Soap Operas, Comedy and Burningman

Soap Operas: Do you even know what I am talking about? Have you heard of Telenovelas from the Spanish speaking countries or Arabic Musalsalat, from all over the Middle East, especially Turkey. In the United States, in the 80’s and 90’s when I was growing up, soap operas were a staple in American homes. I remember my friends coming home from High School and watching General Hospital. For some reason as a kid I started watching As the World Turns. I honestly do not remember when, and it wasn’t daily, but you could always catch up because it was a continuous story. Dusty was the name of one of the characters, he was a cutie, and my best friend and I had a crush on him.

Basically, it was on Monday through Friday, and you could not wait until the next Monday to see how the story would unfold. They were called soap operas because there were commercials that were selling soap and many other advertisements. I suppose for housewives, so for many of us that would be a bathroom break, or to get a snack. There was no streaming, or multiple apps and channels, you only had three networks. As much as I loved following the never ending drama and narrative, one thing I knew for sure. I could never be a soap opera character, because the actor literally has to cry all the time. I could not imagine that a big part of my life would be to bring myself to a sad and heartbreaking place in order to make my character believable.

Three funny stories about General Hospital, which I eventually ended up watching from time to time. When I moved to Los Angeles, I obviously wanted to try acting, why not, and one of my gigs was on General Hospital! Many of the women have a more exotic look, and I was hoping to possibly get a callback. At the time I was working as a personal trainer in 24 Hour Fitness, and was booked with clients. I did get a callback, but decided I could not cancel my day of clients, and maybe realized that my feeling of crying for half my life also deterred me from dropping everything for soap opera stardom.

Can you believe when I met my husband, one of the things we had in common was General Hospital! We would watch it together, and his mother used to record it on a VCR, remember those? Eventually with cellphones and multiple channels, we stopped watching it, because everyone gathering around the television was becoming extinct. We grew up on so many fun shows that we would watch with our family. So we had to school our kids, we watched Knight Rider from start to finish, and even dabbled in Married with Children. Old movies and TV shows were silly, off color and hilarious.

After I had my three children with a wonderful Doula, I was inspired to love the moms, because everybody loves the babies. For 15 years I had the honor and pleasure to bring beautiful babies into this world. I was blessed to work mostly with our Jewish community, and reminded the holiest women to trust Hashem. One of the ladies had a very long birth, and once she got the epidural, we watched her favorite show which she had saved on her phone, General Hospital! It was so fun talking about all the couples and characters, who knew that my love of soap operas would come in handy as a tool in labor and birth.

Now on to comedy, and all I want to say is that I love comedy so much. I love the stage and have graced it in many different productions. From leading dance classes and game shows on cruise ships, to small theatre, and performance art with grand costumes. I admire comedians so much, their preparation, timing and flow. One thing that I do not resonate with is self deprecation, and how many comedians may pull their material from very hard life circumstances and traumas. Maybe one day I will do stand up comedy, but for now my always positive view and self love are my anchor and my space to visualize dreams, goals and possibility.

Burningman, I have been three times in the early 2000’s. I heard when it first started there were very few people and those were days without camera phones, it was really a wild experience that you can only understand if you were there. I love events, concerts and festivals. When I first moved to Los Angeles in the summer of 2000, I was excited to check it out. My brother flew out from Miami+, and we had no idea what we were doing, we got a few snacks from Trader Joes, hopped in my car and jumped into Black Rock City. There are a few names for this event, and when the flat space of sand becomes a living, breathing city of 40,000 people, it is called the Playa. Luckily we found a few people that set up camp, brought tons of food and cooking supplies, and adopted us. It is huge, we did not have bicycles, so we would walk or borrow. I played on a fun miniature golf course and ate breakfast on a Wilson Phillips float. All cars had to be decorated and registered with the department of mutant vehicles.

Nowadays I see videos and friends that are currently there. It is all about art, expressing yourself and being radically present in order to participate fully and immerse yourself. After October 7 and the horrific destruction, chaos and massacre at the Nova Festival, this year there was a Nova Heaven camp, so many people paying tribute and proudly saying, we will dance again! One of my favorite Jewish warriors @rudy_israel is there with his Shofar, Sudra and Jewish pride.

Baruch Hashem

Am Yisroel Chai