{"id":26317,"date":"2019-04-10T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=26317"},"modified":"2019-05-22T08:52:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T12:52:07","slug":"hecklers-night-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/10\/hecklers-night-out\/","title":{"rendered":"HECKLERS’ NIGHT OUT"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

There was <\/strong><\/span>fervid heckling at the 2018 Workmen’s Circle concert. The show, at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, featured Yiddishe Cup \/ Funk a Deli. The emcee was Michael Wex<\/a>, author of Born to Kvetch<\/em>. Wex is a kamikaze raconteur. He takes chances with his monologues, playing with self-immolation. Wex wears elves shoes to bring him luck. The shoes curl up at the tips.<\/p>\n

The Yiddish-concert audience can be unforgiving, maybe because the show is free and attracts all types. One year Josh Dolgin<\/a>, aka Socalled, was heard backstage saying, \u201cWhy do they bring freaks like me here!\u201d Maybe Dolgin was having second thoughts about how the AK crowd would respond to his hip-hop klezmer. The Cleveland audience is mostly baby-boom AKs, plus a few genuine WWII types, and some Russians and Orthodox. Every year there are fewer bodies at the show. Six-to-eight hundred is a typical turn out. Used to be around 2,000.<\/p>\n

\"Miguel

Miguel Wex<\/p><\/div>\n

At last<\/strong><\/span> year’s concert, a man interrupted Wex with \u201cWhen\u2019s the music start!\u201d Wex was discussing hok a tshaynik <\/em>and how it related to funk <\/em>(as in Funk a Deli). Wex told the heckler, \u201cThis<\/em> is the music, schemdrick!\u201d<\/p>\n

Wex also<\/span> did a comedic bit about fat Hasidim. (Before the show, Wex had noticed some yarmulkes in the crowd and wondered if his shtick would fly. He told me his humor had gone over well with frum<\/em> Jews before.) In his monologue, Wex said many Hasidim don\u2019t exercise but do seem to like to push. Wex said the inventor of Roller Derby, the late Leo Seltzer, was a former Hasid. Wex said if four Hasidim gathered in opposite corners of the Cain Park amphitheater, the four Hasidim would eventually meet in the middle of the theater and push each other. Wex said he had been to Japan (not true) and wanted to start a new sport, Frumo. A concertgoer stood up and yelled, \u201cStop it. Stop it right now!\u201d<\/p>\n

Wex said, \u201cThis is what I get paid to do. You don\u2019t have to listen to me if you don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n

We<\/strong><\/span> were<\/span><\/strong> witnessing a Lenny Bruce reenactment — for free yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was fervid heckling at the 2018 Workmen’s Circle concert. The show, at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights, featured Yiddishe Cup \/ Funk a Deli. The emcee was Michael Wex, author of Born to Kvetch. Wex is a kamikaze raconteur. He takes chances with his monologues, playing with self-immolation. Wex wears elves shoes to bring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-klezmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26317"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26359,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26317\/revisions\/26359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}