Tekiyah G'dolah: Birthday Aftermath, Yom Kippur, Prison Break, MORE

Well it's back to work after - a.) one (1) weekend of birthday insanity, and b.) one (1) Day of Atonement.

First, the birthday ...

Thanks to everyone who came out to Pasadena for my b-day bash. It was an awesome time and filled with plenty of good friends, good food, good music, and partying down. Special thanks to:

a.) my friend Bradd for coming down all the way from Newport Beach for the festivities
b.) my friend Aksel for coming all the way from San Diego and living up to his legend, bad leg and all
c.) everyone who was in for the long-haul
d.) everyone who showed up and made it a great time

I have to say I am a little perplexed by the whole e-vite thing. This was the first time I've ever used an evite, and I know that in this day and age of electronic communication it's hard to establish any kind of real formality for these types of things. But the way I've always understood it, when one replies "yes," they are coming, you would expect them to actually show up to the party. Otherwise, why reply yes? I also don't quite get the people who just randomly don't show up ... as if they have anything more important to do than celebrate my birthday ...? But, whatever, their loss!

It was great having such a big crew out and about in Old Town, and it was an interesting mix of NBC alums, hometown friends, and other assorted randomness. Everyone was in rare form, and a great time was had by all. Between dinner at Moose's and the after-party at Union Cattle, the night was a rockin' one, and a memomorable and fun way to bring in year number twenty-four.

Let's do it again next year.

Of course, I was still reeling from the festivities when, on Sunday, it was time to shift gears and get ready to begin the annual day of fasting and praying that is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Thanks to Paul L and his friend Noam, I was able to get tickets to attend services at Adat Ari-El in Valley Village. I went there for Kol Nidre on Sunday night after a final pre-fast meal, and again in Monday morning at finally again on Monday night for Neillah. It was a nice synagogue - very bustling with an obviously huge membership. It was filled with a boistrous mix of young families, lots of teenagers, and more elderly members, and had three different services to accomodate everyone. I had tickets to the more traditional service, which was fine by me, as I've never really been big on organs and choirs and whatnot being a part of a service that is supposed to be more introspective and solemn. It seems that synagogue rotated rabbis throughout the services, so on Sunday night we had one older Rabbi who I really liked, while the younger Rabbi on Monday was good also, but a bit preachy in his highly-politicized and somewhat overly-simplistic sermons which focused on the Israeli-Arab conflict. Overall though, the services were enjoyable and went by pretty quickly.

Of course, as with last year in Burbank, it felt really, really odd to be by myself in a synagogue mostly teeming with young families and established congregation members. At a place like that, everyone is so familiar with their surroundings and their fellow congregants that coming in as somewhat of an outsider can feel very awkward. Also, even though I just turned 24 and celebrated it with a bunch of similarly-aged friends, going to a synogogue like this makes you feel like the only 24 year old on the planet. From what I understand, there are some more youth-oriented synagogues in West LA, so maybe I'll have to check those out at some point, but you'd think that in such a huge congregation just outside of LA, with three services and thousands of attendees, I'd be able to spot at least one friendly face who was someone in a similar situation as I. I mean, is there just a population gap of people my age? Do they just not go to Yom Kippur services? Do they not live in LA? Is every twenty-something in LA at some crazy new-agey Jewish gathering that I don't know about? Or do people my age tend to simple fall on either the ultra-observant or ultra-reform ends of the Judaic spectrum, making our presence at a conservative synagogue minimal if not entirely absent? Whatever the case, as nice as the services at Adat Ari-El were, the whole thing felt weird to me. But I guess I got in my praying, asked for my forgiveness, thought of ways to repent and better myself, did my fasting, and heard the shofar blown, so that's what's important, for now.

Oh yeah, the one other negative about Adat Ari-El is the terrible parking situation. For some reason the main lot was reserved for people with parking passes only, so everyone else had to park blocks and blocks away on whatever street parking could be found. Not cool!

Oh well, I was glad that I got to attend a nice synagogue for Yom Kippur, and was lucky to be given tickets since most synagogues charge pretty ridiculous sums of upwards of $100 for high-holy day tix (perhaps THAT is why no one my age is to be found at these services? probably!). I prepared myself a nice break-fast meal, and after a day of hunger it was great, as always, to finally eat something.

A good Yom Kippur, but reminiscing with Aksel on Sunday over brunch at Dennys about Rabbi Polack's hilarious Yom Kippur sermons at BU Hillel (no annointing! no schmearing! no marital relations!) made me nostalgic for the days when the break-fast could be spent munching on bagels with numerous friends in the heart of Boston.

But yeah, Yom Kippur, as I've said, is such an important holiday for one to celebrate. A day that drives home the importance of repentance, of asking forgiveness, of forgiveness - what a concept! With all of the stupid arguments and feuds that I and my friends and family seem to get in, being reminded to do away with those burdens of argument and conflict to have a clean slate for the new year is key. So if I have offended you in any way, please accept my apologies. And if you have offended me, well ... haha, fine, I will do my best to forgive you as well.

But finally, once again: Shana Tovah!

Anyways ...

TV STUFF:

- For the love of all that is holy, whether you're a fan or a sadly-deprived person who has somehow remained outside the loop until now --- watch tonight's Season 3 premiere of VERONICA MARS~! - 9 pm, TONIGHT, on the CW. From what I understand this season is going to contain a number of mini-arcs focusing on different mysteries rather than one, season-long uber-mystery as in year's past, so it should be very new-viewer friendly and accessibly. Just trust me - my brother Matt is only one of the many converts to this show -- it is one of the most smartly-written, atmospheric, enjoyable shows on TV in years. It will be interesting to see how being in the "dream" timeslot following Gilmore Girls affects the ratings, but here's hoping that critical buzz and word of mouth makes the premiere a huge success. Watch it!

- Will be very curious to see how NBC's premieres do this week. Friday Night Lights is definitely worth checking out if you enjoyed the movie. While I prefer my high school drama to be of the cynical, biting, tragic kind (Veronica Mars, Freaks and Geeks), I also like a good underdog sports story if it's done well, and FNL has potential and is superbly directed - very feature film-like in its appearance. But I'm really looking forward to tommorow's premieres of 30 Rock and 20 Good Years ... I still feel like 20 Good Years could be NBC's dark horse. You've got John Lithgow in rare form and Jeffrey Tambor, who is both hilarious and has plenty of cred with the cool kids thanks to Arrested Development ... and, it has enough old-school sitcom-y charm to win over the older crowd as well. Could be interesting.

- No new FOX shows on Sunday. I did finally check out last week's Simpsons, which I thought was decent. A solid B-ish episode that I hope spells good things for this year's Halloween ep - once, an annual TV highlight, lately, pretty much a pale reflection of past glories.

- But man ....

Last night's PRISON BREAK was friggin' AWESOME. Best episode of the season so far, I'd say, as the show finally ditched the cheesier tone its had of late and ratcheted up the intensity factor to 11. William Fichtner owned it last night, going full-blown CRAZY and delivering a gravitas-packed performance. The government consipiracy storyline finally delivered some payoffs, as the governor's suicide/murder means that things are starting to get interesting. Fernando's betrayal of Michael was pretty unexpected, but cool and effective nonetheless. While the show takes a brief hiatus for baseball, it has really gone out with a huge bang, delivering multiple cliffhangers and reclaiming that "can't-miss" feeling of old.
Kickass, plain and simple. My Grade: A

- Have yet to see the new ep of HEROES or the last two weeks of STUDIO 60. Plan to catch up on those soon.

- I meant to record the premiere of SNL on Saturday night, but totally forgot. From what I hear it was a pretty underwhelming return, and I haven't heard about any particularly buzz-worthy sketches ... I think the show has a pretty good cast, though it seems to be heavy on specialty players and lite on real utility guys a la Phil Hartman who can do it all. And of course, the writing has just been mostly subpar since, oh, after the 2000 election, with the main standouts since then being independetly produced material from Robert Smigel or the Digital Shorts guys. With all the hype around SNL-themed shows like Studio 60 and 30 Rock, I wish that the real deal could step up and return to form ...

MOVIES:

- Finally watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang on DVD on Friday. Pretty excellent movie, with the same kind of twisted, dark, slightly psycho vibe of a Boondock Saints, but with a very polished Hollywood sheen and gloss thanks to the writing and directing of Lethal Weapon's Shane Black. I had extremely high expectations for this, so I couldn't help but be slightly underwhelmed (I was also close to passing out from exhaustion while watching), but the sharp dialogue and gritty ambiance made this a fairly classic crime flick with memorable performances from Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. Bring on Iron Man.

- Ahhhh, still need to see Fearless! Also, a ton of Oscar-worthy movies coming out now, most notably Scorcese's The Departed, which is pretty much guaranteed to kick seven kinds of ass. Also very, very curious about The Last King of Scotland, which looks to be an award-winning turn from Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, and also marks the return to the big screen of Gillian Anderson~! I'm sure there's some other big movies out this week, but those are at the top of my list right now. Oh yeah, not sure where it's playing but I'm very, very curious to see Jesus Camp, which looks to be a scathing documentary that exposes some of the stranger and disturbing practices of radical evangelical summer camps for kids. Looks very interesting to say the least.

OTHER STUFF:

- Love that new single from The Killers ... have heard that their new album is underwhelming though and sounds like Springsteen-lite? Any opinions?

- Still on a Tom Petty kick from last week's concert.

- Also have had Kim Wilde's 80's anthem, "Kids in America" stuck in my head since I heard it while out like three weeks ago.

- Alright, time to jet. Back with more later. Cya!