Martin Bodek's Haggadahpalooza Featured on JM in the AM

It's with great pleasure that we um welcome into our studio live in our New Jersey studio, Mr. Martin Bodec, who is author of the book Hagada Palooa, the unofficial weirdly perfect Passover pop parody paniply. Martin Bodega, a pleasure to welcome you to JM in the AM. >> Thank you, Nakim, for having me in your studio today. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. >> I thank you for that. And this is not the first Hagada you've written. You have a whole collection that you actually brought in. Uh you could have gone anybody out there can go to the website, your website. Um and and see the entire collection, but we get to enjoy them here uh up close and personal. You got to explain it. And frankly, I um I I I've gotten the gist of this brand new Hagada. >> Okay. >> Right. Lots of song parodies, so to speak. Is that why it's called Haga the Palooa? Because we know that one of the biggest uh music festivals in the country ends with Palooa. Is that why? >> That is exactly right. Uh there's no other reason. I could not Well, the the book that you're holding is uh is a paniply of song parodies. >> Uh which everyone can use at their seder and enjoy around the table and all different sorts of ages can sing. >> And as you can see, your viewers cannot because we're not visual here. Uh it's it's a weird alaga, right? It's aka the Weird Alhagara. >> I could not call it the Weird Alhagada. >> You should send him a copy. >> You know what? I will. >> I could not call it because his name is trademarked. >> And the name is trademarked because, and we'll try not to get into it, Al Franken was once a very not properly functioning individual. >> Yeah. >> And the headlines that came out got under Weed Al's skin. >> Wow. >> And so he trademarked his name finally 30 years or so into his professional career. So using weird out was off the table because of weird of Al Franken. >> Interesting. All right. There you go for the piece of trivia for everybody. >> And here's here's trivia for you. So the words weird and Al >> are cleverly hidden inside the title of the book. So at least I I got that going. >> And of course the image is him. If you for those who know who he is, the image is is certainly Well, I don't I don't want to say that definitively. God forbid you may be faced with a lawsuit, but it sort of reminds me of him. How's that? >> There you go. Perfect. >> Martin Bode is here. The brand new Hagada is is a is a song parody Hagada. Look, if the goal is to make Pesak more interesting, more fun, more, you know, a longer seder, right? Then then this is obviously for certain families. This is the perfect piece. >> Absolutely. And that's the entire mission of what I'm doing. >> Is that how long it takes to make all these song parodies? >> Approximately a year it takes me to write each of uh my books. That's usually the process. First getting the idea, then laying it all down, and then forcing creativity out of my brain. >> Song parodies are not easy. >> No, they're not. But once I got into a good >> and a lot of tweaking and changing and words, you're not sure if they really, you know, fit in right and all that. >> Absolutely. I had to make sure the the rhyming and the pentameter was was perfectly aligned with the original songs. >> I'm looking for a song that I actually could, you know, >> think of which is the one Here Comes the Sun. Didn't you have a Here Comes the Sun in there or not? >> I have here Come Yes. I called it the Here Come the Suns. >> Where? Oh, the Suns. The four the four sons. >> Correct. >> Okay, one second. So, maybe that one I could give give everyone a little uh sample of. >> Here we are. Page 45. >> 45. Hang on a second. We're talking to Martin Bodec. It's Hagada Palooa. Website where people can buy this is >> Martin Bodic.com. >> Martin Bodecbooks.com. And again, if you have the right family for this uh who wants to sit around the seder and enhance their seder with some of these song parodies, here comes this. Here come the sons. Here comes the sons and I say this is why and what's the next? >> Wise young darling. >> Wise young darling. Let me tell you the laws of Passover. Wicked darling. The Lord did this for me. Come closer. That's great. Simple darling. >> I love it. Anyway, >> so I I I I tried my best. I gave I gave everybody a sample >> and this is now available. Well, Hagada Palooa the unofficial weirdly perfect Passover pop parody paniply by Martin Bodic. Go to Martin Bodec books. Right. Martinbodic books.com. >> Correct. >> For information. Now this is Hagada number >> seven. >> This is the seventh Hagada you've written. >> Yes. >> There is the dad jokes hagada. >> Yes. >> I could see people sitting around not only at the seder but throughout the entire yontiff telling those. Right. Where's the dad one? Where's >> in your hand? Right there. Oh, here it is. There it is. Here we go. This is the dad jokes. Hagada. Uh, should I give a sample here? >> Uh, yes. My favorite page is the 10 plagues. If you find that real quick. >> All right. One second. Hang on everybody. I should be able to uh What are you suggesting? I don't know the order of that. Go. >> No. No. You skipped right past. >> Oh, did I skip it? >> Yeah. I There it is. >> Man, I'll tell you the pressure of being live on the air. Um, this one. What did Moses say to parro after he refused the first plague? He said that was dumb. What kind of shoes did the Egyptians wear during frogs? Open toaded. Why didn't most Egyptians know about the ninth plague? They were kept in the dark. Never challenge death to a pillow fight unless you're ready to face the reaper cushions. Oh my god, >> that was a good one. I came up with that. >> A good one. As dad jokes go, that might be an 11 out of 10, frankly. >> There you go. >> All right. So, that's the dad jokes. Hagada, Martin Bodebooks.com. By the way, and I and not that you should sit here talking about your colleagues, but there are people who've written something like a Star Trek Hagada or something or a uh isn't there somebody who wrote some type of science fiction Hagada? Am I real Harry Potter? Was it? >> Uh that was Rabbi Musha Rosenberg, >> right? >> Yes. >> And was it Harry Potter? >> Uh he Well, what was it? >> Well, interestingly, it's not called Harry Potter. It's called the Hogwarts Hagada. He's also careful to use with naming and nomature. >> So, he has two, that one and another one or was just that one? >> Yes, he came out with a superhero hagada. >> Superheroes. It wasn't Star Trek, was superhero. >> Oh, and while we're talking about friendly competition, I should also mention a gentleman named Dave Cowan who lives in LA >> and he's put out uh many parody Hagatas himself and we're we're neck and neck on the leaderboard every year. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. >> Are his on the same sort of topics or >> No, absolutely. He he writes them differently. It's not a full Hagata. writes like teleplays >> as if they were a Broadway play. Like you could act these things out at your SATA table. >> Wow. >> So, so that's the way he um um couches it, but I have the um stuff that uh is useful for families who can share. >> Have you thought about forwarding Hagada Palooa to Lenny Solomon and having him record the whole thing? Cuz I think you've basically done 99% of his work for him on this. >> That's true. And uh you know what? Uh if I can get to him, I will. >> Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, certainly. Lennylockrock.com. >> Oh, I was a fan. I was a fan just as much as I was a fan. I've >> seen them recording these. >> Fantastic. Okay, I'll get in touch. >> We're all full of great ideas here at JMD. >> Uh the this Hagada is the way is the name of this one. A Star Wars unofficial Passover parody. Now, unfortunately in 1980 81, when did Star Wars first come out? 81, I think. >> The first Star Wars to know was 1977. >> 77. Wow. So, in the summer of 77, my younger brother and I decided we're going to go see Star Wars. What is this everyone's talking about, right? The whole thing. I think we in fact spent that summer in Israel. So, we got back and we were like I think we said to our older sister, "Drop us off at the mall. We're going to go and then when you're finished shopping, you know, we'll be ready to go." Anyway, what do I remember about that experience? I slept through the whole Star Wars movie. >> Are you serious? >> As a teenager? Yes. I am the wrong guy for the Star Wars unofficial Passover parody. I mean, I know some of the lines from Star Wars. That's about it. What's this based on? I know it's based on Star Wars, but meaning what approach like >> it's to weave in the entire franchise anywhere I could into the text. >> Good example for us or uh >> uh you can go to >> Yeah. >> If you can locate it real quick. Well, >> I'm going to leave it to you to locate it. I've demonstrated I can't locate things too quickly live on the air. Kamasu would be the beginning of nerz or hollow. >> Oh boy, this is gonna >> Is it hollow or na? Hal, right. >> Well, you know what? It would help if I just go to the table of contents and that would be just uh it >> see I could find that for you. It's right after uh it's right after benching, >> right? >> Release your anger, page 113. Here we are. So this paragraph, if you care to read it, >> do I have to read it in the voice of of Yoda or anything or >> uh not necessarily because what I did with this paragraph in a short space, I don't know what that is like 40 words. It's like >> it's like more than that, but yeah. >> Yeah, it's like the the Friday yom. It's really short. >> Um but it contains >> Friday, the new standard of short passages. >> Uh like seven different quotes from the movies and anybody who's a geek will recognize all of them as you're as you're reading along. Release your anger. We've been waiting for you. We meet again at last. Pour your wrath upon the empires that did not know you and upon the orders that did not call upon your name. Since they have consumed Skywalker and wiped out his habitation, all of them. Let the hate flow through you upon them, and the fierceness of your anger shall reach them. You shall do it to them with unlimited power and strike them down from under the skies of the force. It's basically who speaking. >> It's basically everybody. There's there's like five different characters and seven different lines. And that's basically what I did. martinbodebooks.com if you're into Star Wars. What else is What's Zadees War? What is that? >> Oh, that's that's my Holocaust memoir of my grandfather's. >> Nothing to do with PES. >> Um, nope. I write other stuff besides this. >> I'm just saying today we're talking about Pes. >> Yeah. You had a Yeah. >> You had a friend of mine, Jonathan Schllo, course last year. So, we're working under the same imprint of uh Amsterdam Publishers. >> Very nice. >> And this is my grandfather's story. >> His book's amazing. I didn't see yours yet, but his book's amazing. So his is about four grandparents and this story is about him serving in four armies. It's quite the story. >> Wow. >> We could we could talk about that now or a later date but later it's wild. A wild story. >> Wow. >> The Shakespeare haga written by Martin Bode. Elevate thy seder with the bard of Avon. >> I mean my my Shakespeare acumen is is limited. You know it's okay. I could do a drop of Romeo and Juliet. I could do uh you know toil toil trouble. What's it called? >> Oh that's McBth. Yes. McBth. I can do a drop of McBTH. Uh I think that might be it. I don't remember any other maybe maybe some Hamlet maybe. >> So I don't I won't have to force you to to get into your uh >> No, but the point is I mean what's the approach here? >> The same exact thing as Star Wars. I wo in every play at least five times into the text and had my fun with it. >> Do we know what Shakespeare thought of Pesak? We have no clue. >> I don't even know what he thought of Jews really. And really don't we all >> people debate that all the time. >> All the time. >> What else do we have that's Pesak related? Uh these two >> the Corona virus haga. Oh my god. We should toss this one out. The Corona virus hag. Very small. >> Very small. This was written in 48 hours. >> Oh, because in during Corona, we did everything very quickly. Right. >> Exactly. Oh, no. I wrote this in a frenzy because it it was happening. You know, we didn't know what was going on. We just knew there was a Japanese ship somewhere where people couldn't get off and they were coughing to death or something. And then we knew that our sailors were going to be lonely. The only Haganda where both Lysol and Purel are mentioned >> multiple times. It's a whole it's orcat all the way through multiple the whole that's the joke. That's the whole running joke. >> The festivist Hagada. Obviously this is Seinfeld fans would appreciate this. You could write an entire Hagada based on that one episode. >> I know it's surprising, isn't it? >> Isn't that funny? >> The episode is called the strike. It's not even called uh the Festivus episode. And festivist itself um somebody timed it is I think 5 minutes and 46 seconds of the whole episode and I wo that into a whole book >> and it became this whole thing like it is I celebrate it every year and >> you celebrate every year I do >> and a good example would be a comparison between Pes and Fest like what's what's in here >> uh in here is uh for example Moda right >> so the characters are very heavy on dialogue right >> and they spit out numbers all the time for whatever reason I can't spare a square I I live at 115 park, whatever it is. So, I tried to put in as many ekads as I could until I stopped, right? Um, so I got to I think 117. >> Holy cow. >> The characters say every number until 117. >> Anything else here that's pesock related? >> One more. And this is the original, the OG, >> first one. >> It's the emoji Hagada. >> And it's funny. There's not even a title to it. >> Well, there is. If you look at the cover, >> um, >> again, it's not visual, but that says Hagada shell. Hagada is telling. It's an icon of a person talking just for your listeners. >> And then it's a shell because shell >> and the carp is the ram. >> Hagada shell pesa. >> There you go. >> And this one is this all emojis. >> The entire thing. I am to this day the only person in the world ever to write a book completely in emojis. And that is a distinction I'm proud to to speak on the air. I I have to buy this one because I think there's got to be a kid in my family who would go nuts about this. This is a million emojis in every chapter. >> Uh yes. And uh it this took me this was painstaking. This took a year and a half. >> Is it right to left or left to right? >> Uh it is left to uh right to left. >> So starts here or here? >> Uh on the left side over there. The book is the book is right to left. The reading is left to right. It's very confusing. >> I don't get this. Why is this? >> Uh who? It's an owl. Who knows? Who knows one? Oh my god. >> There you go. So for your viewers, there was an hour. >> What' you major in in college? I must know. >> Egyptology and hieroglyphics clearly. >> No, but seriously. >> No, no, no. College. Yeah. Yeah. I uh what I do belies with the create creativity I'm trying to show you here. I'm an IT guy. Right after our conversation, I'm headed to the city. I manage a help desk. >> And did this book this Hagada the emoji I'll call the emoji for >> exactly what it is. Yeah. >> Did this emoji take also a year or longer? This took a year and a half. >> Wow. >> And uh quick story. I It took a year and a half. I was I sent it off to the publisher who reached out to me. This was Katav Publications. I was headed onto >> Not around anymore, I don't think. >> Oh, they they're still cranking out. Oh, yeah. Left and right. >> Holy God. I didn't realize that. >> Yes, they are. >> Call it Kavode Katav. Yeah. I was about to get onto a plane and the publisher sends me an email. >> The book that you created, which I originally self-published, isn't rendering at the printer. >> You need to do the whole thing from scratch. >> Understood. The images, right? >> The Yeah. So, Super Bowl Sunday uh of 2019, I woke up at 5:00 a.m. and for the next 16 hours, I rewrote the book that took me a year and a half to do. And at the end, it was perfect. I made it to halftime. So, we've got seven Hagas. >> We have seven Hagadas. >> Uh the Hagada Palooa is the most recent one. The dad jokes Hagada, I could see people getting into that. Uh is another one. The Hagada is the way is Star Wars, right? Correct. >> Uh Shakespeare Hagada, self-explanatory. The Corona virus Hagada, which gives me uh stress every time I look at it. The festivist Hagada for you Seinfeld fans and the emoji Hagada which I think is really I mean there are teenagers out there who would love that as a gift for Peso. >> Yes, actually this is my best seller to date. >> I I would imagine so. It's so clever and it also it's like a quiz. Every page is a quiz. Can you figure out what you wrote? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> It's not like you're you know force-feeding us with words. You're making people use their imagination. What could this emoji >> be there for? What a pleasure to meet you. >> Thank you. >> A real pleasure to meet you. What are you working on now? Anything or you're on on break from these books right now? >> I'm not on break. I'm marketing the the >> No, I mean, but in terms of the future like you have anything in your head about the uh about the next one or >> No, my blank's late. What happens is uh >> so I have so I have a suggestion. >> You're ready to listen to it? >> Yeah. >> Well, obviously a JM got that. >> All right. Uh if I do have a good idea, I'm gonna send it over your way. >> Well, that's what I do after Pesak is over. >> Are you a sports fan? big time. >> So, there's got to be a sports huga somehow. There's got to be an angle for >> There's a baseball hagata that's very popular. >> Really? >> Yeah. >> Who wrote that one? >> Uh, I don't know the author, but there's a baseball. As a matter of fact, u my books are at the Whitesman Museum gift shop and >> in Israel. >> No, here in Philadelphia. >> Oh, in Philly. >> And the Star Wars Auda is its second best seller. And the first bests seller is the baseball. Let's check it out. >> Holy c. Any other sports now got this or you don't know? >> Uh, I think not. But now now my head is starting to >> I could see like a spectator sport I go like the experience at a stadium. Yeah, something like that. >> All right. Well, we people do that but not necessarily at the seder. >> Yeah, it's true. But still, these are all fun. >> Yeah, that's >> I think every one of them is going to, you know, hold the attention of of somebody at the sader to >> That's exactly the point of what I'm doing, right? I I get very polite and lovely emails and texts from people who tell me, you know, it wasn't working out so well with certain people in my family and then they they sat down cuz I brought this over to the table. >> I mean, if I if I tell a terrible joke Wednesday night at the seder and I get yelled at by my kids, I'll say, "Wait a second. Let's look if it's in the dad jokes. I got If it's not, then it's not so bad, you know." >> Exactly. And you can blame it on me. >> Yeah. Bode put the real dad jokes in there. You know, mine's not nearly as bad as his anyway. martin bodc b- ode dkbooks.com martinbods.com for all of the hagas there are other books as well but we'll save those for another opportunity please God and I really appreciate you coming by because this is an eye openener for me anything to make pesak more exciting for Jewish people >> that is the point yes >> and and we uh we do that with regular hagodas here we encourage people to get different hagas because again it holds the attention of certain people and just enhances the seders so this in my opinion Even though I'm sure there's some rabbis who want to put you in. I'm sure I'm sure of it. But nonetheless, >> well, I already am. It's nice of you to have me in this fight. >> You're already in. They actually wrote an official letter against you. My god. >> Yes. The Hagada that I'm producing. >> I love it. But nonetheless, I think you're enhancing a lot of great lives out there who are uh who are looking to make their pes even better. All right. Martinbods.com. Have a >> And you as well. Thank you so much for having me. >> Thanks for joining us this morning. More coming up. You are listening to a uh what is today? A Thursday morning edition of JM in the A.M.