Case in point: Off The Wall Comedy Club.
Off The Wall is Jerusalem's "premiere" comedy club. Of course, when you have no competition you can basically label yourself however you want. It's like saying you're the biggest ladies' man at a gay pride parade.
Anyways, I ventured over to Off The Wall a few nights ago to see what was going on because I don't criticize things I've never witnessed. Plus I needed to laugh. Now, don't get me wrong...I didn't have unrealistic expectations. It's not like I was waiting for Dave Chappelle to pop out from the behind the stage, kiss a mezuzah, and start doing a 30-minute Clayton Bigsby act.
As it turns out, my bargain-basement expectations we met! The three acts we saw that night were real troopers and I give them a lot of credit for living out their stand up comedian/Zionist dreams. But they were not very good. They were shticky, predictable, and desperate. Frankly, I could have gone up there, read two or three chapters from The Diary of Ann Frank, and gotten more laughs.
The most interesting part of the night though, were the people in the room. You have to understand that I'm used to Manhattan-type crowds; a mixture of races, ethnicities, attention-spans, levels of intelligence, and levels of rudeness. On the complete other end of that spectrum was Off The Wall:
First off, I walked in to a room full of yamaka-wearing white Jews. I was among the only guys there whose entire head you could actually see.
Second, the people were almost all adult-age Americans who had made aliyah (immigrated to Israel). It's like I was sitting at the adult's table at the Goldenfarbergenstein bar mitzvah. Or some other variation of a generic Jewish American name.
Anyways, I could sum up this enlightening experience by saying: "Nice try, Jerusalem!" Honestly, it was a valiant attempt. But next time I want to laugh in Jerusalem, I'll skip Off The Wall and read up on the peace process with the Arabs...
Lehitraot,
E
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