April 2013 – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word

Aired April 20, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPaOUN4N1Io

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 21st, 2013.

What a sad and tragic week it has been. As we all know, the guy who played Lumpy on Leave it to Beaver has died. But beyond that, welcome to the new world order of bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right of us.

Following the events of the Boston Marracre, everyone’s wringing their hands and their tallises, going “what a sick world this is,” “violence is taking over.” I’m not disagreeing that there are meshuggenah murderers in society, but ask anyone in Europe from the 60s and 70s, what it was like with the Basque Separatists and the IRA and the SLA and the NRBQ – you couldn’t walk by a mailbox for fear of the thing exploding. And, of course, Israel has lived for decades with bombs going off in restaurants and missiles flying in, special delivery, from their neighbors. I dare say, it is almost surprising we haven’t had more terrorist acts in recent times, which is a credit both to vigilant police work and the high price of pressure cookers as Walmart.

It is true that in this age of free information, you can find terrorist cookbooks all over the internet. Take a stick of dynamite, unsalted, add four tablespoons of rusty nails, sprinkle with fertilizer, set timer to 3 minutes, walk away. Serves 180. Caution: served very hot.

Should this kind of information be widely available? Hard to say. You can go on the web, look up how to build and wire a desk lamp, then take the lamp and bash your husband over the head. You can’t necessarily blame the messenger. Then again, all too often, the messenger is Al Qaeda, and unlike a lamp, you can’t use a pipe bomb to read by.

Watching the events in Boston, how careful we all were, all week long, not to use the M word. Not to blame the religion of peace. When the New York Post all but hanged two Saudi nationals who turned out to be 100% innocent, the paper was pilloried, and rightly so. Days later, we find out that the real perpetrators were originally from Russia. Okay, not Iran. Not Pakistan. Reserve the judgment. And they’d been in this country since they were-pre-teens. Bodybuilding, boxing, partying, lying to their relatives – typical American college doofuses.

But over the past two years, the brothers had a religious experience, and discovered what? Judaism, no. Sufism, no. Zoroastrianism? I don’t even know what the hell that is. No, they chose Islam. Surprise!

We tried, didn’t we folks? We made our best efforts not to blame the Arabs, not to pin the tail on the Muslims. We should’ve known better. Mohammedian madness strikes again. What is it about that fakakteh religion? What do these people put in their goat stew that turns young men into homicidal maniacs? Maybe we’ll find out soon from this wounded younger brother; maybe we won’t find out until some fellow prisoner at Sing Sing rapes it out of him.

Really, the best news about both of these animals being caught is that they had not taken credit for the marathon bombs. Usually, the Talibastards are jumping up and down and can’t wait to say, “We did it Western pigs. God is Great; carnage is greater.” But these Chechen chuckleheads merely strolled away. That is undoubtedly because they planned more damage to do; a couple o’ dead joggers was just a trial run. The FBI and the Boston police had to get these guys, and they did, for which America owes them tremendous thanks.

But it’s just a matter of time before the next brainwashed kids, or terror cell, or sand-covered douchebag on a prayer mat tries again. Come to think of it, there’s nothing all that dangerous about a bomb-making cookbook written by some half-brained chemistry student. The hazardous book was written 1400 years ago by a bunch of quarter-brained Caliphates in Persia. It’s brutal, it’s destructive, and it fits all too easily in a knapsack.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

—> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28985

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/20/2013): CHARLES GRODIN

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Dave Lefkowitz interviews writer, actor and director Charles Grodin

Topics include: The Heartbreak Kid, Ishtar, Elaine May, Mel Brooks, Albert Brooks, Ray Stark.

Segment originally aired April 20, 2013, as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Sad Note: Our friend of the Daverhood, Charles Grodin, passed May 18, 2021.

Please Note: 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.

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

Dave’s Gone By #420 (4/20/2013): GRODIN TO THE MAX

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Here is the 420th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 20, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Charles Grodin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segue (Boston bands), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (420), and Rabbi Sol on the Boston marracre.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: actor Charles Grodin

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:12:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Boston bands
00:49:30 DAVE GOES OFF – Boston Marathon Massacre
01:13:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Charles Grodin
02:16:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (420)
02:49:00 Sponsors
02:52:00 Friends
02:56:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #064 – The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word
03:01:30 Weather
03:03:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news: 03:03:30 / review: 03:19:00, A Year with Frog & Toad)
03:24:00 DAVE GOES OUT

April 20, 2013 Playlist: “Winterlong” (00:13:00; The Pixies). “Decomposing Trees” (00:16:00; Galaxie 500). “All Mixed Up” (00:20:00; The Cars). “Invisible Man” (00:24:00; The Breeders). “Rip in Heaven” (00:27:00; `til Tuesday). “Fast Man” (00:30:30; Frank Black). “I Can’t Find My Best Friend” (00:34:30; Jonathan Richman). “You’ve Got a Friend” ({live} 00:37:00; James Taylor). “How to Say Goodbye” (00:42:30; The Magnetic Fields). “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” (02:18:00), “Trying to Get to Heaven” (02:23:00), “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” (02:28:00), “Tangled Up in Blue” ({live} 02:32:30), “Every Grain of Sand” ({acoustic} 02:37:00) & “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (02:41:00; Bob Dylan). “It’s Spring” (A Year with Frog and Toad; original cast).

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63 (4/14/2013): Jew in a Box

Aired April 14, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/r95LRvs7oUk

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 14th, 2013.

What’s even creepier than a jack-in-the-box? A Jew-in-a-box. What’s creepier than a Jew-in-a-box? A Jew in a box in a museum in Germany. No, they’re not doing a revival of “Man in the Glass Booth” – though they should, because I hear Gilbert Gottfried is available. No, instead, the Jewish Museum in Berlin – I know, Berlin is a Jewish Museum, or is that mausoleum? – anyhow, the Jewish Museum of Berlin has an exhibit about Jews called “The Whole Truth.” And they’ve got funny yarmulkes and displays about Kosher cooking and circumcisions – hopefully not the same display.

But the exhibit garnering the most attention and controversy – to the point that the New York Times featured it last week – was of a live Jewish man sitting in a glass box. This young man sits on a little cushion, takes questions, and is just observed by visitors to the museum. Responses to this bit of performance art ranged from whimsical appreciation to scoffs about bad taste. One woman said her ancestors spent enough time in German boxcars, she didn’t need to see a living Jew in a terrarium.

I am mostly on the side of the museum in this. I’m for anything that rubs the Germans’ faces in Forties. But the exhibit also asks a legitimate question: after the Holocaust and the near-annihilation of every Jew in the region, how does the country respond to a new crop of Yiddlach living and working in their midst?

You might ask: Rabbi, aren’t you shocked by the idea of displaying a middle-class Jew in a Lucite case, or, as one might call it, Peasant Under Glass? The answer is no. Every other city has a Holocaust museum now. Pretty soon they’ll have drive-in McDachaus. So to make an impact, you need to do something startling and transgressive. Let’s not forget, the Shoah began in earnest on Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass. So putting a Jew behind glass has a little bit of the “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, you can’t get me” about it.

More importantly, though, isolating the Jewish person this way makes a statement about how people of any culture view outsiders. Pass by a bum sleeping on the streets of New York; how do you look at him? Kind of like a tarantula in a zoo exhibit. It’s ugly, unsettling, fascinating from a distance, but you wouldn’t want to find it in your bathroom. Go look at the crowds in San Francisco’s Chinatown. If you’re Chinese, they’re kin; if you’re not Chinese, it’s like watching ants. Well, slant ants. And how do WASPs look at Somalian workers in Colorado? The same way Jews look at shiksehs in Loehmann’s. Aliens among us.

Put another way, we’re all living under someone else’s glass box. Say you’re a stranger knocking on my container, and you say, “Hi. Tell me about yourself.” We might start talking and sharing experiences until – gasp, great revelation – you’re just like me, and I’m just like you – well, maybe not exactly like you because I have a foot fungus thing that my dermatologist is checking into, but other than that . . .

I do think the Jewish Museum in Berlin missed an opportunity with “The Whole Truth” if they’re trying to display an average Jew. For sociological purposes, why not put the Hebrew in his natural habitat? Don’t plunk him in a sterile cube, show him in a delicatessen asking for more coleslaw. Show him at an Orioles game deciding whether to go to the bathroom at the bottom of the sixth or wait till the seventh-inning stretch.

Show him at a Young Israel mixer deciding whether the girl with the diet Coke is worth dancing with or should he take a run at the skinnier chick who’ll probably shoot him down but just might be on the rebound and therefore needy. These are the true quandaries facing Jews in the modern age.

Should the museum ever ask me, I would be happy to participate in their exhibit, even in the glass box. Just give me a plate of herring, a Dr. Brown’s cream and a five-ounce nasal spray, and let the young Berliners come. If they ask me, “What is it like being a Jew in today’s Germany?” I would just say, “Wouldn’t your great grandparents like to know.”

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28989

Dave’s Gone By #419 (4/13/2013): CREATIVE WHITING

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Here is the 419th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 13, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with Margaret Whiting’s daughter, Debbi Whiting. Plus: Rabbi Sol on the Berlin Jewish Museum’s “Jew-in-a-Box” exhibit, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Russia), Inside Broadway and Saturday Segues (Farewells, Jonathan Winters)

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Debbi Whiting, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 Pre-show Intro
00:04:00 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce
00:15:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Farewells (Margaret Thatcher, Andy Johns, Annette Funicello).
00:57:00 Sponsors
01:01:30 INSIDE BROADWAY
01:21:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Debbi Whiting
02:19:30 Friends
02:29:00 NEWS GONE BY
02:36:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63: Jew-in-a-Box
02:43:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Russia)
03:08:00 DAVE SAYS BYE – Jonathan Winters
03:15:00 DAVE GOES OUT

April 13, 2013 Playlist: “Torn and Frayed” (00:17:00; The Rolling Stones). “Tramp the Dirt Down” (00:21:30; Elvis Costello).”Elevation” (00:27:00; Television). “Bring Back Those 50s” (00:32:00; Robert Klein). “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” (00:35:00; Joni Mitchell). “Jamaica Ska” (00:39:00; Annette Funicello & Fishbone). “One Rainy Wish” (00:43:00; Jimi Hendrix). “Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher” (00:46:30; Billy Elliot 2005 original cast). “Friends” (00:50:00; Led Zeppelin). “Once Upon a Dream” (01:16:00; Jekyll & Hyde, 1997 Bway cast w/ Teal Wicks). “My Cup Runneth Over” (01:19:30), “Here to Stay” (01:29:00), “Until it’s Time for You to Go” (01:45:00), “Till We Meet Again” (01:54:30), “Wheel of Hurt” (02:04:00) & “Nothing Lasts Forever” (02:15:30; Margaret Whiting). “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” (01:35:30; Allan Sherman). “Ye Shall Be Changed” (02:47:00), “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” (02:50:00) & “When Ya Gonna Wake Up” (02:57:30; Bob Dylan). “With God on Our Side” (02:53:30; Barb Jungr). “Leave Your Name & Number #2” (03:02:30), “The Zoo (Elephant)” (03:03:00), “Grandpa Beloncort (Calling About Dying)” (03:03:30), “Allen Bresler (Forest Lawn”) (03:06:30) & “Old Folks” (03:19:00; Jonathan Winters).

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/13/2013): DEBBI WHITING

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews the daughter of vocalist Margaret Whiting and arranger Lou Busch, Debbi Whiting

Topics: music, Capitol Records, London Records.

Segment originally aired April 13, 2013 as part of 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 Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #62 (4/7/2013): Roger Ebert

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #62 (4/7/2013): Roger Ebert

Aired April 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAn_bgyfJ7s

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 7th, 2013.

Hail and farewell to the respected, prolific and popular film critic, Roger Ebert. On Thursday April 4th, two days after saying he wanted to take things a little slower, he instead came to a complete halt, with cancer doing him in at age 70.

Anyone who loves movies is going to miss Roger Ebert, not just because he warned you what was a stinker before you laid down your six dollars. And then $10. And now $19, or 25 if you throw in popcorn. And not just because Roger could talk intelligently without being patronizing – something I haven’t mastered in 53 years. And not just because Roger’s love for good movies came through even when he pooped on bad ones. The biggest legacy of Roger Ebert – and Gene Siskel – was in remaking the idea of “what is a critic?” Admit it. Before those two, you probably thought of a movie or theater critic as this dreary, sepulchral, Ichabod Crane type, with a Bostonian accent, his nose in the air and his pen in someone’s back. He was better than you, and he sure let you know it. Or he talked so far over your head, sparrows would crash into his verbs on their way to Capistrano.

But not Roger and Gene. Of course they were smart, but they were next-door-neighbor smart, not nuclear physicist smart. And when they explained why Blake Edwards was a genius and dead teenager films are a scourge – even if you didn’t agree, you appreciated their conviction and knew they were treating you like a grownup. Roger may have won a Pulitzer, but he never came off like a pudknocker.

Oh sure, Ebert’s weight made him an easy target for many years. At one point, he was so out of shape, it seemed a miracle he could even lift his thumb. And then, he had to give up TV because of the Big C. The first time I saw a picture of him after all those operations, my jaw dropped. Well, not as low as his, but it was still a shock. And yet, he continued to write. A man who came of age in a time of typewriters and telexes kept himself relevant in our age of tweets and tablets. In fact, he posted more movie reviews last year than he did any year before that. If I had to give that many sermons in a year, my brain would turn to gefilte fish.

And if my cranium did become an amalgam of whitefish, pike, sawdust and carp, would I have the guts Roger Ebert had in being so visible? Of going on Oprah with his new voice or on the internet with his fake chin? If I get a pimple on my nose, I hide for three days.

Among the many quotable quotes of Roger Ebert, he once said that “your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.” Well, I may not be able to follow another Charlie Kaufman movie, but I’m sad that we lost Roger Ebert. I think of Gene Siskel in heaven, waiting all these years for the day he could go, “Awright. No cameras. No censors. Rog, let’s really talk about `Cop and a Half’” Go at it guys; no one did it better.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28994

Dave’s Gone By #418 (4/6/2013): MEAT AND GREET

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Here is the 418th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 6, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with Eric Mittenthal, Vice President of Public Affairs of the American Meat Institute. Plus: Rabbi Sol on the passing of Roger Ebert, Saturday Segues (Phil Ramone, Tom Lehrer & Tiny Tim) and Inside Broadway.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: meat promoter Eric Mittenthal

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:12:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Phil Ramone
01:02:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (01:02:00) & Indianapolis (01:11:00): The Whipping Man (01:12:00), Indy Fringe (01:17:00), Twelfth Night (01:19:30), Michael Feinstein & Barbara Cook (01:23:00))
01:32:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Eric Mittenthal
02:01:30 Sponsors
02:08:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (meat)
02:34:00 Friends
02:38:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #62 (Roger Ebert)
02:42:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Tiny Tim & Tom Lehrer
02:58:00 DAVE GOES OUT

April 6, 2013 Playlist: “The Happy Hot Dog Man” (00:04:30; TV ad). “Minstrel of the Dawn” (00:14:00; Gordon Lightfoot). “You Don’t Own Me” (00:17:30; Lesley Gore ). “Poetry Man” (Phoebe Snow; 00:20:00). “Rolling Home” (00:24:30; Peter, Paul & Mary). “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” (00:28:00) & “Questions for the Angels” (00:48:30; Paul Simon). “Only the Good Die Young” (00:31:00; Billy Joel). “Rag Mama Rag” ({live version}; 00:35:00; The Band). “Half as Big as Life” (00:39:00; Promises, Promises, 1968 Broadway cast w/ Jerry Orbach). “Once Before I Go” (00:41:00; The Boy from Oz; 2003 Broadway cast w/ Hugh Jackman). “Gloomy Sunday” (00:44:30; Sinead O’Connor). “All That Meat and No Potatoes” (01:30:00; Fats Waller). “Meat City” (01:59:00; John Lennon). “Honest with Me” (02:08:30), “Quinn the Eskimo” (02:14:00). “Disease of Conceit” (02:17:00), “Tough Mama” (02:20:00), “Diamond Joe” (02:24:30), “On the Road Again” (02:28:00) & “Yea, Heavy and a Bottle of Bread” (02:30:30; Bob Dylan). “Livin’ in the Sunlight, Lovin’ in the Moonlight” (02:42:30), “Mickey the Monkey” (02:47:30) & “Santa Claus has Got the AIDS this Year” (02:51:00; Tiny Tim). “My Home Town” (02:45:00), “Silent E” (02:49:30), “The Vatican Rag” (02:54:00) & “When You are Old and Grey” (02:59:00; Tom Lehrer).

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/6/2013): ERIC MITTENTHAL

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews the Vice President of Public Affairs of the American Meat Institute, Eric Mittenthal

Topics include: meat, hot dogs and more meat.

Segment originally aired April 6, 2013 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please 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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com