Chit Chat

By Ted Belman

From now on comments on every post must relate to the content of the post.

Comments that don’t relate to the post must go here.

Any person who contravenes this demand will be put on moderation. Also their offending comment will be trashed.

The reason for this demand is so that people who want to read comments which pertain to the post, don’t have to wade through the chatter.

Everyone will be happier.

April 16, 2020 | 7,781 Comments »

Leave a Reply

50 Comments / 7781 Comments

  1. SEB-

    As long as I don’t have to metaphorically keep changing your diapers.

    Play basketball a desire. Oy Veh……….
    I’m sorry for continually cutting you off at the knees. I’ll stop. Maybe they’ll grow again, your little tootsies.

  2. From OSINTdefender:

    Senior Hamas Officials have reportedly Denied the Ceasefire and Hostage Deal Proposal that was submitted yesterday by CIA Director William Burns during Negotiations in Cairo.

    Hamas Negotiators have reportedly told International Meditators in Cairo that it has No Ability to Release the 40 Hostages that are included in yesterday’s Ceasefire Proposal because out of the 136 Hostages that remain in the Gaza Strip, at least 100 are now believed to be Dead.

    It is time to end these savages, to rescue what remains of our people, and to deal with whatever new threats arise.

    Go and bring our people home.

  3. @Edgar

    “GROW Up, you 65 year old dribbling infant.”

    64 for another few months, thank you very much, and I’ll never be tall enough to play basketball.

  4. SEB-

    If you don’t know who Henry Morgan was, you don’t know your shows and TV crap nearly as well as you aspire to.

    If you looked him up, as I suggested, you’d know, from reading the entry, who he was, and that incident with Merv Griffin was sensational enough to warrant a special paragraph .
    Very much like the Jackie Mason-Ed Sullivan brou-ha-ha.

    Sorry to see that you really “don’t know nothin’ ”
    Anything I posted can be seen to be “suggestions” not ORDERS, like you are giving me now; have you acquired a “Mussolini complex”.???

    GROW Up, you 65 year old dribbling infant.

  5. @Honeybee Bears are now officially censored so I am going back to the cave. Site did not even work for back-surgery recovery period. Wishing you good luck in Texas!

  6. SEB-

    ou will have to get out of the habit of explaining things to me, that I alredy know. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about Brother Theodore. His “humour” to me was morbidly boring.

    So please, unless I ask you, stop your tedious instructions.

    I suppose that I xan be sure you didn’t look up that Merv Griffin-Henry Morgan item.

    I think you’re only interested on whay YOU look up.

  7. SEB_

    That’s just about how long Noah lived. Incredible that he could make so many trips withou breaking both legs, or even a collarbone. Maybe they didn’t have them in those days.

  8. @Bear
    Wishing you the best and a speedy recovery. Though, the quicker you recover, the sooner it seems we will lose your commentary, so hopefully we will enjoy your company for a little while at least. In any event, rest up and get well soon.

  9. @Seb, no I was not reminding you of anything, I knew 1000% you are fully aware of Trump’s good deeds towards Israel as a real and true ally.

    I agree we need to make the enemies afraid of us and show they should not f–k with us so the videos are standard and good practice. Yes they have a negative side as war is ugly.

    Biden has me convinced to vote for Trump a third time, even though I vote in state that is very Blue and the vote is only symbolic. I was first for DeSantis and then Haley. The choice of Biden or Trump for a Zionist Jew is clearly Trump.

  10. @Bear I understand that he was probably just talking off the top of his head but he did say that the IDF should not have released footage of the bombings and crumbling buildings, etc. I agreed with him at first, but I have changed my mind. Understand? I don’t think the optics of winning over frenemies is as important as the optics of intimidating enemies, especially those waiting in the wings wondering if they should join in the carnage at this point in time, as well as the optics of making us feel like winners getting our just revenge. Revenge is important. I’m still voting for him but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything he says and does. If you think you have to remind me of all the things he’s done for Israel, and all the things he’s promised to do, it’s because you’ve been in hibernation and not reading my posts. Glad you’re feeling better and welcome back. I look forward to sparring with you once again. 😀

  11. @Seb, Trump supported Israel more than any POTUS ever. That does not make a precision speaker who has carefully analyzed what he says before he says it many times. He may have meant well but it did not articulate what he said well and clearly.

  12. “IDF eliminates key Hamas operative

    In joint operation, IDF and ISA eliminate Akram Abd Al-Rahman Husein Salamah, senior terrorist operative of Hamas’ Internal Security who promoted significant terror activities in the Gaza Strip and planned terror attacks in Israeli territory.

    Apr 6, 2024

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/388013

    My comment: I believe Trump meant well but I disagree with him. I think the nations were ready to condemn Israel no matter what, as usual, but the most important thing is for Israel to restore deterrence and that means making the consequences of attacking Israel as scary as possible to as large an audience as possible. Fear brings peace. And it’s good for Jewish especially Israeli morale except of course, for the handful of suicidal lunatics like the handful of Israeli expatriates I saw protesting in front of Lincoln Center today in the relative safety of America, with Israeli flags and signs reading in Hebrew and English with the English signs reading, “We are not our government.” Yeah, right, tell it to the victims of the Nova peace music festival and the leftwing kibbutzes who were hit hardest because they had no defences and they had invited the enemy alien guest workers/spies into their homes.

    Their signs should have read, “Heraus mit unce.” (Out with us.)

    Remember when Al Qaeda actually apologized for attacking the IDF by mistake?

  13. Hi Honeybee, I am only coming out hibernation during my recovery from back surgery. Soon I will back in my fun cave again.

  14. Sebastien

    Stop shouting please.

    @Felix Ahh, well, in that case screw Trotsky, you Commie bastard. ? Talk about stuck in a time warp. You might consider thinking twice before biting the hands that are humoring you. Trotsky is about as relevant here as Jesus or Hari Krishna. ?

    You might think deeply on this… in the period 1918 he with Lenin back at base managed to liquidate the very dangerous Pogroms movement 1918 to 1921

    He was very hated from then onwards by Antisemites

  15. Bear

    About Biden

    All of that

    A similarity to Hitler

    Full of shit yes.

    Not smart. Correct yes you are correct

    But he has some cunning. A big hater of Jews. We have to show his two-faced essence.

    So so dangerous.

  16. @Edgar No, Brother Theodore’s name was Theodore Gottlieb. You didn’t go to tge Wikipedia link I provided. He was German Jewish.

    “Early years
    edit
    Gottlieb was born into a Jewish family in Düsseldorf, in the Rhine Province, where his father was a magazine publisher. He attended the University of Cologne. At age 32, under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp until he signed over his family’s fortune for one Reichsmark. After being deported from Switzerland for chess hustling, he went to Austria where Albert Einstein, a family friend, helped him immigrate to the United States.[2][3]”…

    “He was the king of dark humor. He performed as a wacko. Truthfully, he was always depressed in real life and people thought it was his stage character. He was from a rich family in Europe and then his whole family went to concentration camps and lost it all. When he came to the States, he quickly became a huge celebrity in the Village. Then he totally disappeared and became a has been. Dick remembered him and tracked him down. We asked him to perform at the Townhouse and he turned us down saying that his life was over and he couldn’t perform anymore. We insisted that he try to perform again in our place. He didn’t make it easy for us. He had all these provisions that he tried to use on us to not perform.”

    From much longer article

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Theodore

  17. @Felix

    Ireland is anointed as most Jews hating nation in world

    Inside 6 months comes Oct 7

    Biden plays the fervent Zionist. But the Jews were being shafted by his Catholic Fervour.

    Agree with you here pretty much here. That is almost a first.

    I do not know how Catholic Biden is but I do know he is completely full of shit and always was and is definitely shafting the Jews and Israel.

    I have know he is a worthless person who is almost always wrong about everything since the late 1980s when he first ran for POTUS.

  18. Biden visit mid April for 4 days.

    Emotional overdrive.

    Ireland is anointed as most Jews hating nation in world

    Inside 6 months comes Oct 7

    Biden plays the fervent Zionist. But the Jews were being shafted by his Catholic Fervour.

  19. SEB-

    I broke my rule and chased him down on WIKI. That very episode is in the article, including the very words he used before walking off the stage.

    He is under “Henry Morgan (Humorist)”

  20. SEB-

    Memory is an odd thing. I just recalled the name of the angry guy..
    Henry Morgan. And am in error I thought his father was Frank Morgan

  21. SEB_
    Maybe you can pull this from memory or the computer.

    I used to watch the Merv Griffin Show. He himself was not funny but had some geed guests.

    One right there were sparks flying from one guest seemingly also a friend.

    “You got me out of bed to rush over here because you had only a few guests, and I have to sit here and listen to this babbling rubbish.

    And he walked right off the show. I can’t recall his name but he was a satirical comedian and had the same name as his more famous father.

  22. SEB-

    It was well known and even debated about that George Burns was not funny, was nothing without Gracie who made them funny.

    As for the definition you quote, you are taking it from a very unfunny guy.

    Borge did not talk funny, and he positively needed his props, as a stand up alone on the stage he’d have been moderately funny with well rehearsed routines.

    Jackie Gleason was funny even without Alice. Al Lewis in Car 54 was funny. Laurel & Hardy were the epitome of funny.

    To say that Jackie Mason was not funny is almost blasphemy His routines are hilarious. and his deliver faultless. Bernard Gorcy was funny.

  23. Curious with all the Anti-Semitism in the West rearing its ugly head very openingly are any of the reader of Israpundit planning Aliyah or have recently made it?

  24. SEB-

    Jerry Lewis with his contrived squeaky voice, facial grimaces and double jointed knock-knee ankle crap, along with his baby style petulance.

    Milton Berle did the ankle crap better but still not funny.

    DON’T MAKE ME LAUGH……!!

  25. @Edgar Here are the incomparable comedian Jerry Lewis and standuup tragedian, Brother Theodore (and Merv Griffin is no slouch, either.)

    Brother Theodore & Jerry Lewis- Interview/Argument 1966 [Reelin’ In The Years Archive] (Both Jewish, by the way as was Victor Borge)

    Here, I am reminded of some of the more cogent intellectual debates we’ve had here at Israpundit. (I’m Merv Griffin, here.)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Fg2H3sucI

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Theodore

  26. @Edgar But, in addition to the great Danish Jewish comedian, Victor Borge, who could compare with the great German Jewish “standup tragedian” (and one of my role models) Brother Theodore, who I actually had the privilege of seeing at the 13th St. Theatre when I was a teenager in the ’70s. And of course, Jerry Lewis.

    Brother Theodore & Jerry Lewis- Interview/Argument 1966 [Reelin’ In The Years Archive]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Fg2H3sucI

    “Theodore Isidore Gottlieb (November 11, 1906 – April 5, 2001), mostly known as Brother Theodore, was a German-born American actor and comedian known for rambling, stream-of-consciousness monologues which he called “stand-up tragedy”. His style is similar to Diseuse or Kabarett, which was popular in Western Germany during the 1920s and 30s’s. He was described as “Boris Karloff, surrealist Salvador Dalí, Nijinsky and Red Skelton…simultaneously”.[1]

    Biography
    Early years
    Gottlieb was born into a Jewish family in Düsseldorf, in the Rhine Province, where his father was a magazine publisher. He attended the University of Cologne. At age 32, under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp until he signed over his family’s fortune for one Reichsmark. After being deported from Switzerland for chess hustling, he went to Austria where Albert Einstein, a family friend, helped him immigrate to the United States.[2][3]

    In USA
    He worked as a janitor at Stanford University, where he demonstrated his prowess at chess by beating 30 professors simultaneously,[3] and later became a dockworker in San Francisco. He played a bit part in Orson Welles’ 1946 movie The Stranger. This was one of the several movie appearances he made beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1990s. These were mostly small parts in B-movies, although he did provide the voice of Gollum in the 1977 made-for-television animated version of The Hobbit and the follow-up adaptation of The Return of the King (1980). He also voiced Ruhk, Mommy Fortuna’s assistant and carnival barker in The Last Unicorn (1982).

    Success
    Theodore’s career as a monologuist began in California in the late 1940s, with dramatic Poe recitals. He moved to New York City, and by the 1950s, his monologues, now darkly humorous, had attracted a cult following. In 1958, he presented a one-man show that promoted “quadrupedism”, the idea that human beings should walk on all fours. Jay Landesman booked him at St. Louis’ Crystal Palace during the 1960s. In the early 1960s, he frequently performed at the Café Bizarre in New York’s Greenwich Village (106 W 3rd Street). He reached a wider audience through television, with 36 appearances on The Merv Griffin Show in the 1960s and ’70s, and was also a guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, The Dick Cavett Show, and The Joey Bishop Show. After his nightclub and TV appearances in the 1950s and ’60s waned,[3] he retired in the mid-1970s.

    Comeback
    He was pulled out of retirement and booked by magician Dorothy Dietrich and Dick Brooks in the Magic Towne House on the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan for special weekend midnight performances. Years earlier, Brooks had remembered seeing Brother Theodore drawing large crowds at small, eclectic clubs across the Lower East Side (Greenwich and the East Village) and sought him out to appear at his new club. This resulted in a resurgence of interest in Brother Theodore that brought him success in his later years starting with Tom Snyder’s Tomorrow Show in 1977 followed by more TV appearances and movies. According to Brooks, it took multiple calls to Theodore to convince him to make a comeback. Theodore’s attitude was very bleak, and he felt his career was over. Brooks wanted to charge ten or more dollars, but Theodore insisted on four dollars, so as not to scare people away. The show was a success and ran for three years. A picture of the Magic Towne House ad appeared in local New York newspapers such as the Village Voice and The New York Post.[4]

    In an interview for MUM, The Society of American Magicians official magazine Dorothy Dietrich said:[5]

    Dick knew him. As a kid Dick used to see him around the village and they would be lined up around the block to see him. The stage was black with a pin spot on a desk which was raked towards the audience. The light comes on and there he is with a big shadow behind him. He just stares at the audience for an excruciatingly long time. Then he says, “Einstein is dead. Schopenhauer is dead… and I’m not feeling so well myself!”

    He was the king of dark humor. He performed as a wacko. Truthfully, he was always depressed in real life and people thought it was his stage character. He was from a rich family in Europe and then his whole family went to concentration camps and lost it all. When he came to the States, he quickly became a huge celebrity in the Village. Then he totally disappeared and became a has been. Dick remembered him and tracked him down. We asked him to perform at the Townhouse and he turned us down saying that his life was over and he couldn’t perform anymore. We insisted that he try to perform again in our place. He didn’t make it easy for us. He had all these provisions that he tried to use on us to not perform.

    He ended up doing the Saturday night midnight show for three years. We revived his career and it helped promote us. We did Equity Showcase Theater for out of work actors to display their talents. We had famous directors trying out their shows. One time an audition for a two-person show brought in 2000 actors vying for the parts. The line went all around the block.

    Theodore made 16 appearances on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman in the 1980s; Letterman introduced him as “a noted philosopher, metaphysician, and podiatrist”. In the early 1980s, he was a regular on the Billy Crystal Comedy Hour. He also did voice work, including the voice-over to the American trailer for Lucio Fulci’s The House by the Cemetery in 1981. In 1989 he appeared in the Joe Dante comedy film The ‘Burbs. Up until the late 1990s, he was a guest actor in several episodes of Joe Frank: Work in Progress radio show on National Public Radio (NPR). Beginning in 1982, Theodore took up residence on Saturday nights for a nearly two-decade run at the 13th Street Repertory Theatre in Greenwich Village.[6]

    An article on Theodore appeared in RAVE magazine with color photos. Segments from it are in the book Who’s Who in Comedy. Just prior to his death from pneumonia, he recorded several monologues for the controversial documentary series, Disinfo Nation. He appeared in Billy Crystal’s mockumentary Don’t Get Me Started and voiced the character of an ointment expert on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday version of Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer in 1995.

    To My Great Chagrin documentary
    In early 2001, Theodore and film artist Jeff Sumerel met and discussed producing a documentary about Theodore. In February of that year, preliminary shooting began, including informal interviews with Theodore in his apartment; in April, Theodore contracted pneumonia and died.

    Sumerel was encouraged by Theodore’s family and friends to complete the documentary. As no funding was available, Sumerel continued the project intermittently as time and financing allowed. After interviewing Henry Gibson other notable performers who were Theodore fans were encouraged to participate. Gibson connected Sumerel with Penn & Teller who were long-time, avid Theodorians. Over the next 5 years Sumerel interviewed Dick Cavett, Eric Bogosian, Tom Schiller, Harlan Ellison, Len Belzer, Joe Dante, Mark Shulman, and Woody Allen, among others. Sumerel spent the next two years gathering archival materials and working with editor Jeter Rhodes, to sift through the vast amount of content conveying Theodore’s personal and professional life.The result was a non-traditional documentary titled To My Great Chagrin: The Unbelievable Story of Brother Theodore.[7] The film was selected for premiere, February 13, 2008, at the opening night of the Museum of Modern Art’s Fortnight Series.

    Death
    Theodore died in New York City on April 5, 2001, at the age of 94.[2] He is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

    His headstone reads: Known as Brother Theodore / Solo Performer, Comedian, Metaphysician / “As Long as There Is Death, There Is Hope”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Theodore

  27. Ted, it seems about 8 hours of comments, starting at 11 AM on 5 April, 2024, have disappeared. These include one by me.

  28. Edgar “There are 3 kinds of funny, “People who act funny, people who talk funny, and people who are just funny.” – George Burns, who was all three.

    Victor Borge was all three.

    It is with deepest regret that I must inform you that Myron Cohen and Jackie Mason were none of the above,

  29. SEB-

    It may offend your musical lifestyle to be told that Borge’s piano was a prop. It certainly was, as he used to play in a very exaggerated manner, sometimes sliding off the bench or running the keys out past the keyboard end. fumbling hastily with the score, and etc.

    Please don’t deny it as I’ve seen it personally.
    The way he flipped his tails was expected to get laughs and did. Always.

  30. They said New York had an earthquake but they lied. Some people claimed they felt it. That was just my downstairs neighbor’s loud music, as usual. So gullible. Like all the people who are worried about global warming when it’s freezing in April?

  31. @Edgar He just holds a book in his hands and pretends he’s reading. That’s a big deal for you? No. You didn’t watch it. HIs other stufff, you know, music? Music is not a prop.

  32. SEB-

    Well its just your opinion. I’m not an expert raconteur anyway.

    You should explain the”slight” difference between “Borge” and Borgia” and that they are not “contemporary”….NO…!!

    That is…if you know it.

    What Props??? You darned well know what props. I mentioned them explicitely. Without them Victor is less than half as good as with them. Just imagine him standing up in street clothes and telling his jokes without being able to amplify them 500% with his props..

    Very ordinary. He’d have to depend on his long nose and humourous mouth and lips.

  33. Biden Still Polling Well With 3 A.M. Mail-In Ballot Demographic
    POLITICS
    ·
    Apr 4, 2024 · BabylonBee.com

    U.S. — Despite ominous polling data showing former President Donald Trump holding leads in key battleground states, there are strong indications that President Joe Biden is still polling well among the important 3 A.M. mail-in ballot demographic.
    Democratic strategists expressed confidence that this crucial voting block, which played an important role in his 2020 victory, is still firmly in President Biden’s corner, leading many insiders to believe that November’s presidential election will turn out differently than current battleground polls indicate.

    We’ll be just fine,” said Biden campaign chief Julie Chavez Rodriguez. “Mr. Trump’s camp may be crowing about all the polls showing him having a lead, but we all know which votes are really the important ones. As long as Donald Trump struggles to win the 3 A.M. unverified mail-in votes, President Biden will still end up being the choice of the American people. Joe just knows how to win those middle-of-the-night votes.”

    While Trump has built impressive leads in many important states heading into the general election, Biden’s track record of winning an overwhelming percentage of votes among ballots that surreptitiously arrive after polling locations have closed and don’t have verifiable signatures looms large. “Trump can build as big of a lead as he wants,” Chavez Rodriguez said. “It won’t matter. We know that the 3 A.M. mail-in ballot demographic will come in strong for us in the end. It may even come in stronger for us this year than it did in 2020. In fact, I know it will.”
    At publishing time, when asked how many 3 A.M. mail-in votes they expected to need, Biden’s campaign said it wouldn’t know until election night.

    https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-still-polling-well-among-3-am-mail-in-ballot-demographic