You’ve probably read Patrick’s Jewcy blog post called, “You Might Be PunkTorah If…”. If not, here’s a link.
Read it.
It’s good.
It’s funny and it’s true.
It’s funny because it’s true.
It also made me think about why I helped co-found with PunkTorah. I think it stems from a sense of outsider-ness.
My wife and I go to Tot Shabbat services. We have a two year old. We stand around talking to other parents and we realize:
WE ARE NOT THESE PEOPLE
They seem like they are so much older, but they’re not.
They talk about their mortgages.
We stand there nodding our heads, trying to interject and talk about the concert we went to the night before, the religious ecstasy of watching another human being bare their soul in front of other people.
They wear khakis and polo shirts.
I wear my tzizits, a t-shirt and jeans.
They like pastels.
I have tattoos.
They’ve got paintings on the walls of their homes.
We have a giant pirate flag on ours.
They watch “Grey’s Anatomy”.
We watch South Park and our friends bands.
They read Tom Clancy and John Grisham.
We read Neil Gaiman and Michael Chabon.
This is not to look down on responsible adults. This is only to ask:
Where do they come from? What happened to the promise of grown-up suburbia? Did my wife and I miss an exit somewhere?
I mean, we are responsible. We pay our bills. We take great care of our daughter. We go to work and pay our taxes. I guess it’s just that we don’t fit in the Dockers and loafers lifestyle.
So we temple shop. We go to services everywhere we can. We stand around with the other “adults” and wait for the opportunity to name drop some underground bands. We mention Matthue Roth or Y-Love, G_dcast, the religious orientation of Benjamin Grimm*, looking for a glimmer of recognition, a slight nod from another weirdo like us, hoping against hope that someone will hear us, someone will recognize the passwords to this secret club that we didn’t even know we belong to and show us the clubhouse we didn’t even know existed.
Well, if you’re looking for it, relax.
We’re here.
And you are welcome.
*If you said “Thing!” and “Jewish”, you are awesome.