Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews photographer Steve Gottlieb
Topics include: Flush, Washington DC.
Segment aired May 2, 2015 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)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
The 34th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 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.
* 34. On a break from shooting his latest film, Sean Penn flies to Hawaii to visit his favorite relatives: two spinster aunts who have lived together for decades.
Not only are they wonderful ladies, but they’ve done well in business together–right out of their basement–by selling authentic Hawaiian foods like macadamia nuts and poi and spam to customers around the world.
When Sean Penn gets to their house, however, he immediately calls the cops because he smells something bad at the front door. The police break in and make the tragic discovery that both women are dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. To get out of the cops’ way, the actor goes down to the basement–but that just makes him even more distraught because all the food there is infested with mice and vermin.
Soon, the CDC arrives, and neighbors are treated to the sight of health inspectors carrying out living and dead mice covered with remnants of Hawaiian food. One neighbor turns to the other and says, “You know, this makes me think of an operetta.”
“An operetta? What on earth are you talking about?”
“Well,” says the first guy. “haven’t you ever heard of `The Poi-Rats of Penn’s Aunts?”
click above to listen (audio file)click above to listen (audio only)
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #123 (5/3/2015): Popeyes
aired May 2, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/FgAWY957oPY
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 3, 2015.
I don’t know how much a gold nugget is worth, but I’ll tell you how much a chicken nugget is worth: $400. Let me explain.
Last month, Marissa Holcomb was working at a Popeye’s fried chicken in Channelview, Texas. We can already feel sorry for Marissa Holcomb because if there is a tenth layer of hell, it would be a Popeyes Fried Chicken in Channelview, Texas.
So Ms. Holcomb is doing whatever managers do in a Popeyes franchise—dipping claws and beaks into a secret combination of garlic and sawdust, keeping the grill reasonably free of pestilence, and coping with the kinds of customers who find Kentucky Fried Chicken too high-end. And this was a busy night for Popeyes because they were running a special: two nuggets for $1.19. I mean, why pay more for arteriosclerosis when you can get two lumps of toxic entrails for the price of a Bruno Mars download?
So Marissa Holcomb, mother of three, with another on the way, is selling customers breasts and thighs—since she was obviously giving hers away for free—when in comes a robber. He leaps over the counter, waves his big, scary gun around, and gets away with $400 out of the register.
Now, you would think this thief, this animal, this cowardly piece of garbage with a weapon in his hand and a beanie over his face—you’d think he was the villain of this story, but oh no. He’s not the Bluto of this Popeye parable.
After the robber runs out the door, one of Holcomb’s superiors approaches her. Does he ask her, “Are you okay?” No. “Would you like the rest of the day off?” No. “Do you need to change your underwear?” No. The manager says, “you owe Popeye’s $400.”
“Exqueeze me?” says Holcomb, her eyes popping. Because it’s Popeyes.
“You owe us the 400 bucks the thief took when you were on your shift.” Why? Because employees are supposed to make sure that the cash registers don’t hold that much money at one time—specifically because it encourages crime, and if a thug does rob ya, he gets away with pocket change instead of a big score.
So because this woman was too busy to unload the till, she was on the hook for what the crook took. Still, she told her overlord, “I just had a gun to my head, and if you think you’re going to hold me up for 400 bucks, you know where you can put that drumstick.” They fired her, and that’s when the fire-storm began. The story went viral, with readers swearing they would never set foot in a Popeye’s restaurant—and those were just the ones trying to avoid diarrhea.
Of course, at Popeyes corporate, the high mucky-mucks were shamed into making nice-nice. They explained—and this is true—that they can’t be there to oversee every manager and every decision at every independent franchise. It’s like asking the Baseball commissioner to stop players from grabbing their nuts and spitting; he can only fine them after the fact. And heck, I can’t even get the Rabbinical council to stop doing it.
More importantly, Popeyes apologized to Holcomb, offered her her job back AND $2,000 in lost wages . . . which is a small price to pay for the company to win back a smidgen of consumer respect. Too small. As of this writing, Holcomb was weighing her options, which no doubt include hiring a lawyer to sue Popeyes for $80,000 per nugget.
To be fair to Popeyes, this woman had apparently been warned a few times to make sure the cash registers weren’t bulging wider than Aretha Franklin’s stretch pants. So she may have been due for a dressing down or even a suspension for ignoring an important rule. But that was not the time. You don’t tell a person crawling out from under a desk after a California earthquake, “I told you not to put the stemware in the breakfront!”
Like so many mega-businesses, Popeyes put profit before the proletariat. The truth of the matter is: If I was working in a store and someone came up to me with a gun, I would give them the register, the silverware, the carpeting and three of my best-looking daughters. And if I was managing a store where this happened, I would send the employees for counseling, give everyone a week off, and hire a big, shtarka security guard. I couldn’t pay him much, but he could have the leftover daughters. And if I was a thief hoping to rob the store, I’d move to Baltimore where everybody’s getting stuff for free! And if I was a customer hoping to eat Popeyes’ chicken, I’d look both ways, carry a gun, and double-check to see if there are any stray cats left in the neighborhood.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, crossing the road with the proverbial chicken, to Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 507th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, May 2, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with photographer Steve Gottlieb (“Flush: Celebrating Bathrooms Past and Present”). Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection on Popeyes, Saturday Segues (Ben E. King, In the News), Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (testing), Inside Broadway, The Wretched Pun of Destiny (operetta).
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: photographer Steve Gottlieb, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce Weil (Room C, brain bucket, Vin Scelsa, Fordham) 00:40:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Ben E. King 00:59:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:29:00 Sponsors 01:30:30 DAVE GOES AWAY – New York (MoMa & The Frick) 02:01:00 Sponsors 02:05:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Steve Gottlieb 02:53:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (02:53:00) & reviews: The Heidi Chronicles (03:21:30) & The King and I (03:31:00) 03:48:00 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #34 (operetta) 03:52:30 Weather 03:55:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (testing) 04:16:00 Friends 04:26:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #123 (Popeyes) 04:34:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 04:54:30 DAVE GOES OUT
“I Count the Tears” (00:44:30) & “This Magic Moment” (00:46:30; (The Drifters). “Supernatural Thing, Part 1” (00:49:00) & “Stand By Me” (00:53:00), “It’s All in the Game” (04:57:00; Ben E. King). “Flushed from the Bathroom of Your Heart” (02:50:30; Johnny Cash). “Hello, Young Lovers” (03:43:30; Renee Fleming). “Born in Time” (03:57:00), “Property of Jesus” (04:01:00), “Maybe Someday” (04:05:30) & “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window” ({alt. version}, 04:09:00; Bob Dylan). “Good Morning Baltimore” (04:34:00; Hairspray 2002 Broadway cast w/ Marissa Jaret Winokur). “Boxing” (04:38:00; Ben Folds). “Earthquakes” (04:42:30; Luie Luie). “May Day (There’s a Riot Goin’ Down) (04:45:00; Passing Strange 2008 Bway cast w/ Stew). “Dirty Bridge” (04:46:30; Amy Rigby).
Ben E. KingElizabeth Moss in The Heidi ChroniclesKelli O’Hara in The King and I
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (4/19/2015): Campaign 2016
(aired April 18, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/h-wdAa7RXFM)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 19, 2015.)
Well, the Presidential race for 2016 officially began this week when Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Her decision to run came as a shock to an order of Trappist Monks in Burkina Faso, but pretty much everyone else in the universe was expecting this, oh, seven-and-a-half years ago.
And why not? For all the negative publicity and setbacks, the past six years of Obama-America has been moderately successful—spectacularly successful if you compare them to the previous eight years under Shrub. The economy slowly turned around, real-estate is up, gas prices are down, we managed the wars that Dubya started, gay marriage and legal pot became the norm (and, astonishingly, the empire did not collapse), people who couldn’t afford healthcare . . . still can’t afford healthcare but now they have to have it, we’re making nice-nice with Cuba, and we turned bin Laden into fish food. Not perfect but not bad, considering Obama inherited a country that was so rotten, it could have been a Renny Harlin movie.
Through it all, Hillary Clinton took her lumps in 2000 and bided her time visiting a million countries between then and now in order to keep us out of new wars and, let’s face it, to avoid spending quality home time with her husband. The GOP is gonna hammer Hillary over Benghazi and ISIS and her seeming inability to answer a direct question, but half the Republican candidates won’t answer a direct question, either–`cause they can barely speak English.
I kid, I kid, but look at what the Red States are throwing at the next election: Jeb Bush. Do we really want to hear that last name connected with the White House ever, ever again? Sure, comparing Jeb to his brother George W. is like comparing Steven Spielberg to the guy who directed “Gummo.” But Jeb’s intelligence is a danger in itself. Let’s not forget who was governor when Florida hijacked the presidency from Al Gore 15 years ago. (In case you forgot, it was Jeb Bush.) And while he’s pro-education and more sensible than most in his party about immigration, he would decimate social services and be so right-wing on abortion, he’d make jacking off illegal because you’re killing a bajillion potential human beings in spermatozoic form.
Then you’ve got Ted Cruz. He looks like Joseph McCarthy, sounds like Rick Santorum, and comes off like a Sunday preacher on acid. Gotta love him for being pro-Israel, but no Federal money for Hurricane Sandy? No leeway on gun control? No compassion for unwed mothers? No comprehension of global warming? No remorse for shutting down the government in 2012? No admitting that he can’t even run for president because he was born in Canada? (Actually, he can `cause his mom’s American, but why isn’t he up north shooting moose and ordering Terrence and Philip to get a haircut?)
Then you’ve got Marco Rubio, who makes one crowd-pleasing speech, and suddenly he thinks he can run the free world. (Remember how that hot-speech thing worked out for Sarah Palin?) Anyway, he’s Latino, and he’s got charisma. Good for him. I liked Desi Arnaz, but I wouldn’t’ve voted for him. Rubio is anti-same-sex marriage and has so little experience in foreign policy, he makes pre-2008 Barak Obama look like Henry Kissinger. Including the glasses. Worst of all, Marco was mentored by none other than Jeb Bush — the guy he’ll run against in the primaries. Who says there’s no loyalty in politics? I do; I say there’s no loyalty in politics.
Also in the hunt: Rand Paul. He’s so right wing, he makes the Koch Brothers look like Emma Goldman. Paul is another of those religious fundamentalists who thinks conception begins in the nut sack, and he is the epitome of the Republican who believes the way to govern is to block anything and everything the Democrats wanna do. If Obama says walruses have tusks, Rand Paul will filibuster to make sure they’re called “long teeth” instead.
Other rambunctious Republicans who might give Jeb a jolt include Chris Christie, who was desperate enough to accept a Democratic handout but arrogant enough to clog up the George Washington Bridge. Rick Perry, who is currently under indictment, hates gays, hates abortion, and worst of all, comes from Texas. Scott Walker comes from Wisconsin, for which he deserves sympathy. And I hear he’s very much an advocate of two-year colleges – by which I mean that he’s cut so much funding from state universities, they won’t be able to afford four years of teachers.
And did I mention Donald Trump was running again? Just take a moment to process that. Donald Trump, who went bankrupt three times and yet brands himself as a financial genius. He does have a magnificent knack for self-promotion, but he spends money he doesn’t have like it’s going out of style—so why isn’t he running as a Democrat?
Oy. It’s gonna be an interesting year and a half. Night after night of Rachel Maddow shilling for Hill and Sean Hannity sugarcoating anything the Republican party scrapes off its shoe and smears on a ballot. My parishioners tell me, “Rabbi, you bitch and bitch and bitch but don’t offer an alternative. Why don’t you run for President, you’re so smart?” The answer is, I’m smart enough to know my limitations. If I were President, the first thing I’d do is declare war on every country threatening Israel. The second is to make it illegal to use the New Testament as anything more than literature or a doorstop. And the third would be to make pastrami a mandatory part of all school lunches. As for immigration: look, my wife and I have 21 ½ children. Where the hell are we supposed to get nannies for less than six bucks an hour if we send back all the illegals?
Global Warming? Half my relatives live in Florida, and their skins are like komodo dragons from the sunshine. For the sake of the Jews, let’s at least get some umbrellas down there and maybe a few icemakers. Quality of life crime, like graffiti or noise pollution? A simple and effective plan. First offense, 25 hours of community service. Second offense? Death penalty.
As you can see, I am not meant to be the leader of the free world. `Cause I’m a schmuck. I’m saving you the trouble; I’m telling you, I’m a schmuck. The hard part is keeping some other schmuck from becoming president. For 227 years, we have failed at this almost uninterruptedly. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the next four.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 506th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 18, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with animator Bill Plympton (“Cheatin’,” “Your Face”). Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection on the 2016 candidates, Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Percy Sledge, In the News), The Wretched Pun of Destiny (Hangover), Greeley Crimes & Old Times.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: animator Bill Plympton, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (dandruff, potatoes, egg creams, costumes) 00:24:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 00:53:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (Blackout!, Dave’s solo show) 01:16:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Percy Sledge 01:36:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:05:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Bill Plympton 02:30:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Altria) 02:50:30 Sponsors 02:57:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (2016 Candidates) 03:07:00 Friends 03:19:00 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #33 (hangover) 03:47:30 Weather 03:49:30 Thanks & Upcoming 03:55:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 11, 2015 Playlist: “Ketchup” (00:15:00; Tom Paxton). “Sudden Stop” (01:20:00), “Out of Left Field” (01:23:00), “When a Man Loves a Woman” (01:26:30) & “You Really Got a Hold on Me” (01:29:30; Percy Sledge). “Come to the Fun Home” (02:02:00; Fun Home 2014 off-Bway cast). “Your Face” (02:25:30; Maureen McElheron). “Things Have Changed” (02:33:30), “Simple Twist of Fate” ({live 1975 version} 02:38:30) & “Pay in Blood” (02:43:00; Bob Dylan). “Master Song” (03:22:30; Leonard Cohen). “Your Tax Dollars at Work” (03:28:00; Henry Phillips). “The Prisoner” (03:33:00; The Both). “Bussboys, McDonalds and Minimum Wage” (03:37:30; Chris Rock). “Hillary Will Survive” (03:39:00; The Capitol Steps). “The Happy Happy Joy Joy Song” (03:57:00; Wax).
Segment aired May 9, 2015 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)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews animator Bill Plympton.
Topics include: Your Face, Cheatin’, animation, Disney.
Segment scheduled to air April 18, 2015 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)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Segment aired April 18, 2015 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)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 33. A guy calls his best friend after overdoing it the night before. He says, “Hey bro, I need one of your patented hangover cures.”
“Sure,” says the friend. “Tell me what you drank, and I’ll tell you what to take.”
So the guy tells him, and the friend says, “No problem. You just need the Fairy Tale Cure.”
“The Fairy Tale Cure? What’s that?”
“You take a thick slice of gouda cheese, and around it you wrap a thin slice of smoked salmon. You eat that, and then you take three aspirin. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” says the guy. “Cheese, salmon, aspirin—great! But why is it called the `Fairy Tale Cure’?”
“Because,” says the friend, “haven’t you ever heard of Gouda, Lox and the Three Bayers?”
The 32nd Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 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)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 32. When Uber was in its planning stages, the two founders were still college kids, and they had an even bigger idea than just creating a livery car service. First of all, they wanted all the dispatches coming from one central station, and that station would be located on a blimp hovering over the city like a roaming GPS. Also, the Uber guys wanted the cars to be able to warn drivers if they were approaching a dangerous place. For example, a car in New York would make a deep growl whenever you drove towards a high-crime zone. In the midwest, you’d be warned of an impending dust storm by the car making a loud hissing noise.
“I think we have amazing ideas,” says one Uber dude to the other, “but will anyone listen to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re just a couple of frat boys. How do we get the world to take our ideas seriously?”
“It’s all in the marketing,” says the other. “We tell the truth, but we do it with a catchy slogan.”
“A catchy slogan?” says the friend. “We’re two college kids talking about putting a homing station in a blimp to track limousines that hiss at you in a dust storm. What slogan could we possibly use?”
“Let me think,” says the friend. “Aha! I’ve got it! Uber: One Station, Undergrad, in Dirigible, with Livery and Dust Hiss for All.”
Segment aired April 18, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.