JConnectLA‘s Tu B’Av love party at 7174 Melrose Blvd is jammed.
I haven’t gotten any sleep for days. I’m stumbling around, feeling old and lost and claustrophobic, yet people keep coming up to me and telling me what amazing energy I have. They attribute it to Torah. I attribute it to Kundalini Yoga and Alexander Technique.
I crash on the couch with a musician from Israel who moved into town about six months ago.
"This is the epicenter of Jewish LA," he says, stretched almost horizontal with his head hunched forward. "What does that say about LA?"
He’s not impressed. "All the shuls in LA are the same. All the shuls in Pico-Robertson are just like each other. Do any of them have anything going on?"
Yeah, they do, but shuls aren’t generally friendly places for struggling artists without a wife and kids and respectable income.
I mingle. Ben Sharabi is talking with my friend Jezebel.
"You’re the Maimonides of pick-up artists," he tells me. "You’re like the world’s wisest man in those Dos Equis commercials. We should shoot a knock-off of those commercials with you drinking a Manishevitz. Would you be willing to trim your beard?"
A look of horror crosses my face.
Jez complains that guys only want to f— her. Nobody wants to date her. She had a hard session of therapy today, but she doesn’t let it change the way she treats other people.
"JDate is for creeps," she announces.
"I’m on JDate and I’m not a creep," responds a guy.
"Have you looked in the mirror?" says Jez.
A guy said to her in Las Vegas last weekend: "Don’t you think my buddy here is sexy?"
"What about the hair?" asks Jez.
A friend of mine is finishing off his doctorate in Political Science at UCLA. He’s been working on it for 14 years. He says he has some theories that will revolutionize the world.
"What’s your email address?" I ask. "We should stay in touch."
"Can I give you my phone number?" he says. "My hands hurt."
"I know an amazing physical therapist," I reply. "Lyn Paul Taylor (website)."
I chat with the Orthodox rapper Etan G. "We’ve had four kids since joined us for Shabbos lunch [circa late 2004]," he says.
"I’m working on promoting a new album."
I run into therapists all night. One is dating an acquaintance.
"He’s Mr. Monogamy," I assure her.
I run into an ex. "Why are you wearing your Shabbos clothes?" she says.
