NON-FICTION – FEATURE STORY – PROFILE: Kristin Chenoweth: Finding Love and Listening Harder

LONG ISLAND WOMAN INTERVIEW – Kristin Chenoweth

Exclusive Interview with Kristin Chenoweth: Finding Love and Listening Harder 

by David Lefkowitz

((c)2022 David Lefkowitz. This profile was first published in the April/May 2022 issue of Long Island Woman magazine)

It’s fair to say that for everyone, no matter their age, profession, or station in life, the past several months have served as a time of reflection and reassessment. Certainly, for artists in the entertainment industry, the two years of COVID resulted in everything from creative pivoting (e.g., from live performances to virtual productions) to leaving the business for other careers. 

Given her level of success, Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony-winning actress who 23 years ago burst onto the entertainment firmament playing Sally in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, followed by an iconic turn as the “popular” witch of Wicked, was spared such a drastic moment of reckoning. Nevertheless, the isolation of the pandemic, the drying up of Broadway work, and changes in the industry’s treatment of women and other underrepresented societal groups have caused her to set off in different creative directions and make unexpected life choices, even as she expects concerts, musicals, and television work to pick up steam. (Already this year she’s had a clutch of tour dates and in 2021 reaffirmed her diva street cred by co-starring in the Apple TV hit, Schmigadoon!.) Finding the time to write again, as she did when she penned her highly enjoyable 2009 memoir, A Little Bit Wicked, the actress realized she had a new story to tell: one that incorporated both her love of pets and personal background as an adoptee.

What Will I Do with My Love Today?, a children’s book about a little girl asking herself that question and realizing that bringing a dog into her life will be the answer, hit shelves and Kindles last month, via Harper Collins Christian Publishing. In conceiving the work, Chenoweth asked herself a different, albeit related question: “How can I show who I am and be positive in this dark world?” In our mid-winter Zoom conversation, the actress explained, “During the pandemic, I wondered what I would do with myself. I can’t touch, I can’t breathe, I can’t do all the things we’re naturally supposed to be able to do. 

“I was also thinking about a book on adoption and being there for each other,” added Chenoweth. “And then my dog, Thunderpup, was just looking up at me one day, and I realized, `Hello! That’s the title of the book!’ It’s Kristin and Thunder going across Manhattan — and my parents are in it, too.” 

Asked about publishing under an explicitly Christian imprint, the proudly religious actress noted, “The book is not really faith-based; it’s about conquering your fears and gaining confidence and unconditional love.” Chenoweth then chuckled and added that the above description could, indeed, be construed as “faith-based,” though she’s currently at work on a more overtly Christian and inspirational piece. “I wouldn’t say it’s a sequel to A Little Bit Wicked. It’s more about what I’ve learned through the hard times.” Among those setbacks — a number of ended relationships, the passing of an old friend, and getting clonked on the head by a piece of lighting equipment when she was shooting The Good Wife, leading to months recovering from a concussion — yet no relief from the migraines she’s suffered since her twenties. For the former Miss OCU and second-runner-up for Miss Oklahoma, life has not been a bowl of chenos.

“I talk to a lot of my young mentees when I do master classes,” she said. “They want to know, `How do you deal with your problems, your stress? How do you quiet your mind?’

Chenoweth paused. “I thought we had it hard back in the day, but kids today face things that are really difficult. Even before the pandemic. Social media is a blessing and a curse — the comparisons that they have to make to each other and the immediate response. A lot of my younger friends will say, `You didn’t text me back until this morning! Are you okay?’ And I’m, like, `I’m fine. I just don’t live and die by my phone.’ But they do. So that immediacy, things happening so quickly. And the feeling that they have to use filters to show themselves. I mean, sure, I still wanna look good; I’m not kidding anybody. But I also want them to know that life has things like injury, sickness, loss. That’s when we have to rely on faith — which doesn’t necessarily mean Christianity. Whatever their higher power is. 

“So it’s been a joy writing the second book,” Chenoweth added. “I’m not Shakespeare, I’m not perfect. It’s just simple and it’s me. There are deep thoughts that happened there in this COVID, and I think every person has said, `How’m I gonna deal with this?’ When I lost my best friend [Tulsa realtor John Sawyer], who was like a brother to me since I was 16, I thought, `Hey, God. Are you there? `Cause I don’t see you.’ There was anger and questioning — which I believe God wants us to do because we’re thinking people. (That may be very un-Southern-like of me to say.) But in the still of the night does come peace, if you listen. I say this a lot lately, though I never paid attention to it before: `We’ve got two ears and one mouth; listen harder, speak less.’ That’s brought me to my knees.

“Even with the BLM movement,” Chenoweth continued, “it’s been so important to listen. To listen. To see people where they are in their lives. To accept — not just tolerate but accept and love people where they are in their lives. I’m not patting myself on the back; I’m no saint — even if the perception of me is rainbows, glitter, happy all the time. What I want to share in my books and everything I write and sing — especially now — is…it’s not perfect. Nobody has `the perfect.’ I don’t care how much money you have or don’t have. Of course money makes life easier, but it doesn’t take away the problems, it doesn’t take away depression or darkness, and it doesn’t take away the things that we contemplate. So with this time of silence, I’ve heard a lot of things that I maybe couldn’t hear before. Listen harder, speak less.”

That said, Chenoweth has been speaking — as a spokesperson — for the “Less Red, More You” campaign by Rosacea Awareness, sharing her experiences battling the reddening skin condition, and she’s spoken openly about spending half her life enduring excruciating migraines — a product of her having Meniere’s disease, a disorder of the inner ear. “So that comes with both migraines and tinnitus,” the actress sighed. “I’m convinced Van Gogh cut off his ear because he had that.

“The night I won an Emmy for Pushing Daisies, with all the cameras flashing and the excitement, I was headed to the party. I looked at my manager and got the black dots and `kaleidoscope eyes.’ The next thing you know, I’m sick. That takes the fun out of life. Also, migraines suck because, to quote Madeline Kahn in Clue, `Flames! Flames on the side of my face.’ You’re on fire. But because it’s inside our ear and in our head, people go, `Oh, she just has a bad headache.’ The way I describe a migraine is: if you’re drinking a Coke, and you get a brain freeze for a few seconds, that’s a migraine — only it doesn’t go away.”

So the actress is forever careful about such triggers as alcohol, chocolate, caffeine, salt, and lack of sleep. “I have to sleep on an incline,” she said, “and not fly so much. All the things i know I have to do. I mean, lights affect me — and I live and die by the spotlight. Sometimes I’m doing everything right and it still happens.” 

Botox has been a blessing, Chenoweth noted, that has literally spared her from having to retire. She said the treatment is particularly effective when injected into pressure points on her head. Gesturing to her face, the 53-year-old actress joked that she also uses Botox “in other areas that I enjoy.” 

Like every actress who has moved past the ingenue stage, Chenoweth feels the tug of time on her life and career — but age didn’t deter country-rock musician Josh Bryant, 13 years her senior, from popping the question last October. Said Chenoweth, “I always used to joke, `Oh, it’s time for me to put my fiancé to bed’ or `Let me tell you who ABBA is!’ But these are just jokes. He’ll tell me all the time, `You’re beautiful. Stop talking about the way you’re gonna age. I don’t even see age.’ I’ll say, `But when I’m 65, you’re gonna be 53. How do you feel about that?’ He’s like, ’You look young, and you’re a young spirit.” He makes me feel confident. And what’s so fun about being with someone so much younger is that we’re both learning from each other. Like, he can do anything with tech; I can’t. It’s a miracle that I’m on this Zoom [call]. He’s the one that put it in and got me on here. So I will tell him how things were in the beginning, with jobs and auditioning and how the business has changed. And we learn from each other.

“My mom said to Josh at Christmas,” continued Chenoweth, “‘Are you ready to marry an old lady?’ I went, `Mom, I’m sittin’ right here.’ She was just giving us a hard time. But he is an old soul. He tells me all the time, `age is a number. Who cares?’ He’s right.”

Chenoweth also noted that, like her, Bryant is an open-minded Christian. “I always thought,” she explained, “that you can be with somebody that doesn’t believe like you. But now that I’ve found someone who is of like mind and spirit, I realize that’s much more important than I thought. Josh and I are different, but when it comes right down to it, we’d probably make similar decisions. He’s a musician, so we meet on that level. And he’s not mad at me for being who I am. He wants to celebrate and lift me up. I’m a dichotomy in so many ways, and he’s like that, too. So it just works, and I adore him.”

The diminutive star, whose dating history includes actors Seth Green and Marc Kudisch and writer-producer Aaron Sorkin, realized that until her current fiancé, she had been “running away from” commitment her whole life. “I was a late bloomer and wasn’t ready,” she said. “I’m so independent, so I was always, `I got this! I’m on mah own! I make my own money! I don’t need your name! I’m tough!’ And, just speaking honestly, I’ve had men in my life who’ve let me down. I’d think, `I don’t know if I trust you.’ (Let me be clear: I’ve also had wonderful men in my life.) But they say when you meet “the person,” you know. I always thought that was a bunch of hogwash (as we say in the South). But now I’m definitely the girl who says, `When you know, you know. Run toward it. Let somebody in.’”

Of course, as evidenced by What Will I Do with My Love Today?, Kristin Chenoweth already has practice letting someone in and sharing love unconditionally. That partner would be the aforementioned Thunderpup, her ridiculously photogenic four-legged friend since 2017. A brown ball of fluff, Thunder was DNA tested and came up 25 percent Shih Tzu, 25% Cocker Spaniel, 12.5 percent miniature poodle, 12.5 percent Norwegian Elkhound, and 25 percent mutt. As with men, the actress proceeded with caution before embarking on a new canine relationship. “When my first dog, Madeline Kahn Chenoweth, passed away, I thought, `I’m never doing this again. I don’t want to feel this pain,” she said. “But I’m a dog person. And about six months after, I kept passing this rescue place in L.A., being drawn there, feeling, `you need to go there. Your dog is there. YOUR DOG IS THERE.’ 

“In true Mama Rose fashion,” continued the actress, “I had a dream, and Maddie was in it. She looked at me as if to say, `Girl, it’s time. It’s okay. I’m good.’ For me, as an adopted person, it just makes sense to go rescue an animal. So I went into the rescue center, Thunder saw me, came right up to me, and barked at me. I thought, `She’s telling me I’m hers.’ 

“I’m in a business that’s very self-self-self,” concluded Chenoweth. “A dog takes the emphasis off that — even when they’ve seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. She makes me happy every day.” 

Which is surely the best thing to do with love.

******************** 

SIDEBAR: 

CHATTING WITH CHENO

So have you and Josh set a date?

We kind of go back and forth, but don’t be surprised if we just run off and do it.

Do you and he fight over the remote?

He’s learned not to fight with me. And he’s now a fan of all the Housewives. Plus we binge shows like Ozark and watch every single documentary, from true crime to David Foster. 

What book are you reading?

I’m in the middle of The Sleep Fix (by Diane Macedo). Director Richard Jay-Alexander sent me the book because besides migraines, I have insomnia. I’ve taken all the natural herbs I can. I’ve taken Ambien. So I don’t know if the book is going to help — you know, “turn off your phone, don’t lie in bed and watch TV” — that stuff.    

Do you have a favorite joke?

The famous thing about me is that I love comedy, but I am the worst joke teller. I mean, I’ll screw up, `Knock knock. Who’s there? Olive you. Olive who…’ See? I screwed it up. I DON’T TELL JOKES. 

Favorite biblical quotation?

From Proverbs: “Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will open.” It’s a lesson in patience. 

Favorite Painter?

Edgar Degas. Especially his ballet dancers. That era, and the use of color. 

If you could have dinner with any historical personage — besides Jesus — it would be…?

Leonard Bernstein. The Maestro himself.  

*

BYLINE:
David Lefkowitz is an award-winning playwright whose short comedies, Restoration Playhouse, and Three Percent, were both produced virtually in theater festivals in 2021. His podcast, Dave’s Gone By (davesgoneby.com) recently began its 20th season. 

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #168 (4/10/2021): NORMALCY

Rabbinical Reflection #168: Normalcy

(Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By. http://davesgoneby.net/?p=26057)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for April 10, 2021. 

What do we want? Normalcy! When do we want it? Soon. Please!

In case you didn’t know, since March 2020, America has been in various modes of lockdown, quarantine, and stasis, owing to the coronavirus pandemic. This was a sensibly safe response to a disease that swept through the world killing hundreds of thousands of people and putting millions of others in grave danger — and in danger of the grave. Each time we thought we’d seen the worst of it, another wave would come along and submerge us in fear. It’s like listening to an Oasis album. Every time a six-minute anthem finally ends, you’re like, “Ooh, silence. Beautiful quiet.” And then another fucking Oasis song starts.

Life has been like that for the past 13 months. We get our hopes up that the CDC and the NIH and CIA have a handle on the virus equivalent of the Gallagher brothers, and then, Boom!, there’s a holiday, families gather, people travel, and the numbers shoot back up. You could understand Dr. Fauci warning, “hold out a little bit longer. You don’t want to see your mother-in-law anyway, so stay home!” And you could sympathize with vulnerable people or those too young to qualify for the shot, saying, “Sorry, but wearing a mask is not fascism. Put it on, wash your hands, and have fun storming the capitol.” 

But what a magnificent century we’re in! We can encounter a brand-new disease, get our drug companies working on it, and half a year later already have a remedy ready for launch. Thanks to President Trump, the medicine rolled out at warp speed, and thanks to President Biden, it’s being distributed as systematically as dollar bills at a farbrengen. 

As of this ranting, 100 million Americans have received at least one dose of the Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J vaccine. Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population, including myself and my dear wife, Miriam Libby, and eleven of our 21 ½ children, is fully vaxxed! So why am I vexed?

The answer stems back to the most basic human idea of fairness: Patience followed by reward. Endurance rewarded with triumph. Eat your broccoli, then you can have ice cream. Unless you had steak with the broccoli, in which case you’d be mixing milchig with fleishig, so you have to eat the broccoli AND wait six hours for the ice cream, but don’t complain because some people go to bed hungry and you got to eat steak, so shut up, you kvetch.

But back to my point. We are taught that if we deny ourselves for the greater good, we’ll get some of that great good. Save your pennies for a rainy day, and you’ll have money to buy an umbrella. Since 2020, we have been denying, and forgoing, and masking, and isolating, and socially shrinking because we understood the bargain: when the vaccine comes, and the herd immunity kicks in, life will be life again. We got mad at mayors and governors who appeared to jump the gun on reopening because they valued commerce over public health. We dreaded restoring schools until we realized that juveniles may spread a ton of disease, but not to each other. We cringed at watching another press conference from Governor Cuomo because…he’s Governor Cuomo. And we waited. 

So, nu? We’re getting our shots, we’re doing our best…where’s the reward? Two weeks after the second shot, we’re 90-something-percent protected against the Wuhanian flu. We’re more likely to get hepatitis from a hobo than Covid from a co-worker. And yet, the Center for Disease Control says, “Keep wearing your mask. Don’t get on a plane unless you have to. Stay six feet away from your neighbor. Don’t lick a postage stamp unless you know where it’s been.” Basically the same rules we’ve been tolerating since Alex Trebek was still hosting Jeopardy. So what was the point of the shots? Why put ourselves — or, more importantly, myself — through the inconvenience, the uncertainty, the soreness of receiving a subcutaneous Fauci ouchy, if the result is merely more of the same? 

Imagine a guy going on a date with a hot girl at her place. “Now Reuven,” she says, “did you remember to bring a condom?” “I sure did!” “Did you put it on?” “Oh, yes.” “Great, now stay in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” What the hell? 

Why am I shooting some profit-driven pharmaceutical company’s untested RNA into my bloodstream if I still must approach the world through solitary confinement? Why do I have to walk in a bank still looking like a bank robber? Why is it after boosting all my antibodies, all I hear about is Covid variants that can kick sand in my antibodies’ face?

You know, the Haredi community has taken a hatload of heat for their response to the pandemic. They obey their own rules, they’re careless with protocols, they hold massive weddings barely six inches apart let alone six feet. And the media has taken significant pleasure in reporting that the spread of Covid has been rampant among the Orthodox. Makes sense. Funny, but they haven’t been reporting — among all the black-hatters testing positive — how many dropped dead? Apart from a couple of decrepit rabbis, how many have kikt di emer? How many on ventilators or in hospitals? Versus…how many had two days of a bad headache and a sleepy streak? Heck, I get that just taking a poop. I’m not saying the haredi should be proud of their insular arrogance, but maybe the rest of us have over-reacted more than they under-reacted.

HaShem, if you’re listening: how about a break? Howzabout acknowledging those of us who’ve done everything right and rewarding us? it’s time to give us the ice cream — non-dairy! We don’t want to be too greedy.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c)2021 TotalTheater. All Rights Reserved.

https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-166-4-10-2021-normalcy/

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #168 (4/10/2021): NORMALCY

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/2/20): SOCIAL DISTANCING

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/3/20): SOCIAL DISTANCING

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 162nd Rabbinical Reflection airs Saturday, May 2, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZP5bCPfLKY&feature=youtu.be)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 2nd, 2020. 

You know, I usually take great pride in being Jewish. Despite my neurosis and fear-based logic and my alarmingly small penis, other aspects of my heritage give me significant nachas. We’re survivors, we’re creative and cultural, and we’re smart. Even anti-Semites warn the world that we’re crafty, we use our big brains. What a lovely stereotype! French people are snooty, Italians are hotblooded, the Polish are . . . Polish, but Jews were always the smart ones.  Granted, in recent years we’ve gotten complacent. Look in a library at night, you know the Asians have usurped us. But at least we’re still second-smartest.

Or so I thought until this-past week. On Wednesday, Rabbi Chaim Mertz—no relation to Fred or Ethel—he dropped dead of COVID-19. A tragedy; my condolences to his family. How did the Orthodox community respond? With a funeral—a public funeral. 2,500 Orthodox Jews of the Haredi sect gathered on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Did they stand six feet apart? No. Did they all wear masks? No. Although some of those beards could have doubled as a hairnet. Did they pay any attention to scientists and state officials who said, “Excuse me, we’re in a pandemic. Stay indoors and practice social distancing. And Hulu-watching.”

These people did none of this. No doubt their thinking was, “this is our community, we self-govern, and if we choose to put ourselves at risk, that’s our business. Also, we share antibodies because we’re all inbred anyway.”

Mayor de Blasio looks at this de Blatant violation of community standards—and possibly the law—and says, “What’s wrong with you people?” Or, to be precise, he tweeted, quote, “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the New York Police Department to summon or even arrest those in large groups. This is about stopping the disease and saving lives. Period.”

Did the Jewish community apologize? Did they say to the Mayor, “Slicha. We were overcome with grief for our dead Rebbe, but we were thoughtless and disrespectful to our neighbors. It won’t happen again, no matter who dies. Although if Messiah comes, we’ll probably still turn out in big numbers.” 

That was not the response of the Haredis or the greater Jewish community. Instead, they jumped on the race wagon and accused de Blasio of de Bigotry for singling them out. 

What a load of schmucks! The Mayor singled you out because you didn’t single yourselves out, you multiplied. If you’d stayed home and watched the funeral on Instagram, or done an orderly procession with everyone six feet apart and masked, you could have served as an object lesson for the world: “When the shutdown ends, this is how you can go into a sports stadium, a school assembly, a klezmer rave party—in a safe, public-minded fashion.”

Instead, you poured into the streets and milled around like a fire drill. And that behavior gives ammunition to real anti-Semites. Why shouldn’t they sneer, “You see? The Jews claim to love the USA, but but when push comes to shove, they push and shove. Religious ritual supersedes American law. And they turn a blind ear to mayors, governors, police forces—anyone outside their crazy creed.” 

For their part, the Haredis say they notified police before the march and were given the go-ahead. A conversation that I imagine went: “Hi. We’re gonna congregate. Better get barriers ready so the goyim don’t bother us. Thanks!” They also noted that crowds elsewhere in the region turned out in numbers to watch a military flyover of Air Force Thunderbirds. “Why is de Blasio picking on us and not them?” Fair point. He should have crapped all over both of you. Instead, the Mayor was forced to temper his tweets. He didn’t apologize, thank goodness, but he did express regret for lashing out, saying he was frustrated by this disease, which has killed 63,000 New Yorkers—among them quite a few Jews. 

Over the next year, this country must have serious debates about the line between security and civil rights. I mean, it’s 18 years since 9/11, and we still take off our shoes at the airport. What is that about? I’ve hurt more people with my foot odor than a shoe bomber ever could. So it will be interesting to see if the Orthodox, in their huddled masses, spread coronavirus so much worse than the rest of us on our couches watching “Nailed It!” all day. 

But that’s for scientists and statisticians to figure out. In the meantime, the law—especially in a sardine tin like the five boroughs—is to socially isolate. I admit, that’s easy for me, because I hate people. But whatever your ethnicity, if you think your religion is more important than common sense or the common good, please, convert. And stay 6 feet—600 feet!—away from people like me who don’t wanna die. And if I do, no procession. Just give me a Pay-Per-View special with Gilbert Gottfried telling dirty jokes and Morgan Freeman doing the eulogy. Oh, and naked cheerleaders. For obvious reasons.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

(c)2020 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #109 (10/19/2014) – EBOLA

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #109 (10/19/2014): Ebola

aired Oct. 18, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmaLeEb1jhA&feature=youtu.be. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27551

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 19, 2014.

A year ago, if someone came up to me and asked, “Have you ever heard of ebola?”, I would have said, “Sure, I’ve heard of ebola. I’m ebola. I go to the alley every weekend, and my high score is 230.”

How far we have come in such a short time that ebola has mutated from an obscure, 15-year-old virus to an American panic attack. In just two months, we’ve gone from, “Oh great. Africans are dying from something besides starvation and AIDS?” to “Close the schools, block the airports, fumigate the national parks.”

On some level, all this caution is good. Perhaps we learned from the AIDS years the penalty for looking the other way when horror happens to someone else. In 1984, Ronald Reagan and Ed Koch could blink at HIV and say, “Ehh, it’s a faigeleh plague. Maybe it’ll thin the herd.” Thirty years later, we look at Africa and go, “It’s not in our backyard yet, but we live in a small neighborhood.”

So missionaries and do gooders trek to Liberia and Nigeria and Sierra Leone to help contain the contagious. Good for them. Woulda been better if they’d gone with a one-way ticket. They come back to the United States, unaware that they’re infected. See, ebola is a disease that takes a while to show how insidious it is. Like marriage.

Anyhoo, what a shock! The missionaries and nurses come back on our soil, and we get our first cases in American hospitals, where the protocols are fammished because nobody knows what we’re dealing with yet. Some genius physician says, “Let’s bring the sick people over here because we can treat them better. How do we keep a zillion other people from being exposed? We’ll work that part out later.”

The minute we started bringing carriers over here, you knew and I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody sneezes, someone else inhales, they cough on a third person, and boom, you’ve got school crossing guards in Hazmat suits. How is that I can’t even put a bandaid on myself without fainting, but I know more than The Center for Disease Control?

What I admit I don’t understand is how this disease is spreading so fast. Ebola is not a virus like the chicken pox where a four-year-old bumps into a five-year-old, and soon both of them are home with mommy allllllll day long. Instead, Ebola is like AIDS in that it takes serious physical contact to pass the pandemic from person to person. You don’t get AIDS just from holding someone’s hand. Well, unless you’re holding it halfway up your tuchas. And even then you have to have an open sore for the bad germs to climb into.

Ebola is not carried by air or water, you don’t catch it from mosquitoes—in fact, patient zero apparently got it from a bat. So, if you’re a baseball player, watch out.

We can beg the ebola victims, or anybody coming from West Africa, don’t kiss anybody, don’t shtup anyone, don’t go on the subway and wipe your boogers on the grabby pole—tempting as that is. If you’re from some country where ebola is spreading like Iggy Azalea, go directly to a hospital or, better yet, turn around and get a boarding pass for the first plane back to Lagos. By the way, you have an uncle there who left you $3 million. All you have to do is bring a thousand-dollar downpayment to this lawyer on the internet.

But I digress. President Obama has chosen an ebola czar — I think I once dated a girl named Ebola Czar — but the dawdler in chief is stopping short of a travel ban. Which basically means: Dangerously ill people, keep coming over here, we’ve got a guy with a suit and a desk. Meanwhile, Frontier Airlines is dealing with a stupid nurse who flew from Dallas to Cleveland during her incubation period, and a Dallas hospital worker who’s stuck on a ship that can’t dock because he might be a carrier. (sings) “The blood Boat.”

And yet, through all of this, getting hysterical does nobody any good. The vast majority of people don’t go around handling blood and sputum and hypodermic needles all day. Unless they’re Andy Dick. So calm down. Take your vacation, go to school, eat at the cafeteria. Be happy that some African countries are closing their borders and keeping containment, and do not allow undue worry to keep you from enjoying your day. After all, life is just a bowl o’ cherries. If cherries carried ebola, then we’d have a problem.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. (Coughs) Just a cough.

(c) 2014 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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