“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”---Audre Lorde
“Jesus was a Jew, yes, but only on his mother’s side.”---Archie Bunker
We, like most people, thought all this Jewish persecution business had been put aside after World War II. Everybody decided they could stay, and a place was even set aside for them. A few Arabs grumbled but you know how they are. In this country, the Jews settled down to monopolize the usury business, take over the New York City garment trade and act as agents to every star in Hollywood. You gotta find work, right? Time passed and the Jewish population became well-integrated into American society. Some even intermarried with people of other religions, though never with their mother’s blessing.
Nobody minded that Albert Einstein was Jewish when he revolutionized modern physics with his general theory of relativity. Nobody cared that Lauren Bacall was Jewish when she smooched with Humphrey Bogart. Nobody squawked about Groucho Marx being Jewish when he called the duck down to give a contestant one hundred dollars. And why should they? The Jews were making a contribution to every aspect of American life. Babe Ruth might have hit more home runs but Hank Greenberg was nothing to sneeze at.
So, what happened? In 2017, anti-Semitic activities in the United States shot up an unprecedented 57%, marked by hate crimes in schools and bomb threats against Jewish institutions. The wary Jewish Defense League identified 1,986 examples of harrassment, vandalism and assault in 2017, the largest single-year increase and the second-highest number since the JDL started tracking the data in the 1970s. Jonathan Greenblatt, the organization’s CEO, blamed the shift on “the divisive state of our national discourse” since the election of President Thump. “We’re living in a time where extremists feel emboldened and they’re increasingly taking action,” he said. “They feel empowered; they almost feel like they’ve been mainstreamed.”
The most demonstrative element of anti-Jewish rancor in the United States has been the heretofore undervalued skinhead community, a prominent section of which was seen marching through Charlottesville, Virginia last August chewing on dynamite capsules and chanting “The Jews will not replace us!” Let’s see---the Jews have given us Einstein, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Irving Berlin, Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan and….oh, Jesus Christ, while the skinheads have proffered Eric “The Butcher” Fairburn, now incarcerated for the meager crime of murder. Similar contributions, as anyone can plainly see.
As for replacement issues, the baldies needn’t have worried. The Flying Pie has conducted extensive interviews with a vast array of Jewish people and not one of them was interested in entering the automobile-stripping business or playing drums in a punk music band. There was only a tiny bit of interest in the sale and service of methamphetamine and international trade in stolen Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
We here at TFP can personally attest to the unending talents of the Jewish people, many of whom have played significant parts in our brief stay here on the Blue Planet. We call them:
The Little General, Danny Levine. Photo by Nancy Kay.
The Jewish All-Stars
1. Danny Levine, Circus Employee, Art Historian. Danny first came to our attention when girlfriend/famous nude model/store partner Pamme Brewer suggested we hire him at the Subterranean Circus. Danny had the qualifications: he had previously labored as a clothing salesman at a big-time menswear store on Coral Gables’ Miracle Mile.
“The only thing is, Pamme, that you said he was recently crazy. Institutionalized in California crazy. Thinking he was Jesus crazy.” Miss Brewer waved a finger and shook her head. “He’s all through with that,” she assured. “Now he thinks he’s Rembrandt.”
We hired Danny, anyway. He sold 50+ pair of bellbottom jeans his first day, ten times more than anyone else. He became a Circus institution with his elfin smile, his ready wit and his monk’s robe. He introduced me to Important Girlfirend Claudine Laabs and later became my roommate at the lavish Summit House apartments. He took up with a cute but loopy highschool girl named Charlotte Yarbrough, who visited him mornings before school. Danny’s too-early motorcycle revving to get Charlotte off to class and too late full-blast musical renderings of the Moody Blues got us thrown out of Summit House. To apologize, he took me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and for an hour patiently explained Vermeer’s clever use of light in his paintings. Go ahead---ask me anything about Vermeer.
Danny, an official minister of the Universal Life Church, later officiated at my nuptials to Harolyn Locklair at the Gainesville airport park. The marriage dissolved ten years later only becaused we failed to observe his ceremonial instructions. He ultimately disappeared into the jungles of eastern Georgia, taking a position as an art history professor with the Savannah College of Art and Design. Rumors of his current whereabouts are sketchy. Long live his fame and long live his glory and long may his story be told.
Steve Solomon (left) in a typical pose: feeding someone’s face.
2. Steve Solomon, Restaurateur, Bon Vivant. Steve moved to Gainesville from Chicago a few years after the Circus got rolling and opened the iconic Leonardo’s Pizza near the humming corner of University Avenue and 13th Street; it was an instant success. He moved down the avenue to a building across the street from the Circus properties and established a second store, now called Leonardo’s 706, after the street address. Occasionally, Steve got bored and ambled across the avenue to the Circus, where he was easily the leading purchaser of cigarette papers. He often talked of expanding into a full-fledged Italian restaurant and when California-style pizza came into vogue, he saw an opportunity.
“The only thing is,” he said, “I would have to go to L.A. and travel around to the different restaurants to see what they were doing, check the menus, learn from those chefs. No way am I going to drive in Los Angeles. If you’ll be my driver, Bill, I’ll pay all your expenses and get us a Lincoln Town Car to cruise around in.” These were the days when LTCs were as big as buses. Naturally, I said I’d go. Steve’s future chef, Mark Newman, went with us.
We drove all over the L.A. area, stopping in at innumerable eateries, where the owners were unfailingly generous. When we ate, there was no ordering, they just trotted out one highlight after another. One night, after dining at the spiffy Wolfgang Puck spot, Chinois on Main, we drove over to the nearby Santa Monica Pier. While investigating the amusements, Steve noticed a big tent in the distance. “It must be a circus,” he said, excitedly. Naturally, we had to check it out.
When we arrived, the first thing we saw was a large sign advising of a $39 admission charge, steep for a circus in those days. Steve went up to the entrance and asked if they had any animals in the show. No animals, the ticket-taker told him, just people. Our leader was disappointed. “Well, I’m not paying $39 for a circus with no animals,” he curtly advised. And that, my friends, is how we missed the first appearance of Cirque du Soleil on American soil.
Later the same night, we decided to stay in the area at a Santa Monica motel. I didn’t like the looks of the place but Steve thought we’d been spending a little too much on previous haciendas. He decided the room next to the motel office would be a good spot even though I pointed out the useless lock on the door. “It’s right next to the office,” he protested, “who would bother us here?
I opted for a newer upstairs room on the other side of the building and parked the ostentatious auto far away from the room occupied by Steve and Mark. Next morning, I arrived to find an irate Steve complaining to the management. During the night, someone had walked in, riffled through the wallets of the sleeping denizens and liberated their cash. Steve thought he should get his night’s rental fee back at the very least and was finally rewarded.
“I can’t believe that some guy walked in here,” I told him, “and took the time to empty two wallets, and neither one of you guys heard a peep.” Despite the circumstances, Steve Solomon smiled his indulging smile and said, “Well, Bill, I’m not sure we WANTED to hear a peep.”
Leonardo’s 706 remains extant. Steve will be glad to expand upon the story if you go there. Try and stop him.
3. Irana Maiolo, Circus Employee, Malcontent, Hospital Patient. The last time I wrote something about Irana, she got mad, denied it ever happened and didn’t speak to me for months. Too bad. I’m writing something again. So sue me.
Irana showed up at the Circus one day with her junkie roommate Jenny, looking for a job. Eventually, I hired both of them, which was the good news and the bad news. Jenny later stole some clothes while working at Silver City and I was forced to drive up onto a Main Street sidewalk to accost her and get them back. She nonetheless had the effrontery to use my name as a reference for a future job in Miami. When they called, I told the gasping inquirer, sure, if you want to hire a drug addict who will rob you blind, go right ahead. Jenny called back later that day in a merry mood despite the turndown. “Well, you got me that time,” she said. I guess she just had a penchant for irony.
In fairness to Jews everywhere, I should point out that Irana was only half-Jewish. Her father was Italian, as you may have guessed from her last name. Irana actually did a good job for the Circus, even though she never slept. She would call at 3 a.m. and announce, “I’m coming over!”….always arriving on her yellow Yamaha motorcycle, dressed in a brown jumpsuit and yellow helmet. She looked like nothing so much as a giant bumblebee. You could show up at any hour of the morning at Irana’s raucous open-house apartment and there would be a warm box of Krispy Kreme donuts on the table.
Irana was in New York when the first National Boutique Show took place. She called to ask if was okay to buy a few pipes for our inventory. “These things are great,” she exclaimed. “They’ll sell out for sure.” A few days later, the ugliest collection of ceramic pipes ever unleashed on mankind arrived. Irana wasn’t entirely incorrect, however. Sixteen years later, they had all sold out.
Irana was Harolyn’s maid of honor in the earlier-mentioned wedding in Gainesville. When the marriage teetered, she thought it her duty to fly back and resurrect hope. It did no good, but it’s the spirit of the thing that counts. Despite her predilection for disaster, she lingers still, somewhere in the bowels of Boca Raton, proud as a peacock for now holding the Guiness Book of Records title for “most body parts replaced.” She spends her days reminiscing and drinking large quantities of cannabis oil. No need to wonder any longer who put the ram in the rama lama ding dong. It was Irana.
4. Marty Jourard, Author, Saxophone Player, Gigolo (Retired).
Most parents would have been horrified to discover their young children hanging around a head shop like the Subterranean Circus. The sex. The drugs. The rock ‘n’ roll. But University of Florida author and psychology professor Sidney Jourard didn’t mind at all because he hung around there himself. His children Marty, Jeff and Leonard became wards of the store, incorporating the place into their daily schedules the way others included the library, the gym or the smokers gallery behind the school dumpster. When the Circus staff began to get weary of the Jourard brothers’ shenanigans, Marty thought to bring doughnuts. The gift of doughnuts will get you a long way in this world of ours.
Before we knew it, the Jourards were graduated and gone, Jeff and Marty with a band called The Motels, which roamed the Earth through several incarnations, the latest beginning in 2013. These days, you might get a post card from Marty originating in Kankakee or an email from Canberra. In between, Jourard took the time and trouble to assemble a history book about the 1960s-70s Gainesville music scene called Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, a painstakingly detailed and inclusive effort which took almost a decade to prepare. He also established a brilliant website called Gainesville Rock History, which he calls “a gathering place for all the interviews, photos, posters, band business cards, newspaper articles and anything else pertinent to the amazing music scene in Gainesville during the period after the Beatles and before the rise of Disco.” The site generates an enormous amount of correspondence from previous and present residents of the University City, reminiscing over past glories, celebrating the days of their youth, catching up with old friends. It’s more like a church than a website and Marty Jourard is the Supreme Pontiff who holds it all together. He lives in Seattle now but visits often, wandering around the haunts of his boyhood, joyful to find still standing some building which housed an iconic old bar, sad to find a vacant lot where another once existed. We Circus people are, of course, very proud of him. Not all of our children turn out so well.
Jews On Parade
Our first accountant at the Circus was a young Jewish fellow just out of school named Harvey Budd. Harvey was a quick study with a great sense of humor for a CPA. We were audited twice by the IRS during Harvey’s administration and adjudged to owe only pennies. Budd went on to buy a small television station, which he later sold for more than a pittance, and recently was elected to a term on the Gainesville City Commission, which was a little ironic. When an earlier commission was considering a ban of alleged drug paraphernalia, anathema to a shop like ours, Harvey presented a grand recitation of Martin Niemoller’s “When they came for the Socialists….” speech. Granted, it fell on deaf ears but we appreciated the religious fervor.
I attended my first Jewish wedding when Harvey Budd, just a regular guy, was married to the elegant princess, Ilene Silverman. I told him he was lucky he was Jewish, but he already knew it. Today, Harvey can often be found floating around Exactech Arena for UF basketball games. He pretends he’s still working at something but nobody is sure just what.
When Pamme Brewer was faced with expulsion from the University of Florida for the crime of a nude pose in Charlatan magazine, the ACLU had the good sense to hire a Jewish lawyer named Selig Goldin to represent her. Selig did not only win the case, he smacked the University upside the head and set in motion the beginning of the end of en loco parentis, an errant philosophy by which colleges across the country justified acting in place of a student’s parents. Within a few short years, en loco parentis was but a memory and college coeds were running around naked in magazines from coast to coast. Selig Goldin is no longer with us here on Earth but we like to think of him ranting and raving and putting up a fervent defense of errant archangels somewhere in the hereafter.
On October 20, 2018, our niece Kathleen Ellison married a solid Jewish fellow named Yaniv Barzilai, so now it’s in the expanded family, this Jewish business. During the course of meeting the in-laws, we ran across Yaniv’s stepfather, Sandy Zeskind, who happened to have graduated from the University of Florida decades ago. He told us he went to the Subterranean Circus all the time, even bought a waterbed there, for crying out loud. Small, cozy world. If we didn’t know better, we’d think these Jews were just like everybody else….warm, cold, endearing, offputting, brilliant, befuddled, happy, sad, waterbed-loving, waterbed-hating. It’s the Human Condition and everyone holds the same purchase. “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.” Maya Angelou said that. So don’t be an asshat. I said that.
That’s all, folks….
