Cocaine bitches and Chassidic wishes

I was shocked and impressed by the new Blanketstatementstein song, "Never Stress," The bands excursion into Trip-Hop. It's funny, and potentially impacting in a few ways, I wonder how much it's going to get noticed.

It's good to hear Mike on the Mike, innovating smooth and witty hip-hop, the boys conquer another genre, but yeah, this one line impresses me, as a theme in the song

"If your girl gives you trouble
Get a backup bitch"

It's very deep this lyric, and not just because of the strong stand it takes on the immediate viability of, I guess polygamy, though no gamy is necessarily involved.

The use of the word "bitch" is very loaded with misogynist cargo, I personally avoid using it as much as possible, but it's also a word with strong and wide MEANING. IT implies something loud, and specifically, either complaining or demanding. It's femininity does not imply that it only refers to women or feminized men, as seen in Dave Chappelle's use of the term for pretty much anybody being spoken to while in a state of ego intoxication ("I'm rich, bitches!")

Menashe Yaakov, the main musician behind Blanketstatementstein Back From The UK (as opposed to Aharon Mueller, the main musician in front of BBFTUK) is too deep and briliant a soul just to be throwing a word like bitch around purely for stylish value, and it's clear to me that he's saying something with this lyric about the nature of desire, and the nature of Judaism and halacha.

Because it's a very Halachic song, counter romantic and honest, and I only get really concerned with the last little part of it. Repeated testaments to refusing swine, a double entandre? "Why waste time on an RC session?" The theme is priorities, MC Aaron (who is not Aharon Muller) launching into a litany of fleishik delights that he is never seen snacking on, before describing the virtues of a girl who he is open to snacking on, their relationship (back when we were both seeing other people) and it's short term/long term questionable viability, quietly dismissing her sense of the unlikelyhood of long term monogamous union, with a loving, "I'll be here waiting if you change your mind."

Poor ("ain't got no green, not even a celery stalk") and increasingly "stressed" over This Girl, who's know married to the richest guy in town, who can't love her like he does, we get a peek at a romantic notion, for the first time counter to one of the hearts of modern halacha: You can't like a married girl, even if, even if. But it doesn't sound like the marriage described in this context is an actual binding "marriage" as much as another semi-permiable Union.

Marriage depends on wealth, sadly enough, maybe, hene all the chassidic stories of Orphan children needing money for weddings and beyond. Poor in terms of whatever impresses her majesty means that the relationship can no longer be about what I have to give you, hence King Solomon and Eddie Murphy find their true soulmates only while on the road living as paupers...

Controversial street halacha revelation, I say controversial because we don't all hold by it, but some of the more pious amongst us certainly have declared their unwillingness to acknowledge the Boyfriend/Girlfriend relationship as having any kind of inherent sancitity, that is to say, if Rocky steals my girlfriend, it's ok, because we haven't gotten married, "girlfriend" doesn't count for anything.

Which opens up a whole can of worms re: Polyamory in Orthodox Judaism. If this norm becomes accpetable in the wider religious jewish community (as if it already hasn't)
What Marriage is for, and our whole mythology and cosmology of soulmate will have to change.

As if it hasn't already. R' Nachman long since gave us a theology for why someone can have many soulmates in their lives, right? Such is the way of souls.

"We focus on the people who party all the time." surely this is a different kind of soul-crowd, with different soul needs--- how much can it be everybody? Or should?

According to Terrence Mckenna, party all the time was the way humans used to breed and live, in small wandering communities with exctatic psychedelic fueled orgies for breeding. This is before people were people, i.e., had farms, cities, industries... but it's also the last time that things felt right, he maintains, as if he could know, except through Prophecy.

"The people who party all the time" Is R' Nachman's people, is what he demanded of us as I understood. Gevalt never give up, never stop dancing. Never get old, Never stop trying for the exctatic joy available in every moment. You might slip and fall asleep now and then, don't let it stress you, just get back on the wagon and keep partying 'till you stop having to die. This is practice for the world to come, and maybe the only way to get in shape for it.

Cities allow no peace except through Work or Party, this is my experience of New York and Jerusalem, the best we can hope for is more comfortable parties in places where it's safe to pass out when the time comes.

But yeah, the party lifestyle lends itself to polyamoury-- one is forced to realize how many different kinds of soul connection one has with different people one the one hand... and one is freed from doing anything out of fear of being alone.

There's a great Tosfos line, I think from R' Ephraim, commenting on something somewhere in Brachos: "A woman is beautiful will not be faithful, and a woman who is faithful will not be beautiful." Ouch, right! It's very deep though. Once someone realizes that they're beautiful, they stop fearing that affection will not come their way except through contract, it feels safe to throw your bread in the ocean and trust that the waves will bring it back (proverbs 11/1.)

But of course, the world, the world, has not yet seen fit to sustain very many people's beauty forever, and when age starts to wear the party people down, it's nice to have someone watching out for you. Behold, R Shlomo interviewed by a cetain R' Leibowitz, care of the archives of Steve Amdur

You know, do you know the story,
famous story about the holy Physhisker,
his wife --
and everybody thought she's a bitch.
Anybody wanted to see her husband
she made them so much trouble, you know.
Tried to talk them out of it you know.
So everyobdy
said you know,

"oh what a bitch."
OK, so
nobody said anything.

But then, at her funeral, the holy VORKER says. I want to tell
you somethimg:

Do you know that the holy Physhisker,
when anybody came to him, so he would
say, before you even talk,

whatever pain
you're suppoed to have,
I accept it upon myself.

Then
he'd start talking.


You know, the holy Physhisker
had nebach, had I think 14 or 15 children
died.

Only one son was left you know.
And this
was only because people came to him and
they said my child is sick.

Momish he would say "G-d forbid!"

If a child has to be sick,
better my child than his child
you know.

So she said
I was so afraid.
I didn't want people to talk to him
because I didn't have KoaCH anymore.
I had one son left.
I didn't have KoaCh anymore
you know.
Gvalt you know.

-----------------------

R' Nachman is more excited for the parties with his Chassidim than he is about his wife, or their wives for the most part, encouraging his closer followers to leave their families for long periods of time to come and learn (and sing! and dance!)
He does note, however, about his first wife "If i'd known how important my first wife was, I never would have let her die."

!

So it goes. Enlightenment means being willing to let go, and real soulmateage means as much as you let go, it only brings you closer to each other. R Andy of the Israeli Masorti movement once described to me a heirarchy of ideal soulamteage, from the complete each other model to the lowest fufillment of needs as all being valid, but some certainly being more ideal than others.

Which I think is the heart of what Menache Yaakov is saying, both about relationships, and Judaism in general. "Replacement bitch" is not a term of endearment. It implies that the next thing, filling the void, is as much a "bitch" as the last-- cheat not on your girlfriend, lest the next girlfriend be as bad or worse, and this may be the secret of the talmudic maxim "any one with a bad wife never sees the fires of hell." Because once one is surrendered to the good that is their "lot in life," no pain can hurt them anymore.

And it's true about other kind fo marriages too, like our marriage to our religions.
Some have more open relationships with their religions, some are less honest with their religions about what they're really doing, but the problem with just leaving is that, sad to say, the next lifestyle-belief-system won't neccesarily treat them any better. Most people won't leave their spouses for no-one, they'll wait around in a mediocre relationship until someone better comes along.

Some people are committed no matter what, and that's beautiful. And it's only beautiful as long as the other options are available, much like religion.

With Judaism, leaving for a replacement bitch does not solve the problem except to just show that the options are there. And so, swine is forbidden, as if they could stop you?

One of the hopeful assumptions I think in the Torah about it's own laws is that they are not enforced externally except for the most flagrant of public violations, i.e. worshipping strange gods in the synagogue, or eating in the traif restaurant while in religious garb. There's even a description of how to violate law in the talmud, exhorting would be can't-help-iteers to just dress in dark clothing and do it quietly, out of public view.

Which is also, sadly enough, the kind of cheating most upper tier people encourage of their spouses: just don't embarras me in public. As Sholom Keller says: "If every frum person who fucks around would stop keeping it unde wraps, their entire repressive system would collapse." And who wants that, ha ha.

According to Mordechai Yosef of Izbitz, why does the bible list all kind of non-kosher animals? It's like a commoner being invited into the king's castle, to be given anything he wants. It's a big freaking castle, with lots and lots of rooms: how do I choose where to go and what to look for? I could spend my whole life just looking around! So the king gives him a list of the rooms worth visiting. That's kosher food, The Ishbitzer says, just a shopping list of the best things to save you time picking roaches and rats off the sidewalk.

And speaking of non-kosher animals, I have to adress a disturbing aspect of the song, one that's been popping up in Aharon's lyrics lately, clearly as a cry for help. Cocaine is bad, IMHO, it's expensive, comes from nefarious people, and it's effects are ego-delusion encouraging as opposed to ego-delusion nullifying (like most good psychedelics) and it fucks up your nose and kidneys. He's only been doing it lately, as I understand, because it's been coming to him for free, but that's no reason to romanticize it in song and poem. Because it sounds so cool when you say it like that, and the possibility of gaining incredible confidence and power through snorting something certainly can confuse the rational mind into forgetting any down sides until later. Just say no Aharon! As if you liked being told what to do.

Of course, all plants were created for a purpose, and are inherently to be consumed, unlike meats, but refining anything makes it evil. Remember this well. That's how transfats came into being, perfectly good corn, drained of all it's good, for the sake of keeping it on the shelf longer. Just say no! And yeah, never stress.