“So what’s this gazpacho?” asks a man.
“I’ve had it; it’s a mechaya. It’s Spanish. Like from Spain.”
“Nu?”
“I tell you, you’ll love it. Young lady, could you or could you not plotz from it?”
“I think so,” says Tania, uncertainly.
“Pfeh,” says the man, waving dismissively. “Give me the cream of asparagus.”
“Fine. Suit yourself. I’ll take the gazpacho. Then you can sit here with a face on you that you could drag across the carpet until I offer to switch. And,” she adds, “I hate cream of asparagus.”
“Pfeh,” says the man.
“Now tonight,” continues the compere, “in addition to the contemporary sounds of David Lubash and his Love Rush, we have some really prime entertainment. Direct from some very wellreceived engagements in the tristate area, we’re happy to bring you without any further ado the very funny Jules Farber.”
Here the small band strikes up a jaunty, snare-driven theme, to which the compere sings words in a vaguely cantorial tenor:
Settle back, it’s time to laugh,
the land of comedy is down this path
And if you want to know the man who rules,
I’m here to tell you that his name is Jules
He’s awful special, yeah, he’s okey-doke,
Julie Farber is a man who’s awful quick with a joke.
On today’s events he’s got a unique take,
so why not give the guy an even break?
Welcome Jules Farberrrrrr!
With the closing brrr the compere jokily wraps his arms around himself as if to indicate enclosure in a walk-in freezer and then, perhaps realizing the ambiguity of this gesture, begins to applaud while backing off the stage. Farber enters the small circle of light that surrounds the microphone stand and stands there for a moment, looking blearily into the audience. He is about forty and wears a rumpled business suit and has the general mien of a man searching the carousel for his checked baggage after the worst commuter flight in the history of commercial aviation. He waits with visible impatience for the house to settle down. He then begins, appropriately enough given his appearance, with a story about airports and air travel. Glamour of the jet age. Well, there’s the pilot with his Captain America voice. The buxom stewardess demonstrating the life jacket, wink. The turbulence moment. The in-flight movie, the meals and snacks. Barf bags and “occupied.” Fear of hijacking. A Cuba joke. A Cuban cigar story. The uncle who rolled cigars. His Aunt Malka, who lives in Florida. A Collins Avenue story. The audience is polite and attentive, though the waiters are just beginning to serve dinner and each crash and tinkle seems to send a frisson of nervous energy through Farber’s body. He wipes his palm on his jacket, examines it, essays a look into the audience.
“So I have to ask,” he says. “Didn’t this week just wring you out? A new president, wow. Anticlimactic, a little. The thing of it is the show’s over. Ford’s like your high school guidance counselor taking over from the Wicked Witch of the West. A little quiet, kind of a stiff, actually, always trying to get you to apply yourself, get your marks up. Question is, am I relieved, nauseous, bored, or all three? I mean, we’re all glad Nixon’s out of there. Across the political spectrum, as they say. Whatever our individual reasons. It’s too late to do any good, but for form’s sake. So they’ll look back at us kindly in the future and say, ‘How well they preserved our democracy for us!’ This is some shortsighted posterity, no? An honest historical appraisal of Richard M. Nixon and his times would approach the subject like a documentary about typhoid or bubonic plague. ’What conditions allowed him to germinate, to thrive?’ Those are the good questions. But who wants to imagine a posterity that’ll be critical of us? How deflating. We want from the future what we want from our kids: Sit up straight and listen. ‘Oh, we are the greatest generation! We defeated Hitler, we made the desert bloom, we moved to South Orange, and last but not least we got Nixon the hell out of there. So, love, honor, obey, cherish, venerate, adore, and — please — call once, make it twice, a week.’”
This draws a smattering of applause, mostly from among the older women in the audience.
“But what explanation is there for Nixon’s ascent, his ascendancy, his political longevity? Remember this is the oracle of the past getting quizzed by an unfortunately skeptical future, its answers coming out of some smoky void, a deep voice, Lincolnesque, theatrical, like God in The Ten Commandments, though what I’m actually picturing in my head is a columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper in a drip-dry suit. ‘No, sir, you have the question backwards. It is not a matter of Nixon’s being unsuited to high office. It is not a matter of a small-minded opportunist taking the expedited route to ultimate success in his chosen field of endeavor. It is not a matter of a man who at every crucial moment made himself over to reflect whatever generosity or meanness of spirit moved the times. It’s not a matter of how did he make it at all. What it’s a matter of is how did he fail.’ Yeah, the old tragic flaw. The great man, done in by hubris. The old op-ed shuffle.”
Stiffly, Farber thrusts his arms into the air, forming the familiar V signs with the fingers of either hand. “‘Peace,’” he says, in a Nixon voice. Then, thoughtfully: “‘That ought to look good on my résumé.’” There is some laughter, and the audience settles down for an impression, for some of the traditional comedy trademarks. You can see them leaning back, settling in after the jagged beginning, relaxing after that edgy way an audience partakes of failure. But Farber waves the conceit away, dispelling it like smoke in the hazy air, and then drops his arms and shrugs to resettle the creased jacket on his shoulders, like a bird ruffling its feathers.
“You want to find at least a trace of something to admire about this Nixon, though. Sift the ashes a little, you should pardon the expression. What you have to is you have to admire Nixon sticking it out as long as he did. What is the word, tenacious. Forget the shifty eyes, the concentration camp guard posture, the black sandy jowls. Forget these things, file them someplace dark and inaccessible, beside maybe the Instamatic snaps of your second cousin Rebecca’s bat mitzvah which they held at the Village Temple. In the on deck circle, Sheldon and Bruce, awaiting the celebration of their union. A lovely reception to follow at Marc Ballroom. So forget these things. Certainly Becca you should forget. She’s just your average nice Jewish girl from the West Village — going to Elisabeth Irwin, living on salted popcorn, and dreaming of rhinoplasty. Likewise forget the eyes, the Treblinka mien, the hairy face. And what you have is you have a bulldog, nah, a doberman, hanging on for dear life. Does a Jew know an attack dog when he sees one? Growling, ropes of gamy-looking spit looping out from between the jaws, swinging there, those powerful yellow teeth pressing down into their quarry, the front paws paddling with excitement at the empty air.”