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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #74 (8/18/2013): Baby Messiah

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #74 (8/18/2013): Baby Messiah

Aired August 17, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/IJi9Xy2ZuGE

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 18th, 2013.

A judge in Newport, Tennessee – and I think just by the location, you know this is going to be good – a judge in Newport, Tennessee took it upon herself to re-name a baby. The parents were in court to change the tyke’s last name, and they couldn’t agree which to use: the father’s last name or the mother’s last name. So Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew – and I think just by that name, you know this is going to be really good – Judge Lu Ann Ballew had to make the call on this seven-month-old infant.

She gets distracted, however, by the baby’s first name; the parents have named the kid Messiah. Apparently this is a very popular choice. According to Social Security, it’s one of the fastest-rising baby names. It’s rising so fast, you could actually escape with it out of Egypt while other names had to stay flat and unleavened.

I don’t know what that means, but the point is: they named the kid Messiah, and the judge is not pleased. So Heronor took upon herself to change not the baby’s last name – well, she changed that, too, to include the names of both parents, very wise – but she also changed the infant’s first name, to Martin. Why? Because, gavel girl said, “The word Messiah is a title that has only been earned by one person, and that one person is Jesus Christ.” Unquote.

I told you, it’s Tennessee. Leaving aside religion for a moment – which is tough because I’m a Rabbi, or at least I’ve played one on TV – what business is it of this judge to be changing a name that the parents agreed upon for their zygote? If I go into traffic court to fight a ticket, is she gonna tell me I gotta fix my garage door, too?

Judge Ballew said she was doing the name switch for the benefit of the child who is too young to have any control over a name that might bring him difficulty with his peers. Really? So tell that to every kid named Irving, Bertha, Dick, Scott – which he learns very early rhymes with “snot” – Luke, which rhymes with puke, Regina, Yussel and Mulva. I wonder, if this judge had been around 50 years ago, would the biggest pop superstar in the world be named Millicent instead of Madonna?

This judge is letting Christianity affect her sanity. What about all the millions of Hispanics who go around naming their kids “Jesus”? That’s a pretty damn big burden to live up to, and I don’t even believe in the guy. Why is Madonna acceptable, why is Jesus kosher – well, he probably was – why is Moshe (Moses) perfectly common for a name, and God knows there isn’t a Muslim driving a taxi who isn’t named Mohammed, but Messiah is off limits?

I can understand why some baby names are seen as borderline child abuse. A couple in New Zealand were forbidden from naming their child, Talulah Does the Hula from Hawaii. A Chinese mom and dad tried to name their kid the @ symbol. And let’s not forget that New Jersey couple who named their offspring Adolf Hitler and Aryan Nation before – big shock – losing custody.

But Messiah? Who could object to that? The goyim think he’s already come; the Jews are worried he’ll never come – either way, it’s a hopeful, happy name. If I and my dear wife Miriam Libby decide to have another baby – to add to our 21 and a half mostly beautiful children we have now – I’d be proud to name him Moshiach. First of all, we need another M because my great uncle Melchy just died, but also because naming your child something that means leader or savior seems a lot more promising than calling them Apple, or Laquisha, or Moon Unit, or the Artist Formerly known as Blanket.

The mother of Martin – fka Messiah – is appealing the name change, and I hope she wins. The ACLU is in her corner because the courts have no more right to tell women what to name their babies than Southern politicians have to force women to deliver babies. Uncle Sam, stay out of the bedroom, stay out of the nursery and stay out of the kitchen, too, unless you can cook a brisket, in which case: come by Friday night, we’re having people, and go easy on the paprika because my wife’s allergic.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, aka Flora does the Hora in Bora Bora, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28932

Dave’s Gone By Skit (8/3/2013): WEINER FOR MAYOR

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Anthony Weiner’s weiner runs for mayor against the very man who made him.

Segment originally aired July 20, 2003, as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast. Complete Original Broadcast: http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/5471

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #73 (7/28/2013): Abortion in Texas

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #73 (7/28/2013): Abortion in Texas

Aired July 27, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/ZxR-DF7zXb0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 28th, 2013.

Remember the Alamo? It was the last time someone put Texas in its place, and perhaps another whuppin’ is long overdue. Texas wants to be in the forefront of stopping legal abortions in this country. This is ironic because Texas is the state of the union with the most people in it who should have been aborted.

Last week, governor Rick Perry signed a bill that would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. That’s four fewer week than Roe v. Wade, which is federally protected by Supreme Court. So basically, Texas is saying: you gotta squash the little blob before it sprouts fingers.

On the surface, rolling back abortion’s legality to five months rather than six isn’t that horrible. Premature babies have been born at 22 weeks and lived. They went on to work at the DMV, but still . . . If a fetus can be extracted, incubated, and turned into a viable human being, pro-life activists have a point in saying that abortion at that stage is murdering a person. Granted, these same conservatives have no problem putting grown-ups in the electric chair and letting the poor starve to death, but teeny-weeny babies, ooh, gotta save every last one.

That’s what gets me about so-called pro-life activists. They’re all for rescuing little souls, but once they’re born, it’s everybody fend for themselves. If the mother goes on welfare, she’s a lazy leech. If the child grows up abused and unloved, there’s no money for free counseling and social services. If the kid turns criminal because that’s the only decent employment option available to him, lock him in prison for thirty years and let him get beaten, raped and demolished.

Hey, but at least he didn’t die in the womb, `cause Jesus would have a problem with that.

The new Texas law also says abortions can no longer be performed in clinics but have to be done in centers equipped for surgery. That sounds reasonable – mothers should have safe and sterile hospitals to go to in case the kid is born with two heads. But remember, if you take away the clinics, and the doctors who’ll do the procedure for $300 and some homemade pastries, you’re sending poor people without health insurance to places they can’t afford. Which really means you’re sending them to a cousin in a basement with a coat hanger and pillow.

The middle-aged white men of the great state of Texas even want to control birth control. Thanks to their new law, Texas women can no longer take RU-486 at home but have to be under doctors’ supervision. Which means, again, that if you have the money for continuous doctor visits, you’re granted more rights under the law than the underclass who don’t.

And I love how the pro-lifers always say that every soul is precious, and that the fetus you abort could be the next president. That embryo you just sucked out was the girl who’d grow up to cure cancer. You never hear the right-to-lifers say, “That unborn soul could’ve been the next Hitler.” They never think, “That future human floating around in your belly? Next marathon bomber. Next Osama bin Laden. Next Donald Trump.”

I, Rabbi Sol Solomon, go on record as saying that I am pro-choice. Not only that, I am pro-abortion. Early term, late term, rape, incest, frat-party mistake. If the child isn’t wanted and cannot be properly raised, don’t bring it into this overpopulated planet. I’m so pro-abortion, I think it should be retroactive. If I’m on an airplane and there’s a two-year-old screaming in the seat behind me, get the knife and pop the head. At that age, you can still de-vein them like a shrimp.

And, of course, the abortion battle still comes down to that age-old problem of religious zealots, mostly male, who want to control women. Not that I blame them; when was the last time a Jewish man controlled the women in his life? But seriously, if I get a tumor in my abdomen, God forbid, I go to the doctor, and he says, “It’s not cancer, but it’s like cancer. I recommend taking it out, but it’s up to you.” Nobody tells me what I have to do with my body. If I wanna leave the tumor in and watch it grow like those bulges on Dr. Phil’s head, that’s my business. If I wanna remove it and keep it in a jar near the gefilte fish – my choice. Don’t you dare tell me that something growing inside my own body is regulated by the church or punishable by law. And don’t tell a woman that the growth inside her is your business.

If abortion laws in this country become more restrictive for women, I say we should make dentistry illegal for men. If a guy has a rotten tooth, he has to keep it in his mouth for nine months – or, until it falls out of its own accord. If he doesn’t like it, he can go in a back room with a string and a doorknob. Come to think of it, that’s the way I used to do circumcisions.

Anyhoo, let’s keep a very sharp eye on Texas because the state that gave us George W. Bush, the assassination of Kennedy, and Astroturf has no business regulating morality or maternity.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28938

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #72 (6/30/2013): Shalom Dammit in Greeley

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #72 (6/30/2013): Shalom Dammit in Greeley

Aired June 30, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS3_41e-NUc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 30th, 2013.

Do you live in Colorado? That makes you a very lucky person. Unless you’re getting burnt up by the forest fires, but other than that, the mountains are gorgeous, the weather is stunning, the prices are fair, and all the men carry guns, but they don’t point them directly at you.

If you’re in or near Greeley, Colorado next week, you’re even luckier because you get to see me, Rabbi Sol Solomon, live and in the flesh. On July 6th at two in the afternoon and seven in the evening, I’m going to be doing my one-man, two-person show, Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon, live onstage. The venue is the exciting new cultural center in town, Art Space Greeley. It’s this big building on the corner of 7th Avenue and 12th Street that used to be a garage. Which is appropriate because my first shul was in a gas station. My congregation would say a few prayers, then a car would come, we’d make a blessing, wash the windows, and siphon a gallon here and there to light our menorah. Ah, those were the days.

But now I’m a big off-Broadway star, because I did Shalom Dammit! last year in New York, and the critics raved! They also ranted, but mostly they raved. They called my show hilarious, outrageous, biting, wildly funny, courageous and even a little dangerous. Those are actual quotes – I didn’t even have to bribe anybody. Not that I could have on my budget. This is live theater; if it wasn’t for volunteers and sexual favors, nobody could afford to live.

Actually, there is a little money in this production, courtesy of The Community Foundation of Weld County. They actually gave us a grant to do Shalom Dammit! in Greeley, Colorado. They didn’t give us enough to do it right, but they gave us enough to do it. So I can go up there, shout at people for an hour and a half, sing some songs and then escape to the parking lot before the goyim come after me with torches. And because we have government funding for this production, tickets are cheap! Only five dollars for adults, seniors and the indigent. Students with valid ID pay only $3 to get in. That’s less than a latte! Three dollars – that’s six ten-thousandths of a cent per second – a bargain! Broadway shows, it’s worse than a taxi ride; it’s a dollar a minute! And forget about phone-sex lines. Especially on my budget.

But seriously: cheap tickets to see a hit show with me, Rabbi Sol, and my brilliant musical accompanist, Richard Shore on the piano. He’s a Harvard-educated musical director at the University of Northern Colorado, and ladies, he’s single! By the way, ladies, I am not. So stop with the candy and the letters and the threats already, my wife checks my mail.

Anyhoo, what is Shalom Dammit! about? It’s about 90 minutes, with no intermission. That’s right – we’ve streamlined it. We’ve cut and shaped and trimmed, added and deleted, polished and buffed. If you saw Shalom Dammit! when it was workshopped at the university two years ago, you’re in for a completely different experience. Well, 25-to-30 percent different, but with new songs, new jokes, and a laser-etched focus to my dyspepsia. In other words, it’s more of the same with less of the same, but more, more or less. I talk about politics, religion, the Jewish holidays, Arab terrorists, assimilation, Christianity and my prostate. All the things that Jews are scared of.

So please, if you’re in Greeley during Stampede Week – be careful, you could get trampled. But on Saturday July 6th, come to my show, matinee or evening, of: Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon, at Art Space Greeley, 705 12th Street. For more information and reservations, visit my website: Shalomdammit.com. That’s dammit with two M’s, d-a-m-m-i-t. M and M. M & M? That reminds me, I’m hungry – for the spotlight! See you at the theater on July 6th.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28943

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 (6/23/2013): Michael Karkoc

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 (6/23/2013): Michael Karkoc

Aired June 22, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5RnQxvRcc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 23rd, 2013.

The Holocaust. We couldn’t live with it, and 70 years later, we can’t live without it. When it comes to Germany, I believe we can do business with them, we can visit, we can share their arts and culture, and we can even appreciate that the grandchildren of Nazis and the third Reich are blameless for the events of World War II. Nevertheless, it is premature to forgive and forget and make like the Holocaust was ancient history.

We don’t have to wallow, but we also don’t just shake hands and say, “ehhh, the gas chambers were before color TV, so no hard feelings. Your grampa’s a good egg, no matter what paraphernalia he keeps in a trunk in the attic.” We are still reminded of the legacy of that era, most recently by the former Pope, who was a Hitler youth. Yes, every kid was forced to be Hitler youth back then, so it didn’t make the Pope evil, but it sure didn’t make the sonofabitch holy.

And now, in Minnesota, we learn that a Nazi has been living in plain sight for nearly 60 years. Michael Karkoc, 94 years old, lied to American authorities in 1949 when he told them he never did military service for the krauts. Turns out, he was commander of a legion that massacred civilians in the Ukraine and helped stamp out the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto. Proving that he, directly, killed or tortured anybody will be virtually impossible, but they’ve got strong evidence that Michael Karkoc was yet another pimple on the ass of inhumanity.

What was the smoking gun? His own memoir! This moron published his autobiography, in the Ukrainian language, back in 1995. It’s in the Library of Congress for chrissakes. Shelved right between the book of Job and Milan Kundera. Of course, in his American years, Michael Karkoc has been a model citizen, active in his church, a member of the carpenters’ union and cute like a teddy bear. If he was my next-door neighbor, I probably wouldn’t have suspected a thing – well, unless the lampshade in his window looked suspiciously like my father’s cousin.

But seriously, people are questioning how this demon was allowed into the United States. How did he avoid Nuremberg and get to Minnesota? Granted, living in Minneapolis is its own torture, but still. It is common knowledge that dozens of semi-innocent Germans were given a free pass by the American government for their scientific knowledge and skilled labor. Other war criminals forged documents, paid bribes or lied their way into the good old USA. Ancestry.com and Google did not exist in 1946. Back then, if you didn’t find the birth certificate or the Hollerith card that said, “This guy experimented on gypsies” or “that guy built a scaffold for carrot stealers,” how would you know? In Michael Karkoc’s case, they blew it.

And now you’ll have ignoramuses compounding the travesty by saying, “He’s 94 years old, he’s been a good American, he didn’t pull the trigger – why waste time and money prosecuting a harmless old fart? How many villages is he gonna burn down when he can’t even stir his own Metamucil?” By that logic, every senior citizen behind bars should get a free pass. Charles Manson, Son of Sam – hey, Mark David Chapman isn’t going to kill John Lennon again. Let’s give him fifty bucks, a shoeshine and a rent-controlled apartment in the Dakota.”

Insanity. Some crimes against the world mandate that whoever committed them be removed from society and punished. There is no statute of limitations on the Holocaust. When the last German, or Austrian, or complicit Frenchman or Italian collaborator – when the last person who was alive in 1945 drops dead, then we can truly talk about the Holocaust being history. Until then, I don’t care if you’re 94 or 114, you should be shot like a wild dog and your body dumped in a compost pile for pigs to feast on. Of course, I also feel that way about Kenny G, but this is different. Living a long time does not make you innocent. It makes you lucky to escape the retribution you should have endured way back when. And if Michael Karkoc was just following orders, well, so are the Polish prison doctors who’ll strap him to a table and jam that last needle in his arm. Cruel? It’s an easier way to go than his victims.

So congratulations to the justice department for finding this insect, better late than never. And even if Michael Karkoc joins the choir of eternal hell before standing trial, may he never sleep another peaceful night, may he watch his wife – yes, he has a wife – may he watch her die of heartbreak and shame. And cancer. And may Karkoc’s son – who, of course, denies that his father was a Nazi – like he would know – may his son become like a beacon unto the world. By pouring gasoline on himself and lighting a match.

In this case, the sins of the fathers do get visited onto the children because the father was allowed to live and procreate – a blessing denied the dozens of Jews shot to death or burned alive by his military unit. Yes, I may sound extraordinarily punitive, but nothing about the Holocaust was, or should ever be, ordinary. For the past seven decades, Michael Karkoc passed himself off as an ordinary man. And soon, he will be an ordinary corpse in an ordinary grave. In fact, the only thing out of the ordinary will be the stench of my urine on his weeds.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28948

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas

Aired June 15, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNbhdtkQgw

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 16th, 2013.

How much do we really need to know about the private lives of celebrities? Everything – these days, it seems. We know what Gwyneth Paltrow eats for breakfast, what Kirstie Alley eats for dinner, and now, what Michael Douglas eats in bed.

No one forced him. No one put a gun to his head – I don’t mean the eating part, I mean telling the world about it. Three weeks ago, Douglas told the Guardian magazine of London that his throat cancer probably did not come from his smoking or his drinking. He said, hint hint, you can also get the Big C from doing the little C: cunnilingus. Until last month, I had no idea what the hell that was. Cunnilingus. I thought it a was low-cost Irish airline.

But it is not. Cunnilingus is when a man, or a woman, or, on certain internet sites, a German shepherd, performs oral sex on a lady. Please don’t get me wrong; muff munching is a normal, enjoyable, intimate part of the sexual experience, providing the woman doesn’t smell like a trench, and the man has muscles in his jaw that don’t lock up after three minutes, or five minutes, or, well, honestly, after ten minutes, the woman should either fake it or lie back and think of Jerusalem.

Even though high-school health teachers, aka gym teachers, taught us that you can certainly contract VD from oral sex, I don’t think people take that as seriously as the other kinds of nookie. A girl on a date figures, “Ehhh, I don’t wanna go all the way with this guy, and Biff doesn’t like to deal with condoms. But if I give him a little mouth love, maybe he won’t dump me for Darlene with the bangs, the boobs and the booty.”

When we think of venereal disease in this country, we think of . . . the Kardashians. But we also think of regular penetrative sex or, perhaps, tushie sex. The more intolerant among us would point to the gays during the AIDS crisis and say, “If you can’t stop doing that, at least wear a condom. And stop writing bad Broadway musicals.” As a culture, we all modified our behavior as a way to stem the plague of HIV, as well as gonorrhea, herpes, and Sunday afternoon phone conversations that started with, “Yes, we did have fun last night. But I noticed this rash…”

In his own paradoxically embarrassing and self-aggrandizing way, Michael Douglas has reminded us that HPV isn’t just a high-definition sister channel of HBO. It’s a disease you can get from licking someone in the place that they pee. Such as the Penn Station men’s room.

Much the way Angelina Jolie made breast-cancer prevention a national conversation when she bid tah tah to her tah-tahs, Michael Douglas may be doing us the same service by telling us where he put his tongue, and where his tongue has put him. How does Catherine Zeta Jones fit into all this? That’s a private conversation for the Douglas home. I certainly don’t see her putting her name on a line of douches anytime soon. Unless they start making them with penicillin. Or industrial-strength Raid.

But I do wish Mrs. Douglas good mental health; we know she’s been struggling with mood disorders. Well, who hasn’t? And I hope Mr. Douglas has licked his cancer. God knows, he’s licked everything else. And I advise all my listeners to be sensible and careful in all your carnal endeavors. If you meet a girl who smells like a petri dish, find another way to stuff her knish. Carry condoms, use dental dams – or, as I like to call them, dental goddamns. In other words, if you can’t eat `em, groin `em.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28952

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Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #69 (6/9/2013): THE TONYS 2013

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #69 (6/9/2013): The Tonys 2013

Aired June 8, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kY7pP-rSoQ

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a special theatrical Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 9th, 2013.

It is that merry time again when the Broadway community – those special people who sing and dance and check their voicemails twenty times a day – Broadway pats itself on the tuchas and gives out the Tony Awards.

For folks like me who love the theater, it is a time to celebrate the artistry of show business. Even in this age of Netflix and X-Box and downloaded apps and uploaded crap, something about Broadway still causes relatively sane individuals to reach into their depleted bank accounts and pony up the bills for an hour or two of live stage magic.

This season’s Tony Awards feature an array of stars, genres and talents. But as I always ask this time of year: Where are the Jews? Where do my people fit in – as they always do – in the fabric of 42nd Street. Look no further than the Best Play category, where nice Jewish boychik Richard Greenberg has a show called, The Assembled Parties, all about a New York family on the Upper West Side. It’s an annoying play, frustrating and not worth the effort. Why? For one thing, the Jewish family in The Assembled Parties is so assimilated, they celebrate Christmas! No explanation is given for that, so I’ll simply ascribe it to the playwright having a few too many at Joe Allen’s before tackling rewrites.

I much preferred Lucky Guy, a lively look at the newspaper business from the pen of that late Jewess, Nora Ephron. Played by Tom Hanks, the lead character is a hard-bitten, hard-drinking, morally suspect loudmouth – but he’s Irish, so that’s fine. Lucky Guy is up against The Testament of Mary, a one-woman show about Jesus Christ’s mother – ughhhhh – and Christopher Durang’s wonderful comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Irving and Leopold and Morris the Cat. The play doesn’t have any Jews in it, but it feels like good Neil Simon, so we’ll give it our blessing.

Broadway musicals up for the Tony are a distinctly goyische bunch, so we’ll skip those, although Harvey Fierstein did write the book for Kinky Boots, and Benj Pasek co-wrote the songs for A Christmas Story. I know, I know. The things Jews will do for money.
Not surprisingly, the category – Best Revival of a Musical is hopping with Hebrews. Annie has a score by Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse. It also has a Christmastime finale. Again with Jews and that farshtunkeneh holiday! Honestly, how many Mormons are writing about Kwanzaa?

Also in Musical Revivals you’ve got Pippin by Stephen Schwartz, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood written by Rupert Holmes. You know what his real name was before he changed it? David Goldstein. God forbid Rupert Holmes should keep his original handle. I guess he wanted to pass and not get beaten up by the other English boys, because, you know, “David” is such a funny, exotic name. Much better to go with Rupert. I hope he got his tuchas kicked. Oh, and filling out the Best Revival category: Cinderella, by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Oscar was brought up Episcopalian – but he had a Jewish grandfather, which explains why so many characters in R&H musicals are wracked with guilt.

Returning to our Jew-spotting: special Tony Awards this season are going to producers Bernard Gersten and Paul Libin and set designer Ming Cho Lee – well, two out of three ain’t bad. And considering how much Jews love Chinese food, Ming’s borderline anyway.

A special Tony will also be awarded to Larry Kramer, who wrote The Normal Heart and founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He’s not only a Jew, and not only a gay Jew, but he’s an angry, kvetching, sentimental, in-your-face Jew – that’s like five Jews in one!

But no matter what your religion, the Tony Awards are about healthy competition and the elevation of entertainment into an art form. If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, remember: other organizations give out awards for things like advertising and, God help us, country music. So hooray for the theater and blessings to Broadway. Just like the Jews, it’s a tiny little subculture, but how poor the world would be without it.

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

—> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28961

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #68 (5/26/2013): Angelina Jolie

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #68 (5/26/2013): Angelia Jolie

Aired May 26, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/0hEA-xui9ds

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 26th, 2013.

I don’t know about you, but I already miss Angelina Jolie’s boobs. They were great. They were firm, they were bouncy, there were two of them. They added to the stunning persona that was this fascinating, unstable but smokin’-hot actress. It was a sad day indeed when Ms. Jolie went under the knife to discard her dumplings.

Why did she do this – especially at a time when so many actresses are getting boob lifts and tucks and inflations and lactations? Hollywood always wants to be doing something to a woman’s boobs. Well, so do I, but at least I’m not surgically tampering with HaShem’s natural gifts. I presume, indeed I hope, that plastic surgery has become as safe as crossing the street. Still, I would think twice before running across Queens Boulevard; so you’d hope women would think three times before turning their silver-dollar pancakes into Egg McStuffins.

But back to Miss Angelina. She elected to have a double mastectomy as a preventative measure. Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was in her mid-40s, and she lived only ten more years after that. Genetic testing proved that Jolie had a 50/50 shot of getting the same thing. So, rather than play cushion roulette, Brad Pitt’s wife went under the knife.

I admit, I’m ambivalent about this choice. Of course, it’s her body, she can do what she wants with it. I know what I’d do with her body. I know what I’d do with my body – take it down to a pawnshop and trade it in for a 20-year-old athlete’s with a working prostate. And let’s remember that Angelina Jolie has about – what, 314 kids? If she dies young, most of those children would become triple orphans. That’s a heavy thing to lay on a child, even if they’re from some brown country we don’t really care about.

But I don’t know, there’s proactive medicine, and then there’s jumping the gunboats. What would have been the harm of waiting until the first hints of cancer showed up in one hooter? Early detection, aggressive response – yes. But do you really jettison the jugs when they’re still healthy? Last month in Boston, it would have been nice if the FBI had caught the Tsarnaev brothers before they set down their knapsacks, but cancelling the Marathon on a hunch isn’t the answer, either. If I’ve got sour cream in the fridge that expires next Friday, I don’t throw it out today because I know in a month it’ll taste like New Jersey.

Again, Angelina Jolie made a personal decision that she felt was right for her medical profile. It’s not a proclamation that every woman with a headcold should go under the melon baller. After all, too many tug-happy dentists pull wisdom teeth that still have some wisdom in `em. How wise is that? I say this, because Ms. Jolie apparently has a 30 percent chance of getting ovarian cancer. So, what is she doing? That’s right, she’s yanking those out, too. Go figure, the one woman in America who doesn’t have to lose weight is gonna walk around weighing 30 pounds.

If this all pays off and she lives to 90, I’ll be the first one to doff my cap to her. Heaven knows, I’ve doffed my pants to her often enough. And we should be grateful to Angelina Jolie for her openness, for braving media scrutiny, and for showing the world her sweater-fillers many times before they wound up in a jar. In fact, if there’s a lesson to be learned from this actress’s actions, it’s that women: you only get young, nubile bodies one time in your life; show them off! Girls, go wild! Try that nude beach! Flash those construction workers! Wives, take the indiscreet cellphone pictures and tweet them to those curious 14 year olds.

If you’re an actress, do the nude scene, even if it’s not integral to the character. Showing your tits IS redeeming social value. Ladies, I know this because I’m a Rabbi. Trust me.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28968

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #67 (5/19/2013): Tax Evasion

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #67 (5/19/2013): Tax Evasion

Aired May 18, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmZ2gCJc0ro

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 19th, 2013.

Okay, everybody reading or hearing this: raise your hands if you like Adolf Hitler. Okay, now, raise your hands if you like leukemia. Fine, Fine. Now, raise your hands if you like the Internal Revenue Service.

I am guessing that not one hand went up for all three of those plagues upon the universe. Hitler’s dead, and leukemia comes from God, but the IRS . . . That is a man-made horror that, like so many government programs, began as a good little fish, then ballooned into a whale, and eventually morphed into a poison octopus.

Nobody likes paying taxes, but intelligent people who don’t throw tea over the sides of boats realize that roads, bridges, schools, police, parks, community groups and concert halls are made possible, in part, by the chunk of money Uncle Sam takes out of our paychecks. Now, old Uncle Shmuel may take a lot more than he needs, and spend a ton more than he should, but most of us understand the need for a reasonable taxation with representation.

What we don’t want is to be hounded, or audited, or visited by white men in black suits with affidavits in one hand and padlocks I n the other. What we also don’t want is for the IRS to play favorites. When a billionaire fills his return with enough loopholes to fit a dozen city buses, this is bothersome. When the working poor break their backs for companies that break the bank – and then get tax breaks, something’s broken. And when charities and non-profits and religious institutions come pleading for special cuts, they damn well better make the cut.

So for the past couple of years, the IRS has been targeting certain organizations that asked for tax breaks but may not have been exemplary examples for exemption. Unfortunately, the groups Uncle Shmuel went after tended to be right-wing, conservative, tea-party lobbyists. When names would crop up like “Patriot” or “Constitution” or “Basement Stockpiled with Canned Meat,” the IRS would look extra hard at their requests and returns.

This, of course, is not right. In a country where all men are created equal – and some of the women, too, if they wear jeans – all tax-paying citizens should be treated equal . . . ly. I don’t know about you, but I want the flag-waving, gun-carrying, Sarah Palin Fan Club scrutinized extra-carefully. However, it’s only fair that the solar-paneled, vegan, hemp smoking, Arianna Huffington Fan Club be vetted with the same vigilance.

Almost every western religion follows a variation on the same creed: Do Unto Others. In America, we pay dues unto others, and we should expect the government to give us our due, even when we’re dunned. Just the way a black guy shouldn’t have to be more, or less, worried about the cop car driving behind him than a white guy, and just the way a young male Muslim getting on an airplane shouldn’t have to endure anything more involved than a screening, a wanding, a pat-down, a dog sniff, a full cavity search and three dunks on a waterboard, so it is that a 501c4 group trying to put prayer in schools should get the same treatment as a group trying to keep guns out of schools.

Having said all this, I do have to make a full-disclosure and say that my synagogue, Temple Sons of Bitches, does not pay taxes. Not only are we a religious institution, but we’re so poor, we start the Sabbath on Thursday afternoon just as an excuse to shut the lights off. We’re so poor, we had to sell our Torah and use a kindle. We’re so poor, on Purim we dress up as tramps and the homeless; the rest of the year, we dress worse.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating but shhhhh! Don’t tell the IRS. And I won’t tell them about your questionable deductions and second set of books. See? That’s how this country should work: everyone gets away with the same percentage of fraud. God bless America, and God help the IRS.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28973

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #66 (5/12/2013): Jodi on HLN

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #66 (5/12/2013): Jodi on HLN

Aired May 11, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/igCxYCb4zLo

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 11th, 2013.

After four months of testimony and two days of deliberation, an Arizona jury found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder. The next step is deciding whether she’ll get the death penalty for whacking her boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

Demure, bespectacled, cute and goofy, Arias tried to prove she killed in self-defense. But considering that her significant other was stabbed multiple times, shot, and then almost decapitated, the defense of “he hit me one time too often” seems just a little suspect.

My heart goes out – no, not to the victim, but to the HLN cable network. What will they do now that their only form of programming for the past half a year has been snatched from them? If it wasn’t for Jodi Arias, HLN would be showing disputes in traffic court. I can just hear Nancy Grace now, “Twelve minutes past the meter! Why didn’t they boot his car? Someone in law enforcement dropped the ball; where’s the justice?”

HLN was so addicted to Jodi Arias that when those Russian kids bombed the Boston Marathon, and then a giant fertilizer factory exploded in Texas, and every other channel in America was, like, “We should cover this,” HLN said, “Ooh…Jodi is dabbing her eyes and showing emotion – we can’t cut away now!”

And what the hell does HLN stand for, anyway? It used to be CNN Headline News; CNN – Cable News Network. There was a logic to the acronym. Just like an IUD is an intra-uterine device, and my BVD’s were first produced by Bradley, Voorhees and Day, and IBM stands for when I go to the bathroom and make number two, HLN should signify something intelligent. HN would stand for Headline News. So what the hell is up with the “L”? I think HLN stands for, “Hey, Listen, we have Nothing to offer except five months of Jodi Goddamn Arias.”

Now, there probably will not be a trial of that Tsarnaev animal, or of that Aurora shooting lunatic. If they take a plea, HLN ratings take a dive. But somebody’s bound to kill somebody soon. And maybe they’ll look like a hot librarian. And maybe they’ll hire enough lawyers to push the trial into sweeps week. And maybe there’ll be a confession video and experts in forensics, and lawyers who rhyme. So that when we start bombing North Korea, and Syria sends chemical-tipped missiles over Tel Aviv, while a 9.3 earthquake caused by global warming pushes Los Angeles into the Pacific Ocean, by God we’ll have something interesting to watch on television. HLN – Here Lies News or How Low? Neverending.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28977