October 2011 – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #27 (10/30/2011): BLACKOUT

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #27 (10/30/2011): Blackout

Aired Oct. 29, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91jvDZjIAOc

Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 30th, 2011.

Well, winter has come to Greeley, USA. It’s only the end of October, but this is Colorado, so of course, we get snow before Halloween. Who knows? Maybe by Lincoln’s Birthday we’ll have beach weather.

But this being the first snowstorm of the season, all gehenna breaks loose. You’d think Northern Colorado had never seen snow before. It’s one thing when Florida gets a dusting, and cars go sliding across the road – mostly Jews leaving the dinner buffet to get home before noon.

And in the northeast, the TV weatherpeople go berserk. “First winter blast! Mothers ambushing the supermarket! Buy rocksalt, find your candles, don’t park your car on alternate sides of the street Tuesdays, Thursdays and every fifth Sunday when there’s a full moon and Jupiter is rising in the guest house of Saturn!” Two inches of snow, and you’d think polar bears were threatening to galumph down Fifth Avenue.

But Colorado? Without snow, the only thing Vail would be known for is Walgreens and syphilis. You don’t need Nostradamus to predict that an early season storm will dump white stuff on trees, roads, backyards, powerlines. Snow and Colorado go together like borscht and sour cream. Like David and Bathsheba. Like Pakistan and duplicity.

So why does it take two and a half days for Xcel Energy to get the lights back on? Did they not glance at a weathermap a week before the storm? Monks in Bangladesh knew there would be blizzard in Colorado before the local energy company did. Honest to God, Swami Poopoopadoola in Rangpur was on the Weather Channel a week ago saying, “Ganesh advises you should hire extra tree-removal crews – and I don’t even know what snow is.”

And so, for the past three days of my visit to Greeley, I have lived without light, heat and hot water. Which is why I smell like a giraffe in a sweat lodge. If I want to get warm, I have to crawl into the refrigerator. There’s no television, so I have to engage with these big, unwieldy black-and-white things our ancestors once called “books.” And there is no internet, so I can’t spend my usual afternoons downloading doctored nude photos of Mayim Bialik.

Now the more rugged among us would hail this return to an older way of life. How good it is, they would say, to be disconnected from intolerable inboxes, cacophonous commercials and the twaddle of Twitter tweets. Enjoy the silence, reflect and recharge. Breathe.

I can’t breathe, I’m Jewish! I’m lucky if I can groan and wheeze. I want my MTV! I miss my spam! I can’t build a cozy fire without getting splinters in my groin.

It may be sad, but technology is here to stay, so when it is taken from us, however briefly, the loss feels like a phantom limb. From Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, we have been blessed by people who have made our lives so convenient, we can no longer endure inconvenience. If that means we’re spoiled, so be it.

And now, speaking of spoiled, there’s a kosher flank steak in my freezer that needs to be handled with rubber gloves and a gas mask.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. (sings) “Walking in a winter wonderland…dammit.”

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/29/2011): PIETA BROWN

Dave Lefkowitz interviews singer-songwriter Pieta Brown

Topics include: music, Mercury, Greg Brown.

Segment originally aired Oct. 29, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Note: Interview segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.

All content (c)2011 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #365 (10/29/2011): BLACK OUT, BROWN IN

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Here is the 365th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired Oct. 29, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: singer-songwriter Pieta Brown

Featuring: Dave chats with singer-songwriter Pieta Brown. Plus: Saturday Segues about darkness and Halloween, Inside Broadway (reviews of The Mountaintop and Relatively Speaking), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (darkness) and Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on the blackout.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:08:30 DAVE GOES OFF on Xcel
00:16:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Darkness
00:46:30 DAVE SAYS BYE – Barry Feinstein
00:50:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (00:51:00), The Mountaintop (00:58:30), Relatively Speaking (01:05:30))
01:18:30 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #27: the Blackout
01:46:30 Weather & Sponsors
01:57:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later: darkness
02:36:00 GUEST: Pieta Brown
03:01:30 Thanks Yous & Friends w/ Joyce Weil
03:10:30 DAVE GOES OUT

Oct. 29, 2011 Playlist: “Beware of Darkness” (00:16:30; Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs); “Dear Darkness” (00:20:00; PJ Harvey); “Blackout” (00:23:00; Muse); “Darkness Descends” (00:27:30; Laura Marling); “Blackout” (live) (31:00; David Bowie); “Dark Night Blues” (00:35:00; Blind Willie McTell); “Darkness” (00:38:00; Jenifer Jackson); “Blackout” (00:41:30; Anna Calvi); “When I See Mommy I Feel Like a Mummy” (01:22:30; Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band); “When We are a Vampire” (01:28:00; Jane Siberry); “Zombie” (01:30:30; Fela 2010 Bway cast); “November Spawned a Monster” (01:35:00; Morrissey); “Werewolves of London” (01:40:00; Warren Zevon); “Day of the Locusts” (01:58:00) “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky” (02:02:00); “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” (02:11:30) & “Father of Night” (02:15:00; Bob Dylan); “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” (02:07:30; Antony & the Johnsons); “Mercury” (02:21:00), “Butterfly Blues” (02:24:30), “Be With You” (02:28:00), “I Don’t Mind” (02:30:30), “So Many Miles” (02:34:30), “I Want it Back” (02:55:30) & “Closing Time” (03:14:00; Pieta Brown).

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #26 (10/22/2011): Occupied

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #28 (10/22/2011): Occupied

Aired Oct. 22, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: Occupied

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 23rd, 2011.

So all these people without an occupation are busy occupying. They’re occupying Wall Street, they’re inhabiting Zuccotti Park, they’re occupying cities and colleges across America because the have-nots are getting a bissel sick and tired of the haves.

It was ever thus, people. Before we all were born, a handful of upper-class hoity-toities looked down on the rest of us. If they were in a generous and tax-deductible mood, they donated a library or slipped a few bucks to charity.

Everyone hates the rich because…they’re rich. And we’re not. Life sucks, then you die.

But now we have a growing segment of the population who are fed up with the status quo and think they can change it by…showing up somewhere and not leaving. Hey, it beats violence, and protests certainly did have an impact on the Vietnam War, racial segregation and the roll-out of New Coke.

Still, I am bothered by two aspects of this “Occupy Somewhere” movement. The first is the “and then what?” factor. Okay, so you shout at the rich, you rail at the corporations, you run the CEOs out of town on a rail – well, more likely a Lear Jet. And then what? What do you replace them with?

If the protesters are saying, “make college affordable, or at least make it so I’m not paying off my student loan with my Medicare and reverse mortgage.” Okay.

If the protesters are saying, “change the tax code,” fine, I’m all for it. Tax the rich until they’re poor, tax the poor until they’re dead, and give the middle class a break for once.

If the protesters are saying, “don’t let stockbrokers, bankers and corporate bigwigs get away with rampant fraud,” I’m for that, too. Let them get away with just enough fraud so that they keep jobs in America instead of farming them out to Uttar Pradesh.

The problem is we don’t know WHAT the protesters are saying except, “we can’t get jobs, the jobs we get don’t pay anything, and the pay we get goes to buy imported crap because we don’t make anything.” Republicans and social conservatives keep wanting to liken the occupiers to Soviet Communists. Well, guess what? Those old Russians were rebelling against the gentry and landowners who controlled everything and gave nothing back. Sound familiar? Communism didn’t happen because the poor wanted to give Fox News talking points, it happened because the peasants found it unpleasant watching the czars eat pheasant.

These hippies and democrats and college kids and ukelele players, they don’t care about words like Marxism or capitalism. They just want their piece of the pie, and they’re not blind; they know that out of ten slices, nine have been gobbled up before the pizza even gets delivered.

So if you ask where my sympathy lies, it is with these demonstrators, even if the only thing they’re demonstrating is how easy it is to get really grimy after three days sleeping in a park.

What I do take issue with is the whole theme of the protest – “occupying.” The organizers took their motif from the so-called Arab spring. You know, where young Arabs got tired of their corrupt, totalitarian leaders so they staged relatively peaceful rebellions that will ultimately bring in corrupt, fundamentalist Muslim leaders? Anytime you look to the Arabs for a moral compass, you’re pretty much gonna float into an iceberg.

The anti-Semitic undertones of this movement are very minor, but they’re there. From the usual grievance that Jews comprise the evil one percent oppressing the other 99 to the idea of that loaded word: “occupation.” Even though the protesters are, themselves, the occupiers, you can bet many of them are weeping for the Palestinians supposedly displaced from the sliver of Israeli land they absolutely have to live on.

And yet, and yet. There is a positive impulse here, and I hope President Obama – and whatever clown the Republicans pull out of their sidecar – I hope they listen to these rebels and take to heart the idea that American wealth, enterprise and future security have been stolen by a handful of families and corporations.

When everybody gets to eat, but some people eat a lot better – so it goes, that’s the world. When people are starving and Marie Antoinette is still eating cake, that’s when the knives come out. Or worse, in this case – the bongs and bongos.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29993

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/22/2011): JASON GRAAE

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews actor and singer Jason Graae

Topics include: Broadway, cabaret, Jerry Herman, Olympus on My Mind.

Segment originally aired Oct. 22, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

All content (c)2011 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/22/2011): BARB JUNGR

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews singer Barb Jungr

Topics include: cabaret, Bob Dylan

Segment originally aired Oct. 22, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By #364 (10/22/2011): JUNGR & GRAAETER

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Here is the 364th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Oct. 22, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guests: singer Barb Jungr and actor-singer Jason Graae

Featuring: Dave chats with singer Barb Jungr and actor-singer Jason Graae. Plus: a Saturday Segue remembering Bert Jansch and Jagjit Singh, Inside Broadway (reviews of Intringulis and Follies), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflections on Occupy Wall Street.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:31:00 GUEST: Barb Jungr
01:24:00 Sponsors
01:35:00 SATURDAY SEGUE: Bert Jansch
01:45:00 GUEST: Jason Graae
02:22:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (Follies (02:22:00) & Intringulis (02:37:00))
02:44:30 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #26: Occupied
02:52:00 DAVE – Friends & Weather
02:58:30 DAVE GOES OUT
02:59:00 DAVE SAYS BYE – Jagjit Singh

October 22, 2011 Playlist: “Things Have Changed” (00:09:30), “Sara” (00:14:30), “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (00:19:30), “Sugar Baby” (00:23:30), “Blind Willie McTell” (00:40:30), “Man in the Long Black Coat” (01:09:00) & “Forever Young” (01:19:30; Barb Jungr); “Come Sing Me A Happy Song to Prove We Can All Get Along the Lumpy Bumpy Long and Dusty Road” (01:22:30), “The Bright New Year” (01:37:00), “Alman” (01:41:00) & “Tree Song” (01:42:30) (Bert Jansch); “No Love is Sorrow” (01:38:30; Pentangle); “You I Like” (01:45:00), “It Only Takes a Moment/Loving You” (02:05:30) & “I Promise You a Happy Ending” (02:19:00) (Jason Graae); “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” (02:22:00; Follies, 1998 Paper Mill cast); “Don’t Look at Me” (02:35:00; Follies in Concert); “Sarakti Jaye Hain Rukh Se Naqab Ahista Ahista” (03:02:30; Jagjit Singh).

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #25 (10/2/2011): Days of Awe

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #25 (10/2/2011): Days of Awe

Aired Oct. 1, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkNjq0IwyUU

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 2nd, 2011.

He’s making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice – not Santa Claus; I’m talkin’ about God. This is the time of year when HaShem opens his great big book. And I don’t mean “Harry Potter and the Cauldron of Borscht.” I mean the book of life and death, the book where God inscribes your name for the year. If he writes your name in bold calligraphy, you’re gonna have a fabulous year ahead. If he scribbles your name in pencil and deliberately spells it wrong, you better get health insurance. And if he erases it or just puts your initials in the margin, you might want to go shopping for a good mausoleum.

These are the Days of Awe, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. We call them the Days of Awe because we look at all the crappy things we’ve done and go, “awwwww.” This is a time of reflection, expiation and making amends. If you’ve cheated somebody, or told a hurtful falsehood, or threatened to kick somebody’s tuchas because they won’t let your nine year old be in the school play (even though she’s perfect for it, and she can act rings around that little blonde whore they got for the part because her parents donate ten thousand dollars a year to the school’s PTA fund… bastards!), you need to take a breath, acknowledge that you may have overreacted (even if you haven’t) and apologize to those you have disparaged, and to HaShem for your prideful behavior.

Unlike the Catholics, who do so much sinning they have to confess every week, Jews save up all their misdeeds to talk about them one day a year: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On this day, we say, “I’m sorry” to God and to everyone we have offended. Granted, there’s some absurdity there, because you’re not allowed to bathe, put on deodorant or use mouthwash, which means if you go to synagogue on Yom Kippur, you’re offending everybody.

In the shul, the cantor sings “Kol Nidre,” a prayer in which we ask God not to take us seriously. Seriously! We tell HaShem, “Look, over the course of the year, we’re gonna make some pretty stupid promises. At a traffic stop, we’ll say, `God, if this patrolman lets me off with a warning, I’ll donate what the ticket would have cost to charity.’ Or we’ll think, `If this dentist would just stop giving me pain, I’ll stop wishing to see him thrown from a tall building onto a steal spike.’ Or we’ll say, `If I could only get this raise, I’ll stop stealing office supplies.’” We won’t. And God knows we won’t. And we know God knows we won’t. So we sing “Kol Nidre” to him to let ourselves off the hook: “God, anything we vow to do over the next 12 months, ehhhh..not gonna happen. So please don’t listen. Put on your iPod. Just nod and wink and realize we’re gonna be back here in a year apologizing for shit we did that we said we wouldn’t, and stuff we didn’t do that we promised we would. And when you write my name in big block letters, remember it’s Solomon with one `L’ and three `O’s.’”

I hope, dear listeners, that we are all inscribed in the book of life and that we don’t do anything to jeopardize that status. After all, these days I’m sure God is using an e-book, so if we’re bad, all he has to do is backspace. At least the Days of Awe allow us to…re-Kindle.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=30001

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/1/2011): BONNIE FRANKLIN

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews actress Bonnie Franklin

Topics include: One Day at a Time, Applause, Broadway, theater, TV.

Segment originally aired Oct. 1, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Sad Note: Our friend of the Daverhood, Bonnie Franklin, passed March 1, 2013.

Complete Original Broadcast: http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/4345

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Interview (10/1/2011): GREG KIHN

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews musician and radio host Greg Kihn

Topics include: Greg Kihn band, radio, MTV.

Segment originally aired Oct. 1, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com