nazi punks fuck off

I think we can all agree that Nazis were awful. Following Germany's defeat in World War II and the discovery of the full extent of the Holocaust, Nazi ideology became universally disgraced and is widely regarded as immoral and evil.

Except by assholes like Steve Johnson.

Asshole.

Steve lives at 1041 Lindell Drive in El Sobrante, California, sixteen miles north of Oakland (and fuck him if he doesn't like the fact that I published his address). Recently, Steve installed a 10 foot by 10 foot black cement swastika in his front yard, not far from a flagpole on which the ol' Stars and Stripes waves proudly in the breeze coming off the San Francisco Bay. Steve's neighbors aren't so proud. As a matter of fact, they are overcome by concern and ire. A very short time after the installation was completed, local news outlets descended upon Steve Johnson's home, in search of his reason for making such a bold statement. The media, I'm sure, didn't just happen to stumble upon Steve's home renovation project by accident. Lindell Drive is not a major thoroughfare. The entire street only stretches a quarter-mile and dead-ends at another home's driveway, just behind the Pinole Vista Shopping Center – where a Sizzler Steakhouse still operates.. Obviously, one of Steve's justifiably outraged neighbors called the Bay Area newspaper The Mercury News.

Asshole's handiwork.

Reporters from the newspaper, as well as representatives from local TV stations, questioned Steve about his motivation for putting a Nazi symbol on display in front of his house. He gave wishy-washy answers that smacked of insincere innocence. He feigned misunderstanding when he countered an NBC-affiliate reporter's question with "What is a swastika?" He contained with: "It doesn’t represent anything. [It] represents me not having to pull weeds over in that part of my yard; that’s what it represents to me. What does it represent to you?"

His neighbors are furious, including one woman who has lived on Lindell Drive – near Steve – for 27 years. The neighbor, who is Jewish and rightly horrified and offended by Steve's display, said, "I was very clear with him about my feelings. I don’t agree with it. I think it’s wrong. I don’t like it, but it is his yard." She also noted that he had never done anything like this in the past.

Aerial view of an asshole's house.

But, Steve keeps changing his story. He told another reporter that it was a symbol of peace and tranquility from ancient Tibet. When asked if he was, indeed, Tibetan, Steve replied rather cavalierly, "Maybe I am."

Then suddenly, Steve gained some sort of new found knowledge about the history and significance of the symbol. However, he took a decidedly dismissive tone, when he said, "The Nazi stuff happened 80 years ago. Get over it." When a reporter pointed out a swastika sticker affixed to his motorcycle, Steve abruptly ended the conversation and ordered the media off of his property.

This is 2019. In the United States. Land of the free and home of the brave. Where any red-blooded American can grow up to be an asshole.

www.joshpincusisrying.com

pretty hate machine

When does hate begin? Well, for me, it began when I was a kid. 

I grew up in a predominately gentile neighborhood. And by "predominantly," I mean you could count the Jewish families on one hand. Now, I don't mean that as a bad thing or an immediate source of hate, but I was surrounded by antisemitism at every corner. I heard it at the bus stop. I heard it while playing in my yard. I heard it while walking down my street. I even heard it from kids who I numbered among my "friends." It's not that the members of my family were particularly observant Jews (we were not), but everyone knew that we didn't have a Christmas tree and didn't put up Christmas lights and we didn't dress up on Easter. I don't think the fact that we were Jews even registered with our gentile neighbors, but more the fact that we believed in different things. Oh, and that we killed Christ.

There were two families on my block, each with numerous kids ranging in age from early teens to preschool. Their houses were a few lots apart and, coincidentally, the families were related. (I think the fathers of each household were brothers or cousins or something like that.) These two families were hotbeds for antisemitism. I would get taunts from the members of both households — young and old, boys and girls alike. In winter, snowballs would come hurtling from their backyards if I would walk past their houses, accompanied by muffled giggling and high-pitched shrieks of "Jew!" In nicer weather, the taunts would be more brazen with some of my dimmer-witted "friends" joining in because they didn't know any better.

Actually, that's the key to all of the hate I experienced as a child. They didn't know any better. This unfounded prejudice was passed down from parents who learned it from their parents. I remember a joke that I heard regularly in my neighborhood. At a time when ethic jokes were perfectly acceptable (Archie Bunker and Johnny Carson would frequently mock those of Polish and Italian extraction and Don Rickles made and entire career of it.), kids in my neighborhood would tell this one, most of them not even understanding its feeble attempt at humor:

Why are synagogues round?

So the Jews can't hide in the corners when the collection plate comes around.

Pretty stupid, huh? Let's analyze just how stupid it is. First of all, not all synagogues are round. Actually, I can't remember ever seeing a round synagogue. The only structures I can think of that are "round," are sports stadiums — and even those aren't truly round. Plus, it's not as though synagogues are built without some consultation with the folks who are going to use it as a house of worship. No one ever, during the design and construction, adamantly insisted, "Now make sure there are no corners so the Jews can't hide." Wouldn't Jews be making those structural design decisions? Makes no sense. Second — obviously, this terrible attempt at antisemitic levity, was made up by a non-Jew who had never, ever set foot in a synagogue, especially during a religious service. Their only frame of reference was their own religious service experience. If they had done the proper research, they would have known that Jews don't pass around a collection plate. Neither do Muslims or Hindus or any number of non-Christian religions. Collection plates or "offertory" are strictly a Christian ritual. 

Of course, this "joke" is an attempt to illustrate the baseless perception that Jews are cheap. In fact, as a group, they are not. Charity is a fundamental part of Jewish life, from pushkes (coin boxes) in traditional Jewish homes, to mourners vowing to make a donation in memory of a lost loved one to Jewish youth group's efforts for raise money for various worthy causes. In Business Week's list of "The 50 Most Generous Philanthropists," fifteen were Jewish. Considering that less than .2% of the world's population is Jewish, that's a pretty good showing.

Had the budding comedian who originally conceived this unfunny joke done a little thinking, they would have discovered that the basic concept and example given in the joke did not make sense, rendering it not the least bit funny. However, the kids in my neighborhood told this joke quite often and it always evoked laughter. They didn't know why they were laughing, but everyone else was laughing and no one wanted to be singled out as the one who "didn't get it."

And that's how hate begins. Hate begins by not knowing.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

this is the house we used to live in

We've been what you call "suburbanites" for over thirty years. That means we make our home just outside of a big city. In our case, the city in question is Philadelphia, the "City of Brotherly Love" and the fifth largest city in the United States. Recently, my wife had an errand to run that took her into Northeast Philadelphia.

For those not from the area, Philadelphia encompasses 142 square miles and is comprised of a bunch of neighborhoods with clear boundaries delineated by streets or natural framing like rivers (and Philadelphia's got two big ones running right through it). Some of Philadelphia's neighborhoods are well-known outside of the city. Places like Society Hill, Italian Market and Old City have gotten exposure in movies and television. But there are smaller areas with colorful and somewhat puzzling names (like Graduate Hospital*, Strawberry Mansion and Fishtown) that are only a few blocks in diameter, but whose inhabitants fiercely defend the borders with pride.

The area known as Northeast Philadelphia, or "The Northeast" to locals, is situated in the far, far reaches of the Philadelphia city limits. It's a fairly large section, devoid of personality but overflowing with cookie-cutter housing developments and faceless shopping centers. Among a smattering of boast-worthy facts, Northeast Philadelphia is the birthplace of yours truly. I grew up there. Went to school there and, when I got married, got the fuck outta there as quickly as my legs could carry me. When my father passed away in 1993, I sold his house and, from that point forward, did my very best to avoid The Northeast as much as possible. As executor of his estate (Ha! "Estate," as though my father was John Rockefeller! He died in debt and left the house in which I grew up a shambles!), I was required to sit alongside my attorney at the settlement after we took the first offer on the house. I sat silently across a large table from the gentleman who was purchasing my childhood home. During the proceedings, I was asked about the origins of a lien on the property that was filed in 1977. I smiled, cleared my throat and explained that, at sixteen years-old, my parents were not in the habit of discussing their financial obligations with me. Then, the imminent buyer expressed his dismay at the current structural state of the house. "It's in worse shape than we originally thought.," he lamented. I shrugged my shoulders as I signed the last legal document. "Oh well," I smirked.

In the years since my father died, I have only ventured back into the old neighborhood a handful of times and those were handfuls too many. A great many of the houses and business have been reconfigured, though most have been boarded up or torn down. The Northeast has become a faded ghost of the charmless region it once was.

When my wife was out on her errand, my cellphone buzzed with the arrival of a photo she sent to me. I tapped the icon on my phone screen and an image popped up that did not look at all familiar.

But before I could reply with a question, she quickly sent me this photo:

Along with the caption: "This lady lives at your house now."

Wow! This was a picture of my parents' house. My childhood dwelling. The first Pincus homestead. I didn't recognize it. The last time I saw it, it was painted a faded avocado green, the result of my brother's handy work in his teen years. It didn't have those bay big windows or that fancy front door. That little patio is also a new addition... just like the cement "lady" on the lawn.

I tried to conjure memories from my childhood and that house. I remembered the many times I pushed a lawn mover across that grass, while the smell of freshly-baked cookies from the nearby Nabisco factory enveloped the neighborhood. That was pleasant. But then, I remembered riding my bike to a neighborhood sandwich shop to get lunch for my mom and me. While I was inside, some older kids stole my bike and the ones who didn't participate in the theft stuck around to spit anti-Semitic slurs at me. I remember getting pummeled with snowballs on my way home from the school bus stop. I remembered the time Dougie Piller shot me in the back of the head with a BB gun.

I quickly tried to think of fonder memories. And suddenly I realized that those memories all happened at my current house. The house I share with my wife and, until recently, my son. All of my really great memories — my happiest memories — were created over the past thirty years. Not that my childhood was unhappy. It was just.... eh. Average. Uneventful. My adult life just overshadowed my childhood one-hundred fold. That's not bad. That's good.

My elementary school seems to have made improvements, as well.

It's funny, because when I was a student there, hate felt right at home.

www.joshpincusiscrying.com

* the name sticks although the actual hospital closed ten years ago.