Howard Dardashti:
Oh, wait a minute, I have too many fears here. I thought I counted ten. Oh, wait a minute. No I do have. No that's right. I have ten. Okay.
Number one. Sharks.
Number two is fleas. I had a terrible flea infestation in my house, and I was living in this five bedroom house all by myself because my wife had moved out just about a month and a half before. So I was living by myself in the house working on a divorce papers and scratching and bleeding. It was a terrible time.
Number three. Diverticulitis. I had two attacks about five and a half years ago. And I didn't have the operation that seven doctors recommended. And since I had gone against the advice of seven doctors, I always have had that fear of the thing coming back to me and having the attack and then looking like a fool.
Number four. MRI. I had an MRI done, and the MRI was squeezing me in, and I felt claustrophobic.
Number five. Guns. Now I personally have fear of using a gun because I'm afraid it might go off and hurt somebody. And really, I don't have a gun. It's funny, but I'm really appreciative of other people who have guns. I think every house should have at least a gun, if not a machine gun. And the reason for that is that I have a fear of another Holocaust, or something like it, happening. I know someone who comes to the synagogues that I like to attend and he always has, on Shabbat morning, on Saturday morning, he has a gun in his pocket. God forbid if anything happened like it happened in Tree of Life, but I know that it would be very helpful the fact that he would be back there.
Number six. Good and bad. Better and worse. My fears are that people do not see the difference between good and bad. I am in music, for instance, and one time I had to leave a congregation as a cantor and my old congregation was trying to get a cantor for high holidays after I leave, and they had this terrible, terrible, singer who, just his pitch and tonality wasn’t good, and his knowledge of the Jewish music was not good. And I could not understand how they could make a decision like this.
Number seven. Classical music. I'm afraid it's being lost.
Number eight. Losing my lines during a written speech, or when conducting music from a score.
Number nine. No one listening to me about my opinions and ideas. Just as an example I can say, I have a benevolent way to deal with the illegal aliens. And I tried a few different ways to get it to Trump Organization, because I feel that he's really good, and I went to his Mar-a-Lago house actually, and he wasn't around, and gave it to his guard. I said, “Would you hand this to the president, it’s very important.” It's just one page it would be very clear to understand, you know, what my solution was, and I never got an answer showing me that they read the solution.
Number ten. Radical Islam. Well I grew up in Iran, my father was a very famous singer, maybe the most famous of Persian art music, and I grew up with actually a lot of Muslims. My best friends were Muslims. But nevertheless, I know my father had these friends and we would travel together. And my father always sang, and you know what they would say to my father was, “What a pity that you're Jewish.” But you were friends. We ate together and had a good time. But yet that little, I don't know if you can call it anti-Semitism, but that little bit was there. So I am afraid even though I have friends who are Muslims, but in radical Islam I have a fear of it.
My name is Howard Dardashti. I was born with the name Hamid Dardashti, and when I lived in Israel I was called Yehuda Dardashti, and these are 10 things that scare me.
All right.
[singing]
I might listen to myself later and say, “Oh god, I wasn't warmed up.” My pitch might have not been exactly the way I like.