Eli Lake takes a break from the national security beat to write about rappers and Chanakuh. (Language alert on the video. Profanity-laced is an understatement.)
[T]here aren’t many Jews represented in the competitive field of urban narcotrafficking. This might be changing. At least that is the conceit of a new Web show, Bubala Please. The show features Luis and Jaquann, two apparent gangbangers who intersperse the profane patois of L.A.’s streets with Yiddish words like “schlep” and “tuchus.” In the first episode, the pair teach viewers how to make latkes, the traditional Chanukah potato pancake: “We gonna kibbutz, we gonna kvetch, and we damn shit gonna gamble,” says Jaquann, who then dons a “Kiss my tuchus” apron. “One thing you gotta have for Chanukah is some latke, pendejos,” says Luis.
In the latest episode, they instruct on how to pimp a Chanukah bush with bling. At the end of the episode, Luis beat-boxes and Jaquann raps the traditional Chanukah blessing in Hebrew.
“The conceit is that they are thugs and gangsters who act like Jewish Boca Raton retirees,” says Jacob Salamon, who, along with his University of Texas classmate Jared Bauer, produced the videos. Bauer and Salamon formed their production company at first to try to make movies, they said in an interview, but found that producing TV-quality Web videos would take far less time than making a single movie. In the meantime, they say the Web videos are a good way to build a loyal fan base for larger projects down the road.
