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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #087 (11/12/2014): Duck Amuck

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #087 (1/12/2014): Duck Amuck

aired Jan. 11, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/yqw7B8Z50Mo

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 12th, 2014.

Where does free speech cross into hate speech? This is an issue I deal with all the time, or at least other people tell me I do. At what point does expressing an unpopular opinion become something you have to censor and censure?

The question has been bedeviling the whimsically named Arts & Entertainment Network owing to their smash-hit program, “Duck Dynasty.” It’s all about this Louisiana backwoods family that has spent the past 25 years hand-making products for duck hunters. They apparently created the world’s most effective bird call, the so-called “duck commander” – and from this, they got rich. But they didn’t let money go their heads; they still live like Swamp Thing. But thanks to the reality show, these hirsute hillbillies are squatting on an $80 million empire.

Everywhere you go, there’s “Duck Dynasty” t-shirts, Halloween masks, posters, body spray – and more power to them. If you can just be your crazy self and get the whole world to watch, that’s the secret to fame in the 21st Century. If you’re lucky and have huge tits, you’re Kim Kardashian; if you not so lucky and have a penis, you’re Jon Gosselin. If you have huge tits AND a penis, you’re Big Ang.

Essentially, the Robertson family is a hick version of “Jersey Shore.” Instead of Italian goombas who do Gym/Tan/Laundry, you got smelly Bayou bozos who do Guns/Tattoos/Lard. And all of this was adorable in a post-Civil War, “let’s-make-fun-of-the-South” kind of way, until the patriarch of the clan, Phil Robertson, turned his private prejudice into public pronouncements. In an interview with GQ Magazine – because, of course, the Robertson clan are everyone’s idea of GQ material – grampa Phil Robertson shared his religious thoughts on sin. Without much prompting, foolish Phil said, quote, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” etcetera.

Phil Robertson parroted the same drivel spouted by every religious homophobe with just enough literacy to read the King James Bible. Leviticus says, “It’s an abomination when two men shtup each other.” Oddly enough, the bible says nothing about two women shtupping each other. This proves God is merciful because it spares us from having to edit out the fourth scene in every good porno movie.

But I digress. Phil Robertson views queerness as a disgusting sin – something even more loathsome to him than bathing or shaving. In his defense, grumpy grampy says he doesn’t advocate hatred or hate crimes against gays. Just being repulsed by them is enough. As Jesus says, turn the other cheek, just don’t spread those cheeks for a hunky apostle.

Faced with these comments in GQ and mounting pressure from gay groups – and if you’ve ever felt mounting pressure from gays, you know how painful that can be – A&E, which broadcasts Douche Dinosaurs, had to make a decision: Cancel the show? Keep the show but jettison its most popular star? Do nothing and just hold out until the next Miley Cyrus controversy takes everyone’s mind off things?

In the end, Arts & Entertainment Network – which in recent years has become as artful and entertaining as a children’s party clown performing knee surgery – A&E did a little of everything. They suspended Robertson, then they immediately reinstated him. They apologized for grampa’s stupidity, but then said, “Hey, he’s family. What can you do?” You can be richer than Croesus and still be a cretin.

And A&E has a point. We’re talking about “Duck Dynasty” not “Malcolm Gladwell Presents.” Just like the Jersey Shore kids and the Honey Boo-Boo brood, we’re watching a clan who, combined, don’t have sufficient I.Q. to spell “I.Q.” We expect the Phil Robertsons of this world to say off-the-wall things, and we’d get bored if he didn’t. We expect his thoughts to be either dead wrong or right but expressed in a goofy way.

All these reality shows are sort of the opposite of Fox News. Fox is dangerous because the hosts express themselves beautifully and are thus able to spin partisan factoids into a credible semblance of reality. “Duck Dynasty” is about folks who could star in the sequel to “Deliverance.” That the Robertsons can form sentences at all marks astonishing progress up the evolutionary ladder.

The point is, you can’t make a silk purse out of a duck’s ass. If we put someone on TV for being a laughable putz, we shouldn’t be shocked when he goes medieval on our ears. And if we penalize grandpa Phil for expressing his honest feelings about fags, what do we do when Jay Leno makes an Asian joke about North Korea? What do we do when a celebrity who’s had lipo makes fat people feel bad? As with so many things, there’s a slippery slope. And a fat person on a slippery slope is quite hilarious to watch.

Double standard? Perhaps. Do we go easy on Phil Robertson because he merely picked on gays – as opposed to saying that Jews killed Jesus or Negroes were more fun when they were slaves? But even then…we’re talking about a man who spent his life figuring out how to make noises that sexually arouse ducks. Let’s all be clear about that. And let’s keep Phil Robertson on “Duck Dynasty” until we either get bored with him – which should should come in another two minutes out of his allotted 15 – or viewers simply realize, “Hey, television doesn’t always have to be this shitty.” In the meantime, all A&E has to do is put up a disclaimer: “The views expressed in the following program do not represent the opinions of this network, this station, or this century. If Phil Robertson uses the bible to say something offensive and ignorant, well, just look at him. What the duck did you expect?”

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

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-28X

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27900

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #112 (12/7/2014): Cos

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #112 (12/7/2014): Cos

aired Dec. 6, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/MaWHy74ejho

Hey Hey Hey! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 7, 2014.

How much smoke does there have to be before we cannot deny that there is fire? Well, when my wife is cooking, that’s almost every meal. But in the case of crime and accusation, at what point do look at hearsay and more hearsay and still more hearsay, and think, “It would be nice to have proof, but it’s time to presume the guy’s guilty until proven innocent.” Sounds ridiculous, but there is a logic to it. Does anybody in the world believe O.J. Simpson refrained from chopping up his ex-wife and her boyfriend the way Ted Nugent slices a deer? Can you hear the name Michael Jackson and not think, “He was bad. He was bad. Sham-on. You know.”

And now another black celebrity – well, Michael Jackson wasn’t exactly black, but be that as it may – Bill Cosby, beloved comedian Bill Cosby, has gone from “I Started Out as a Child” to finishing up in various teenagers. For years, Cos has been the cause of whispers, accusations, unsavory speculations and sub rosa scuttlebutt. There was even a civil suit – to continue the alliterations — but it was settled out of court, because a man of Cosby’s wealth could pay families off and leave the world guessing at his motives. After all, even if he was 100% innocent – which he may well be – he’d still have to hire a team of lawyers and endure his name being dragged for months through courts and headlines. And if he’s fully exonerated, the muttering won’t stop: “Oh, he probably did it. Those famous people get away with everything.”

At the same time, so many women, so many similar incidents, so many pointing fingers. Or something stubby pointing at their fingers. Janice Dickinson may be out of her mind, but was her night with Fat Albert what drove her there? And what about Judy Huth, the first accuser to actually subpoena his penis? Last week, Huth filed a lawsuit against the “I Spy” guy for drugging and raping her when she was 15. Too many years have passed for a criminal trial, but at least she’ll have her day in court — though it will still be a case of “he said, she said, he said, she said, he said, she couldn’t say because her mouth was full.”

Cosby is counter-suing, possibly because at this point, he realizes that “no comment” and “I didn’t do it…that time, or that time, or that time” won’t be enough to convince a cynical public – or all the movie and TV people he’s trying to make deals with. They’re all pulling out. Okay, you have five seconds to make your own joke about that, but seriously, Bill Cosby obviously had enough cash, power and influence in the last 40 years to make evil deeds go away. But did he? The burden of proof belongs to the accusers. It’s a little too late for DNA, hotel registries and presidential dry-cleaning bills, so their memories of couches, beds, baths and beyonds better be unimpeachable.

And by the way, I’m really not one of those people who blames the victims – or alleged victims – in rape or sexual-assault cases. But this woman who’ll be suing Cosby four decades after the fact… She was 15 years old when she met 40-year-old Cosby in the park. He took her and her friend to a tennis club where he bought them drinks – and I don’t mean Gatorade; more like a Get-`er Aid – and then he asked them back with him to the Playboy Mansion. I don’t care how naïve girls were back then, if you’re a teenager, and a guy your dad’s age asks you back to the Grotto, what the hell do you think is gonna happen? You think he wants to hear how you’re doing on the debate team? Well, in this case, yes! She helped him master-debate. Supposedly against her will. And against his willy.

And people scratch their heads. “If even half the allegations from different women are true,” we think, “how’d he get away with it? How did he get to be Cliff Huxtable instead of Inmate #42837?” But then again, look at Jimmy Savile over in England, and Rolf Harris in Australia. Beloved entertainers who did more – and worse – than Cosby, and didn’t hit the skids until years after their indiscretions. So, alas, there is precedent for extreme crime and delayed punishment.

What a rotten year it has been for comedians. David Brenner dead from cancer. John Pinette dead from weight issues. Joan Rivers killed by minor surgery. Robin Williams going through a period of belt tightening. Carlos Mencia…still not funny. And now, one of the top five greatest comedians of all time, Bill Cosby, not exactly having the last laugh.

I still hope none of this is true, and these are just gold-diggers or mass hysterics or bitter has-beens who never got the ingénue roles and music careers they wanted. But the realist in me realizes that the star of “Mother, Jugs and Speed” was a mugger with drugs and spooge. I know you were in “Let’s Do it Again” – but did you have to do it again and again and again? Oh Bill, how could you disappoint us this way? After all, it takes a special kind of genius to do something even more vile, even more unspeakable and horrible than “Leonard Part 6.” And no, I won’t be giving my children your chocolate pudding pops.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #109 (10/19/2014): EBOLA

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #109 (10/19/2014): Ebola

aired Oct. 18, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmaLeEb1jhA&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 19, 2014.

A year ago, if someone came up to me and asked, “Have you ever heard of ebola?”, I would have said, “Sure, I’ve heard of ebola. I’m ebola. I go to the alley every weekend, and my high score is 230.”

How far we have come in such a short time that ebola has mutated from an obscure, 15-year-old virus to an American panic attack. In just two months, we’ve gone from, “Oh great. Africans are dying from something besides starvation and AIDS?” to “Close the schools, block the airports, fumigate the national parks.”

On some level, all this caution is good. Perhaps we learned from the AIDS years the penalty for looking the other way when horror happens to someone else. In 1984, Ronald Reagan and Ed Koch could blink at HIV and say, “Ehh, it’s a faigeleh plague. Maybe it’ll thin the herd.” Thirty years later, we look at Africa and go, “It’s not in our backyard yet, but we live in a small neighborhood.”

So missionaries and do gooders trek to Liberia and Nigeria and Sierra Leone to help contain the contagious. Good for them. Woulda been better if they’d gone with a one-way ticket. They come back to the United States, unaware that they’re infected. See, ebola is a disease that takes a while to show how insidious it is. Like marriage.

Anyhoo, what a shock! The missionaries and nurses come back on our soil, and we get our first cases in American hospitals, where the protocols are fammished because nobody knows what we’re dealing with yet. Some genius physician says, “Let’s bring the sick people over here because we can treat them better. How do we keep a zillion other people from being exposed? We’ll work that part out later.”

The minute we started bringing carriers over here, you knew and I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody sneezes, someone else inhales, they cough on a third person, and boom, you’ve got school crossing guards in Hazmat suits. How is that I can’t even put a bandaid on myself without fainting, but I know more than The Center for Disease Control?

What I admit I don’t understand is how this disease is spreading so fast. Ebola is not a virus like the chicken pox where a four-year-old bumps into a five-year-old, and soon both of them are home with mommy allllllll day long. Instead, Ebola is like AIDS in that it takes serious physical contact to pass the pandemic from person to person. You don’t get AIDS just from holding someone’s hand. Well, unless you’re holding it halfway up your tuchas. And even then you have to have an open sore for the bad germs to climb into.

Ebola is not carried by air or water, you don’t catch it from mosquitoes—in fact, patient zero apparently got it from a bat. So, if you’re a baseball player, watch out.

We can beg the ebola victims, or anybody coming from West Africa, don’t kiss anybody, don’t shtup anyone, don’t go on the subway and wipe your boogers on the grabby pole—tempting as that is. If you’re from some country where ebola is spreading like Iggy Azalea, go directly to a hospital or, better yet, turn around and get a boarding pass for the first plane back to Lagos. By the way, you have an uncle there who left you $3 million. All you have to do is bring a thousand-dollar downpayment to this lawyer on the internet.

But I digress. President Obama has chosen an ebola czar — I think I once dated a girl named Ebola Czar — but the dawdler in chief is stopping short of a travel ban. Which basically means: Dangerously ill people, keep coming over here, we’ve got a guy with a suit and a desk. Meanwhile, Frontier Airlines is dealing with a stupid nurse who flew from Dallas to Cleveland during her incubation period, and a Dallas hospital worker who’s stuck on a ship that can’t dock because he might be a carrier. (sings) “The blood Boat.”

And yet, through all of this, getting hysterical does nobody any good. The vast majority of people don’t go around handling blood and sputum and hypodermic needles all day. Unless they’re Andy Dick. So calm down. Take your vacation, go to school, eat at the cafeteria. Be happy that some African countries are closing their borders and keeping containment, and do not allow undue worry to keep you from enjoying your day. After all, life is just a bowl o’ cherries. If cherries carried ebola, then we’d have a problem.

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

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-22F

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #108 (9/28/2014): Opiyum

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #108 (9/28/2014): Opiyum

aired Sept. 27, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/eEhsyp6F2SQ

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 28, 2014.

You know how you can never eat only one potato chip? Or M&M? Or pound of
brisket? Well, a chef at a Chinese restaurant in China dreamed up a way to keep his customers coming back for more. And more. And more. A fella named Zhang wanted to make sure hungry diners chose his noodle shop over all the others in his province, so he did what any entrepreneurial sociopath would do: he went out and bought several pound of poppy buds. That’s the stuff you make opium with—for those of you who don’t live in California or Colorado.

Anyhoo, he pounded the poppies into a powder and sprinkled it into the flour for his noodle recipe. Since opium has a narcotic, addictive effect, Zhang figured customers would start eating his entrees, develop cravings, and return for more. Considering that Chinese food automatically makes you crave more of it an hour later, Zhang seemed to have a foolproof scheme. That is, until one of his diners decided to drive home. Police made a routine traffic stop, gave the guy a breathalyzer, and lo and behold, he was high, and he be holdin’.

The poor shlub was arrested and held in prison for two weeks. All the while, he protested, “It was the noodles! It was the noodles!” You can imagine how that went over with the warden. But the customer convinced his family to go eat at the noodle shop a couple of times. Police then agreed to test the family, and—you got it—they had more poppies in `em than Dorothy, the Tin Man and all those midget eunuchs combined!

The police—or, sorry, this is China—the po-rice, allested the lestaulaunt owner and put him in jail for two weeks. Now the driver is suing the city for wrongful arrest, and the restaurant owner is saying, hey, poppy seeds were actually common in Chinese cooking before they were banned a few years ago. I guess they were poppy-lar. Heh heh heh dammit.

What I don’t get about this story is two things: aleph: why you would buy a hundred-dollar bag of drugs to sell 24 cents worth of noodles. And beth: why any restaurateur would think you need opiates to get people hooked on noodle soup. Ask any Jewish grandmother. If you’re sick, if you’re under the weather, if you’re just plain ravenous: put a bowl of chicken noodle soup in front of you, already you feel better. Just from the smell, let alone the heat, the taste, the slurpy lokshen.

Real Kosher chicken soup is its own addiction, especially with those giant matzoh balls that are heavy but light but heavy but light but heavy but light. And for those who think chicken soup is not a drug, why do you think they call it Jewish Penicillin?

Now, let me be clear: I am against any chef or anybody tampering with food by using harmful ingredients, be it hippies sharing funny brownies at Woodstock or Monsanto shpritzing everything with growth hormones and high-fructose corn syrup. But at the same time, it’s not as if we can cast the first stone. The guy who invented Coca Cola was a morphine addict who was crushing coca leaves into his wine. In the late 1800s, a local prohibition forced him to change his recipe – not to take the cocaine out, just the alcohol. However, on his own volition, he nixed the cocaine and replaced it with syrupy sugar — which, as we know from our children, has no addictive or drug-like properties whatsoever.

Nevertheless: let the story of Zhang be a lesson to anyone who wants to turn chow mein into cow-caine: desist and resist! Or, put another way, you can use your noodle, but don’t turn us into noodle users!

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27556

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #107 (9/21/2014): Gwyneth

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #107 (9/21/2014): Gwyneth

aired Sept. 20, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AF1GwetYq3E

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 21, 2014.

Over this summer, I had my beefs with celebrities – some Jewish, some not – and their bashing of Israel over the Gaza War. Celebrities who are either misinformed or simply too damn dumb to know who their friends are in this world, versus who the enemies are. Who is creating a climate of death and destruction versus who is just trying to live without being hit by rockets every day? So fie on Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem and Rihanna and that putz from Pink Floyd Roger Waters, and Chuck D, who’s been salting his lyrics with anti-Semitic slurs since day one. You wanna know what a Terrordome is, Chuck? Go live in Israel and be forced to live under an iron terrordome so that Hamas rockets don’t fall on your black ass. Why don’t you do that, Chuck D-spicable?

Meanwhile, other famous folk have been fabulous! Howard Stern, Bill Maher, Joan Rivers – she should rest in peace – Woody Allen, who gave a wonderful, insightful interview about the situation. He was the first one to say that if, back in 1948, the Arabs had treated Israel like a friendly neighbor instead of hornets’ nest, everything would be different. Notice: it’s all the funny people, the comedians, who see through the Palestinian PR poppycock. I guess it takes a humorist to shoot the arrows of logic through balloons filled with hot-air. Or, in the Arabs’ case, airplanes filled with terrorists. Thank God the funny people get it, because all these self-inflated “serious” actors and musical artistes – they look in the mirror and see Felix Frankfurter staring back at them – instead of the hot dogs they really are.

Even so, I come today not to vilify my enemies but to glorify my brethren and, in this case, sistren. In celebrity news last week, it was revealed that the Jewish people will be gaining a notable. The decades since World War II have seen our numbers chopped by the Holocaust, by assimilation, by intermarriage, by – you should pardon the expression – conversion (ptooey!). Now, the Orthodox are doing their best to reverse the trend. They’re shtupping and shtupping and being fruitful and multiplying, which has been heavenly to the cause, even as it’s been hell on the welfare rolls.

But we cannot rely merely on the horniness of our most devout cohorts to bolster our population. It is a delight, therefore, to report that yes, we’re getting one back. Someone who, if nothing else, raises the overall good-looks quotient of our nation by at least a percent or two.

Gwyneth Paltrow, a shikseh goddess if there ever was one – tall, blonde, willowy, pretty as a picture, and pretty in motion pictures – Gwyneth Paltrow is converting to Judaism. Now, to be clear, she’s already halfway there. Her father was television producer Bruce Paltrow, a proud member of the tribe. Her mother, however, is the lovely non-Jewish actress Blythe Danner. She’s the one on TV commercials hawking Prolia, a pharmaceutical that helps weak bones, which is ironic because you don’t get nicer bones than Blythe Danner or her kid.

Little Gwyneth was raised in a home with both religions, which she found very nice. But in recent years, she’s been studying Kabbalah, which is a weird, mystical occult offshoot of Judaism. Kind of liked dungeons and dragons, only the dungeons are synagogues and the dragons have big noses and law degrees.

But Paltrow is not just being swayed by a cultish micro-sect. She’s done her homework. In 2011, she appeared on that TV show that delves into your genealogical history. She went into the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side and looked at pictures of her father’s father’s father – a great Rabbi. And his father, also a Kabbalistic Rebbe of note. With people like that in your lineage, what are you gonna be, a Presbyterian?

And Ms. Paltrow has said that she wants to bring her children up, quote, “in a Jewish environment.” Well, she’s in Hollywood, so she’s already there. But she’s got one kid named Moses – so come on, she might as well have named him Jewy Jewberg – and the other child she famously named Apple. Well, is there a more Jewish fruit? From Eve in the garden to the treat we dip in honey for a sweet New Year, the apple is a treasured food for our people – and it doesn’t clog up your tuchas like matzoh.

And speaking of eating, Paltrow has said that she loves to cook and feed people, making her a Jewish mother, and she has amazing genes, making her a Jewish princess. And hey, considering all the macrobiotic laboratory crap she eats, she’s a Jewish doctor, too!

Now, all of this could just be a star’s fad, or Paltrow trying to find herself after consciously uncoupling from her shaygitz husband of more than a decade. Whatever the reason, I hope it takes. I hope she finds in Judaism a beautiful way of life – not from all the rules, not from the mystical narishkeit, but from fully joining a people that has survived the worst the universe can throw at them and still turn to each other and say, “Really? Those shoes with that shirt?”

Welcome, Golden Gwyneth, to the fold, and when your kids turn 12, look me up. I can have them chanting the Haftorah like Yossele Rosenblatt in three months flat, or your money back. Well, some of your money back.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #106 (9/7/2014): Uzi Does It

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #106 (9/7/2014): Uzi Does It

aired Sept. 6, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM9w34BrJf8. AUDIO: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27571

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 7, 2014.

Chuck D once rapped, “My Uzi weighs a ton.” If only Uzi submachine guns did weigh a ton, then children couldn’t pick them up and fire them. But, of course, submachine guns are made purposely to be lightweight and portable yet still cause massive damage in a brief amount of time. Like eating sugar-free Gummi Bears.

Last week near Las Vegas, a nine-year-old girl was practicing on a gun range. As Lewis Black would say, I shall repeat that. There’s an Arizona firing range, about an hour from Sin City, where tourists can go practice their marksmanship under instructional supervision. Among those tourists last week: a nine-year-old child. (Not that there are any nine-year-old grownups – unless you count kids with the aging disease that makes them look like Mr. Magoo.) This little girl was doing so well with regular weapons, that her instructor, Charles Vacca – the late Charles Vacca – said, “Oh, what the hell. Let’s give her a repeating assault weapon, and see how she does.”

She did not do well. I think most parents will tell you that a nine-year-old girl can barely control her bladder, let alone a semi-automatic machine gun. Charles Vacca instructed the precocious tyke to pull the trigger and fire off one round at the target. Which she did. But you know, bullets are like potato chips; you fire one, before you know it, you’ve emptied the whole bag. The difference between a snack food and an Israeli-made weapon of mass destruction is that a can of Pringles doesn’t have a kickback. Well, unless they’re made with Olestra. A machine gun, however, in the hands of someone who weighs fifty pounds, is gonna squeeze off fifty rounds. One of those bullets managed to find its way to the middle of Charles Vacca’s forehead, which is why he had to cancel the rest of his classes through next Thursday. His return after that depends on whether Moshiach comes on Friday and revives him.

Otherwise, you’ve got a dead guy, a child who has to go through life knowing she killed him, and a gun industry saying, “Hey, freak accident. We don’t need minimum age requirements, just height and weight suggestions.” Morons.

But there is some good that can come out of this tragic incident. When this moppet murderess grows up and goes to college, she is the last chick any frat boy is gonna date rape. (“Steer clear, bro. Remember what she did to the last guy who grabbed her arm?”) Also, in the big book of karma, you gotta figure this is payback for every deer that was ever minding its own business, frolicking in the woods and suddenly, BAM!, she’s on the hood of a four-by-four. For once, Bambi’s mother gets to snicker and go, “How’s it feel, asshole?”

Lastly and bestly, this episode does serve to showcase the glorious superiority of Israeli technology. Arabs can fire a thousand rockets out of Gaza, with two or three – almost by accident – hitting targets and causing damage. But the Uzi submachine gun? You pick that up and point, and you’re looking at a Jonestown massacre in seven seconds. That’s craftsmanship!

Anyhoo, the Arizona Last Stop shooting range where all this went down, is still open, still packed with customers, still promoting, quote, “a Desert Storm” atmosphere with a base age requirement of eight. I shall repeat that: eight. Folks, I have an eight-year-old kid, and I won’t even let her use a cheese grater. Yes, I have to tolerate chunky wedges of parmesan on my linguini, but she keeps her fingers, and I keep my sanity. Well, such as it is.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza

aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.

If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.

It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.

Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”

In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.

Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.

And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time.

However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.

It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.

Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27580

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/2014): Eventful August

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/14): Eventful August

aired Aug. 30, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJUCZgwGJnI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 31st, 2014.

Well, it’s been an eventful month in World Woebegone. What should have been a nice, relaxing laze through the end of summertime – or for those of you in New Zealand, your last good shot at a snowball fight – instead has been an August fraught with war, tumult and misfortune.

Closest to my own heart, of course, is the battle raging between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. When last we checked in together, Israel was mourning the loss of three innocent hitchhikers who took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. That was followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel – actually it was preceded by and followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel. Which led to Israel saying “enough’s enough.”

Which led to massive bombings, more rockets, a couple of psychotic Israelis killing Arab children, a few cease fires that lasted long enough for the Arabs to import more rockets, lots of dead Arab terrorists, Hamas militants and semi-innocent-semi-civilians, too many dead IDF soldiers, and a battle that President Obama has been kind enough to let Israel wage without much interference beyond the occasional “naughty-naughty.”

My feelings about the Gaza situation have been spoken so many times, I feel like a “Murder She Wrote” rerun on the Hallmark Channel. Still, I’ll say it again: tiny little Israel shaved off a sliver of itself to give the Arabs in exchange for peace. What do the Palestinians give us in return? Thousands of attempted murders by rocket attacks, punctuated by the occasional real murder, just to break the monotony. How does Hamas expect to give the Palestinians a permanent home if they’re such horrible tenants when they rent?

And to all the left-wing ignoramuses – ignorami? Ignoramians? – okay, morons, who march in Times Square and the garment district with their Arab flags and their Zionism-is-Nazism banners and their screaming about Israeli war crimes, I will say once again: when the Arabs stop terrorizing Jews – and every other culture in the Western World, we’ll stop killing Arabs back. And if they don’t like living in or near Israel, there’s plenty of Arab land in the Middle East where they can worship Islam, stone their women and cut off each other’s hands for picking their noses.

Oh, and for all those “Democracy Now” types bashing Israel for killing Arabs, guess how many Arabs were killed by Arabs in Syria? 191,000, give or take. Meanwhile, Iraq is falling apart, so we have to go back there because of militant Mohammedans, and in response, a Syrian terrorist cut off the head of an American journalist and put it on youtube to see how many likes he could get. Some say the video is a fake, but even if it is, somebody got his head handed to him.

And speaking of violence: it just wouldn’t be a summer in the American south without racial tension, would it? So a black guy shoplifts from a convenience store, roughs up the owner a little bit when he tries to resist, gets stopped by a cop for reasons that have nothing to do with the crime, starts charging at the officer – or surrendering – depending on whose story you believe, and gets a half a dozen bullets in his head for his troubles.

Are the blacks upset? You bet. The guy had no knife, no gun, no nothing. Instead of his deadliest weapon, the cop coulda reached for a taser, or his nightstick. Then again, Michael Brown coulda reached for his wallet instead of stealing those cigars. He’s lucky the store owner didn’t blow his head off before the po-po did.

Obviously, police have a trigger-finger problem, especially when it comes to foreigners or people whose skin is darker than your average manila file folder. So if this whole Ferguson, Missouri calamity leads to better policing, I’m all for it. But when I see protestors willing to believe everything bad about American cops and everything angelic and wonderful about Michael Brown, my eyebrow rises. And when I see other protestors somehow equating Israel’s retaliation against Hamas with the death of this teenager, my gorge rises. And when I see actress Penelope Cruz denouncing Israel for committing genocide, my dick rises. I can’t help it, it’s Penelope Cruz. But the bitch really needs to show more tits and less mouth. I hope she chokes on her Nescafe.

Speaking of choking, a fond farewell to Robin Williams, actor, comedian and apparently all-around good guy. He really wasn’t that funny, but he made such a constant effort to be funny that you had to give him props and marvel at his gusto. I liked him in “Mork and Mindy,” I loved him in “Awakenings,” and I’ll miss his risk-taking performances as much as his more patented standup. Yes, he suffered from depression, but if you made “Patch Adams,” you’d be depressed, too.

We also had a suicide by Nascar, with Kevin Ward, Jr., stepping out of his vehicle to confront driver Tony Stewart for sending him into a spin. Okay, here’s a math problem everyone: If you stand in front of a car going 250 miles an hour, what are the odds of getting hit by a car going 250 miles an hour? I’d say 100 percent, Alex. Maybe Kevin Ward was too angry to think straight, but he was certainly too dumb to live.

Then again, the state of our government could make anyone suicidal. The Republicans keep vowing to impeach the president for being Karl Marx, while 2016 GOP front runner Rick Perry gets indicted for being Machiavelli.

We lost a nice Jewish girl named Betty Jane Persky who grew up to be Lauren Bacall, and the month of August also gave us a 6.0 earthquake in Northern California, causing millions of dollars of damage to vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley. Great, just when we need to get rip-roaring drunk to forget all the crap that’s happening, God smashes the bottles.

So where will we be a month from now? Will Russia invade the Ukraine? Will September 11th come and go without ISIS offering us an anniversary gift? Will Malaysia start making airplanes out of rubber, just in case they have to bounce? Hang on, my friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27576

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #103 (7/6/2014): Brothers’ Keepers

aired July 5, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/fS3rlY_ICn0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 6th, 2014.

This is for all the Israel bashers, Palestinian apologists, Muslim excuse makers, and other misinformed idiots of the world: Israel is mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Nor should they. You wanna talk peace? You wanna talk statehood? You wanna talk dismantling settlements? Go ahead. Press your lips to your asshole, and talk all you want.

Meanwhile, Israel is going to open a can of whoop-ass on Hamas, and it’s lonnnnnnng overdue. What’s the latest abomination? Three teenagers, 19, 16 and 16, were hitchhiking in Israel. They were kidnapped, they were brought to the West Bank – which, I remind everyone – is also a part of Israel. At some point over the last two weeks, they were murdered there, in cold blood, and the bodies were found on Monday in a shallow grave. These young people were not spies, they were not terrorists, they were not rabble rousers, and judging by their outcome, they were not great judges of character, either.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the so-called Islamic Brotherhood. Their goal was to push Israel into the sea. Not just take over the West Bank and Gaza, but the whole country, that Palestinians could then turn back into a pre-historic sandpile. For awhile, Hamas made believe it was interested in negotiating. Maybe there could be a two-state solution. Maybe Israel could push back to its pre-1967 borders, and tolerate the occasional scud missile and exploding restaurant, just for old times’ sake. But just this year, Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of Hamas told an Arab newspaper, quote, “Hamas will not recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” unquote. That’s okay, Abu baby, Israel recognizes you, and your cohorts. And when they see you, they’ll put a bullet in your head.

How many times, how many years have I spent saying that radical Islam is a scourge, that these Arab countries cannot be trusted, and that Israel has a right to defend itself by any and all means possible – including tickle torture and episodes of “Teen Mom.” If the Palestinians want to live somewhere, let them knock on the doors of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait – we’ll see how welcoming their Arab neighbors are to these tired, huddled masses, yearning to move out of democracy and into Sharia law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas will pay for its killing. These boys, he said, “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by animals” – that’s his word, not mine. Well… and mine – animals! And may the punishment not only fit the crime but outscale the crime by 3000 to 1; a thousand times the pain for each of the three innocents murdered by people who use Mohammed as a weapon and Allah as an excuse. Meanwhile, Israel needs to build more settlements in the territories – not take them down, build more. Because we won that land, rightfully and righteously, in wars brought upon us by the children of Hagar. And I don’t mean Hagar the Horrible; he’s a Viking and really not that horrible. His wife’s a little unpleasant, but even she and he together are not comparable to the lawless, soulless, terrorist slime that squats on 98 percent of the Middle East.

But I will say this for the other two percent. It’s been reported that some Palestinians, and even the Palestinian Authority, helped out during the two weeks of searching for these missing boys. There was actual cooperation during the rather beautifully named “Operation Brother’s Keeper.” Certainly, gratitude and good wishes go to everyone, whatever their background, who tried to lend a hand. But, of course, Arabs being Arabs, after a few days of house-to-house searches and bad traffic and inconvenience, the rank and file turned to rebellion and violence and wishing the Israelis dead.

Well, back atcha, towelheads. Let the rockets fly, let the round-ups begin, let the falafel balls fall where they may. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Get ready, Hamas, `cause payback’s a bitch.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27586

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #102 (6/8/2014): The 2014 Tony Awards

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #102 (6/8/2014): The 2014 Tony Awards

aired June 7, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/AKwmkJ31YnM.
https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27591

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 8th, 2014.

Well, it’s time for the Tonys, ladies and gentlemen. The moment when Broadway goes into a tizzy honoring and celebrating itself, while the rest of the world pretty much watches basketball. But I love the theater, and for all its eccentricities and unfairness and shows about men who dress up as women – because that’s the only thing Broadway seems to be about these days – I wouldn’t trade a night at the theater for ten nights under an olive tree with Mayim Bialik. Eleven even.

Broadway was a busy street this season, with more than 40 new productions. I haven’t seen that many openings since my proctologist made a time-lapse documentary. But you know, my interest in the Tonys is more religious than aesthetic; I want to know where the Jews are, and how did my beloved people fare in the season and in the voting.

For example, two of the five Best Play nominees were written by Jews. James Lapine wrote Act One, which has two acts (try figuring that shit out). The play concerns two other Jews – the great comedy-writing team of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. You can tell they were Jews because they wrote You Can’t Take it With You, which is just the kind of negative thinking that drives Jews to alka seltzer. Also, that iconic faigele Harvey Fierstein returned to Broadway with his first new play in 25 years. Casa Valentina is about group of married heterosexual men who take two weeks off each year to cross-dress and live like women. Why anybody would want to spend a vacation being bitchy and unreasonable while fighting off periods, headaches and sagging tits is beyond me, but that’s the magic of theater.

Broadway musicals have been a traditional Jewish stomping ground, from Fanny Brice to Lonny Price, from Harold Clurman to Ethel Merman, from Jerome Robbins backstage to Baskin-Robbins at the concession stand. And it’s still true; this year’s musicals have enough Jews to start their own ghetto! After Midnight – yes, it’s crawling with schvartzes, but it was conceived by Jack Viertel. Aladdin, by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman – one’s alive, one’s dead, both were circumcised. Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. Not just Carole King but Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, Don Kirshner, Neil Sedaka. If you threw in Phil Spector, you’d have a minyan. And a bloodbath, but still…

The most nominated show of all, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, was co-written by Jews, and a show that didn’t even get nominated, Bullets Over Broadway, was scripted by Woody Allen. The show got a Best Book Tony nomination, but don’t expect him to show up for the ceremony because he can’t find a babysitter. . . to rape.

It does pain me to say that other categories for this year’s Tony Awards are rather chary with their chosen choices. Samuel Barnett, who was in Twelfth Night, is half-Jewish, half-Quaker, which means he takes messages from the bible and turns them into whiny complaints. But I complain that none of the other Best Actor candidates is Jewish. There’s two Irishmen, a Brit and an Arab. (The Arab is Tony Shalhoub, so we won’t hold that against him.) Except for Idina Menzel, who’s so Jewish John Travolta tried to pronounce her name in Hebrew, all the best actresses are shikses and schvartzes. You have to go all the way down to Best Featured Actor to find a few landtsman. Danny Burstein playing an old Jewish man in Cabaret. He’s a little young for the part, so I’ve been coaching him with phlegm-hocking lessons on his day off. You’ve also got Jarrod Spector in Beautiful. Now, he committed the biggest sin a Jewish boychik can commit – he left college in his junior year to pursue the acting. He said in an interview, quote, “It wasn’t easy to tell my parents that I was leaving Princeton” – Princeton, Gottenyu! An economics major! Why not put a stake in their hearts? And a lambchop, too?” “But my parents,” Spector said, “were phenomenally understanding.” Sure they were, Jarrod – because their oven was big enough to fit two heads!

But seriously, the kid made good. He played Frankie Valli on Broadway in Jersey Boys more than 1500 times. Spector said, quote, “There’s an Italian/Jewish closeness I think I have.” Which means, he can make you an offer you can’t stop debating.

On the whole, this was not the most Judeo-friendly year on Broadway. Yes, you had Billy Crystal in 700 Sundays, but you also had Soul Doctor, about smooth-singing, hippie-grooving, teenager-touching Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. The musical sold so few tickets, they held kaddish at the box office. Harold Pinter had two plays revived – both of which were hits, neither of which were nominated. There was a play called The Velocity of Autumn, about a spunky old lady in a Brooklyn Brownstone and her gay son; both of them should have been Jewish but weren’t. That show went down faster than Malaysian Flight 370.

Meanwhile, off-Broadway, they did have one show of interest. What was it called? “Bad Jews!” Playing at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center, no less. It was all about Young-Israel types fighting over their dead grandfather’s chai necklace. Well, it ain’t Sholom Aleichem but hey, I’m not Myron Cohen, either.

So I wish mazel and congratulations on a job well done to all the Tony candidates, Jewish and otherwise, for creating live entertainment in a world where “fun” increasingly means pushing a button, sliding a mouse and staring at a screen for eight hours. I think there’s more to life than that. Anyway, if you enjoyed this Rabbinical Reflection, remember you can watch it again on youtube by pressing the URL button, sliding your mouse to the video, and watching the screen.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27591