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Email Luke Essays Profiles Archives Search LF.net Luke Ford Profile Dennis Prager May 24 YU Gone Wild? No way. A friend who went to Yeshiva University admitted under intense questioning this week that more than 75% of those who graduate YU with bachelor degrees (and who have never married) are virgins. Correction From AJ Benza AJ Benza writes: "Luke.... Please, my man, make sure you stay current with the Lloyd Grove/Razor Magazine nonsense. If you heard Stern this morning and yesterday morning you'd know he told his listeners that I never claimed my speaking to him was an exclusive. It was, as Howard said, Razor Magazine trying to drum up publicity for the issue. Other than that...I always enjoy reading your stuff." What's The Jewish Response To Sodomy? Coming down from the excitement of meeting Steven I. Weiss, I could not sleep Wednesday night. 9:05AM, Thursday. I pick up Steven and drive to the Valley for day two of the UJC conference. We were five miles outside of Pico/Robertson when the drugs began to take affect. I saw big black bats swooping down on my van. I screamed, pulled over to the side of the road, and ran into the desert. Ten minutes later, I returned. Steven was still holding his bottle of Jack. "As your moral leader," I said, "I must advise you to have another drink." I drop him off at the conference and then commence my deep under cover investigative reporting which I am not at liberty to discuss. I pick up him late in the afternoon. He wants to go to the graduation of the latest Wexner class at the University synagogue. We have an hour to kill so we walk to Starbucks and he buys me a strawberry frapuccino. The class on leadership is led by HUC LA professor Darla Abrams. An hour in, I look up from my HOLLYWOOD ANIMAL book and say, "This sounds feminine." "Interesting that you should say that," she responded, "because the person who came up with this leadership model was a man." "He's probably gay," is how I wanted to respond, but as a model of propriety, I say instead, "This doesn't sound like the way football coaches such as Bill Parcells would lead." Steven hands out his Forward card to everyone in the room and bores some poor innocent ladies to death with his theories on blogging leading a renaissance of Jewish journalism. As I was driving home tonight, I took a sudden turn through the 405 traffic. Steven I. Weiss saw his life flash before his eyes and he started singing a song that I could not quite make out. Protocol readers, if you were on the Titanic and the ship was going down and you knew you were going to drown with your mates, what song would you like the band to play? What did they play on the Titanic? I fear I'd choose a Christian hymn, Abide With Me. Or, Nearer My God To Me. Or Losing my Religion by REM. Or, Leaving on a Jet Plane (John Denver version). Or, (I Just) Died In Your Arms. Or, I'm Still Standing (Elton John). Or, Who's Cryin Now (Journey). Or, Keep on Loving You (REO Speedwagon). Or, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. Friday morning we might attend a congressman's public meeting on an HIV problem within a certain sector of the Valley economy. What's the proper Jewish response to sodomy? Moby Al Cinder writes: "One of the many unfortunate consequences of the establishment of a Jewish state on Muslim land is exactly this - that Jewish American women are made to feel inferior to Jewish Israeli women. No wonder so few Jewish American women are married and mothers by age thirty - the men they want are busy slobbering over Zionist women in a foreign land." Shmarya writes: "Luke, Google has banned my (meagre) ads for the third time. Why? A Google "program specialist" has determined that my site contains "slanderous" information about "the rabbi." So, how's this for inversion? Chabad bans Ethiopian Jews from its schools, won't do outreach with Ethiopian Jews, and spent considerable effort slandering me (and Rabbi David Berger, and Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, and many more who have publicized information Chabad wanted hushed-up), and yet, somehow, in Google's twisted version of the world, I'm the bad guy. Every claim I make about Chabad is sourced. Nothing is untrue. But when the big Chabad spin machine and wreaking crew goes into operation, truth takes a holiday." A Grief Revealed Orthodox Jewish screenwriter Robert J. Avrech, 54, is about the most private man I know. In 20 years at his shul, I do not believe he has once gone to kiddish. He avoids the social circuit. He refuses most interview requests (except for Jewish publications). He sticks close to home. Ten months after the death of his son Ariel, however, he's pouring himself out on his blog revealing the most intimate details of his love for his family. I'm not surprised by anything he's written. I'm just stunned he's made it public. I fear that any day now he'll pull the whole thing down and never blog again. Hadesh West Conference I picked up Steven I. Weiss from LAX at 11:15AM. At first, I thought he was a homeless guy and I was about to toss him a quarter. Let's just say he's unassuming in appearance and dresses like a typical journalist. He's down to earth. He puts on no airs. His mind is like a steel trap and he has a ton of contacts in Jewish blogging and Jewish journalism. Weiss is a rebel like me. I thrill to his tales of ejection. He goes online and someone has left another appeal to get rid of me from Protocols. He's received about 50 such requests via IM, phone, email and every form of communication known to man. He admits my first day was horrible but he thinks I've improved. He wants to go to this Hadash West conference put on by the UJC. I tell him I'll give him a ride to Woodland Hills Mariott if he can get me in. He says sure. Just say I'm covering it for Jewsweek.com. Do you think they'd take an article from me? Steven has a lot more chutzpah than I, and a lot more confidence in my journalistic abilities. I trail him to the organizer's table. He gets me in no problem. Once we enter the conference room, I look for a lonely chair near the back while he starts chatting with people and making contacts. One part of me tries to be as repellant as possible and the other half of me cowers from the consequences. I look around, hoping to aid the Jewish renaissance by finding a Jewish woman to breed with. No luck. First panel. Rabbi David Woznica (Jewish Federation of Los Angeles) moderates a discussion between panelists Dr. Beryl Geber (UJ) and Dr. Steven M. Cohen (Hebrew University). Within ten minutes, I want to take my Museum of Tolerance tote bag (holding my heavy HOLLYWOOD ANIMAL by Joe Eszterhas book) and storm the stage to bash Rabbi Woznica into silence. R. Woznica makes long boring speeches. He asks his panelists ponderous questions and then interrupts them to make more boring speeches. R. Woznica is the most over-rated rabbi in America. I've heard him speak several times. He's a poor man's Dennis Prager. All he ever seems to say are Dennis Prager sound bites. He gave about 20 tonight and did not once credit his source. Dr. Cohen is nothing short of brilliant (and I can't stand his politics). Like his mentor Prager, R. Woznica is all about himself. Do you agree with me? This is where I agree with you. This is how I feel. This is what I admire. These are my fears. I want everybody to feel passionate about Judaism. This is where I went to college. I teach this group from entertainment. I tell them... R. Woznika starts the discussion by telling Dr. Cohen how Jewish life has gone down hill. Jews are less Jewish. Dr. Cohen tells him he's wrong. By almost every measurable indice, Jews are more Jewish, more learned, more likely to send their kids to Jewish day school than 50 years ago. R. Woznika repeats Prager's point (without giving credit) that before Jews make up their minds on issues like abortion, they rarely consult their own tradition. Dr. Cohen says Jewish values are those values that Jews hold that are different from the values of the non-Jews they live among. For instance, Jews hold radically more liberal views on sexual matters than non-Jews (homosexuality, abortion, pornography). I believe that Jews are the only group in American who believe that pornography should not be illegal. Jews are more resistant than any group to censorship. R. Woznika interrupts with ponderous statements. Jewish values are not values held by Jews but the values of 3000 years of Jewish sacred text. That's a funny statement for a Reform rabbi to make when Reform Judaism is radically different from the dictates of Torah and Torah sages. If I had been in Dr. Cohen's seat, I would've walked out after the fifth interruption by R. Woznika. Dr. Cohen sits through another 20 over the course of an hour. While R. Woznika hectors, blusters and interrupts, I check out the crowd. About 40 persons, evenly divided by sex. Half the women wear dresses and half wear pants. No women cover their hair. Most men are bareheaded. One man has earrings. Steven I. Weiss is far and away the most religious person in the room. The only authentic Orthodox Jew (I'm the pretend Orthodox Jew). I can't get over listening to Steve introduce himself as "Steven I. Weiss." I can't remember the last person I've met who introduced himself with the middle initial. R. Woznica wonders about making requirements for Jewish observance and learning for people who hold positions in Jewish organizations like the Federation. Dr. Cohen says it is a terrible idea. "It is unAmerican to set requirements for participation in Jewish life." Dr. Cohen says the Federations are sitting on a looming crisis in financial support. Jews born since 1945 are far less likely to give to the Federation and more likely to support individual concerns. We're moving from Klal (communal) Judaism to Personal Judaism. JCCs closing up around LA are one symptom of the decline of Judaism as a civilization (R. Mordecai Kaplan) rather than a religion. Marion Blumenthal is the chair of this Jewish Renaissance and Renewal Pillar of the UJC. Impressive title. Impressive woman. A beautiful blonde. I believe there would be a lot more Jews leading Jewish lives if a lot more Jewish functions were performed by gorgeous blondes. R. Woznika invites questions from the audience. As this is a Jewish group, he only gets alternative speeches. Marion makes a couple of points before R. Woznika tells her to sit down so the panelists and he can retake the floor. For dinner, I sat by Rabbi Eric M. Lankin of the UJC rabbinical cabinate. He has a masters in marketing, a doctorate from HUC in counseling and semicha from JTS (1985). He served as a congregational rabbi for about 15 years and is mentioned in the Stephen Fried book THE NEW RABBI. Lorraine Blass, UJC researcher, says the JPS population survey showed that the intermarriage rate on the West Coast doubled in the past decade to 67%. Another sociologist said the West Coast should be called the "unchurched belt." The rest of the slide show presentation was so boring that I slipped a headphone into my ear and listened to Carl Hiassen's book DOUBLE WHAMMY. We walk into a new room for dessert and music. I spot a sexy blonde. It's Jewish Journal singles columnist Carin Davis. She reads three of her favorite singles columns, listing about 100 demands for her future husband, including that he keep kosher at home, throw away his Girls Gone Wild videos, accept her frizzy hair, smudged lipstick and burnt cooking. I eat five helpings of dessert. I'm struck by chest pains. I saw the movie Supersize Me last night. I fear I'm going to have a heart attack. Was it so wrong of me to dine off the UJC and then write all these nasty things about the kindly R. Woznica? Perhaps God is punishing me for lashon hara. When I'm dead, you're all going to be jolly sorry. So many people were so nice to me tonight when I am such a hateful person that it makes me feel guilty for being a self-hating wannabe frum Jew. Is it so wrong of me to live off women? When I had money, I always picked up the bill. Now I'm poor again. A woman bought me lunch yesterday. Another woman took me to the movies. Is it so wrong for women to give me plane tickets, accommodation, massages, spending money, tickets to Broadway shows? Is that so bad when I devote my every spare minute to study of sacred text? In the Jewish tradition, women would often support their man so he could study Torah all day. I just want to sit around and read books and write about my feelings. Is that so wrong? Do I not deserve support? I need a patron. I'm a national treasure. I want to be America's blogger laureate and receive a nice fat check from the government every month. Fight For Your Right To Orgasm Daniel Radosh writes on Protocols :
General Media Buying Fewer Stories General Media owns The National Enquirer, The Star and The Globe. "American tabloids are going under," groused a friend the other day. He'd tried to sell them several good stories and they just weren't buying. "If you look at the past front page stories for The National Enquirer, they're running nothing. They run false stuff sometimes. They ran a false piece about Julia Roberts that blew up in their face over the weekend. They claimed she'd never be able to have a baby. Guess what? She's having twins. "It seems that the only stuff they want to buy these days is stuff on Christina Aguilerra and Brittany Spears. "They brought in Bonnie Fuller (profiled in Vanity Fair recently) to convert The Star into a rival with People. "They have nothing to put on their front page, so their sales are plummeting. Last week their front page was, 'What stars are anorexic?' Who cares? They haven't broken a major story in a couple of months." "Hollywood Confidential" columnist Jose Lambiert recently quit The Star for The Palm Beach Post. Rod Lurie exposed the tabloid National Enquirer in Los Angeles Magazine in 1990 and 1992. In 1989, Lurie got a hold of a list of the Enquirer's paid tipsters. Soon after, Anthony Pellicano called Lurie, and according to Rod, became "very threatening [and] told me in no uncertain terms that he was working for the Enquirer and he was being paid a lot of money to get this file back." Pellicano called Lurie's editor Nancy Griffin and warned, "Bad things can happen to nice lady editors." Kim Masters writes in the March 2003 issue of Esquire: "In March 1990, Lurie was knocked from his bike by a hit-and-run driver, breaking some bones. He doesn't claim that Pellicano was somehow involved in the accident, but Lurie says Pellicano may have wanted him to think so when Pellicano called him shortly afterward. "Pellicano knew about it awfully fast," he says. "But that could be drama-queen stuff - on his part or mine." An entertainment journalist tells me: "Don't forget that Rod Lurie was writing this series for LA Magazine 'To get the National Enquirer out of my Gelsons [supermarket chain]', said the editor at the time." From the February 1992 issue of Los Angeles Magazine: Now they're playing dirty! Hey, if you thought the Enquirer was sleazy before, look what it's up to now - using everything from mail theft, false police reports and even blackmail to set up the town's biggest superstars. My wife's private line rang. A minute later she returned, slightly ashen, and said an "old friend" was calling. When I took the phone, he didn't introduce himself. He didn't have to - I recognized his voice immediately. "I thought I'd never have to call you again," Anthony Pellicano said. The last time I heard from Pellicano was a year and a half ago, while I was working on a story for this magazine called "I was on the Enquirer's Hit List." Pellicano, a notorious private detective, had been hired by the National Enquirer to "discourage" my story. He was the man who Assistant U.S. Attorney James Walsh claimed had intimidated government witnesses in the John DeLorean case and who, in a recent issue of GQ, bragged he'd beaten somebody with a baseball bat on behalf of a client. Pellicano had said he'd killed "hundreds" of stories and strongly suggested I drop mine. "What do you want?" I asked him. "What do I want?" he said, as if the answer were ludicrously obvious. There was a small pause. "'Don R... [Pellicano's attorney Don Re?] whore...Don...Pellicano wants his job...call Patrick about Norm and relationship to Pellicano....'" I was stunned. Pellicano was reading from the notes I had compiled during my current investigation into the Enquirer. "This is libelous," he said with a drawl. "I spoke to Don. R. He's one of my best friends. He says he never spoke to you... I'm going to subpoena all your notes... You've brought yourself a lawsuit, pal." "Where did you get my notes?" "Would you tell me your sources? So why would I tell you mine?" As I was soon to find out, Pellicano had paid my research assistant $3000 for the notes. Not only that, the Star, which the Enquirer had purchased in 1990, had given my assistant a check for $500 to monitor the progress of my article. For the record, Michael Boylan, a high-ranking executive of Macfadden Holdings, a publishing-investors group that owns a dozen magazines, including the Enquirer/Star, insisted Pellicano was no longer in the company's employ when I called to complain. A few days later, I learned the Star not only had paid my assistant to spy on me but was allegedly researching a story linking me romantically to a celebrity who was married to an actor the tabloid had previously "outed." So here we went again. Round two. That first time out, I had uncovered what amounted to a sourcing scandal. Tabloid reporters were falsifying sources as a way to meet the publication's three-source requirement and back themselves legally. The Enquirer had gone into a frenzy, hired Pellicano and hit me and Los Angeles Magazine with a barrage of calls and letters, charging, among other things, that I was harrassing and threatening Enquirer employees. Ultimately, the piece became the basis for dozens of TV shows and articles, including segments on 60 Minutes and Entertainment Tonight. NINE MONTHS AFTER Lurie's article appeared, he got a phone call from an employee at the tabloid's headquarters in Lantana, Florida. Then the employee faxed Lurie dozens of pages of private hospital records of Richard Pryor, Carol Burnett and Burt Reynolds. It's illegal to have those. The Enquirer's public policy is that it does not purchase or accept those that have been stolen. Over the next six months, Lurie's source would put him in touch with 75 other sources who all had some horror story to tell. Under pressure from their bosses, Enquirer and Star reporters had run amok, getting involved with not only invasion of privacy, filing false police reports, mail tampering and theft but, in some cases, out-and-out blackmail, forcing stars to collaborate with the tabloids on a long-term basis. ROD LURIE TALKED TO Jim Cruse, who was fired after three years as an Enquirer reporter. Cruse believes the Enquirer fired him when it found out about a book he was planning to write. According to Cruse, star Enquirer reporter Brian Williams made-up a story about Roseanne Arnold beating her daughter. Williams has broken such stories as Jill Ireland's "bizarre" cancer treatments and the discovery of Roseanne Arnold's long lost child. Cruse says Williams telephoned the Child Protection Services unit in Van Nuys and reported Arnold had been abusing her. Brian knew the CPS is required to investigate all charges of child abuse, even anonymous ones. "He said he was a parent of a classmate of Jessica Pentland's [Arnold's daughter by her first marriage] and reported that she came to school with bruises, and that maybe Tom Arnold, supposedly on drugs at the time, had [done] her harm," Cruse stated. Cruse, another reporter and a photographer, staked out Arnold's home for two days until the social-services representative showed up, talked to Arnold and her family and concluded there was no basis for the allegation. The Enquirer shortly thereafter ran a story that Arnold was being investigated for child abuse. Cruse said on May 10, his editor, Steve Coz, told him to go to the Benedict Canyon home the Arnolds had been renting. Cruse determined that Tom and Roseanne were packing. Two days later, Cruse returned to the property with another reporter, Robert Jordan [aka Robert Hudson], to see if the house had been trashed. "What Coz wanted was a pigsty story," Cruse said. The two reporters wandered the house and could find no damage. When the story appeared in the Enquirer July 17, 1990, it reported broken windows and ruined rugs in almost every room, a shattered $5000 antique chair, a giant tic-tac-toe board drawn in black paint on top of expensive wood paneling, holes punched in walls and moldy, half-eaten pizzas. What happened? Cruse says Jordan returned to the house and trashed it. "[Jordan] said he'd taken garbage cans and emptied them all over the house and the pool area," Cruse said. "He photographed it right after he had hit set up." The photos were never published. ROD LURIE discovered that manufacturing stories was common among tabloid reporters. According to one tabloid editor, to add a little zip to one story, an Enquirer reporter informed the police that he'd heard screaming and furniture braeking in Fawcett and O'Neal's home. Though the police found nothing, the tabloids reported the police investigated disturbances at the home. Stringer Bob Daniels remembers how in late Spring 1989 reporter Neil Hitchens and paparazzo photographer Phil Ramey tried to get photos of Farrah in a compromising position with a carpenter who claimed he was banging the actress. Three sources corroborated the story to Lurie. Why the need for such photos as the Enquirer does not publish such material? "My understanding," Daniels, said, "Was that we would get the photos to use as leverage with Farrah on future stories." BY THE END OF ROD LURIE'S investigation, it was clear that Enquirer and Star reporters "blackmailed" a number of major stars into becoming "friends" of the tabloids. One instance involved a major - and wholesome TV megastar. The Enquirer got photos of him in a compromising position. The Enquirer wouldn't run the story because the actor was too popular. To bash him in the paper might backfire, alienating readers. But the photo and story were too good to waste. The Enquirer used them to blackmail the celebrity. Cruse said he was present when Coz called the star. "Coz told him about the photo," he said. "He also made up some things. He said the girl had told us about bondage and drugs and things like that. It was all a bluff, but he bit." The star agreed to be accessible to Enquirer reporters. Soon after, he was on the Enquirer's front page, lamenting the drug problems of a family member. MIDWAY THROUGH LURIE's INVESTIGATION, he began hearing stories that U.S. Postal Service investigators had begun looking into allegations that Enquirer reporters were stealing mail - a federal offense punishable under U.S. Code 18, Section 1708. The press agent who had set up the purchase of Madonna's stolen medical records, in fact, admitted that a few years ago, when Faye Dunaway was going through her divorce, it was his job to stake out her mailbox. Each day for about a week, he would wait for the mailman to arrive, then check all the envelopes in the box. If there was anything of interest - say, a letter from an attorney's office - he would pluck it. Another Enquirer staffer said rifling mail was routine practice and that reporters even had a name for it: "Playing Mailman." Here's how it worked: A reporter would go to a celebrity's local post office and fill out a forwarding-address form for the celebrity, rerouting the star's mail to a prearranged address. The reporter would then pick up the mail and peruse it for any usable information. (When I asked paparazzo Phil Ramey if he had ever heard of "Playing Mailman," he chortled, "Yeah, yeah. But they do it just to fuck with people. What's the big deal?") One of my sources, whom I'll call Jerry, a three-year veteran of the tabloid, also admitted he had been involved with mail theft. "We paid a live-in friend of Tony Danza to steal one specific piece of mail...a letter from the Screen Actors Guild," he said. "My bosses felt it contained information we needed. We made arrangements through one of Danza's employees to have this friend pick up the mail when it came in and bring it to me." Dr. Park Dietz, an expert on obsessed fans and the prosecution's psychiatric expert in the John Hinckley trial, once said that obsessed fans have an "unholy alliance with the tabloids." Many rely on the tabs for personal details and the latest information on their celeb idols. For their part, the tabloids don't seem averse to exploiting these delusions - or, in fact, aiding and abetting them. According to Cruse, on several occasions Enquirer reporters allegedly sold the addresses and phone numbers of celebs to overzealous fans. According to a friend of Greg Louganis, a mentally ill man who had approached the Olympic diver said he had gotten his address from a reporter at the Enquirer looking to make a few bucks. The Star and Enquirer sometimes print the delusions of fans as facts (e.g.the claim of a San Diego photographer he had an affair with Kirk Cameron's bridge Chelsea Noble in 1991). According to Dr. Walt Risler, a University of Indiana professor and a nationally recognized expert on the subject of obsessed fans, playing into the fantasies of an obsessed fan is not only shoddy journalism, it's potentially dangerous. "Tabloids are already part of the lives of celebrity stalkers. When they validate their delusions like this, they are lighting a fire under a combustible situation." Why are tabloid reporters running amok? ROD LURIE concludes it's because the tabs went public in 1991 and are driven to find sensational stories to attract readers, advertisers and profits. Journalist Stuart Goldman writes on tabloidbaby.com about a 1990 incident: The Enquirer's chief goon, Anthony Pellicano, ("The Nation's Most Publicized Private Investigator") began a nonstop campaign to hound [Rod] Lurie, [Gavin] de Becker and myself. Pellicano was right out of a bad Fifties B-movie. He loved to do the good cop/bad cop bit. He threatened, he bullied, he wheedled, he cajoled. (At one point, Pellicano sent me a personal check as "hush" money to keep me from incriminating the Enquirer.) When I changed my private telephone number -- which I did frequently -- he'd call just to let me know he'd made the new number (Pellicano enjoyed a rep and expert bug/wire man). On March 11 [1990], Rod Lurie was riding his bicycle near his home in Pasadena. An unmarked car (no plates) drove up behind him, suddenly sped up, and whacked Lurie fifty feet into space. The bicycle was instant scrap, and Lurie wound up in the hospital with two broken ribs and a busted back. When I called him after the accident, Lurie was resolute: "It was no accident," he said hoarsely. "That car hit me on purpose. There's absolutely no doubt about it ... I saw the the guy veer over and go right for me." I asked him if he had any idea who was behind it."Lemme put it like this," Lurie said. "The tabloids warned me if I didn't back off I'd be sorry. I think they just made good on their threat." John Connolly writes in the February 1994 issue of Los Angeles Magazine about Anthony Pellicano: ...[In] 1990 when Rod Lurie was researching his Los Angeles magazine piece on how the National Enquirer gets its information. Lurie got a call from Pellicano, who identified himself as a private investigator working for th Enquirer. Indeed, as Lurie recalls, Pellicano said, "I am the Enquirer." He demanded to know the identity of Lurie's source at the tabloid. When Lurie wouldn't cooperate, Pellicano said he would find out, adding, in what Lurie termed in the article a threatening manner, "I am relentless." In the ensuing months, Pellicano lived up to that image. He called Lurie on his unlisted phone number, bad-mouthed him to his sources, accused him of extortion and threatened him with a "nuisance suit" to block the article's publication. The piece was published without further incident, but the following year, when Lurie was working on another Los Angeles story about tabloid dirty tricks, he again crossed paths with Pellicano. Lurie was told by his assistant that Pellicano had approached him and asked him to spy on Lurie. Although the assistnat said he turned Pellicano down, Lurie remained suspicious. The next day, he fabricated some notes about the Enquirer and asked the assistant to type them into the computer. Two days later, he got a call from Pellicano, who smugly read to him the very notes he had written. Late last summer, I tracked down the assistant, who admitted in a taped interview that Pellicano had paid him $3,000 for the notes. But Pellicano wanted to be sure he was getting his money's worth. To guarantee the assistant wouldn't try to pass off counterfeit information, Pellicano threatened him. According to the assistant, Pellicano said, "I make a living knowing if somebody's bullshitting me! I can look up a bull's asshole and give you the price of butter." Then, pointing to a blue aluminum baseball bat in the corner of his office, Pellicano told the assistant, "Guys who fuck with me get to meet my buddy over there in the corner." Stern Q&A Raises Questions
From 10/12/99 Luke Ford Wire Services Ltd:
List Your Lovers A friend writes: "Not since Luke Ford's masturbation diary have I been so enthralled by someone else's narcissism." A woman who is half black and half Jewish writes about her previous experiences with intimacy. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by Dr. David M. Goldenberg (visiting professor Jewish Religion and Thought at the University of Cape Town) is getting rave reviews. I ploughed through it Shabbos morning in shul. It's a difficult read and I can only believe that academics will find it of interest. Dr. Goldenberg concludes that race played no role in the worldview of the Hebrew Bible and little role in the view of the oral tradition. It had a considerably bigger role in Christianity and Islam which led to massive black slavery. My father is a Bible scholar. He used to drill me that most Bible scholarship simply reflects the ethos of its time. Nineteenth Century Germany saw the Torah through its own prism. I'm suspicious that Dr. Goldenberg's conclusions fit so perfectly with his own worldview and that of his peers and I doubt that if he came to any other conclusion than what he did that a major university press would've published his book. Can a man last 40 days and 40 nights on a boat with the world's sexiest farm animals and still stay faithful to his wife? More Credulous Sex Reporting From NY Times Sunday Magazine I don't believe much of this article about teen sex in the NY Times Sunday magazine. Why would the reporter Benoit Denizet-Lewos accept as gospel truth what secular teens tell him about their sex lives? When I was in high school, we lied all the time about our sex lives. I used to boast about mine and it was non-existent. It reminds me of the Times magazine similarly credulous story about sex slaves. Hollywood Animal I had a wild time at Cathy's panels Saturday night. I drank too much. When I came to Sunday morning, I found myself atop a church in Westwood next door to a sorority house where I knew a girl who wouldn't sleep with me. I was hanging on to the cross on the roof of the church, bare-chested, a bottle of Jack Daniel's in one hand, a big cigar in the other. I was yelling very loudly so the girl I knew in the sorority house could hear me. I was yelling, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." (pg. 24) Hollywood Animal by Joe Eszterhas is an absorbing read. Contemplating D.H. Lawrence On A Nude Beach I'm going to a nudist beach in Malibu tomorrow with this chick (Dr Suzy, the love doctor). I've NEVER been to a nudist beach before, nor contemplated ever such a visit to a place. I'm greatly flummoxed if I should bring my volume of Jeffrey Myers' D.H. Lawrence biography? In all seriousness, I do have a lot of work to do. But can a man read Lawrence while sporting ----? Did Lawrence ever contemplate this of his own work? One has to wonder. I went to the beach today for a couple of hours to get my mind off things. Sublime. It was not a nudist beach. (Rather, this snotty beachclub -- but sublimely devoid of riff-raft -- to which my parents belong). Toes in the warm sand, sitting under an enourmous beach-umbrella, watching the perfect surf, I phoned a few people, one of whom was the great Cathy Seipp. Left her a voice-mail, that I planned to return again to the beach tomorrow and wouldn't be wonderful if she would please join me then. However, in light of tomorrow's unexpected locale, I scarce imagine the faire Cathy inclineth to unabashed nudism. Word has it, "Luke's Epistle to the Nudists" was inspired by Rob Light's jejune attempt to lure the faire, dainty Ms. Moxie to the beach. A Torah Jew would never do anything so foul. The Ten Reasons Men Fail With Women (I was emailed this list, I do not know the author but I suspect speedseduction.com.) MISTAKE #1: Being Too Much Of A Nice Guy. Have you ever noticed that the really attractive women never seem to be attracted "nice" guys? Of course you have. Just like me, I'm sure you've had attractive female friends that always seemed to date "jerks"... but for some reason they were never romantically interested in YOU. What's going on here? It's actually very simple... Women don't base their choices of men on how "nice" a guy is. They choose the men they do because they feel a powerful GUT LEVEL ATTRACTION for them. And guess what? Being nice doesn't make a woman FEEL that powerful ATTRACTION. And being NICE doesn't make a woman CHOOSE you. I realize that this doesn't make a lot of logical sense, and it's hard to ACCEPT... but GET OVER IT. Until you accept this FACT and begin to act on it, you'll NEVER have the success with women that you want. MISTAKE #2: Trying To Convince Her To Like You. What do most guys do when they meet a woman that they REALLY like... but she's just not interested? Right! They try to "convince" the woman to feel differently. Well, I have news for you... YOU WILL NEVER CHANGE HOW A WOMAN "FEELS" WHEN IT COMES TO ATTRACTION! Never, ever, EVER. You cannot CONVINCE a woman to feel differently about you with "logic and reasoning". Think about it. If a woman doesn't "feel it" for you, how in the world do you expect to change that FEELING by being "reasonable" with her? But we all do it. When a woman just isn't interested, we beg, plead, chase, and do our best to change her mind. Bad idea. One that will never work. MISTAKE #3: Looking To Her For Approval Or Permission In our desire to please women (which we mistakenly think will make them like us), us guys are always doing things to get a woman's "approval" or "permission". Another HORRIBLE idea. Women are NEVER attracted to the types of men who kiss up to them... EVER. Don't get me wrong here. You don't have to treat women BADLY for them to like you. But if you think that treating a woman well means "always getting her approval and permission for things", think again. You will never succeed by looking for approval. Women actually get ANNOYED at men who seek their approval. Doubt me? Just ask any attractive woman if Wussy guys who chase her around and want her approval annoy her... MISTAKE #4: Trying To Buy Her Affection With Food And Gifts How many times have you taken a woman out to a nice dinner, bought her gifts and flowers, and had her REJECT you for someone who didn't treat her even HALF as well as you did? If you're like me, then you've had it happen a LOT. Well guess what? It's only NATURAL when this happens... That's right, I said NATURAL. When you do these things, you send a clear message: "I don't think you'll like me for who I am, so I'm going to try to buy your attention and affection". Your good intentions usually come across to women as over-compensation for insecurity, and weak attempts at manipulation. That's right, I said that women see this as MANIPULATION. MISTAKE #5: Sharing How You Feel Too Early In The Relationship Another huge and unfortunate mistake that most men make with women is sharing how they "feel" too early on. Attractive women are rare. And they get a LOT of attention from men. Most men don't realize this, but attractive women are being approached in one way or another ALL THE TIME. An attractive woman is often approached several times a DAY by men who are interested. This translate into dozens of times per week, and often HUNDREDS of times per month. And guess what? Attractive women have usually dated a LOT of men. That's right. They have EXPERIENCE. They know what to expect. And one thing that turns an attractive women off and sends her running away faster than just about anything is a guy who starts saying "You know, I really, REALLY like you" after one or two dates. This signals to the woman that you're just like all the other guys who fall for her too fast... and can't control themselves. Don't do it. Lean back. Relax. There's a much better way... MISTAKE #6: Not Getting How Attraction Works For Women Women are VERY different from men when it comes to ATTRACTION. You need to accept this fact, and deal with it. When a man sees a beautiful, young, sexy woman, he INSTANTLY feels a sexual attraction. But does the same apply for women? Do women feel sexual attraction to men based mostly on looks? Or is something else going on? Well, after studying this topic for over five full years now, I can tell you that women usually have their "attraction mechanisms" triggered by things OTHER than looks. Have you ever noticed that you see a lot more average and unattractive men with beautiful women than the other way around? Think about it. Women are more attracted to certain qualities in men... and they're attracted to the way a man makes them FEEL than they are to looks alone. If you know how to use your body language and communication correctly, you can make women feel the same kind of powerful sexual attraction to you that YOU feel when you see a hot, sexy young woman. But it's not an accident. You have to LEARN how to do this. And ANY guy can learn how... MISTAKE #7: Thinking That It Takes Money And Looks One of the most common mistakes that guys make is giving up before they've even gotten started... because they think that attractive women are only interested in men who have looks and money... or guys who are a certain height... or guys who are a certain age. And sure, there are some women who are only interested in these things. But MOST women are far more interested in a man's personality than his wallet or his looks. There are personality traits that attract women like a magnet... And if you learn what they are and how to use them, YOU can be one of these guys. YOU DO NOT have to "settle" for a woman just because you aren't rich, tall, or handsome. Let me say this again: If you know how to use your body language and communication correctly, you can make women feel the same kind of powerful sexual attraction to you that YOU feel when you see a hot, sexy young woman. MISTAKE #8: Giving Away All Of Your Power To Women Earlier I mentioned that it's a mistake to look to a woman for approval or permission. Well, another similar tactic that a lot of guys use is GIVING AWAY THEIR POWER to women. Said differently, guys try to get women to like them by doing whatever the woman wants. Another bad idea... Women are NEVER attracted to men that they can walk all over... Women aren't attracted to Wussies! MISTAKE #9: Not Knowing EXACTLY What To Do In Each Type Of Situation With Women Now I'm going to blow your mind... A woman ALWAYS knows what you're thinking. Women are approximately TEN TIMES better than men at reading body language. That's ten TIMES. I know, it might be hard to believe. But for example, if you're out on a date with a woman, and you want to kiss her, she knows it. And if you don't know exactly what to do and exactly HOW to kiss her, and you just sit there looking at her and getting nervous, she won't help! And this goes for ALL aspects of women and dating... Approaching a woman, getting her number, asking her out, kissing her, getting physical... everything. If you don't know what to do in each situation, you will probably screw it up... and LOSE EVERYTHING. And you KNOW it. It is VITALLY important that you know EXACTLY how to go from one step to the next with a woman... from the first meeting, all the way to the bedroom. MISTAKE #10: Not Getting HELP This is the biggest mistake of all. This is the mistake that keeps most men from EVER having the kind of success with women that they truly want. I know, guys don't like to make themselves look weak or helpless. We don't like to ask for help. Hey, I've been there myself. Let me tell you a little about me and how I figured out how to be successful with women... About five years ago I became fed up with the fact that I didn't know how to approach, meet, and get dates with women that I was attracted to. It frustrated the hell out of me. One night I was out with a friend, and I saw a woman I wanted to ask out, but I just couldn't get up the nerve to do it. I can still remember that night... right on the spot I made the decision to do whatever it took to learn how to be successful with women and dating. Well, after a lot of hard work and trying all kinds of crazy things, I finally figured it all out. Robert writes: "Luke --- single best precis of advice on dating women I've come across. Thanks for posting it. Unfortunately, it's all very true. Hot women are almost always bitches; but, as I think even you've said, they have no choice to be as such, getting hit on TEN times a day. How very pathetically Darwinian it all is." Birthday Reflections A Christian friend from my childhood writes: "That was very nice of your family but what I wondered was the Jewish holiday celebration. Did any of those people know?" I reply:
She replies:
Take Back The Night
L.A. Press Club-American Cinema Foundation Blog Panels Saturday Night Full reports here: Cathy Seipp, Cecile du Bois, Mack Reed, Sean Bonner, Caryn Coleman, Amy Alkon. * Two panelists (Mike Sullivan and Andrew Breitbart on entertainment) looked like cows chewing their cud as they munched on gum while sitting on their panels. Folks, you should not chew gum when speaking speaking in public, when in a house of worship, or any time you want to be taken seriously (such as in a business meeting or job interview). * Cathy is such a dear but I always have to keep her from the alcohol before she moderates a panel. Afterwards we chugalugged Manischevitz and blew the shofar. * The organizer publicly noted my complaints from last year that all the food seemed slathered in pork and this year there was kosher food. * I thought of a question near the end of the second panel (politics). I waved my hand tall and wide until Cathy acknowledged me. "This better be clean," she said. "Oh, it's clean," I replied. "I want to know if blogging has ever gotten the panelists ----." Matt Welch: "Tony Pierce." Also add the names of Moxie and BoiFromTroy (sat in front of me) to that lucky group. Unfortunately my religious rules prevent me from engaging in such, but I thought it was a worthy question to judge the true worth of blogging. I also believe that the answer to my question will answer another question on the minds of many Saturday night. Given that he's suffering from burnout, how long will Mickey Kaus blog? * Moxie and Kevin Drum spoke the least. * Caryn Coleman made this long boring incoherent clueless college girl-type lecture about blogs epitomizing liberalism. Thankfully, Cathy brought it to a close after a couple of minutes and moved on to those who had questions rather than alternative speeches. Caryn's friend Sean Bonner sees her question this way: "Caryn goes back to and wants to talk about the opening statement that the blogosphere leans right of center, she says the blogs she reads lean left and because it's inherently open to people talking about what they want and it's open for all sides to voice their opinion, left and right and isn't slated to either side. The media isn't showing coffins returning from Iraq but bloggers are, that would seem to be on the liberal side, no?" Caryn writes: "It didn't exactly bore the audience when I had at least three people right in front of me nodding in agreement, one woman saying "thank you for saying that it was needed" and people coming up to me afterwards upset that my comment was dismissed. So, just because YOU don't like what someone has to say doesn't mean they can't say it." Caryn, I could've opened up my fly at the panel, wanked myself in full view of the crowd, and I can guarantee you that it didn't exactly bore the audience when I had at least three people right in front of me nodding in agreement, one woman saying "thank you for saying that it was needed" and people coming up to me afterwards upset that my comment was dismissed. Cathy Seipp replies: "Caryn, I'm sorry you felt your question wasn't answered, but actually you spent so long outlining your position statement that you forgot to include a question at the end of it. We kept waiting, but it never came. I've seen this happen so often during Q&A sessions at speaker events that I'd meant to ask people to please keep their questions in the form of actual questions, preferably short and direct, but that was something I forgot to do. Eventually a moderator has to move on, especially when there are so many people in attendance who want to ask questions of the panelists, rather than address the opinions of an audience member." * Cathy Seipp, Moxie, Steve Smith, Robert Light and a few others hung out at the home of Emmanuelle Richard and Matt Welch until Sunday morning. Everybody concluded from my vigorous discussion of deficit financing and back-end entertainment deals that I was drunk. Rob and I left at 3a.m. Comforting Those Who Mourn
People don't know how to respond to such grief. I know someone in shul who lost his mother a month ago. I haven't said anything to him because I am not that close to him and anything I could say would be trite. I never met his mother and I have no idea of his relationship with her. Such tragedies as you describe frighten people. I know when I was confined to bed for six years by CFS, many people didn't want to have anything to do with me. My illness frightened them. One thing I learned -- people older than me tended to have more compassion than people my age or younger. People are good at different things. The person who is gifted in knowing how to respond to someone who's suffered a gigantic loss may not be skilled in another important aspect of human relations. A person may be an otherwise observant and fine Torah Jew and yet be frightened of the sick or dying. Awake & Sing!
The Luke Ford Book Club I spent my 38th birthday reading Jewish books. As a Torah Jew, birthdays have no meaning to me as they are not celebrated in our tradition. The only birthdays I observe are those of women I date. Bee Season by Myla Goldberg: B (for women and children) D (for men) I'm like the little boy rescued by Kevin Costner in my favorite film - A Perfect World. My dad emailed me with a list of cities where he's recently preached the Gospel. My brother phoned. My mother and sister sent checks and cards. Variety's Dana Harris Condemns Primetime Dana Harris writes on ADT:
My Guest Blogging Schedule Hot on the heels of my Protocols triumph, Kevin Roderick has kindly asked for me to (anonymously) guest blog for him next week on LA Observed. You won't even notice it's me. After that, I'm subbing for Mickey Kaus, Instapundit and NYTimes.com. Taking the Gospel of Luke to all the world. Rob's Excellent Vacation Telephone conversation with my friend. Rob: "I'm going away." Luke: "Are you going to prison?" Rob: "No, I just got out. I just walked out of the courts." Luke: "What was it for?" Rob: "They said I had a warrant for violation of probation. The judge said, what violation is that? I said, I don't know. The cop pulled me over yesterday and said I had a violation. The judge said I was not in no violation." Luke: "Were you in prison last night?" Rob: "I got out this morning. They said I didn't surrender a gun. I said I don't have no gun. How do you surrender something you don't have? I don't have to pay the rent any more." Luke: "Did you have a big black roommate?" Rob: "No, no ni----s." Feel the LoveOne of the cool things about being a Luke Ford fan is that I'm part of a very exclusive club. In fact, beside myself, Cecile DuBois and Cathy Seipp, I can't think of another fan club member. This is why I have the shortest blogroll in the blogosphere. I suspect that it will soon get shorter still. Cecile is clearly going through her Luke Ford phase -- you know how moody teenagers are. Now that N'Sync are getting back together, I wouldn't be surprised if the life-sized Luke Ford posters come down from her bedroom walls to be replaced with more age-appropriate fare. When are you leaving Protocols?Luke Ford responds to his critics: Thanks. You love me. You really love me.Luke isn't delusional. He genuinely loves/needs to be criticized. I often wondered why he didn't tell me to stop posting nasty material on my fan blog. Just the opposite: no matter how awful my entries, Luke would request that I post more often and write even meaner stuff. Apparently this is Luke's MO with everyone. According to his memoir, an ex-girlfriend once said to Luke: I have criticized you up one end and down the other and it's wonderful. It's the most fulfilling thing in the world because you don't defend it. You don't fight it. You don't get angry. You just take it. And for people who don't like conflict such as myself, it's a beautiful thing.Luke Ford is the ultimate human punching bag. This is why we -- fans and critics alike -- need him. What does this say about us? A Doggie Story For Cathy Seipp From producer Joel Soisson:
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