As I was getting home today from work after a nice refreshing bunch of beers with my coworkers, I was so excited to open my mailbox and see my Doctor Who in there (I have a subscription to Netflix with nothing but Doctor Who), I was surprised and a bit appalled to see a letter from My Dad and Step Mom. I opened it up, and much to my horror, it was an invitation to my little sister's Bar Mitzva. Yeah, you thought the subject line was a joke. It's not. Or maybe it is. I'm not quite sure. My father ,and I guess me too, are the descendants of Russian Jews that moved to Argentina so mind-blowingly long ago, that nobody has practiced Judaism for generations. They even changed the last name so it wouldn't seem jewish. From Tacsier to Taccir. It's stupid, but wait, it gets even stupider. I grew up with an avidly atheist father. I grew up with, "Trust me, god doesn't exist. It really doesn't. Don't let anybody tell you any different." I have never referred to myself as jewish in my life. Neither has my dad as far as I know. So, one winter vacation as a teenager, I went and visited them in San Jose, and there was a minorah or whatever it's called, the thing with the candles whatever it's called. I couldn't understand it. Why it was there. I didn't make any sense to me. So, I casually inquired as to the meaning behind it. Really, I wanted to yell, "WHAT IN THE FUCK IS THAT?", but I just wanted to be casual about it. You know, just a simple question, and my step-mom answered for him not letting him talk, explaining to me, "Pancho, your father is trying to get back in touch with his jewish roots." I didn't say anything. I didn't comment, but I know her and I know what it's all about. It's about conformity, and I'm sad to say it is so engrained in latino culture that you have to "be" something. My dad couldn't just be Alejandro, or as he likes to say Alex. My dad has to sum up his whole being, his whole character with a nationality and apparently according to my step-mom, a religion as well. Or rather I should say, My step-mom has to sum up his character like that. Culture is confromity. I have absolutely no respect for "culture". I didn't take it seriously and tried to ignore it simply for my own sake seeing as how conformity and even worse, religion makes me nauseous and blood-thirsty all at the same time, and I'm not a fan of puking unless I'm on heroin, and not a fan of murder except when I don't have to go to jail for it. So, the years passed by, and they had a little girl, and she is the prettiest most charming little girl ever. I named her "Santita Papitas" after me of course, and much to my dismay, they didn't speak to her in Spanish just like they did to me so now I speak Spanish like a total gringo as she will too someday. Anyway, they came to visit in LA last summer, and it was sort of fun. I wish I could've just hung out with her, but they would never allow that. They don't want me to infest her mind. They don't want her to know that culture is conformity and even more importantly, they don't want her to know that conformity is a bad thing. The first night, I had the most scariest hangover, and they took me to see "Pirates of the Carribean" at the Capitan. It scared the living shit out of me. I had to get up and walk out. It really terrified me. Those things and that other what ever it is and then they're something oozing blood, but it's water or you know something like that and then there was loud screeching in my head due to the hangover, and I was trying to tune it out, and sometimes I was able to, but then all I could understand was this mumbling. It was frightening. You know, I'm a little curious. Is it all the high decibel black metal killing my sense of hearing or is my brain getting scrambled and it's having trouble computing words when I'm not just reading them? I wish life had subtitles. I'm totally confused half the time. Well, OK fine, let's just say all the time. OK, anyways whatever, don't watch that movie unless you enjoy getting the shit scared out of you or unless you're not me. So, we were driving through that jewish neighborhood over by La Brea and Beverly and it was a saturday, and they were all dressed up in all those outfits that they wear which normally I would think were cool as shit if it were not a part of the fact that it's just total extreme conformity, and also because of the fact that my hatred towards is Israel is so totally rampant that it involuntarily extends outward to every single jew on the face of the planet. Well, maybe not all of them. I have some jewish friends. I hope they don't read my blog, they probably do, . . . whatever. But, this comment had nothing to do with that hatred, I simply stated, "I wonder in which part of the bible, god said that all the men have to wear big, funny looking hats." On one hand, I was trying to be funny and on the other, I'm actually curious how they came up with these wacky costumes which I find to be dazzling and glamorous, but they're taking the whole thing serious. And my dad got so upset with me, "You know Gabriela goes to a religious school right down the street in Los Gatos and she's studying judaism." or however in the fuck it's spelt. "Oh good luck with that. I'll give you a synopsis so won't even have to study it. 'Kill Kill Kill'. There you go. Now, you know Judaism. You don't have to study it anymore" The conversation quickly turned ugly, and seeing as how my father and I only see each other once every other 3 years or so, we mutually decided it would be in everybody's best interests to change the subject to something a bit more light-hearted such as my fear of the "Pirates of the Carribean" which everybody found to be totally hilarious. I can't help it. The movie scares the living death out of me especially with a Steel Reserve hangover Wow, I didn't think this was going to go on this long. So anyway, either this is an April Fool's Joke in the month of May or my little sister is going to become a man, . . . soon.