Chrismukkah Bar Mitz-vahkkah Schmitz-vakkah

Play it: The O.C. Eps. 3.09-3.10

It's been awhile... watching television (like The O.C.) while sick is one thing, but writing about television while sick is another. My pithy and sarcastic comments have been buried deep within a pit of fever and phlegm, so it's only now (after 8 days of anti-biotics - I'm still not a fan of 'em,) that I feel able to approach commenting on bad drama w/ interesting soundtracks.

This past week was the annual Chrismukkah episode, so the soundtrack had some X-mas nuggets (Tom Petty, The Raveonettes) and the addition of a Bar Mitvah added some interesting song choices which, I believe, were an homage to a certain book Josh Schwartz is rumored to have (or, at the very least, is fully aware of.)

Songs like "That's What Friends Are For" and "Y.M.C.A.," while certainly Bar (& Bat) Mitzvah classics, are surely a nice reference to Bar Mitzvah Disco, which takes a fond look back at some ceremonies through photographs and short commentaries by the likes of author Jonathan Safran Foer, comedian Sarah Silverman and Will & Grace creator David Kohan. It's a fun read/flip through, even for a gentile like me. My wife knows many of the kids that were photographed, from her kindergarten and elementary school back in Columbus, OH.

Maybe I'm just more aware of it now, but it sure seems that there's been a lot of 'tribe' education going on lately with Schwartz and especially this recently concluded season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry David: 1) pretends to be orthodox to move Richard Lewis up the liver donor list 2) invites a convicted child molester to seder after he gives him a good golf tip 3) thinks he's adopted and briefly believes he's gentile (playing up moral Christian values to a nearly vaudevillian extreme) until a mistake is found and he snaps back more Jewish then ever. Every season has a little bit, but this one had my wife actually watching (Larry David usually makes her a bit too uncomfortable to watch... reminding her of relatives and friends of relatives' worst moments.)

Previously:
That's Hebrew for 'When do you get off?'

tags: playlist, music, television, the oc, soundtrack, chrismukkah, curb your enthusiasm, larry david, bar mitzvah disco