Asa's Draft Reactions

Asa's Team
Albert Einstein
Hannah Arendt
Jon Stewart
Golda Meir
Franz Kafka
Noam Chomsky
Mel Brooks
Ayn Rand
Edmund Landau
Bob Dylan
Benoit Mandelbrot
Frank Gehry
Steven Spielberg
Arthur Miller
Jerry Seinfeld
Saul Bellow
Ariel Sharon
Carl Sagan
Stanley Kubrik
Art Spiegelman

about my team:
My picks, it has been stated, contain a lot of self-critical Jews. It is a fair criticism, but one that I don't feel really hinders the team in any way. I feel like I picked Jews who I liked more than their individual impact on Jewish culture or life, but since the criteria to pick Jews was vague, that was the best thing I could come up with. I also think that it is somewhat obvious that I did my research in about 25 minutes, basically looking over Wikipedia's list of famous Jews and picking out people I knew about.

My first couple of picks were pretty easy. Albert Einstein is arguably the smartest scientist of the 20th century, with huge influence in all of science. He also was a pacifist (for nuclear disarmament) and considered himself a humanitarian. All-around good guy. Plus, I liked this quote from him: "Do not think that it is necessarily the case that science and religion are natural opposites. In fact, I think that there is a very close connection between the two. Further, I think that science without religion is lame and, conversely, that religion without science is blind. Both are important and should work hand-in-hand." True.

Hannah Arendt was a philosopher during the 20th century who wrote about the power of evil (during the Eichmann trial) and the nature of power. She also helped Jewish refugees and was an overall swell individual. She also boinked Heidegger, which is pretty freaking hot (and could be construed as entirely self-loathing), and she could also play 6 Degrees from Friedrich Nietzsche and be about 8 degrees away (that's about 7 degrees closer than that horse). Oh, Nietzsche humor always makes me laugh.

Anyway, my third pick was Jon Stewart. Maybe he was picked a tad too high, but he probably was the most personal pick for me during the draft. His instinctual knack for comedy (which David wishes he had, but is sorely lacking) provides a much needed kick in the ass for the media, politicians, idiots, weathermen, Roger Ebert, and... um... politicians. His willingness to satirize pretty much anyone and anything provides a relief from all of the ass-kissing that normally occurs in the media. And he points out the absurdities of those in power no matter if he agrees with them or not. He's also really funny. And a Jew.

After the big three, things start to get shakey. I wasn't really sure how to rank the rest of these people, so my explanations are going to be pretty arbitrary. Gold Meir was very influential in the creation of the state of Israel, served in the Knesset, and served as Prime Minister. She probably shouldn't have ranked so high based on issues with the Yom Kippur war.

Franz Kafka was a novelist who wrote depressing and highly absurd novels about the human condition. Just don't read them while drunk or high. Trust me, it's a bad idea.

Noam Chomsky is a preeminent linguist, philosopher and political activist. He describes himself as a libertarian socialist, and that means exactly what it sounds like. If you are liberal, you probably agree with at least 78% of his writing (unless you you don't like Chomsky; then your percentage is around 32%). The view that he is anti-Semite seems to be blown out of proportion to me, but it might be a valid criticism. I think Chomsky sees the grey area between the polar ends of some arguments, which infuriates some people, but it makes me appreciate him more. If we did the draft again, I would probably pick him a little higher.

It seems like I would throw in a light-hearted pick once in awhile to keep my team's morale up and keep them from killing themselves. Mel Brooks is that man. He is fucking funny. Mel (I call him by his first name, because we're tight like that) made some crappy-ass movies and even those are hilarious. This is my 2nd or, maybe, 3rd pick that I thought David was going to get before me (Einstein and Stewart being the other two), so that also made me feel fuzzy inside.

Ayn Rand is best described by copping a quote from Wikipedia: "She believed that people must choose their values and actions by reason; that the individual has a right to exist for his or her own sake, neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and that no one has the right to take what belongs to others by physical force or fraud, or impose their moral code on others by physical force." My only issue with her, and it's not really an issue, is her complex view of sexuality. Some feminists view her as "a traitor", while others see her as a champion. I think that's part of her charm. Like some others on the list, her ability to create polarizing opinions from the same group of people makes her interesting. She also really liked sex, so that's, you know, hot.

Edmund Landau was way overrated. Well, at least for this draft with these people. He would have never been picked without me. He owes me. Um, basically, he was a mathematician who wrote a lot about number theory. He was also forced out of teaching by the Nazi's, which gives him extra points in my book (a book that the Nazi's probably would have burned).

Bob Dylan gets a few points off for changing his inherently more Jewey name of Robert Zimmerman. At least he changed it in a reference to someone cool and not to, let's say, Alger Hiss. Dylan was the grating, incessantly nasal voice which scraped across the ear canals of the nation. His imagery-filled lyrics were about 3 steps ahead of his peers and his jump from acoustic to electric guitar showed a willingness to try different approaches to make music instead of continuing on the well-worn path he had been on. Oh, and those Christian gospel records in the 80's which no one bought; those could be construed as attempting something wholly unique from his present course. His voice provided a catalyst for social and political change during a volatile period of our nation's history and he also influenced just about every band, singer-songwriter, crappy beat poet, and wannabe hippie/yuppie out there. That has to count for something. He was probably a steal as late as I got him.

Benoit Mendelbrot was another mathematician, and he worked on fractals a lot. And he's Jewish!

Frank Gehry is arguable the greatest living modern architect who creates huge structures that look like big clumps of malleable clay. He is influential for modern architects, although it does seem like he builds the same building over and over. Anyway, it seems good to have an architect on the team to build the stadium for the Jew-off's.

Steven Spielberg is Jewish. With a name like "Spielberg", I wasn't sure if you could tell. He has made a bunch of relatively crappy movies with extreme commercial appeal, with the exception of Schindler's List and, possibly, Munich (I haven't seen it, yet; I'm a bad Jew). However, the strength of this pick is based purely on Schindler's List. The one and only movie I have seen in the theater where no one talked the entire time, no cell phone went off (granted, cell phones weighed 10 pounds and were the size of the yellow pages at the time), and after the movie everyone walked out of the theater speechless. Plus, he donated all of the profits to charity, so you can't even call him a greedy Jew.

My next pick was Arthur Miller (here I start with the self-loathing Jews again) because of his influence in theater. Death of a Salesman? Probably the most widely-read play in high school and it's fucking good, too. No bullshit. Plus, he married Marilyn Monroe. You know what they say about Jewish guys. I don't remember, either, but it's probably something about penises.

Jerry Seinfeld was almost definitely picked too high. And his nebbishy character (not just on the show, but in real life as well) reflects poorly on the four manly Jews in America. But, he basically created a sitcom about 4 (4? was Kramer Jewish?), well maybe 3, Jew Yorkers who 1) have a passion for eating and having sex at the same time, 2) like to date homeless men pretending said homeless men are superheros, and 3) date an extremely high number of women based on the above-mentioned nebbishiness. Pretty impressive. Plus, he took Godwin's Law and applied it to an overzealous soup maker. Genius.

Saul Bellow wrote a bunch of books that I never read, but I have heard of them. I picked him solely on the strength of this quote: "California is like an artificial limb the rest of the country doesn't really need. You can quote me on that." That's awesome. Nothing better than a curmudgeony old Jewish man. Oh, and I probably picked Bellow because I was desperate for a pick and was running out of time and/or Jews.

Ariel Sharon was the Prime Minister of Israel from 2001 to 2006. As are all PM's for Israel, he is put into a tight position between keeping Israel safe and instigating his Arab neighbors. He was picked this low because of my uncertainty about his willingness to pursue a joint peace plan for the benefit of Israel (and, by extension, the rest of the Middle East).

Carl Sagan was an astronomer and "science popularizer" (Wikipedia's words, not mine). He pursued the ideas of rationalism and scientific pursuit. He also thought that ET was going to phone home (or I suppose, ET was going to phone Earth), which is pretty groovy.

Stanley Kubrick is my second filmmaker on the list, primarily because his movies are really good, and I have a soft spot for eccentrics and workaholics. I also personally like his movies more than Spielberg, however, Kubrick never made any Holocaust films so he lost a couple of points right there. He did, however, make some pretty obvious commentary on Jews in America in his film Eyes Wide Shut. The softcore porn scenes in the mansion are obviously a metaphor for Jews fucking the gentiles (hint: the Jews are wearing the masks and have the dicks, the gentiles are the women being screwed). Apparently Tom Cruise didn't read into the subtext when he signed on to the film.

And Art Spiegelman is a little neurotic and crazy (kind of Woody Allen-ish without the creepy incestuous marriage), who also happens to draw pretty well. Maus is probably my favorite cartoon about a mouse where a lot of the action occurs during the Holocaust.


That is all for my picks. On to talking about the other crappy picks people made.

Mike's picks, especially, were interesting (well, the first couple) because it seemed like he actually went to the trouble of doing research (what else is he going to do with his time, I guess?). I was pretty impressed with most of them, except for maybe Zsa Zsa Gabor, and maybe his over-reliance on Hungarians. No one likes Hungarian Jews, can you imagine how swarthy they would be? Eh.

David's picks were notoriously scattershot, picking people for vague reasons (Kerri Strug?) and based on his own personal biases (Russ Feingold?). How influential are they really? I had a couple of his picks, Elie Wiesel (what did he do? write a book? big deal...), but never got around to picking them. However, I know I got a few of his picks which rocks my boat.

Ian's picks were, maybe, the closest to mine. I definitely had Marx, Freud, Ginsberg, Salk, Spinoza, and Salinger on my list, but I wasn't sure when to pick any of them (Ian apparently did). It also seemed that he picked Jews based on who he liked. However, his upper-hand was that knew a lot of people who I have never heard of. So, screw you for taking a class on famous Jews... that is what I like to call cheating. Except Natalie Portman, did you see her in the Star Wars films? She should give back her Jew card for that acting, ugh.