Charlie Sheen & John Galliano: When the going gets tough, blame a Jew.

Charlie Sheen, young, dumb,
and strung out.

The world is changing. Revolution is in the air and autocratic despots, once thought untouchable and invincible, are being kindly asked to step down (at gunpoint). Bahrain, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Oman, Yemen-- the gang's out en masse and they're ready to create change. And, to be honest, it's about time. The Muslim community, long thought to have no interest in democracy and a sad but accepted acquiescence to authoritarian rule has decided to break the shackles of oppression and take their destiny into their own hands for a change. They have done so under the auspices of non-violence, and, in most cases, largely free from religious pedagogy.

In short, there has been an enormous of amount of soul-searching amongst the oppressed of the Muslim world, the result being an acceptance of past problems and a desire to change in the future. Sure, there are many remaining questions about what happens once the shackles are left behind and the hard, painful road to democracy has been embarked upon. Specifically, questions about how these nations will deal with the Western world and their allies (i.e. Israel) now that the dictators who capitulated to U.S. demands have been deposed. I for one am inspired and, for the first time of my adult life, highly enthusiastic for the future of the geopolitical chess game.

So why can't Charlie Sheen, Julian Assange, and John Galliano see the world through a similar sense of accountability for one's own actions? Moreover, why, when the going gets tough, things get a little hectic, and, in two of the three aforementioned cases, blow and booze are a tad too accessible, do 

depraved and desperate media personalities turn to that age old whipping boy: the Jew?
I'll admit, it's a stretch to equate the recent enlightenment of the Egyptian populace to those of a spoiled, moderately talented comedian, a rabble rousing libertarian activist, and a fashion designer. But, if the Muslim world can defy conventional wisdom and accept their past indiscretions and attempt to make their world a better place, why can't a guy who makes $1.8 million per episode of his sitcom or the chief creative officer of one of the world's most storied fashion labels? The Egyptians have nothing. Sheen, Galliano, and Assange have everything. If the Egyptians can put aside their paranoia about their Jewish neighbors to the north, why can't Galliano or Sheen? 

The answer is probably simpler than I realize in Galliano's case-- and quite possibly in that of Assange too-- anti-Semitism is alive and well in Europe and, even when not captured in HD resolution for the YouTube universe to witness, private bouts of anti-Jewish sentiment are largely tolerated in political and commercial discource. Combine the eccentric talents of a stressed out fashion house executive with some booze and other substances and voila, the guy is bound to unleash some sort of ferociously intolerant sentiment at some point, right? Well, that's what Giorgio Armani and Donatella Versace would have you believe. This is, of course, ludicrous and I hope that most intelligent, humanitarian souls see this incident as pure racism rather than simply an artist having a rough day at the office.

Julian Assange: His Problems are not
really his problems.

Julian Assange's suggestion of a Jewish-led conspiracy aiming to smear him makes little sense. Even when you consider the recent leaking of documents regarding communications between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, his comments are little more than an updated, high-tech allusion to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Assange is essentially charging that the scores of other groups his site, WikiLeaks, has smeared are irrelevant; his downfall is a result of attacking the Jews. It's not Assange's own fault for getting himself in this mess, rather it's the Jews' fault for not being able to handle the resulting chaos. In Europe, where Assange resides and is currently incarcerated for allegations of rape, these type of accusations resonate as a veritable truths that will be hard to discard even in the post-Holocaust age. 

John Galliano: Was he drunk
when he took this photo?

Watching Charlie Sheen on CNN with Piers Morgan earlier this week was like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion. The man has become unhinged, has no one looking out for the best interests of his brand (or health), and is slowly being drained of all his dignity as the media watches on giddily as he smugly accepts each and every request for a live interview. After watching the Morgan show, and noticing the utter absence of attention paid to Sheen's veiled slurs regarding producer Chuck Lorre's Jewish heritage (would Jewish elder statesmen, and Morgan predecessor, Larry King, have let Sheen as easily off the hook for such a remark?) it is entirely clear to me that Charlie Sheen is strung out on drugs. Whatever his drug tests say... the man is clearly an unrepentant addict.

So, what do these incidents have in common besides creative eccentrics lashing out at Jews-- as if being a creative personality is a legitimate excuse for hatred-- when they feel backed into a corner? I see two real themes:

1. Unlike the poor and oppressed in the Arab world who are currently militarizing to throw off the bonds of punishment and reclaim lost national dignity, individuals who see themselves as exceptional for being creative and famous are simply unable to accept their own challenges and try to find rationale, reasonable, private solutions. For 40 years the people of Libya were oppressed and another 30 for Egypt, but at some point they accepted that they got themselves in that mess and only they could get themselves out. Nowhere in the struggle is the omni-present spite towards Israel or the American Jewish lobby even mentioned. Sadly, Sheen has looked to Mel Gibson of all people to validate his current behavior-- which includes anti-Semitic implications-- rather than accept that, yes, he got himself in this mess and only he can free himself from the shackles of oppression. It's one thing to claim, as Galliano has, that he has a substance abuse problem and therefore needs to check out of society and into rehab. It's another thing entirely for him to accept that his problems have nothing to do with Jews, admit and repent for his mistakes-- "necessary mia culpas" as Mel Gibson has called them-- and then try to start afresh, sober and humbled. Unfortunately, no such thing has happened and the fashion community has only mourned the fact that Galliano is an alcoholic whose major crime was being caught on video. Racism is excused.
2. It is only when Jewish luminaries, possessing slightly more leverage than their co-workers (Sheen with Lorre and Natalie Portman as the spokesmodel for Dior), threaten their corporate employers with smear campaigns or the prospect of lost shareholder value, that anti-semitism is dealt with by a firm hand. As Julian Assange has indicated, that hand is swift, organized, and unfortunately for Sheen and Galliano, both rational and much more creative than them. Thus, Natalie Portman and Chuck Lorre-- the real cash cows for the House of Dior and CBS/Time Warner-- are able to oust two of their biggest stars in their respective media. 

We can wish and pray and strive for a society in which Jews are not the de facto whipping boys for those who we hope would act as role models. But that day is not near, I'm afraid. What is more realistic, and I think it's slightly amazing that I'm even writing this, is that the various embattled factions of the world realize that no matter how they feel about the Israelis or a supposed underground Jewish conspiracy, the only way they are going to make their own world a better place is by acceptance, understanding, and then action. We can hope the creative eccentrics of the world follow suit. 

Until then, all three should hire good publicists to help them manage their outbound communications. I suspect there are some excellent Jewish-run PR companies in New York or Los Angeles that would love to help.

BHQAMEH2WN3X

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jdeal: Groupon for the Jews

It was bound to happen sooner or later. A marketing model that offers product discounts in the redhot "daily deals" space to like-minded groups of buyers would seem a natural fit for ethnic minority spin-offs. It's no secret that Jewish Americans have considerable buying power. So, we weren't shocked to hear about the appearance of jdeal, the self-proclaimed "site that offers seriously surprising deals every day on stuff Jews love." BuyATribe, a blog which strives to cover the nexus of commerce and the Jewish religion, could hardly ignore the launch of a website the very aim of which is to sell to Jews.

"Jew-pon":
(Friendly) Jewish targeting

The Pitch:  We're all for someone offering personalized deals that we, as Jews, might like and have trouble finding on mainstream deals sites. But, did jdeal's marketing have to be so predictable? Its Facebook page states that "If you like buying quality products and services at heavily discounted prices and then bragging about it to your friends so they feel like schmucks for paying retail, you've come to the right place." We get it:  Jews love a bargain -- and the only thing they like more than a bargain is talking about said bargains to their friends.  (To be fair, the jdeal Promise features a more universal message: "At jdeal, we treat each customer like a mentsh. And we don’t want any tsuris!"  Hey, not even a gentile can argue with that value proposition.

The Model:  Leaving aside the fact that jdeal plays to the stereotype of Jewish bargain-hunter, the site does represent a value-add over Groupon or Living Social:  It features deals of interest to Jews. The site as currently constituted offers deals in the New York area, where there is no shortage of Jewish product.  To be sure, not all of the deals are Tribe-specific (recent deals included Little Shop of Crafts and a portrait session at a NY-area photographic studio).  But the folks behind the site have clearly sought out specifically Jewish products for the benefit of their subscribers (coupons good at kosher eateries and JNF tree-planting deals were among the recent offers).  The result is jdeal is ideal for a small subset of Jews. Most Jews in American-- gasp!-- do not consume kosher food and do not regularly buy Judaica. In order to make this site relevant beyond a small part of a small population, jdeal will have to get creative beyond things that only devout Jews find compelling. Before this happens, this site will remain a novelty and less than helpful to most Jews below the age of 35.

Coming to a Jewish
market near you

The Future:  The obvious question is will this model fly outside New York? The current site invites you to sign-up for eventual jdeal launches in cities such as Baltimore, Los Angeles and Miami, all sizable Jewish markets. A problem arises in BuyATribe's home base, the San Francisco Bay Area, which as many as 450,000 Jews call home. This would make it a sizable market for such a service. But as any Bay Area Jew can tell you, there's next to no conspicuously Jewish businesses.  For a marketing model based entirely on the appeal of similarly redhot Local space, this presents an obvious obstacle to jdeal's expansion.

Even Los Angeles, the country's second largest Jewish market, is somewhat atomized and geographically spread-out. Despite its Jewish population, LA has nothing approaching the concentration of Jewish businesses that New York boasts.  Jdeal would have a tough time coming up with regular weekly offers of deals for local Jewish products in most American cities. Moreover, Groupon can offer the same six products every day of the year and find buyers, but how does jdeal fill 365 daily deals a year? How many Judaica and Hebrew lessons can one site hawk before the offers become tiresome?

A quick chat with jdeal co-founder Jodi Samuels revealed that she looks at this model as a viable, longterm business light on kitsch (and altruism). Make no mistake, jdeal is a business venture at its heart and soul. We'll skip the editorializing. You can draw your own conclusions.

What was the impetus behind starting jdeal?
Jmedia Connections is our company and we own Metroimma a site for Jewish Moms.  The daily deal model seemed to be a perfect way to monetize the site.  In addition I run another nonprofit that has 10,000 Jewish young professionals on it. So we had an automatic base to launch our offerings to [sic].

Does the world really need another Groupon... for Jews, no less?

Absolutely. Niche sites have value to consumers and merchants.  A Jewish consumer, for instance, wants kosher deals, a kosher restaurant wants consumers who value the service beyond 50% off.  Our copy and content speak to a  Jewish audience.  Another example would be an offer for  a Jewish charity– these are targeted deals for a niche demographic.

With less than five million identified Jews in America, how do expect to build a business out of jdeal? Or, are we missing the point of the service?

Niche sites can be profitable with just 25,000 subscribers  per geographic location so yes there is a market with five million people. A key driver in this subscriber value is the number of deals purchased during the user’s lifetime, By targeting a specific audience and increasing the conversion rate on each deal, the subscriber value will be higher.

Please describe your target user: age, gender, geographic location, etc. What outreach and marketing methods have thus far proven effective?

25-55, male and female but we know that females are higher users.  Users in all the large Jewish  geographic locations.  We hosted battle of the bloggers which was a great way to get the attention of the blogger, pr campaigns, cross marketing with charities.

What are your longterm goals with jdeal?

Our goal in short and medium term is to expand nationally.  Long term-- this is an immature market with lots of potential.  We are exploring various options and depending how the industry matures and how consolidation plays out will depend on our longer term moves.

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The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: The Secret History of Punk

When I was in college I met a fellow Jewish student who had a theory that sounded slightly ridiculous at the time. His theory was that many Jewish Americans were only connected to their Jewish heritage because of guilt over the Holocaust. Anxiety over pain and suffering fueled their Jewish observance, he suggested. I wrote this view off out-of-hand, but I was soon led to the work of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and the films of Woody Allen and even Roman Polanski, artists who, it seemed, were drawn to depicting Jews unable to escape pyschic torture as they made way through life in the post-World War II era (read Saul Bellow's The Victim for a great example of this mentality).

This artists largely represented the generation born just before the Holocaust. They were not "baby boomers." Their offspring-- the children of "The Greatest Generation"-- may have shared this guilt and anxiety of having survived the attempted annihilation of the Jewish people. Some, like my parents decided to get an education, make a good living, then drowned their sorrows in BMWs and Mercedes cars. Others turned to music.

New York City, the epicenter of modern Jewish culture, became the locus for an aggressive creative outpouring in the '60's and 70's that came to be known as "punk." Punk, embodied in sound and style by The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The Patti Smith Band, The New York Dolls, Blondie, The Dictators, and others, added a more raw, louder, harsher contribution to the music of the time and immediately made an impact on rock and roll.  Everyone knows this. What you may not know is that many of the key musicians, writers, label heads, club owners, and managers, were Jews.

Heebie-Jeebies at CBGS's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk, by Steven Lee Beeber, takes the premise that a crew of angry, hyper-intelligent, intensely creative Jewish kids transformed their post-Holocaust guilt and synthesized it into the sonic equivalent of a revolution. Beeber starts with Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground, the consummate lunatic, who was influenced by the profane humor of Lenny Bruce; working its way through Danny Fields, a Harvard educated manager and label executive who discovered The Stooges, the MC5, and The Ramones; and then covering the creative minds behind the aforementioned New York punk bands -- many of whom conceived acts like Blondie and Patti Smith Band. A few gentiles are even interviewed to give their take on the zeitgeist of New York City in the '70's, like Debbie Harry of Blondie, Patti Smith, Jon Holmstrom who founded the eponymous Punk Magazine.

The Ramones: the consummate
lovable losers

Heebie Jeebies' aim is clear: it argues that Jews comprised the most influential players in the birth, proliferation, and commercialization of early punk rock. Along the way, Beeber supplies anecdotes that support his that guilt breeds musical innovation. He demonstrates this notion through repeated stories of rockers' parents' insistence on getting ahead through assimilation, hard work, and piety rather than spectacle and artistic revolution.

Details are illustrated to support this concept with stories of electroshock therapy administered at the behest of Lou Reed's parents; Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone's penchant for Nazi paraphernalia (they were the two gentile founding members of The Ramones), Jonathan Richman of the Modern Lovers' trips to Israel, The Dictator's utter rejection of the concept of weak, emasculated Jewish musicians, and Hilly Kristel's education in labor zionism before he founded the great New York rock venue CBGB's. At least as far as New York's native music scene is concerned, the author illustrates that this time period in America saw the death of the "nice Jewish boys" stereotype.

The book's finest moments are not necessarily in recounting famous musical episodes, but in showing how these characters came -- through the Jewish struggle -- to gain acceptance in America, as well come to terms with post-WWII assimilation and prosperity. The finest example of this in the book, surprisingly, is Tommy Ramone's story of  the formation of The Ramones. The Queens quartet, which lasted almost 30 years, were a half-Jewish band who attempted to mash-up comic book culture with the look and feel of a Puerto Rican street gang. They represent a perfect example of the book's notion of a cultural dialectic playing out through bandmates' relationships, lyrical content, and individual members' personal histories.

Tommy, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, joined Joey, the gigantic beanstalk of a man for whom nothing in life came easy, and two outright psychos in the form of Dee Dee and Johnny, to meld Brill Building pop (a sound Jews had spearheaded two decades earlier) with corporate marketing muscle (in the form of Seymour Stein of Sire Records, Danny Fields as their manager; and Hilly Kristel as the farmer-cum-bartender who gave them a regular stage on which to hone their craft). Through this Jewish energy of the Lower East Side in the '70's the band became icons. Ultimately, however, Tommy left the band due to acrimony with Dee Dee and Johnny.

Beebers' interactions with Tommy are telling in themselves; Tommy asks of Beeber, "are you trying out Jews with this book?" as if the very concept of a book on Jewish punk rockers is dangerous. This begs a valid question: why was this book written? Beeber astutely wonders if his quest to shed light on famous, legendary Jews is an attempt to place him amidst greatness by the proxy of having a shared religious heritage. Perhaps the idea is to retroactively vanilla-coat these obnoxious, crude rock and rollers into the guise of "nice Jewish boys."

Whatever the case may be, Heebie Jeebies is an interesting look at '60's and '70's New York middle class immigrant culture, and a biting analysis of the creative conflagration that erupts when you arm inquisitive, intense, sometimes tortured 20-somethings with guitars and surround them with media attention for the next 40 years.

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