Many shows on Israeli TV feature a sign-language interpreter in the corner of the screen for the benefit of the Israeli hearing impaired. While there is nothing wrong with my hearing, from time to time I find myself watching the interpreter rather than the show. I know very little about sign language: I know it is different in each country -- and I know how to sign ‘I love you’. That’s pretty much it, except I have noticed the interpreters spell the letters of certain names, but have specific signs for popular ones – so when I first noticed the sign-language lady on the nightly news making a comb-over gesture when the anchorman said ‘Ehud Olmert’, I was certain I was mistaken. Only after finding the following video on the Israeli sign language website SignPedia, did I begin to believe my own eyes:
Ehud Olmert, who has been in the public eye for years, has always had a comb-over in a futile effort to disguise his receding hairline. It has only been a couple of years since he stopped fooling himself and accepted his baldness, so I guess the gesture for his name was invented a long time ago, which is rather funny to watch now, because it seems like deaf people all over Israel are making fun of him.
I was watching this live on CNN, and was bumfuzzled for a second, but no worries, Mandela is alive and well, but not according to Bush’s press conference this morning:
I thought an interesting comment was made - somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, “Now, where’s Mandela?” Well, Mandela’s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.
Chumbawamba is one of my favorite bands – always political, always relevant and always quick and precise in expressing their opinions in hot-button issues. With a career spanning 25 years, it is a real shame most people know only one of their songs, Tubthumping (‘I get knocked down / But I get up again / You’re never going to keep me down’). The release of this song was, in my humble opinion, the worst public relations move they could ever do because most people now think of them as a cool-fun-one-hit-wonder-band and most do not bother to listen to any of their other songs.
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I’m a loner alone with neurosis and hate
Anger is a permanent character trait
My letter bombs are primed and they’re ready to send
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’m a wound-up whiner with a fetish for guns
I’m almost fifty and I live with my mum
I hope my nude picture doesn’t offend
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Chorus:
Add me, add me,
My momma says she wish she never had me
Add me, add me,
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’m a recovering alcoholic; I rarely leave my room,
Peeping through the curtains in my dog costume,
The voices in my head, aah… they’ll get me in the end
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I really like to mail you the picture that I drew,
It’s Kylie’s body, but the head is you
I’ve asked you fifty times before I’m asking you again
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Chorus
Here’s a picture of me in my Nazi uniform
Doing a trick with an egg that I like to perform
At a monster truck rally that my mum and me attend
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’ve added Britney, and Paris, and you and Tom,
I’m gonna find your address so I can visit you at home,
I don’t like people, but I like to pretend
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Tedy productions, the guys who gave you the Israeli version of American Idol, the Comedy Store series and other popular TV shows, have launched a new website which is supposed to be the next Israeli YouTube/MySpace mashup. Normally I would not have mentioned it, but since some of my video works are featured on the art channel, you might want to check it out.
Tedy productions, the guys who gave you the Israeli version of American Idol, the Comedy Store series and other popular TV shows, have launched a new website which is supposed to be the next Israeli YouTube/MySpace mashup. Normally I would not have mentioned it, but since some of my video works are featured on the art channel, you might want to 
