Too Hot To Handle

Hamseen - hot stifling weather - used to be in the days of the Ottoman Empire that murders committed during Hamseen weather were downgraded from murder to involuntary manslaughter (or at least the Ottoman Empire version of such a thing) because everyone knows this weather makes you CRAZY. Stay with us on Radio Free Nachlaot while we try to stay cool and sane.

Lena Horne  - singer, actress, Civil Rights Activist, 8 time Grammy Award Winner and vocalist extraordinaire, passed from this world this morning. We're hearing some Lena classics on "Morning Dew for the Morning Jew" this morning. Did you know Lena's second husband, musical arranger Lennie Hayton was Jewish? Theirs was truly a "Mixed Marriage" during a time in American history when it wasn't so commonplace for a woman of color to be married to a "white" man - let alone a Jewish man. Her daughter Gail married Jewish screenwriter and director Sidney Lumet, keeping it all in the family. No one sings "Stormy Weather" like Lena - we'll miss her beauty and spirit.

It's also the birthday of U2 Frontman BONO, prompting us to play "The Joshua Tree" in it's entirety today - always a pleasure to hear.

Today's Torah Schedule:

• 1pm: Lorelai's Interview with "Cool Jew" Author Lisa Alcalay Klug
• 2pm: Rabbi Immanuel Schochet - Ba'Midbar
• 3pm: Rabbi Moshe New "Moses, David and the Baal Shem Tov"
• 4pm: Rabbi Moshe New: Shavuot - An Overview
• 5pm: Rabbi Immanuel Schochet - Shavuot Insights

Today's Music Schedule:

• 8am - 1pm : Lorelai's Monday Edition of "Morning Dew for the Morning Jew" Show with mini-tribute to Lena Horne as well as new music from Melissa Etheridge, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon and more.
• 1pm - 6pm: Israeli Soul Afternoon features Mizrachi Music, Breslav Tunes and music from Oren Levi. HaKol b'Evrit! :)
• 6pm: U2 - The Joshua Tree (Happy Birthday, Bono!)
• 7pm: Buddy Guy: Alone & Acoustic
• 8pm - The Band - The Last Waltz (yes, the whole thing - nice!)
• 10:30pm - Counting Crows "Saturday Night and Sunday Mornings"
• 11:30pm - Elton John "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
• Midnight - 3am: The Grateful Dead Road Trips Vol. 2 No. 3- "Wall of Sound" (Oh, yeah!)

We expect to be feeling a whole lot better when this Hamseen breaks - oh yes, we've got a feeling it can't last too much longer - stay cool folks & stay with us on Radio Free Nachlaot today!

Schvitzing b'Midbar

Shavua Tov - It's HOT HOT HOT today in Jerusalem and it's starting to dawn on us that Summer is coming again to the Middle East (did it ever really leave?) and Temperature Control Management Systems need to be put into place ASAP!

First: ice cubes! Yes, one of the hardest-to-obtain items in the Holy Land, when you ask for ice in your drink at almost any restaurant you're sure to be looked at as if you asked the Waiter to run to the top of Mt. Hermon to fetch the ice for you (which is in fact what USED to have to happen in order to get ice). Million Dollar Business Idea du Jour: ice machines at every Macolet in town (just like in California you can't go into ANY 7-11 or mini-market without finding an ice freezer & bags of ice - the only place I've seen bags of ice for sale are at Gas Stations here!)

Second: Cool Music! Listen to Radio Free Nachlaot from anywhere in the world on your computer AND now on your iPhone!

New Downloads - Wisdom from Rabbi Sholom Brodt, Reb Ozer Bergman's Rebbe Nachman Shiur AND Interview with "Cool Jew" Author Lisa Alcalay Klug

Check our our DOWNLOADS Page to find out what we've been working on this week - we've got a new Interview with "Cool Jew" Author Lisa Alcalay Klug (recorded May 5th) as well as the recording of Reb Ozer Bergman's Thursday Night Rebbe Nachman Shiur, recorded Thursday May 6th, and Yeshiva Simchat Shlomo's own Rabbi Sholom Brodt on "Ahavata Lreacha Kamocha" -  Enjoy!

Bumper Cars on the Radio

Good Shabbos, Good Shabbos - Shabbos is coming!!! So, as I approach Shabbos this week I feel like it's all about collisions. Not terrible collisions -the world shattering, life threatening kind, but the kind of collisions that happen all the time, and that we kind of enjoy - You know, kind of like with bumper cars - do you remember bumper cars? Those kind of collisions, So let me ask you -- how do you play bumper cars? How do you approach a collision? How do you rebound? How do you rebound, again and again? You know, with the mix of peoples on this earth, let alone all of us Jews, this is not a theoretical question. There are bound to be collisions!! Hey - you put so many ingredients into any cholent and something unexpected is sure to happen! Now, that may not be so bad, you know?
Anyway, as this relates to music......because there's room for all kinds of music here at Radio Free Nachlaot, I predict It's going to be one explosive - guided - musical collision -and I say -Stay tuned right here, and let's collide - all the way to shabbos.
C Ya on the Radio!

Psychoacoustics - Qu'est-ce que c'est? (Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better....)

The Mystery of the Red Heifer: Divine Promise of PurityThe Mystery of the Red Heifer: Divine Promise of Purity

Radio Station Programmer / DJ / Impresario (or should that be Empress-ario?) is the perfect job for the musically obsessive-compulsive. Not simply an opportunity to daily pander to my own lifelong ritualistic aural-emotional self-stimulating/soothing instinct, but a chance to connect my inherit skill as an Empath with our Listeners and feed them, song by song, musical nutrition that joins you on your journey, narrates it along the way and helps you climb those rocky bits and navigate those treacherous shoals.

Steve Levine - my Radio Partner and unindicted musical co-conspirator - and I have often discussed (on and off the air) how important local radio was to us while we were growing up, and how the intimate connection between the DJ, the music and our own heads fueled our sense of life, helped to form a sense of Self and gave us a common vocabulary. If I utter a single note suspended in space suggesting a Universe you would, in fact, follow that note straight on till morning. Everyone knows the opening notes to "Stairway to Heaven,"e veryone knows the change between movements in "Layla" from pumping and driving guitar to soaring Piano Coda. These moments are engraved into our memories, encoded into our cultural DNA and when heard trigger a series of involuntary physiological reactions including but not limited to the influx of  peptides in the brain, which produce endorphins in the hypothalamus. We're not just Radio Programmers here at Radio Free Nachlaot, we're deliberate practitioners of "Psychoacoustics" - we're aural-biochemical mood-altering enablers and yes, our Science Project is going to win First Prize at the School Science Fair! :)

Today in Musical History marks the 10 year anniversary of my first and only Ocean Cruise - the "Cinco DeMayo" Cruise to Mexico and back from Long Beach which I took with my friend Tami Potter. I don't know where we went in Mexico because I never got off the ship. Once ensconced poolside with a tall frosty umbrella-festooned glass of something heavy on "Rum, My New Best Friend" (a phrase coined on that Cruise) I relaxed...and relaxed, and continued to do so for something like 4 days. A lot of Los Lobos and Gypsy Kings will be played today in honor of that sweet memory. Happy Cinco DeMayo and don't forget - Tshuva, Tefilla & Tequilla sweeten the decree!

Today's Torah Schedule:

• 1pm, 5:45pm: Rabbi Chaim Richman's Parsha Shavua (Behar/Bechukotai)
• 2pm: Rabbi Sholom Brodt's continuing Tzibur Moment Series with Ahavta Lreacha Kamocha
• 3pm: Rabbi Chaim Richman's "The Meaning of the Stones" (Part 3)
•  4pm: Reb Shlomo Carlebach "Learning from G_d Himself, Living for Real"

Today's Music Schedule:

•  7am - 1pm: Lorelai's "Morning Dew for the Morning Jew" Show features a lot of the ritualistic neuron-stimulating music from Aretha Franklin, CSNY, Buffalo Springfield, Roseanne Cash, Black-Eyed Peas, David Gray, Lou Reed, Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell, Cat Stevens, Allison Krause, and much more. Don't be afraid of mixing genres, it's good for your musical digestion. 
• 1pm - 6pm: "Israeli Soul" Afternoon features music from Neshama Carlebach, Raz Hartman, the Moshav Band, Matisyahu, High Windows, Eyal Golan, Jon Samuel Nelson, RebbeSoul, Noa Babyoff, Simply Tsfat, and Andy Statman.
• 6pm: We celebrate The Buffalo Springfield's Farewell Concert (this day in Musical History, at of course the Long Beach Arena in 1968) by playing "Expecting To Fly" (1969).
• 7pm: Joan Armatrading "Into The Blues" (2007)

Watch and listen for updates for our SPECIAL LIVE SHOW WITH SPECIAL GUEST coming up after 8pm tonight - you'll just have to WAIT AND SEE what happens next!

It's a Man's World: The King James Version with the NeoApocraphal Etta

Today would have been James Brown's 77th Birthday, had the world not lost him in 2006. The Godfather of Soul, "Soul Brother Number One," Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business - James Brown was an original force of nature, not entirely without a destructive side, who changed music and culture. Who remembers how Vice President Hubert Humphrey ceremoniously thanked James Brown for his April 4th, 1968 television appearance following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. pleading for calm in the wake of what the nation feared would be race riots (which, in fact, did not take place - in no small part due to James Brown. Maybe he was the Bono of his day, maybe Bono is a Proto, or pro-Bono ... I don't know, Bono is another day and today it's The King James Version starting with James Brown at 6pm - The King of Soul!

James Taylor is another kind of royalty - the original Southern Rock Aristocrat, ex-husband of Carly Simon and father of Ben and Sally, Taylor remains the quintessential Singer/Songwriter who survived his own youthful flirtation with self-destruction and continues to tour and perform today at full strength.
James Blunt - well, to be blunt, we're going to have to wait several decades to find out if this talented young Emo-Singer/Songwriter can get over his own hormonal haze and turn out a body of work that lasts a lifetime. We're hoping so. He's got promise, potential, pipes and passion - a prince amongst the James Set.
 Which brings us to the Princess - Miss Etta James. Girl, you know something about bringing body and soul together and all the other Jamses should take a seat while Etta unwinds her voice like a coiling cascade of cool burning lava ice ... 

The James Gang - Brown, Taylor, Blunt & Etta set starts tonight at 6pm - ready or not, here they come!

And just for good measure - maybe after that we'll hear some Jim Morrison.

At 5:30pm we'll hear Rabbi Sholom Brodt's new piece on "Ahavtah Lreacha Kamocha" repeating again at 11pm.
On the Omer Calendar we're really hauling up to Shavuos now. Today is Yesod She'bHod and tonight after dark we count 35 Days of the Omer which will be Malchut She'bHod. It was on this day (20 Iyar) that the Children of Israel left Mt. Sinai and began their trek through the desert.

It's like, for us, a Tachlis tiyule - we're following the Mishkan and we don't know what the next step will be - but we keep putting one foot in front of the other. If we occasionally trip, that's life

as a Jew. "A righteous man falls down seven times..." Let's try not to skin our knees too much, shall we? We want to make it all the way to Shavuos without any unnecessary injuries! We've got a lot of heavy lifting to do in the weeks ahead - but it's there in sight. Let's get there together.

Happy Lag B'Omer - and now, in the afterglow of the bonfires let's enjoy some Shlomo, some "Kabalah Music" and some "divrei Torah" - and then we can resume our regular music listening, and Dance, Dance, Dance !!!
Music ahead will include:
Joe Sample, Amos Lee, Bonnie Raitt and Friends, Bob Dylan, Tracy Chapman, Tom Petty, The Traveling Willburys, to name a few -- and then, around 8:30 PM - Sunday Night Live with Lorelai and Steve -- let's catch up with them and their exploits...all right here on Radio Free Nachlaot. Remember, Nachlaot - not just a community, a state of mind!