So hella days ago I went to see Coolooloosh at a venue called "The Music Room" in Tel Aviv. On the way there I found a copy of an 18th century painting of some ladies in big dresses waving to some people in a carriage. They're in a garden and the sky is blue with puffy white clouds. It was in a dumpster. Clutching the rolled print, I waited an hour and a half for the band to come on. I was tired, but the rest of the people in the room took the opportunity to get smashed, which made them way more excited for Coolooloosh than I could understand. Midway through the set they brought on an old African-American guy who sang soul hits from the 70's. I am not at all interested in 70's soul, but apparently it struck some kind of sentimental chord in the crowd because they were really into it. White people love when they like black people music. One of my friends talked about him for the rest of the night, and another bought the Coolooloosh CD hoping Old Black Guy would be on it. He wasn't.
Although I was bored to tears, I gained a bit of understanding of Israeli culture in that smokey basement. Israelis get super into stuff, even when it sucks. It doesn't even matter that they're too naive to know that Old Black Guy isn't a real soul singer from the 70's. Israelis lack some of the cynicism that Americans often have. I could sit there and recognize that this guy was a hack, but the Israelis didn't seem to care. I like that about them.
