first the name. yonahred. yonah is the hebrew original for jonah as in jonah and the whale the book in the bible. yonah is also hebrew for dove. my great grandmother's name was tzipora, or bird and i was named after her. jonah in the whale is a passive agressive sort, my goal herein is to express both emotions and thoughts to move at least from the passivity of silence to the activity of public discussion.
red is the color of my hair, not the color of my politics. although my name yonah spelled backwards is hanoy and though an incorrect spelling of hanoi, it reads the part, and since hebrew is written right to left, therefore backwards, so my name should be read backwards and thus, a second red association.
the ideal of to each according to his needs and capacity to give has been replaced by the reality of survival of the fittest and the death of a dream despite its nightmare reality is still sad.
the other two colors are blue and white as in the israeli flag. flags and nationalism evoke ugly images of war and hatred, so i will return to this image later.
i should've been a rabbi, if i hadn't lost my faith.
i drove a yellow cab in new york city and now i teach (substitute public school, high school, utility infielder)
i change the topic of discussion to movies at the drop of a hat. my knowledge of low brow culture is much completer than my knowledge of high brow culture.

i idolized harpo, when i was younger. he had such a sterling reputation as a human being. but the joy of chico on the screen is the happiest association i have with the brothers despite chico's sadness and gambling debts in real life.

karl marx is near in the encyclopedia to the marx brothers.
lennon, john, killed by a wacko, with a personality similar to my own, only really nuts and ready to use a gun. i'm nowhere near as nuts as once upon a time. and really the suicide rate is higher than the homicide rate, so i'm the one endangered by my instability, as for observers, observe. i hope to entertain and elucidate.

oh and i like word games. anagrams especially. i've composed a handful of seven by seven's. here's one.

V I S C E R A
I N T O N E S
S T A N C E S
C O N S O L E
E N C O D E R
R E E L E C T
A S S E R T S

even though it took me five years to compose this, i am quite proud of it.

my primary nonfictional effort until this point in time was the angriest cabby in new york city, and it will have to be mentioned, maybe even treated as an urtext. my ability to mention my fiction in a manner that you will understand what i mean without reading it and be enticed to read the fiction , will be a major challenge.

i live in brooklyn, single, childless. my brother and sisters, nieces and nephews and my parents live in Israel. i was raised religious orthodox. we said hallel with a blessing on the day of independence, the fifth of iyar. my loss of faith occurred on many different levels at the end of the 1970's.

paternal grandparents immigrated to america in the 20's from the ukraine. maternal grandparents originally from poland immigrated to america in 1941 from belgium via lisbon.

born in 1955. one older brother aryeh or lion. the predatory nature of his name and the prey aspect of my name describes the nature of our earliest relationship. he has frummed out, rebelled against my father by swinging towards more extreme adherence to tradition rather than the breaking of the yoke of the commandments that would describe my rebellion. whereas my father enjoyed culture:books, mostly psychology and history, movies and television, my brother shelters his wife and 11 kids in a world without t.v., with pictures of the rabbis on the walls, his kids protected from outside knowledge by refusing to teach his sons to read English.

three sisters born in 58, 62 and 69. the sister born in 62 is undergoing chemo. she lives in ra'anana, suburban tel aviv and i will visit there this june, if fate smiles on my plans. my cancer sister, tova, may the chemo beat the shit out of the cancer and leave her standing strong, has four kids. the news that she is afflicted by cancer which is only three months old, is still being digested and causing earthquakes regarding where my center of gravity lies.

oh yes, i go to palestinian rallies and heckle the leftists when they spout lies, unsubstatiated rhetoric and general hatred for the very idea of jewish nationalism.

december 6th snowing in brooklyn.