I Loathe Me

I'm a big fan of Jewish music, and any time there's a new Jewish band/artist on the horizon I'm always interested in checking them out (FYI-"Except Saturday" is going to be huge). We always get emails at work alerting us of new Jewish CD's coming out, and today we got a very interesting one. We received a link to a website promoting a certain singer (I feel bad enough about what ended up happening so I won't say the name of this singer). We saw his picture and were somewhat dismayed, and confused...especially since he was labeled "World Famous". From his picture it looked like something was wrong with him, my boss said that he was handicapped, but I just ignored it and was waiting to hear his music. The fact that his CD was priced at only $5.99 didn't expunge by bosses suspicion. As soon as we heard him singing we knew that the man was mentally retarded (it didn't look like he had Downs syndrome though). There was nothing melodic about his songs, and as Randy Jackson loves to say, they were quite "pitchy". Fortunately the songs were all duets with a very talented and prodigious Jewish singer, thus drowning out some of the musical maltreatment. Clearly the entire production of this album was a chessed, and I'm sure it made this singer as happy as can be, and that made me immensely happy as well. Although that emotion would quickly fade into guilt.
Around 6 seconds after we heard the music, my boss and I just looked at each other. It was obvious that we both had the urge to laugh, but wanted to hold it back for pitty's if not our neshamas sake. But about 2 seconds after that he cracked, and then I simply lost it. I couldn't help but thinking of Lesley Nielson singing the National Anthem in "The Naked Gun". I tried to gain control, but every time I did I just lost it again because my boss couldn't control himself either. I never felt so bad while laughing. As I convulsed in hysterics I thought to myself "This is so wrong. Control yourself!" And eventually I did, but still feel tremendous guilt now. Unlike most things that make me laugh so hard I cry (e.g. a certain friend running full speed into a glass door), I'm not laughing now, nor do I think I'll lose control when I think about it in the future, B"H.
Obviously this CD wasn't really made for our listening pleasure, and was released (as previously noted) as a chessed as well as an inspiration. At a closer look of the albums cover we saw the Ohel logo, so theres tzeddakah in it as well. My boss was somewhat angered by it, saying that the CD embarrasses the young man who obviously can't sing, even if his ability to memorize and sing the songs is an amazing achievement. We were both reminded of songs Opie and Anthony used to play of a choir of Downs syndrome children. It was of course awful musically, but beautiful spiritually.Obviosuly the latter notion was completely insignificant to O&A. I supported his argument by saying how awful it would be if they or Howard Stern got hold of this album. It could be completely exploited, degrading the singer and his family.
I am disgusted with myself with laughing as I did. I know that perhaps 8 out of 10 people would also lose it, especially with others in the room. After all, laughing is contagious. I wouldn't be surprised if several people I look up to also slipped a giggle, yet that doesn't make what I did any better. I hope I aspire to be one of the 20% who could manage to keep control, and not laugh at a handicapped young mans dreams.