Yidversary Party (Were They Ever Jewbacca?)

 

This morning we got up in time to go to our usual Mass, but then I got sick. I still didn't feel well enough to go to the later Mass, so we just sat around watching YouTube videos about Splash Mountain and Song of the South. Eventually we ventured out to the mall to get some walking in, and Travalon got a haircut. I bought a blanket with brightly-colored mushrooms on it from the rude workers at Spencer's Gifts. You know you are old when the teenyboppers working at the shops in the mall treat you like a nonentity, even when your money is just as valid of currency as that of someone younger and cooler... and you probably have more of it to spend. Travalon got a Funko Pop of Baby Yoda.

We went to 5 pm Mass at our usual church, which was shockingly crowded. I'd always heard that Mass is so lightly attended that they have thought about getting rid of it. Also, the homily was really long, but it would have been the same one at 9 am. Then we went to the Harmony Bar to see Yid Vicious, who were celebrating their 27th "Yidversary" as a band. I thought they had been around even longer than that, like back when I was in college, but that might have been a different klezmer band. I remember once seeing one called Jewbacca at the long-gone Cafe Montmartre up on the Square when I was in college. That made me wonder if the remnants of Jewbacca had reformed into Yid Vicious. I can see it now: some people in the band graduated and moved on, but the ones who stayed in town were like, "Why not start another klezmer band with a punny name?" I don't actually have an answer to this burning question, but we did get free Yid Vicious CDs with our entry fee. We sat at a table with some nice people we didn't know and had dinner while the band told terrible jokes ("What do they sing at Jewish-Catholic weddings? The 'Oy Vey Maria'!") and had guests join them that included a guy who "played" the plastic bags. How do you play plastic bags? Apparently you just shake them. They played a medley of standard klezmer tunes with surf guitar that they called "Dead Sea Surfing," and they also played a song by hip hop star Jason Derulo as a klezmer tune. Meanwhile, the same four people who had to be at least fifteen years older than I am, if not more, danced the whole time, and they were really good. I was once at an excellent New Year's Eve party at the lead dancer's house, and his entire basement is a dance floor. People sure do love klezmer music - when our band plays it, everyone in the audience loves it. Yet somehow those songs keep falling off our set list...

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