Short summary of every Jewish Holiday:
"They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat."
(The Jewish Humor List from Garry Margolis)

And Catholic holidays:
"Someone had a vision, someone painted a picture, I feel guilty."
(Frank Kelly)

SEX, ALLENDE ONE?

Isabel Allende has cum up with "Aphrodite" a sexy cooking book recently featured in the Food section of the L.A. Times. Reading the article was almost as much fun as watching O.J. pretending to stab that English interviewer with a banana. (No wonder they couldn't find the weapon). Isabel wrote it in her home, previously a brothel and chocolate-chip cookie factory in Sausalito where she claims to have met "very few normal human beings" and which she shares with gourmet hubbie, Willie Gordon.

Twenty-four hours after meeting him on a promotional tour for "Of Love and Shadows," she fired off a FedEx from Venezuela in which she listed demands and compromises, such as, "If you start to see other women, I will kill you and your children." (And eat them, presumably)

Among the recipes, Soup for Orgies, Harem Turkey, Erotic Dressing and Reconciliation Soup. Let's eat!

OY, LIST-EN...

Actual(?) personals which appeared in Israeli papers:

• Nice Jewish guy, 38. No skeletons. No baggage. No personality.
  
• Are you the girl I spoke with at the kiddush after shul last week? You excused yourself to get more horseradish for your gefilte fish, but you never returned. How can I contact you again? (I was the one with the cholent stain on my tie).
  
• Staunch Jewish feminist, wears tzitzis, seeking male who will accept my independence, although you probably will not. Oh, just forget it.
  
• Jewish businessman, 49, manufactures Sabbath candles, Chanukah candles, havdallah candles, Yahrzeit candles. Seeks non-smoker..
  
• Israeli professor, 41, with 18 years of teaching in my behind. Looking for American-born woman who speaks English very good.
  
• Yeshiva bochur, Torah scholar, long beard, payos. Seeks same in woman.
  
• Worried about in-law meddling? I'm an orphan! Write.
  
• I've had it all: herpes, syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and four of the ten plagues, now ready to settle down. So where are all the nice Jewish men hiding?
  
• Female graduate student, studying kaballah, Zohar, exorcism of dybbuks, seeks mensch. No weirdos, please.
  
• Sincere rabbinical student, 27. Enjoys Yom Kippur, Tisha B'av, Taani Esther, Tzom Gedaliah, Asarah B'Teves, Shiva Asar B'Tammuz. Seeks companion for living life in the "fast" lane.
  
• I was reform as an embryo, conservative as a fetus, orthodox from birth. Seeking same.
  
• Couch potato latke, in search of the right applesauce. Let's try it for eight days. Who knows?
  
• Your place or mine? Divorced man, 42 with fleishig dishes only. Seeking woman with nice michig set. Object macaroni.
  
• Matzo supplier, 53, seeks cloth bag manufacturer. Let's play "Hide the Afikomen."
  
• Shochet, 54, owns successful butcher shop. Doesn't believe women should be treated like a piece of meat. Seeks glatt kosher maydl for marriage.
  
• Jewish male, 34, very successful, smart, independent, self-made. Looking for girl whose father will hire me.
  
• Jewish Princess, 28, seeks successful businessman of any major Jewish denomination: hundreds, fifties, twenties.
  
• Single Jewish woman, 29, into disco, mountain climbing, skiing, track and field. Has slight limp.
  
• Divorced Jewish man, seeks partner to attend shule with, light Shabbos candles, celebrate holidays, build Sukkah together, attend brisses, bar mitzvahs. Religion not important.
  
• I am a sensitive Jewish prince whom you can open your heart to. Share your innermost thoughts and deepest secrets. Confide in me. I'll understand your insecurities. No fatties, please.

LISTING BADLY...

From the ever punny AMAZNBella --

Hangover: The wrath of grapes.

Egotist: One who is me-deep in conversation.

Archeologist: A man whose career lies in ruins.

Kleptomaniac: One who can't help himself from helping himself.

California smog test: Can UCLA?

Middle Age: When actions creak louder than words...

AND A LIST FROM DOCTOR AH ... MEMORY!

Signs that you are no longer a kid: You're asleep, but others worry that you're dead. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you ?" You have a dream about prunes. You can live without sex, but not without glasses, and that gleam in your eye is from the sun hitting your bifocals. You need glasses to find your glasses, since your arms became too short to read the newspaper.

You wonder why more people DON'T USE THIS SIZE PRINT.

You enjoy hearing about other people's operations. The end of your tie doesn't come anywhere near the top of your pants, your knees buckle, but your belt won't and you quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room. Your back goes out more than you do. Everything hurts, and what doesn't hurt doesn't work. You have too much room in the house - not enough in the medicine chest, and your little black book only contains names ending in "M. D." You sink your teeth in a steak and they stay there. You get winded playing cards. You join a health club and don't go.

GOLDFISH LIST

"Tell the actors to stand closer apart. Can she sing? She's practically a Florence Nightingale. Give me a couple of years and I'll make that actress an overnight success."

When Sam Goldwyn's secretary asked him if she should destroy files that were more than ten years old, he answered, "Yes, but keep copies." When told he couldn't film Radclyffe Hall's "The Well of Loneliness" because it dealt with lesbians, he replied, "All right, where they got lesbians, we'll use Austrians."

"Go see that turkey for yourself, and see for yourself why you shouldn't see it. Its absolutely impossible, but it has possibilities. Put it out of your mind. In no time, it will be a forgotten memory."

"You fail to overlook the crucial point. If I were in this business only for the business, I wouldn't be in this business. I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong. True, I've been a long time making up my mind, but now I'm giving you a definite answer. I won't say yes and I won't say no -- but I'm giving you a definite maybe." (Passed on, by Edgar Bullington)

IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL?

Shrink the world to precisely 100 people, and besides a new theme park, you would have 57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Americas, and 8 Africans. There would be 51 females and 49 males, 70 non-whites and 30 whites and 70 non-Christians to 30 Christians. 80 people would be living in substandard housing, 70 would be illiterate, 50 would suffer from malnutrition, one would be near death and one near birth and one would have a college education. Finally, 50% of the entire world's wealth would be in the hands of only 6 people -- and all 6 people would be citizens of the United States.

However, no one would own a computer, or get Planet Proctor.

ADIEU, GOODBYE...

The oldest person in the world is no longer... in the world. Canadian Marie-Louise Mellieur (which is "Marylou Best" en anglais) was 117 and was named "Mother of the Year" by Ann Landers when she set out to dig up a wife for her 81-year-old son. She leaves eighty-five grandchildren, eighty great grandchildren fifty-seven great-great-grandchildren and four great-great-great-grandchildren. Ain't that grand...The L.A. Times obit ends enigmatically that when once told she was the oldest person in Canada, Meilleur responded, "Poor Canada."

Off the air for Peter Lind Hayes at 88, whose songs from "Genie, the Magic Record," wife Melinda sang to me in the garden upon reading of his death. He also wrote "a column of doggerel" in his later years (don't go there), called "Thoughts While Thinking."

And baby seal slaying season has begun again! One of the hapless but not harp-less hunters is quoted as saying, "Every year when I kill the first one I say, 'geez, it's cute.' It's hard to do, but somebody has to." Wait a minum! Isn't that the inscription on Pol's cremation pot?

But remember, slain harp babies go to a better place: mittens, purses, fannypacks and -- flipper pie! As Cape-aux-Meules restauranteur Patrick Mathey exults, "I've eaten giraffe, crocodile, antelope. The seal is the best, ah, oui!" Sounds like their fate is sealed.

And finally, happy flight to Linda Eastman McCartney, around our age, who really earned her "Wings."

Paul suggests a fitting tribute is to "Go veggie" -- even if it doesn't prevent breast cancer.

...AND GOOD RIDDANCE

To Cambodian ex-dictator Pol Pot, who died before he could be honored for his unceasing work on behalf of population control -- or be legalized. His successor, one-legged Khmer Rouge guerilla, Ta "The Butcher" Mok, delivered a moving eulogy for his fallen leader, "Now he is finished. He has no power and no rights any longer. He is nothing more than cow dung. Actually, cow dung is more useful because it can be used as fertilizer."

LIST WE FORGET...

The hit song of 1976 from the Beijing People's Daily: "Indignantly Condemn The Wang-Chan-Chiang-Yao Gang of Four." (Jarrett)

LIST COMMENTS

If "Penn & Teller" hit your town, better go see them before they disappear. They did their "Double-Bullet Catch" show at the Wilshire not too long ago, and it blew our collective minds to hear the hilariously profane Pennster ranting rapturously on the very stage where we go every Sunday for our metaphysical service at the "wierdly cool" Church of Religious Science. Hell-ellujah! Several Fireheads were spotted in the sold-out house along with Dustin Hoffman and his kids. What a show! What showmen! What!

Published 4/22/98

PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor