When You're In Love...

... The Whole World is Jewish.  But then, you knew that already, didn't you?  Of course you did.  Maybe you grew up listening to "You Don't Have To Be Jewish" and its sequel "When You're In Love..."  Maybe you never heard these hysterical albums.  If so, the SJG could weep on your behalf.  I feel sad for you.  You should go out right now, travel back in time and sit in my living room and give a listen, with my grandparents on the sofa.  I promise you'll plotz with laughter.  Or you could buy the CDs.  Or you could go see the show at a nice theater on Fairfax, where Jason Alexander of "Seinfeld" fame has brought the old Borscht Belt schtick back to life, with varying degrees of success.  Listen, everyone's a critic, including the SJG.  I'm not sure why Georgie fiddled with the rhythm of some of the greatest classics ever, but then, he didn't ask my opinion.  I waited for the punchlines, only to find them altered.  This to me was the ultimate shanda.  When Barry Gordon (you remember him... the boy in "A Thousand Clowns") appears as the jury foreman, and tells the judge how the jury deliberated, "pro and con, and backwards and forwards," he's supposed to say, "Your honor, we've decided we shouldn't mix in."  Instead, he says, "We shouldn't get involved." I practically had to be restrained, I was so agitated.  "That's not the line," someone in the audience said a little too loudly.  (I think it was me.)

It happened again during another personal favorite, "The Reading of the Will."  A lawyer reads the will of a very generous man.  He gives a million to his son, a million to his daughter "Jayne... with a Y..." He gives his wife two million, plus whatever else she hasn't already taken.  He gives the Picasso, too.  Whereupon, a relative is supposed to say, "The Picasso from back of the store... and everything."  Instead, he adds on items where he shouldn't.  "The Picasso from back of the store... and the Blue Tooth and..."  Once again, I had a conniption and needed to be sedated.  It was Painful with a capital P.  The experience reminded me of that time I went to a Bobby Zimmerman concert, many years ago -- How many?  That's none of your business. You know I don't like to date myself.  Although, I think I'd make a wonderful dinner companion -- anyway, he sang a reggae version of "Blowin' In The Wind" and I had to be escorted from the venue, in handcuffs.  Still, "When You're In Love..." has its funny, laugh- out-loud moments, so go see it, already.  Or don't, so when I bump into you on the street, I can say, "Does that mean you're not coming?"