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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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #101 (5/25/2014): Gabriel Diaz

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #101 (5/25/2014): Gabriel Diaz

aired May 24, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/YJud7dG3Qs0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 25th, 2014.

Is there such a thing as a person so stupid and retarded, you can’t get angry at them, no matter what they do? Either they don’t have the brain capacity to distinguish right from wrong, or they’re just so hilariously deluded, you can’t help but laugh at them?

No, I’m not talking about me. And I’m not even talking about Marco Rubio; I’m talking about a cabdriver in New York. There’s a hack in Manhattan who doesn’t believe in keeping his political opinions to himself. As he Travis Bickles his way across the avenues, he wears his affiliation on his sleeve – literally. Tourists hailing a cab photographed him wearing a Nazi swastika patch on his arm.

Turns out the guy’s a National Socialist and believes in the cause – although not so much that he’ll wear the patch where passengers can see it. I guess he doesn’t want to get garroted at a red light. But pedestrians outside the car can see it and have taken numerous photos of this idiot’s arm. They’ve also spat on his windshield, kicked his bumper, flipped him the bird and basically made clear that they don’t like taking a ride with Joseph Goebbels.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission agreed, and they’ve suspended this fascist fuckwad for 30 days, citing a TLC rule that prohibits drivers from acting against the best interests of the public. The fact that most cabbies smell like farts and sandalwood, and they go from Astor Place to the East River via the West Side Highway, somehow isn’t against the public interest. But yes, the swastika thing is a deal breaker. I’m glad this Nutzy is off the road, if only for a month. He does have the right to express his opinions in a free society, but getting stuck in a vehicle with a crazy person who embraces evil is just as bad as being on a subway with wild teenagers, or on an airplane with one of those pilots who thinks he’s a stand-up comedian. And he’s not gonna land the plane until you’ve heard his best joke – which is usually so bad, you hope you crash before the punchline.

I’m not saying we should emulate Germany and legally ban any display of Nazi regalia. Shooting on sight is probably a better idea. But if the National Basketball Association can expel John Sterling for telling his half-black girlfriend, in private, that he doesn’t like her all-black friends, certainly the TLC can do more to Hitler Junior than send him on a month’s unpaid vacation.

I do give props to the fella – much as I despise and wish death upon him – for sticking to his guns and not offering some half-hearted, lawyer-penned apology to get him off the hook. Interviewed by the press, this Holocaust denier said, quote, “We’ve been told lies about Hitler. We believe in racial separation and racial differences.” He’s like the late Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church; if you’re gonna play delusional poker, double down every time. This cab guy has agreed to take off the armband when he drives, but only to keep his job and appease, quote, “liberal crybabies,” rather than undergoing some Dickensian change of heart. He says he doesn’t hate Jews; he’s just critical of them and that just because he’s a Nazi doesn’t make him anti-Semitic. Okay. Hey, just because I’m breathing doesn’t make me alive. No, wait… it does.

The guy also equates his plight with that of homosexuals. If they can wave a rainbow banner in a parade devoted to equality and freedom, he has a right to wear the symbol of a nation that murdered 12,000,000 innocent people on the grounds of racial purity. It’s the same thing!

But I confess, I’ve been a naughty Rabbi. I’ve been holding back one piece of information. One climactic fact that launches this story from some run-of-the-mill reminder that prejudice is still potent, to the realm of the incandescently insane. It’s time to reveal the name of this cab driver. Are you ready? Gabriel Diaz. Gabriel Diaz. You would be right in assuming this guy’s ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower. And no, he doesn’t have a Spanish last name because his grampa escaped from Berlin to hide in Argentina. No, Gabriel Diaz has an ethnic name because he’s ethnic, Dominican and…wait for it…black. Let me repeat that for those of you choking on your watermelons at home. Gabriel Diaz is a National Socialist, yet his skin is pretty much the same shade as Urkel. I don’t know if he’s the world’s only schvartze Nazi. If he’s not, I imagine they’re real easy to spot in a Klan rally.

Diaz’s parents say he’s naïve and disturbed, and he only became enamored of the swastika from watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” A movie, by the way, made by a Jew, starring a half-Jew, and released by Paramount Pictures – a studio founded by three immigrant Yids in 1912. I guess the irony is that nowadays, times being what they are, immigrants wouldn’t get the opportunity to run film studios. They’d be lucky to get jobs as…cab drivers. Which is no profession to be ashamed of… until now.

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 #100 (5/18/2014): Boko Haram

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #100 (5/18/2014): Boko Haram

aired May 17, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1Wthfvjvo&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 18th, 2014.

Well, the Muslims are at it again. And this time they’re not in Syria, or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or any of those other countries where oil wells turned the third world into the first world without giving a second thought to the first amendment. No, today’s Mohammedian mess comes from Nigeria, of all places.

The Islamic militant organization Boko Haram, which I believe is the African word for “Procol Harum,” has spent its quality time causing terrorism and assassinations to the tune of 10,000 dead in the region over the last decade. Nobody every heard of them until now because, well, let’s face it, a bunch of African schvartzes? We have our own problems. But now they’ve gone too far: they’ve kidnapped a bunch of nubile young girls. It’s kind of like when the New York Post has a headline that someone stabbed a co-ed. You could rape a dozen fat, immigrant, Eskimo women, and you won’t even get a line in the Weird but True column. But you knife a cute co-ed, the Post has cover coverage for a week.

So now Boko Haram, this cancerous collective of terror cells – which is what cancer is, come to think of it – Boko Haram has leapt into New York Post nirvana by attacking an all-girls school and kidnapping more than 200 female students. And just to show that it isn’t personal, just business, they’ve threatened to sell the girls into slavery. I know – it’s horrible, it’s inhumane, and let me tell you, with Merry Maids charging a hundred bucks a week, I’m tempted.

But seriously, what a shock that the religion of peace would turn out to be the religion of 200 pieces of Nigerian ass. Governments around the world are working to coax the kidnappers into behaving decently, which is kind of like asking a gorilla to stop throwing banana crap. In response, Boko Haram said, “Sure, we’ll release the young ladies – in a trade for all of our terrorists that you have locked up.” Sound familiar? Ask Israel how many murderers it had to exchange just bring a few soldiers home.

Wisely, the Nigerian government has rejected the “teens-for-terrorists” swap meet, though they are open to broad negotiations – they just won’t negotiate for the broads. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan – and I’m not making that up, the guy sounds like he should have a second-act number in “Guys and Dolls” – Goodluck Jonathan is meeting with other world leaders to discuss ways to put the loco Bokos in their place. Hopefully, that won’t include meeting their demands, appeasing them or treating them like people.

Oh, and big thumbs up to the vigilantes who rose up against these Islamic Fundamurderers last week and started taking back their village. I’m sure they said to themselves, “Hey, the government won’t do it, and the U.N. won’t do it, so let’s grab some torches and pitchforks and look for Imams.”

Of course, I have a much better and safer way of getting revenge on the Nigerians. We send them all an email, and the email says, “Congratulations! You have won $5,000,000 which is being held for you in trust by my uncle, the King of Nebraska. In order to claim your lotto earnings, just send us a bank transfer for $8,000 along with three dozen Nigerian teenage nymphettes, and you’ll get your check in the mail faster than you can say (click language). PS: If you find Casey Kasem, we’ll throw in a toaster. Sincerely, Prince Chaim, Omaha.”

I know, it’s a cruel trick. But payback’s a bitch. So come on, Boko Haram, release the bitches.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27688

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #99 (4/20/2014): Utz vs. Butler

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #99 (4/20/2014): Utz vs. Butler

aired April 20, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/S8bUHv8TNa0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 20th, 2014.

Last Monday, Michael Utz, of Culpepper, Virginia, was awarded $5,000 in punitive damages from a former fellow employee. That coworker, James Carroll Butler, also spent a month in prison back in 1999 for a little prank he pulled on Utz at the office.

Butler was mad at Utz – in a way that only people who have to work next to each other 40 hours a week, week after week after week, can get angry at each other – so Mr. Butler grabbed the office coffee pot and took it with him to the toilet. No, don’t get ahead of me; he did not pee in the coffee pot. He peed in the toilet. But then he took the coffee pot and filled it from the toilet. He then waited – tee hee, tee hee – for Michael Utz to use the pot for coffee.

Luckily for Utz, he smelled something unpleasant in the pot before he went to use it. So instead of brewing a pot of Chock Full o’ Nuts – or, more accurately, chock full of pee from his coworker’s nuts, Mr. Utz brought the coffee pot to his superior who sent it to a lab. Tests came back positive for fecal matter, and Butler was arrested, charged with a misdemeanor and given a one-year sentence with 11 months suspended. As far as his job was concerned, he was, of course…relieved. Oh, and just for the sake of irony, did I mention they both worked at a waste-treatment facility?

As anyone who has labored day-in, day-out in a cubicle, offices can be fraught with tension, jealousies, grudges and disappointments. Surrounded by strangers you’d never bother with otherwise, you’re forced to put up with the aggravations of office politics. Either that or you quit, or you get yourself fired if you want unemployment, or you whip out a semi-automatic rifle and shoot anyone who jams up the copy machine. Which is pretty much everyone.

That, of course, is going too far, but let’s face it: revenge is a dish best served piping hot. Or in this case, fresh brewed. We’ve all seen the movie “9-to-5” where they tie up Dabney Coleman and improve the workplace in his absence. And who didn’t enjoy the pranks Jim and Pam played on Dwight in “The Office?” Well, Dwight didn’t, but he deserved them.

So I’m not about to delve into the moral equivalencies of crime versus prank punishment. I’m not here to ask: What would a co-worker have to do that would make you justified for crazy-gluing their telephone receiver to the hook? Or to their ear? What would a boss have to put you through so you’d get to the point of saying, “Yes, I deleted her hard drive and replaced it with a grilled-cheese sandwich, but in fairness, that was a good sandwich”? How badly would a superior have to piss you off before you offer them piss? We all have our breaking points and our tit-for-tat total tallies.

What I do not understand is why it took five years for this incident to be resolved – to the tune of $5,000. How many man hours, how many lawyer hours, how many other cases were pushed aside in order for this to come to trial? Were there clerks of the court sitting in front of their calendars going, “Okay, we have a guy who shot three people in a hold-up, and there’s this other fella accused of planting a terrorist bomb at the graves of Afghan vets at Arlington . . . But wait, no, stop everything! James Carroll Butler took a whiz in his co-worker’s Café Bustelo. Clear the dockets! Clear the schedule! And somebody sniff the coffee maker; I don’t like the looks of that intern.”

Half a decade of legal wrangling to find out that Butler did it. Why the delay? It should have been easy to find a jury of his peers. After all, being a pee-er is what got him in trouble in the first place. Couldn’t this have been settled out of court? Maybe Utz could have crapped in a bucket and made brownies. “You eat mine; I drank yours – we’re even! Let’s shake hands. Or maybe not.”

There should be a way to resolve small disputes – or, in this case, piddling ones – without tying up tax dollars and the justice system. I’m not saying discharging in the Dunkin Donuts is acceptable behavior. It’s just that you don’t need to turn it into the next O.J. trial. Unless someone pees in your o.j..

So I suppose the moral of this story is, well, don’t urinate in the Yuban. But, also, if someone hands you a cup of joe, and you can taste Joe, report it – but also don’t expect to hit the lottery. And if worse comes to worst, and you do take a sip, even then just remember: it will still taste better than Starbucks.

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 #098 (3/30/2014): Fred Phelps

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #098 (3/30/2014): Fred Phelps

aired March 29, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUFzUMaDkeI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 30th, 2014.

The most hated man in America – well, besides me – is dead. Fred Phelps, the founding pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, passed away of natural causes on March 19th. Somehow, he made it to 84 years old without enemies taking a bat to his head or sprinkling anthrax in his undershorts.

Now, we can’t expect right-wing Christians to be forward-thinking or even moderate about such issues as abortion, gay rights and Lady Gaga. Bible thumpers aren’t wired like that, and if they wanna tie a straitjacket around the Old Testament and interpret it the way Muslim extremists bungle the Koran, that’s their business. The reason Freddy Phelps was so loathed is that he went out of his way to spread hatred, and he targeted people who were guilty of nothing more than living their lives differently from what he thought the bible recommended. Fred Phelps was not a live-and-let-live kinda guy. He was more a “hurt and disrupt” sort of person.

He didn’t start out that way. In 1954, on the day Brown beat the Board of Education, Phelps, who had a law degree, took it upon himself to fight civil-rights cases. I mean, on the black side – really! Really! Of course, a few years later, he was disbarred for corruption, but there was something righteous in the guy before he turned self-righteous. Back in the early `90s, he ran for governor, senator and mayor – on the democratic ticket. He lost and lost and lost, and maybe that’s what set him off on the path of bitterness and bile.

Whatever goodie points Phelps racked up defending schvartzes in Kansas have long been pissed away in his tirades and protests against homosexuals. To preach in a sermon against the sin of being a buttmuncher is one thing. To send your followers out in public on streetcorners with signs that read “God Hates Fags” is another thing. But to bus your parishioners to funerals… that takes balls the size of planets. These Westboro wackos would send – or threaten to send – protesters to everything from the Boston Marathon bombing funerals to school-shooting victim burials, warning everyone that God Hates America, which is why He kills people so randomly.

On the web, these Baptist boneheads post gleeful messages anytime an American soldier gets killed overseas. “You see?” they say. “That’s God showing how much he hates gays and lesbians.” This has about as much logic as a guy tripping over a curb and thinking, “Hmm, I know why this happened. Somewhere in the south of France, a farmer is raising too many geese.”

Here’s the truth, Fred Phelps, wherever you are down there. God does not hate fags. Well, maybe Perez Hilton, but otherwise, no. If he’s mean to them, it’s because he’s mean to everyone because he’s the Old Testament fire-and-brimstone rageaholic we all know and love. And as far as God hating lesbians, well, if man is made God’s image, that means God is a lot like man. And let me tell you: men love lesbians. Case closed.

Do I have a personal vendetta against the WBC? Well, it’s not enough they hate gays; they hate Jews, too, saying we stole Israel and killed their favorite Jew – the one on the cross with the big mouth and the death wish. Westboro put up videos calling us filthy Jews and Christ killers and fag enablers. All the way back in 1996, Phelps led a protest against the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC – possibly the only decent institution in Washington DC – writing, and I quote, “American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed and to filthy fag lust. Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda… Jews are the real Nazis.” And that was just his warm-up joke.

But seriously, now that Fred Phelps is becoming fertilizer instead of spewing it, the question is, how do we react? I ask this because Passover is coming in a couple of weeks, and during the Seder, we spill ten drops of wine when talking about the Egyptians, because we’re not supposed to be a hundred percent happy when our enemy is vanquished. Even though the Egyptians enslaved us, treated us like cattle, turned us into fifth-class citizens in a country where we’d been welcomed just a few Pharaohs earlier. Even though we were overjoyed to escape and watch the slave owners get what was coming to them…still, death of the first born is a heavy price, and they are God’s creatures, too, so…hold off on the noisemakers a bissel. Fireworks and disco dancing – no problem, but in moderation.

That can be a hard principle to accept, however, in modern times. On May 8th, 1945, don’t tell me every surviving Jew in the world didn’t want to drown every last German in the Danube. When bin Laden bought it, I danced a hora in the living room and flushed a Koran down the toilet. I admit it: I was flooded with emotion, and then just flooded – it’s a thick book in a very old toilet. But the point is, I understand the desire to rejoice at the finish of Phelps. He’s not having a funeral, but if he were, what release and elation to show up where they’re shoving him in the ground and jeer at his inbred followers. Curse at them, mock them, drown them out with glam rock, have gays and lesbians kiss and roll around – especially the lesbians…yeah – find the triggers for these ludicrous people and pull those triggers till they go off.

A bigger man than I would say we must take the high road, lead by example, and don’t sink to the Westboro level by stooping to their tactics. But that would be a bigger man than I. I’m a small, angry Jew, and I hate these fucking people. If you find where they’re burying Phelps, or holding one of their protests, go with a rainbow banner in one hand and a spray can of piss in the other. But most of all – and I wish I had written this so I could take credit, but blessed be the man or woman who wrote: “Live your life in such a way that the Wetsboro Baptist Church will want to picket your funeral.” Isn’t that great? And then, during shiva, bend them all over and show them exactly what you can do with a yahrtzeit candle.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27696

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #097 (3/23/2014): Hearing Voices

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #097 (3/23/2014): Hearing Voices

aired March 23, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/KkjlBJyVOJc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 23rd, 2014.

When it’s raining outside, and I have to go driving somewhere, I hate it. Because the roads are slippery, it’s hard to see, I’m stepping into puddles getting in and out of the car, and, at night, you can hardly see where the yellow lines are on the road, so you’re all over the place. Rain makes everybody drive like people from Massachusetts. Worst of all, when there’s a downpour, you have these great honking rivers in the street, and you try your best to steer clear of them so you don’t flood your brakes.

This is a normal response to automobiles and water. And yet, there are women – crazy women – who feel compelled to drive their vehicles into the ocean, usually with other family members in the car. Where is this coming from? It happened again just two weeks ago. A pregnant mother of three from Florida was having trouble with her husband, so she packs the kids in the minivan, and on the way to her sister’s house, she says, “Oy, I forgot to pack lunch. Let’s go get some fish . . . from the source.”

She drives to Daytona Beach, and even the kids realize something’s wrong, especially when she stops at a traffic light to put on scuba gear. Her oldest son tries to wrestle the steering wheel from her, but she still manages to dunk the car in the ocean. Lucky for the children, witnesses were there; they swam over and pried the kids out of the back seat. Meanwhile, mama starts walking down the beach in a daze, which is where police pick her up and arrest her for attempted murder, child abuse and blinding a school of trout with her headlights.

Now, this nutjob, Ebony Wilkerson, had already been under psychiatric evaluation. In fact, the cops stopped her just a few minutes earlier when her sister called them and said, “Stop her, lock her up, she’s crazy.” The police realized Ebony was a few tentacles short of an octopus but couldn’t hold her on anything because she was calm and seemingly in control. Which is good because you need to be in control when you’re getting your Dodge Caravan to do the backstroke.

What puzzles me about all of this is that she was hearing voices, and that she talked to both Jesus and demons. What is it about voices in people’s heads? Why do they always tell crazy people to do bad things? How come you never get a psychotic who says, “I was home alone in my bedroom, and my cat told me to donate clothing to UNICEF.” Where are the strange voices that convince a schizophrenic to pay a meal forward at the local TGI Fridays? Why is it always, “Go shoot some woman in a car?” Or “You. Rifle. Rooftop – 20 minutes”? Or “pack your kiddies in the van and visit Seaworld – with permanent free admission.”

We need to round up all these disembodied voices and give them a good talking to. Show them that there’s more to life than causing death. Maybe these voices are frustrated by being invisible, or illogical. I mean, how would you like to be coming out of the mouth of a dog that lives with an owner like Son of Sam? I feel bad for Jodie Foster’s voice. Not only is it raspy and with a speech impediment on those esses, but she loaned it out to some wacko who tried to kill President Reagan.

As of this writing, Ebony Wilkerson is being held on more than a million dollars bail, and already the pundits are discussing whether to deal with her as a criminal or a crazy person. Legally, alas, it’s kind of hard to do both. Of course she wasn’t in her right mind, but you could say that about anybody who tries to take a life. Or listens to smooth jazz. I just hope some scientist somewhere comes up with a pill that a lunatic could take and it scrambles the voice in their head, the way cable TV used to scramble the porn channels. (Not that I would know about such things…) But the pill would function as a prophylactic buffer. A few words and phrases would be allowed – so the lunatic would still have someone to talk to – but they’d be words like rainbow, unicorns, herbal-essence shampoo. However, words like murder, devil, car keys, Second Amendment – these would be so garbled, by comparison they’d make Ozzy Osbourne sound like Charles Osgood.

It is my hope that one day we’ll have a better understanding of the true workings of the human brain – especially how a switch gets flipped, and suddenly, a normal person goes stark-raving Wilkerson. Until then, maybe Pfizer can work on that pill idea, GM can build cars with water wings, and maybe God can make some women a little less meshuggeh. I know, tall order – but He’s God; it’s what He does. Unless there are voices telling him not to… Oy.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27701

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #096 (3/16/2014): Purim Jokes

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #096 (3/16/2014): Purim Jokes

Aired March 15, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS7bF_9K-p8&feature=youtu.be

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 16th, 2014.

So many of my recent sermons have been about serious matters – dead people, racism, World War II, chocolate-covered potato chips – that I thought it would be fun to lighten the load a bissel and tell a couple of jokes. Of course, I will analyze the jokes for their deeper meaning and moral content because, as you know, Jews can’t leave anything alone.

Our first joke takes place in Alabama, where a good looking young farmer drops his SUV off at the gas station for a tune-up. The mechanic offers to drive him home, but the guy says, “Nahh, it’s not far. I’ll walk.” So he does, but on the way, he passes a hardware store. He stops in and buys a bucket and a can of paint. A block later, he passes a feed store. In he goes, and he comes out with two live chickens and a goose.

Now he’s outside the store and struggling to manage the paint, the bucket, the animals while walking. That’s when Mrs. Greenbaum sees him and comes over. “Excuse me, young man,” she says, “but I’m a widow and scared to walk home by myself. I’m on Camden Street six blocks away; would you mind?” The farmer says, “I’d be happy to, but you gotta help me with these things.”

Mrs. Greenbaum says, “Why don’t you put the can of paint in the bucket? Then carry the bucket in one hand, the goose in the other, and put a chicken under each arm?” “Great idea!” says the farmer. “Let’s go.”

So they walk a block, and the farmer points between two buildings. “I know a shortcut,” he says. “We go through the alley, and you’ll be home in no time.” “Oh, no,” says the old woman. “A dark alley? How do I know you won’t pin me against the wall and have your way with me?”

“Are you kidding?” says the farmer. “I’m carrying a bucket, a gallon of paint, two chickens and a goose. How could I possibly molest you?” “Simple,” says Mrs. Greenbaum. “Put the goose down, cover the bucket, put the paint on the bucket, and I’ll hold the chickens.”

Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, we learn how to hold two chickens, a goose and a can of paint, but we also learn that just because someone’s an old maid doesn’t mean she can’t be made. Some women age like a vintage Bordeaux. Others smell like a vintage bordello. Some ladies get better with age. Some get bitter with age. Some take such pride in their appearance, they’re very close to vain. Some have varicose veins. Anyhoo, everyone ages at different stages, and you’re only as old as you feel. I have it on good authority that when Methuselah was 912 years old…he didn’t look a day over 840.

Anyway, Mr. Pincus is in the hospital, on his deathbed, with his family gathered around him and the nurse hovering nearby. Pincus calls his wife and four grown children over. “Myrtle,” he says, “I want you to take the house on Third Avenue.” To his oldest son he says, “Richard, you get the house on Braden Lane, and your brother takes the co-op across the street.” To his two daughters, Pincus says, “The luxury apartment building on 28th Street? That gets shared between the two of you.”

Exhausted, Pincus closes his eyes slips into his final rest. That’s when the nurse motions his wife over and whispers: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing. Your family is so lucky. Your husband must have been some kind of mogul to leave you all that property!” “Mogul?” says the wife. “The schmuck delivered newspapers!”

Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, although the punchline belies it, there’s something to be said for a man who takes pride in his work, even if that job doesn’t have the cachet of architect or stockbroker or, of course, Rabbi. Mr. Pincus may die on Friday, but that doesn’t mean the Hendersons should miss their Sunday funnies. It behooves all of us to ask, “How much pride do we take in our labors?” It behooves us to wonder whether a job well done is its own reward. It behooves a horse when you cut his legs off.

But seriously, our last joke is about the Weinblatts, who join a new temple, get involved, and go to the monthly luncheon. At lunch there’s a raffle, $20 a ticket. Third place goes to the Shpielmans, who win a big-screen color TV. For second place, the Weinblatts hear their number called. They run up excitedly only to be handed a box of muffins. They try to be gracious, but on the way back to their seats, Shpielman says to his wife, “Muffins? Third place, they got a TV; second place is a lousy box of muffins?”

“Shh,” the wife says. “The muffins were baked by the Rabbi’s wife.”

“Shtup the Rabbi’s wife!” says Weinblatt.

His wife says, “No, that’s first prize.”

There is some ambiguity to this joke because the punchline intimates two different funny things: first, that the Rebbetzin is a slut who will put out for the sake of the temple. The second, which pulls our focus from the first, is that the Rabbi’s wife is such a meeskeit, or such a lousy lay, that her cookies are worth more than her cootchie. But again, it comes back to age. When you’re my age, a nice, moist, chocolate-chip muffin beats two-and-a-half minutes of sweating and grunting. Of course, if it’s a bran muffin, I wind up sweating and grunting anyway, so it’s kind of a push.

Anyhoo, it’s time for me to push off, but not before I wish you all a very merry and playful Purim. Wear a costume so ridiculous, Miley Cyrus would be jealous. Drink so much you can’t tell the difference between Kim Jong-un and…everybody else in Korea. Enjoy the holiday, and remember: hamantashen only looks like a vagina. For the smell you have to boil a trout.

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 #95 (3/9/2014): Upskirt

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #95 (3/9/2014): Upskirt

aired March 8, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/YmZDoGW6M40

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 9, 2014.

Say you’re sitting on a train, or, if you’re on my budget, a bus. You’re standing, holding onto a Pole – or an Armenian – and people are seated in front of you. Among them, a nubile young lady dressed in loose-fitting spring attire. I don’t care if you’re Charlie Sheen or Pope John XXIII, you’re gonna cast your eyes down that blouse in the hopes of seeing cleavage or boobage. If you’re a little pervier and you happen to be sitting in the row of seats parallel to the little chickie, you might even cast a glance when she crosses her legs, just to see if what she’s hiding down there is a peach or a porcupine. It’s sexist and disgusting, but it’s human nature. And human males being what they are, with technology being what it is, some guys get their jollies by surreptitiously whipping out a cell phone – thank God, that’s all they’re whipping out – and snapping photos of visible snappers.

Does this violate the privacy of women who are being unknowingly immortalized by T-Mobile? Of course, it does. And lawmakers in Massachusetts have put their feet down over what women can expect when they put their feet up. Any candid cameraman taking an upskirt or a down-blouse now faces two years in prison and a hefty fine – even heftier if the girl, God forbid, is underage. These rules were rushed into law following the state Supreme Court’s decision on a case that went the other way. A guy who was set up in a sting operation was caught taking snapshots – or snatchshots, but since this was in a public place, the Supreme Court couldn’t brand him as a Peeping Tom. He was more of a Clicking Harry or a Snapping Dick.

But now, with iPhones so prevalent and women wearing outfits that show enough to make men rise higher than a havdala candle, new rules are needed every day to secure privacy and safety for females. If that sounds a bissel nanny-state for conservatives, put the shoe on the other foot – or the panties on the other gonads, to be precise. Imagine you’re on the train in the summer, wearing shorts, and try as you might, your nutsack will just not stay in the crease. You push it in, it pops out; you cover it up, it slides over. Something about shorts in the summer; it turns your balls into a lava lamp. How would you like it if some creepy woman came up to you with her smartphone and went, “Say cheese!”? Horrible, even if, in summertime, you actually do smell like cheese down there.

These days, we all tolerate a certain level of big brothering to stop terrorism and help insurance companies figure out who caused the fender-bender. But we also should have a reasonable expectation that a public place won’t become a pubic Facebook. That someone won’t put our hooters on computers or turn our meats into tweets. I think Massachusetts lawmakers made the right decision, and when it comes to upskirt photography, we have to view the picture as a whole, and not beat around the bush.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27788