

IT'S AN ELECTRIC HARMONY THING - YOU WOULDN'T UNDERSTAND

Jagshemash!

Sometimes you're bored.
So you do things.
Like filling in an e-harmony profile questionaire as Borat.

[This Borat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat ]


The results were surprising. Borat is actually pretty decent chap - despite his past history as a brutal gypsy-catcher.
The following are phrases lifted at near-random from Borat Sagdiyev's eharmony Personality Profile:

"You devote adequate time to taking care of your own needs and wants, in part because it makes you happy with your life and in part because that's what you truly believe every person should do.

Like someone who can sleep comfortably on either side of the bed, you are equally at home with ideas and beliefs that you have held for a long time and with new ways of thinking and believing that grow out of your intellectual curiosity.

Your sense of who you are and what your place is in the world around you rests on values and principles that are the solid ground you walk upon. You've tested them, they work for you, and much of the time you are content to trust them.

Not everyone will be thrilled by your flexible, middle-of-the-road ways of thinking and believing.

When others cannot think straight you remain unflappable and clear-headed.

The truth is that your work style gets things done, often with more beauty, fun, creativity and imagination than others could ever manage.

You enjoy your own company as much as you enjoy the company of others. You are a great conversationalist and thrive in the wonderful kinds of connections you know how to have with your family and friends.

Most people will truly appreciate your flexibility in social situations. They will like you for your amiable warmth and your willingness to engage, and for your ability to sit back and let others take the lead or the spotlight.

Because you are sometimes outgoing and sometimes reserved, you will make most people comfortable in your presence, and they will truly enjoy your company."


All of the above was based on a character with an obsessive interest in sex ("very nice...!"), anooses ("very nice...!!"), disgusting potty humour ("very nice...!!!"), extreme personal vanity ("very nice...!!!!"), and a level of male-chauvenism that dwarfs everything around him, including the tiny chrams of all other men ("very nice...?").

Plus selfishness, stubborness, total disregard for the emotional welfare of the other person or animal in the relationship, and all the usual shallownesses that men standardly deny.

According to his personality profile, that's actually what every man wants to be.
I wonder if that means something?

Dzienkue!

KEEP BORAT AWAY FROM THE MEGAPHONE!

That should be rule number one. Our side's rather crappy slogans become infinitesimally worse when Borat has good volume and yells something strange and unintelligible.
Once one finally figgers out what the heck he's hollering, one wonders what the heck is in his mind, oy I'm telling you.

[This posting, in case you're already baffled, is about the anti-Israel demonstration in front of the Federal Building mentioned in my previous post, and about our pro-Israel counter-demonstration.]


Rule number two should be that if the other side can't give more than two-days' notice of their intent to publicly demand the destruction of Israel, we probably shouldn't show up.

For several reasons.

With only 24 hours advance notice they themselves will not have a significant presence - two dozen angry hairy people simply look rather silly, and will not really influence anybody who hasn't already been lost to civilization.

Another reason is that when we have to organize a counter-protest that rapidly, we will not have a significant presence, and we'll only irritate the cops. That is not a good thing.

Additionally, with less than a dozen people, we don't have enough rhetorical cohesion to keep on the same message, and some of our more extreme partisans may vocalize statements which leave some of us shaking our heads in despair.

Personally I'd rather have the eccentric hollering coming from the other side. Their extremism and spiteful hate can make us look good. Loud crazy bloodlust can be their worst advertising.


A third reason why we should perhaps let the other side's spur-of-the-moment actions slide is that if there are not a lot of people on either side, the SFPD will not be out in force. There are some sonei-Yisroel among the ranks, who at these smaller events tend to throw their blue-garbed weight around, and clearly adhere to a double standard, whereas when there are at least two dozen cops present, there are enough of them who are either neutral or on our side to ensure that the excesses of the pro-Palestine radicals will be dealt with, and the treatment of the pro-Israel side will not be blatantly biased.
Enough senior officers and potential witnesses to ensure a diplomatic even-handedness in any case.


SO, WHAT HAPPENED?

I got there before everyone else, and wondered if I had the right time and place. Our sanest member showed up shortly after, followed by two or three other sane people. Soon we were augmented by two or three Borat, and a few others who were in between balanced and utterly Boratic. By three o'clock we had swollen to a mass of maybe ten people (Borat quotient: 30%).
The anti-Israel side by that time consisted of about twenty-five people milling about before the Federal Building and blocking the entrance, where they proceeded to unfurl banners and speechify.

We went over and stood next to them.

At this point, Boratic slogans were shouted, and their camera-toters swung into action. One young lady, possessed of both arrogant self-righteousness and impressive brazenness, came and took close-up photos of all of us. Some of the other photographers on their side were more particular about taking pictures of us from a few yards away, though clearly not because of any sense of bashfulness or good taste; one of them hissed at one of our members that he would be put on a death list.
We also took a number of pictures of them, even following the young lady with the impressive brazenness around and trying to get a picture of her face...... hard to do, because she really did not want to be photographed.

[Other than that repulsive smirking sneer on her face, she really was well worth photographing. But man, that brazenness! Impressive! Kudos, bitch, kudos!]



By three-thirty the police showed up, and insisted that both groups get off the plaza and onto the public sidewalk. It became apparent that the men in blue were more concerned about riling up the pro-Pals than about offending our sensibilities - the numbers and cameras may have had something to do with that, as well as the lack of diplomacy of our various Borat.

[We really have to be more in charge of our several Borat - they go off half-cocked at times.]


Both groups continued their respective actions on the sidewalk in front of the building, under orders from the police to keep to their assigned areas. Which, effectively, gave the advantage to the sonei-Yisroel. And while some of the police were polite, friendly and extremely reasonable, they were eventually joined by one officer who every time he passed by our group barked that we should not block the sidewalk. When we pointed out that the other side was allowed to block their entire corner, he snapped that they weren't blocking the sidewalk, we were.

[The other officers chilled somewhat towards us after his arrival. Group solidarity or something. It did not help that two or three of our Borat made snide remarks about double-standards and attempts to push Jews back into the Ghettoes. While those may have been the operative principles, most policemen will not break down and say 'sorry' when confronted with 'attitude', and many of them probably do not automatically think of the Jewish context of the word 'ghetto'.]


By four thirty we decided to "declare victory and go home". Sang Hatikvah, sounded the shofar, furled our banners and packed our signs, and headed off.

As I explained to a friend who was there, our task is merely to irritate the other side by our presence, and make sure that we are visible - no actual dialogue takes place, no minds are changed, no worthwhile rhetorical battles won. Especially if there is no news media present.

This will not be in the paper, though it may show up on the usual Israel-hating websites.

Probably just as well. The local news media do not report these events accurately and tend to blandly blather about both sides making their point blah blah blah. Even when the other side is screaming for the death of Jews, the Chronicle will at best merely state that passions were evident, while the ten o'clock news will show a reporter saying something inane against a background of inoffensive milling about in the distance and Frank Chiu maneuvring his twelve galaxies sign into camera range in mid-view.

----------------------------------------

Final note I: "Al mawt al Hezbullah, al mawt al Hamas", while being excellent slogans, are largely useless, as many of the Bay Area Israel haters do not speak Arabic, even if some of them have parents who do.

[Translation: "Death to Hezbullah, death to Hamas". I must thank Sheikh Nasrallah and his folks for the pattern of those slogans - if it weren't for video of his Shiites screaming similar stuff in Beirut last summer, I would not have thought to construct these phrases. My Arabic is not good enough to do more than hijack their rhetoric.]


Final note II: The area around the Federal Building has few pedestrians, and is a ghastly wind-tunnel besides. If we do any more of these 'one-day forewarning' actions, let's only do it if the bastards are going to be in front of the consulate or at Montgomery Street Bart Station. That way more of us can show up, and we can effectively hand out our flyers and engage passers-by in discussion, even if there are the usual Israel-hating ultra-left bigots among the pedestrians. The IHULBs tend to be less loud in their hate when there are more people around.

UNDERCOVER JEW

Yesterday evening, famous Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdaiev was a guest on The Daily Show ('Der Taglishes Shau', for those of you with Boropark cable), speaking with Jonathan Stewart (Reb Yonosson Stebartabam, f.t.o.y.w.b.c.).

When explaining the toast 'le chayim' to Borat, reb Yonosson let slip that he was Jewish.

Borat recoiled, and accused him of having had plastic surgery, as his horns were no longer visible ("and also, please to keep your claws where I can see them...").


Which brings two things to mind.

The first one being the old idea that Jews have horns.


Where did that idea come from?


It came from a misinterpretation of the verse in which Moses comes down from the mountain after forty days face to face with the divine.

Seifer Shemos (Exodus), Parshas Ki Sisa, seventh Aliyah, psookim (verses) 34:29 - 30 "Vayehi beredet Moshe mehar Sinai ushenei luchot ha edut be yad Moshe beridto min ha har u Moshe lo-yada ki karan or panav bedabro ito" (And so it happened that when Moses descended from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of testimony in his hand, that when he came down from the mountain he did not know that horns of light came from his face when He spoke with him), "Vayar Aharon ve chol Benei Yisrael et Moshe vehine karan or panav vayiru migeshet elav" (And when Aaron and all the Children of Israel saw Moses, lo, horns of light came forth from his mien, and they were scared to come near him).


'Karan Or', idiomatically, meant rays of light. But the word karan specifically refers to horns.

For centuries, analogous to Alexander the Great (Sikander Dhulkarnain - Alexander with the two horns), who was represented with the ram's horns of an Egyptian divinity springing from his forehead on coins struck during his reign in Egypt, Moses was portrayed as having actual horns.

[A very Egyptian image, by the way, but it is doubtful most people realized that.]


Now, to the typical mediaeval European, Moses was the quintessential Jew, and one of the few shown in a multitude of representations. If Moses had horns, then horns should mark other Jews as well. Logic and actual observation would contradict this, of course, but most ignorant Christian peasants never came in contact with Jews, and happily believed that the Jew with whom they did exceptionally come in contact must have trimmed or cut his horns to pass unnoticed among them. The foolish-looking hats that Jews were forced to wear as identifying marks by the authorities in many provinces were re-interpreted by the ignorant as being a Jewish choice, meant to hide the stumps.

[These hats were often bright yellow, with tall floppy peaks, and broad drooping rims - very distinctive. The kind of hat you would see in a Dr. Seuss book.]


This brings us to the second thing brought up by Borat's comment about the horns, namely the idea that Jews hide their true identity and attempt to blend in, or pass unnoticed among the rest of us. Paired with this is the idea that if they do so, they do it because of some plot or evil intent.

Jews are actually one of the very few minorities whose presence does not register - blacks, Asian-Americans, Latinos, all stand out by their difference. But Jews come in every hue and stripe, and often look no different than the dominant ethnic group. The average well-bred bigot will happily tell black jokes when no black people are present, or say something incredibly stupid about Asians behind their backs, but has a 'problem' as regards the unseen and unknownable Jew.

Often the average well-bred bigot will either assume that there are no Jews present ('cause everyone here looks like us'), or that there might be Jews within hearing distance. If the first assumption dominates, our average well-bred bigot may tell a Jew-joke. And thus innocently create a problem.
Objecting to the joke, whether one is Jewish or not, marks one as a Jew, and specifically as an undercover Jew who hides his identity to trap poor unsuspecting Gentiles.
Not objecting means that one is a person with whom one can share this delicious forbidden fun (along with cracks about blacks, Catholics, Asians, Mexicans, Polish, Irish..... Etcera).

[And this reminds me of an old joke; an orthodox rabbi, an ignorant bigot, and an albino black man were walking down the street together..... ]


It is ironic that almost all of the old-fashioned western world bigotry and misinformation about Jews has found fertile soil in the Middle-East, where most ignorant Islamic peasants never come in contact with Jews, and will happily believe that the Jew they might exceptionally come in contact with has trimmed or cut his horns to pass unnoticed among them.

[Oh Abdullah, my friend, perhaps the Mossaaaaaaad has a horn-trimming department?]


Borat is a perfect send-up of the anti-Semitic praeconceptiva of the Muslim world. Muslims have been spoon-fed nonsense about the Jews for so long, that they'll believe anything, including second hand bigotry that isn't even taken seriously by most people in Europe any more. Borat represents the Islamic everyman - credulous, good natured, and often so staggeringly mis-informed that you don't even know where to begin correcting him.


But Borat is also the perfect undercover Jew, hiding his identity to trap poor unsuspecting bigots.

And as such, he also speaks poignantly to a particular demographic.

In the audience watching this movie there will probably be people of hues, who wistfully will dream of doing the same - venturing unnoticed and unremarked among the people of pallor.


Which is something that us melanin-deprived folks can only dream of dreaming about.