George "The Animal" Steel

By Ari Miller and Asi Gal

Walking down Allenby Street late on a weekend night is always an
interesting, if not annoying experience. This past Friday I was accosted by
two seemingly harmless Dutch travelers. A couple who appeared to be in their late 50's at least. They stopped me in English, my immediate thoughts were that they were lost and hoping for directions or, like most of the other
occupants of Tel Aviv's seedy underbelly, had confused me for a male
prostitute and were hoping to receive sexual favors in exchange for their recently exchanged shekels.

Sadly, seeing how the closest I have ever gotten to having sex with anything Dutch was the time I sexually molested a Dutch Hound, it was not a perverse financial transaction that they had in mind. All they wanted was directions to the beach, which I gave them, along with the additional recommendation regarding the best pizza place around that area.

After they left I contemplated our meeting (I like to contemplate. Some might say I'm a contemplateur). I wondered why, all of a sudden, I felt so nice. Eventually, I began thinking of this blog, and then I realized what it was. My blog is a window I offer people into my life. Specifically, about my life in Israel, which most often means showing the crap side of Israel (with the exception of Israeli radio attributing the Big Poppa song to the Pope on an earlier posting - look for it!). These directions that I just gave was completely different. I showed some tourists the way to something nice in Israel. And it was good to be reminded that there are nice things. Heck! I live here and, although sometimes I'm not sure why, I am aware that there are nice things.

With a new found hop to m step I headed down the road with a broad smile on my face and whistlin’ a tune to show me the way. I decided that my evening should not end with just one good deed. I would perform another, maybe three or four even. And then, as if placed before my god or god’s only son just for me, was a group of young women. They were young, most likely in high school. From afar I could tell that they were fat but it was only upon coming in closer that I could tell they also had horrible skin. There were three of them, drinking vodka – two of them from those cheap plastic cups you get when you buy a whole bottle at an all-night convenience store and the third, swigging from the bottle itself – all of them had cigarettes in hand. It was immediately obvious that I was put there at that place and at that time, perhaps giving reason to my having come to Israel in the first place, to help – dare I say it, to save – these three female youths.

As luck, or fate, would have it, I had recently been armed with a copy of god’s new testament that the Dutch couple had given me along with the promise that it would be a much more interesting read than the old testament, which I had never much cared for.

I approached them as I flipped through the book. I wanted to start with something that will grab them. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people that can naturally pinpoint a good quote without knowing much about the book in hand. I was pretty sure the main character is a preacher named Jesus or Chris. Overlooking the fact that if God wanted me to preach he would point me to a great line, I just chose one at random. My finger stopped on John 3:11, which I then repeated to them as I reached the trio.

The next thing I remember is waking up on the street corner. I stunk of the fat chick’s perfume and my mouth tasted like rotted lemons, which turned out to be the flavor of the crappy, crappy Vodka – a point easily deciphered since the empty bottle was stuck down my pants giving the impression that I have a huge penis.

Thinking of what I had been doing, who I had been with John 3:11 came back to me between the poundings in my head. It was my luck that the fatties had not stolen my copy of the New Testament, I pulled it out of the back of my pants - which answered the minor question of the uncomfortable tightness in my rear – and opened it up, quickly thumbing through for that quote. Hoping all the answers that I did seek lay within, I was in such a hurry that I just ripped out pages rather than turn them. And, with a river of individual pages of the word of god flowing around me I found it: “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness.”

“Fuck,” I thought to myself, “that's deep.” Much better than the "sorry seems to be the hardest word," that I originally meant to use - that John guy is much better than the Elton guy who I usually refer to. But, since I had yet to decipher what the former meant, I still had no idea why it led to what seemed to be an orgy of all the senses with three girls who, at best, resembled the three tenors.

And what was even less certain was, did I enjoy it?