Dave’s Gone By #555 (4/30/2016): GOOD GOLLY

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Here is the 555th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 30, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actress Molly Ringwald. Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Dylan – Sooner & Later (Modern Times), Saturday Segues (In the News, Pete n’ Bing), Inside Broadway.

Guests: actress Molly Ringwald, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Zoom, disco)
00:31:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:05:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Pete n’ Bing
01:22:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & reviews (Blackbird, 01:50:30))
02:03:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Molly Ringwald
02:42:00 Sponsors
02:47:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Time Out of Mind)
03:09:00 Friends
03:17:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News
03:42:00 Weather
03:44:30 DAVE GOES OUT

April 30, 2016 playlist: “Get Up and Go” (01:07:00), “Birthday Polka” (01:12:30) & “The Water is Wide” (01:16:00; Pete Seeger). “You’re the Top” (01:10:00; Frank Sinatra & Mitzi Gaynor). “Dear Hearts and Gentle People” (01:14:00; Bing Crosby). “Blackbird” (01:56:00; Carly Simon). “Sooner or Later” (01:58:00), “Pick Yourself Up” (02:38:30) & “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” (03:45:30; Molly Ringwald). “Highlands” (02:50:00; Bob Dylan). “Sympathy for the Devil” (03:18:00; Rolling Stones). “Indiana” (03:24:00; Shooby Taylor). “I Hope They Draft Me Soon” (03:26:30; Benny Bell). “Me and Mrs. Jones” (Billy Paul; 03:29:00).

Molly Ringwald
Blackbird
Pete Seeger
Bing Crosby

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/30/2016): MOLLY RINGWALD & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress Molly Ringwald

Topics include: John Hughes, jazz, swing, Brat Pack.
Segment scheduled to air April 30, 2016 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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. All content (c)2016 TotalTheater Productions.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #138 (4/24/2016): SHMURA MATZOHS

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #138 (4/24/16): Shmura Matzohs

aired April 23, 2016 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/9e-dOyy_cQA

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 24, 2016.

Among the great inventions of mankind are the wheel, the lever, the polio vaccine, and the computer microchip. But let’s not leave out one of my favorite all-time creations. Something so simple yet so perfectly imperfect. Something both great and crummy — pun intended.

You take flour and water, mix them together, roll it flat flat flat—flatter than a ten-year-old’s training bra—poke the dough with tiny holes, and push it into a super-hot, dry oven. After a couple of agonizing minutes, shazam! Matzoh! Somehow, this flour-and-water combo doesn’t turn into pita bread, it doesn’t become olive loaf, it doesn’t blossom into a Pepperidge Farm cookie. It just stays matzoh, and that’s good enough for me. Almost.

See, you can get Streit’s or Horowitz-Margareten or Manischewitz and other commercial brands of matzoh, and they’ll get you through the Passover holiday just fine. You make matzoh brei, where you dip it in egg; you can crumble it and make matzoh-meal pancakes, which iHop would not be remiss in adding to their international breakfasts. Dear God, they make chocolate-covered matzoh, which sounds gross, but hey, if they can do it with crickets and bumble bees, why not the bread of affliction? (Chocolate-covered matzoh is not to be confused, by the way, with chocolate matzoh, which is just a giant chocolate bar made into the shape of a matzoh. In other words, a thousand times better. Chocolate-covered matzoh is to chocolate matzoh as a gold-plated watch is to a Rolex. If you promise your grandchildren chocolate matzoh, but you give them the chocolate covered, don’t expect them to visit you in the nursing home years later.)

But I digress. Matzoh is a tasty, non-nutritional but sustaining food meant to remind us of the bread our ancestors ate when they high-tailed it out of Egypt. `Cuz when you’re leavin’ hasty, you ain’t got time for pastry.

However, my reflection today is not just about matzoh; it’s about a special version of matzoh. The platinum standard, if you will. And I will. When I’m conducting a seder, or kicking back watchin’ baseball during chol hamoed, I want me some shmura matzoh! That’s the stuff! That’s the bread of affection! It’s the same flour and water, the same procedures. But with shmura matzoh, the harvested grain is guarded from the very first second it’s plucked to the moment the Rabbi slides it and its compadres out of the oven.

Shmura matzoh is the ultimate homemade bread. No machines, no slicer cutting the edges into right angles. No opening a box where every piece looks like a ceiling tile in a suburban office. Shmuras are individually mixed, rolled, and baked. And they don’t look beautiful or symmetrical. They’re lumpy, they’re brittle, often overcooked, and the burnt parts are all over the place. In fact, shmura matzohs are so ugly, they could replace Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.

But oy my God, are they delicious! There’s something so real and so pure about them. Everything else you get in the store is machine-pressed, dye-cut, flushed with preservatives, and so far away from actual food, you’re not even sure what the hell you’re eating. With shmura matzoh you taste three things: flour, water, and Rabbi sweat.

Now there’s all sorts of hoo-ha/doo-dah rules about using shmura matzohs. You’re supposed to eat them only at the seder and no other time — not even the rest of the holiday. I’m sorry, but at $17 a box with six pieces of bread in it, I’ll eat it on Christmas if I want to. Also, since the matzoh is utilized during the seder ceremony — including breaking it for the afikomen, the bread has to be complete, unbroken. You think it was tough for the Jews to cross the Nile out of Egypt? Try getting a one-millimeter cracker from a Brooklyn factory to a Staten Island dinner table without having a few oopsies.

Still, it’s worth it because shmura matzohs are the bomb. Yes, they’re impossible to butter, and they don’t actually break in half; they splinter — leaving shards of crumbs everywhere you look. But I don’t care; their deliciousness trumps all. I mean, on Passover, we have to eat raw horseradish, and then we have to take yummy charoset and ruin it by mixing it with horseradish, and then for eight days: no pizza, no pretzels, no ravioli, no danish, no muffins, no waffles, no wafers, no hoagies, no heroes, no oatmeal, no beer. So if I want a piece of homecooked unleavened bread that looks like a manhole cover but tastes like Judaism, I will seek no further than shmura matzohs. Mmm mmm flavorless — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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

(c) 2016 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By #554 (4/23/2016): THE BRONZE AGE

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Here is the 554th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 23, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews bronzing king Bob Kaynes. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection #138 (shmura matzohs), Inside Broadway (Bright Star), Saturday Segues (Prince, in the news), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (prince), My Sick Mind (Prince), Greeley Crimes & Old Times.

Guests: Bronzing king Bob Kaynes, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (bronzing, Prince)
00:28:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:03:00 GOOFY QUESTIONS
01:08:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Prince
01:31:30 MY SICK MIND – Prince
01:34:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & reviews (Bright Star))
02:16:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Bob Kaynes
02:55:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (prince)
03:16:30 Sponsors
03:21:00 Friends
03:29:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #138: shmura matzohs
03:37:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News
03:59:00 Weather
04:01:00 DAVE GOES OUT

April 23, 2016 Playlist: “Kiss” (01:11:30), “Nothing Compares 2 U” (01:15:00), “Raspberry Beret” (01:20:00), “1999” (01:23:30) & “Purple Rain” (04:08:00; Prince). “When You Get to Asheville” (02:13:00; Steve Martin & Edie Brickell). “Trouble in Mind (02:57:00; Barb Jungr). “Gates of Eden” (03:01:30; Arlo Guthrie). “Jokerman” (03:06:30; Bob Dylan). “New York” (03:38:00; Cat Power). “Twenty Dollar Bill” (03:40:30; Caroline or Change 2004 Broadway cast). “China” (03:42:30; Tori Amos). “Jack the Ripper” ({live}; 03:47:30; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds). “Song of the Seder Paraders” (04:03:30; Gladys Gewirtz).

Bob Kaynes
Bright Star
shmura matzohs

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/23/2016): BOB KAYNES & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews The Bronzing King, Bob Kaynes

Topics include: baby shoes, bronzing.
Segment scheduled to air April 23, 2016 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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. All content (c)2016 TotalTheater Productions.

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

Dave’s Gone By #553 (4/16/2016): THE PARKERILLA

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Here is the 553rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 16, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician Graham Parker. Plus: Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Laterns), Saturday Segue (in the news), Inside Broadway.

Guests: Singer-songwriter Graham Parker, Dave’s wife Joyce.

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN (Dave’s cold, Dave in New York, homophobia)
00:46:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:25:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News
01:45:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:10:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Graham Parker
03:30:00 Sponsors
03:35:00 Friends
03:40:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later
03:56:30 Thanks & Sponsors
04:00:00 DAVE GOES OUT

April 16, 2016 Playlist: “My Buddy” (01:25:30; DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince). “Be My Guest” (01:29:00; Fats Domino). “Great Balls of Fire” (01:31:30; Tiny Tim). “Listen the Snow is Falling” (01:33:30; Yoko Ono). “When I Grow Up/Naughty” (02:08:00; Matilda 2013 Broadway cast). “Going There” (02:10:30), “Transit of Venus” (02:22:30), “Protection” (02:40:00), “Big Man on Paper” (02:56:00), “Local Girls” (03:09:00), “Long Stem Rose” (03:19:00), “My Life in Movieland” (03:26:30) & “Release Me” (04:01:00; Graham Parker). “Melancholy Mood” (03:42:30), “Worried Blues” (03:45:30) & “Isis” ({live Biograph version; 03:48:00).

Graham Parker

Dave’s Gone By #552 (4/2/2016): TAPIN’ CHAPIN

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Here is the 552nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 2, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician Tom Chapin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (long johns), Saturday Segue (in the news), Inside Broadway.
Guests: Singer-songwriter Tom Chapin, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (The Miracle of Long Johns, neverending tour, THC, Joe Franklin)
00:34:00 SATURDAY SEGUE (in the news)
01:08:30 Sponsors
01:13:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
01:44:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Tom Chapin
02:50:00 Friends
03:00:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (long johns)
03:20:30 DAVE GOES OUT

April 2, 2016 Playlist: “Something in the Air” (00:36:30; Thunderclap Newman). “Mastermind Sketch” (00:40:00; The Two Ronnies). “Abortion” (00:43:00; George Carlin). “One Home Run” (00:48:30; Van Dyke Parks). “Don’t Just Stand There” (01:40:30; Patty Duke). “Quite Early One Morning” (01:45:00), “The Riverkeeper” (02:01:30), “Put a Light in Your Window” (02:11:00), “Down There” (02:24:30), “This Pretty Planet” (02:30:00), “Smart Without Art” (02:43:00) & “Remember When the Music” (03:29:30; Tom Chapin). “John Wesley Harding” (03:05:00), “Long Time Gone” (03:08:00) & “Caribbean Wind” (03:12:00; Bob Dylan).

Tom Chapin
Joe Franklin
David Lefkowitz in “The Miracle of Long Johns” at Studio Theater in Theater Row NYC, October 23, 2015. Photo by Farnaz Taherimotlagh.

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/2/2016): TOM CHAPIN & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews singer-songwriter Tom Chapin

Topics include: Harry Chapin, Pete Seeger, children’s music, fracking.
Segment scheduled to air April 2, 2016 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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. All content (c)2016 TotalTheater Productions.

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

Tom Chapin

Dave’s Gone By Interview (4/16/2016): GRAHAM PARKER & Rabbi Sol Solomon

Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).

Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews musician Graham Parker

Topics include: rock, Mystery Glue, Stiff Records.
Segment aired April 16, 2016 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

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. All content (c)2016 TotalTheater Productions.

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

Graham Parker