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Dave’s Gone By Skit (6/20/2020): DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #1: Joni Mitchell

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DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #1 – Joni Mitchell

Ladies and gentlemen, these are difficult times as we grapple for the very soul of our nation. America is a great country, but it has been built on the backs of the poor, and along the way it has mocked, abused, and sometimes murdered those who don’t fit into the hegemonic Norman Rockwell/“Leave it to Beaver” family album.

It’s taken 250 years, but we’re finally doing something about it. No, we’re not fixing immigration laws or rethinking the criminal justice system or leveling the economic playing field for everyone of all races. That would be silly. Instead, we’re showing that we care by taking things that were created in a whole different time and mindset and culturally erasing them. Why bother with substantive change when you can tear down a statue? Why make a serious effort when you can simply signal your wokeness? And you do that by taking offense at an artwork that never made you mad before but now leaves you furious.

Right-wingers are sneering at this trend by calling it “Cancel Culture.” It’s making believe the movie or book or song or pancake syrup never existed because it represents something racist or worse. You don’t hear a lot of Bill Cosby routines on Sirius/XM’s comedy channel. Mel Gibson movies aren’t all the rage at the B’nai Brith. And The Collected Love Sonnets of Jeffrey Epstein still hasn’t found a publisher.

But why stop there? Don’t be namby-pamby like HBO-Max and put “Gone with the Wind” in historical context; just cancel it! Burn the prints! Delete the MP4s! Don’t play Richard Wagner at the Israeli Philharmonic and think you can justify it with an essay in the Stagebill. Kick that Gotterdamerung opera out the door!

And so, in that spirit, we inaugurate this new special segment of Dave’s Gone By: Dave’s Gone Canceling. You, my viewers, have had a hard week—a hard year, so it’s no fair to ask you to think for yourselves. Let me think for you. So much racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and sheer tastelessness goes unchecked out there, I feel it’s my duty—and yes, I said doody—to call for the removal of artworks that either of themselves or through the actions of their creators—call to mind the injustices of this terrible society. I call it “Dave Goes Canceling.”

Today’s cancel criminal is . . . not Mel Gibson. Too easy. Not Tina Fey—she canceled herself by pulling back those 30 Rock episodes with blackface in them. No, our inaugural Cancel Criminal is . . . that terrible racist: Joni Mitchell.

Lest we forget: the cover of her mostly crappy album, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, features a picture of her in a colorful dress—not a colored dress, so that’s okay—but also another picture of her dressed up as a pimpy black guy. Complete with fuzzy hat, big sunglasses (shop stylish glasses at ICU Eyewear) , and bling. She said at the time this was her jazzy alter ego, a black hipster she called “Art Nouveau.” That’s not a tribute, that’s appropriation!

And does she dress as Martin Luther King? Or Rodney King? No, it’s a black dude you’d see sashaying in front of the Port Authority looking for teenage runaways.

As if to compound the crime, one of the songs on the album is “Dreamland,” where she dreams about a weird tropical place “a long, long way from Canada.” One lyric dreams about, “Black babies covered in baking flour.” Ooh, delicious! Is that what Joni thinks about? The opposite of blackface—where little black babies try to turn white. In front of a cook, by the way, who might be eyeing them as tender morsels. And if that’s not enough, later in the song she brings up “tar baby and the Great White Wonder.” Well, tar baby was a story cooked up by none other than Uncle Remus, that Song of the South darkie. The actual story of the tar baby can be seen as a metaphor for slaves, the bunnies, outwitting the foxes, their masters. But the actual baby made of tar is a racist visual cue, and that plantation owners would cover their walls with tar to keep hungry slaves from stealing their fruit. If a slave stole an orange, the master would see the tar stuck to his body and whip it right off him. Tar baby and the great white wonder, indeed.

And if you’re thinking, well, that album was from the seventies; it was a different time, don’t forget that Mitchell’s last original album, from 2007, was titled “Shine.” Sunshine, you say? Inner beauty shine, you say? I say: slur for a black shoeshine boy.

Joni Mitchell, you hereby stand accused and convicted of racism. We hereby cancel you! Instead of Both Sides Now, you are No Sides Now. We will not turn you on even if you are a radio. And you may be the color blue, but that doesn’t excuse what you’ve done to black!

Long live political correctness . . . until we’re canceled.

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-26D

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/2020): BROADWAY 2020

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/20): BROADWAY 2020

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 163rd Rabbinical Reflection airs Saturday, June 6, 2020 as part of the 16th annual Dave’s Gone By Broadway special. Watch on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mpB45YQoI&feature=youtu.be)

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 6, 2020.

Year after year, I’ve been coming on this program to help celebrate the Tony Awards—the glittering prizes Broadway people give themselves to compensate for not getting movie work. The awards are meaningless; how do you compare one actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a comedy, to another actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a drama? It’s apples and oranges. Well, still two fruits, but you know what I mean.

The Tony Awards are important because they serve as an excuse to remember how lucky we are to be in New York. It’s where the most talented performers, designers, writers, orchestrators, wigmakers, and intimacy directors ply their craft.

Going to the theater is a social activity, an emotional experience, an intellectual pursuit, and a cultural lifestyle. Or at least it was, until some Chinaman cut up a bat, and now no one can go ten feet from their bedroom.

As you know, playhouses in America closed in mid-March because theater is not just about art. It’s about a thousand people squeezing through a lobby at intermission to get to four toilets built in 1908. It’s about smelling the Chanel number two on the woman behind you, hearing the crunch of potato chips from the jerk next to you, picking up gonorrhea from the last person who used your arm-rest, and catching flying spittle from actors over-emoting downstage. I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ll bet you bubonic plague started during an ancient production of Sugar Babies.

So Broadway, the Fabulous Invalid, is once again crippled. Theater owners must figure out how to make their buildings tourists traps instead of death traps. Producers are scared they’ll have to lower prices, cut capacity, and submerge all the balcony seats in Purell. And members of Actors Equity are learning how fun it is to be unemployed 100% of the time instead of 90% of the time.

But my friends, I take the long view. It is my opinion, based on absolutely nothing but my kishkes, that a year from now, everything will be back as it was. When New York gets hit with blackouts and snowstorms, Broadway stops for a day. When Kennedy was shot, Broadway went dark two days. Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, Broadway closed . . . and reopened on Thursday.

People want normalcy even in a new normal. And with the COVID curve collapsing, it’s just a matter of weeks before Mrs. Cohen turns to Mr. Cohen and says, “Ooh, Denzel is playing Mama Rose! Tickets are only $470. Let’s go!” And Mr. Cohen will say, “Are you crazy? You just got outta the hospital with pneumonia!” And Mrs. Cohen will say one word: “Denzel.” And that will be it.

And if it’s not Denzel, it’s Meryl. Or Bette. Or Audra. Or Rabbi Sol Solomon doing his magnificent show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Me.” Whatever the impetus, people will take the risk to reap the reward. After the market crash of 1929, who would invest again? People did. After 9/11, who’d get on an airplane? People did. After Tom Six directed Human Centipede 2, would anyone go to a movie again? They did. To Human Centipede 3.

Scientists predict that the autumn will bring us a spike in coronavirus cases and force all the stores and restaurants that just ramped up to re-hibernate. That could happen. We might also see a lot of marquees go blank and theater companies give up the ghost. That’s likely. But eventually people will sit together, watching a stage, laughing, crying, clapping, and burrowing into the seat cushion when they have to hide a fart.

And so I have been asked, by nobody in particular, to give a blessing, a benediction, for the future of the American theater.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe. Or possibly Queen. Or Gender-questioning deity. O father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And by that I mean F. Murray Abraham, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Adler. It’s been a rough couple o’ months. A hundred thousand dead, massive unemployment, race riots, disappointing episodes of Nailed It!. We need a beacon in these dark times. We need the most talented, charismatic people on the planet; live and in-person, creating art, and making us feel something beautiful.

As the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the sheep—hey, consenting animals—let the unions dwell with the producers and the landlords be fruitful and multiplex. May God say, “Let there be theater!” Well, maybe not Frank Wildhorn musicals. And Glass Menagerie revivals. And three-hour plays about British politics. And rock musicals about teenagers with problems. BUT LET THERE BE OTHER THEATER! And may we dwell in the houselights of the Lord forever. Amen.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. The show will go on.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/2/2020): SOCIAL DISTANCING

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/2/20): SOCIAL DISTANCING

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 162nd Rabbinical Reflection aired Saturday, May 2, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZP5bCPfLKY&feature=youtu.be)

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 3rd, 2020.

You know, I usually take great pride in being Jewish. Despite my neurosis and fear-based logic and my alarmingly small penis, other aspects of my heritage give me significant nachas. We’re survivors, we’re creative and cultural, and we’re smart. Even anti-Semites warn the world that we’re crafty, we use our big brains. What a lovely stereotype! French people are snooty, Italians are hotblooded, the Polish are . . . Polish, but Jews were always the smart ones. Granted, in recent years we’ve gotten complacent. Look in a library at night, you know the Asians have usurped us. But at least we’re still second-smartest.

Or so I thought until this-past week. On Wednesday, Rabbi Chaim Mertz—no relation to Fred or Ethel—he dropped dead of COVID-19. A tragedy; my condolences to his family. How did the Orthodox community respond? With a funeral—a public funeral. 2,500 Orthodox Jews of the Haredi sect gathered on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Did they stand six feet apart? No. Did they all wear masks? No. Although some of those beards could have doubled as a hairnet. Did they pay any attention to scientists and state officials who said, “Excuse me, we’re in a pandemic. Stay indoors and practice social distancing. And Hulu-watching.”

These people did none of this. No doubt their thinking was, “this is our community, we self-govern, and if we choose to put ourselves at risk, that’s our business. Also, we share antibodies because we’re all inbred anyway.”

Mayor de Blasio looks at this de Blatant violation of community standards—and possibly the law—and says, “What’s wrong with you people?” Or, to be precise, he tweeted, quote, “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the New York Police Department to summon or even arrest those in large groups. This is about stopping the disease and saving lives. Period.”

Did the Jewish community apologize? Did they say to the Mayor, “Slicha. We were overcome with grief for our dead Rebbe, but we were thoughtless and disrespectful to our neighbors. It won’t happen again, no matter who dies. Although if Messiah comes, we’ll probably still turn out in big numbers.”

That was not the response of the Haredis or the greater Jewish community. Instead, they jumped on the race wagon and accused de Blasio of de Bigotry for singling them out.

What a load of schmucks! The Mayor singled you out because you didn’t single yourselves out, you multiplied. If you’d stayed home and watched the funeral on Instagram, or done an orderly procession with everyone six feet apart and masked, you could have served as an object lesson for the world: “When the shutdown ends, this is how you can go into a sports stadium, a school assembly, a klezmer rave party—in a safe, public-minded fashion.”

Instead, you poured into the streets and milled around like a fire drill. And that behavior gives ammunition to real anti-Semites. Why shouldn’t they sneer, “You see? The Jews claim to love the USA, but but when push comes to shove, they push and shove. Religious ritual supersedes American law. And they turn a blind ear to mayors, governors, police forces—anyone outside their crazy creed.”

For their part, the Haredis say they notified police before the march and were given the go-ahead. A conversation that I imagine went: “Hi. We’re gonna congregate. Better get barriers ready so the goyim don’t bother us. Thanks!” They also noted that crowds elsewhere in the region turned out in numbers to watch a military flyover of Air Force Thunderbirds. “Why is de Blasio picking on us and not them?” Fair point. He should have crapped all over both of you. Instead, the Mayor was forced to temper his tweets. He didn’t apologize, thank goodness, but he did express regret for lashing out, saying he was frustrated by this disease, which has killed 63,000 New Yorkers—among them quite a few Jews.

Over the next year, this country must have serious debates about the line between security and civil rights. I mean, it’s 18 years since 9/11, and we still take off our shoes at the airport. What is that about? I’ve hurt more people with my foot odor than a shoe bomber ever could. So it will be interesting to see if the Orthodox, in their huddled masses, spread coronavirus so much worse than the rest of us on our couches watching “Nailed It!” all day.

But that’s for scientists and statisticians to figure out. In the meantime, the law—especially in a sardine tin like the five boroughs—is to socially isolate. I admit, that’s easy for me, because I hate people. But whatever your ethnicity, if you think your religion is more important than common sense or the common good, please, convert. And stay 6 feet—600 feet!—away from people like me who don’t wanna die. And if I do, no procession. Just give me a Pay-Per-View special with Gilbert Gottfried telling dirty jokes and Morgan Freeman doing the eulogy. Oh, and naked cheerleaders. For obvious reasons.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit (4/25/2020): RABBI SOL SOLOMON READS SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET #30

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Here is the Dave’s Gone By Skit, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Shakespeare’s Sonnet #30, which aired on Dave’s Gone By April 25, 2020.

The event occurred April 23, 2020 as part of Irondale Ensemble’s virtual Sonnet Marathon to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.

Note: The other guy is Irondale co-founder Terry Greiss.

For those playing along, here’s Sonnet #30:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancell’d woe,

And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #161 (4/25/2020): RABBI SOL SOLOMON READS SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET #30

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #161 (4/25/20): RABBI SOL SOLOMON READS SHAKESPEARE’S SONNET #30

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 161st Rabbinical Reflection debuted live as part of Irondale Ensemble theater company’s virtual Sonnet Marathon on April 23, 2020 and then aired Saturday, April 25, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_U35BeLXRg&t=4s)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. And I am delighted to be taking part in Irondale Ensemble’s Sonnet Marathon to honor April 23rd, the day William Shakespeare was born. It’s also the day he died, but why be negative?

And besides, who needs sanitizer, when we can all be Sonnetized?

I have chosen to read Sonnet number 30; in Roman numerals that’s XXX, in Hebrew: Yud Yud Yud.

“When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,

For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,

And weep afresh love’s long-since-cancell’d woe,

And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.”

Now, what do we learn from this Sonnet? First: it’s ideal for Jews: it’s depressing, it’s about regret, and how tempting it is to rehash miseries over and over. Sorry—o’er and o’er.

The schmendrick in this poem sighs over spilled milk, cries over dead people, grieves over old pussy, and then complains that he’s wasting precious time being unhappy. Freud would have a field day with this putz.

But of course, Shakespeare being universal, we are the putz. Even before the pandemic, who among us hasn’t wasted decades on worry, fear, disappointment, inertia, and that most Jewish of bugaboos, guilt?

The silver lining is when you have someone who brightens your day: a friend, a pet, an anatomically correct, inflatable rubber Gal Gadot doll. Even if your loved one is merely a memory, it can erase all the tzuris of what Rabbi Tom Lehrer once called, “your drab, wretched lives.”

And so my dear friends, in this time of woes and grievances, where we can’t dab our drowning eyes because there’s no goddamn toilet paper, remember the good times and the good people of those times.

This is Rabbi Sol Solomon wishing you sweet thoughts and ended sorrows. And Charmin! Two ply!

Shalom!

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #160 (4/10/2020): Shaking Hands

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #160 (4/10/20): SHAKING HANDS

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 160th Rabbinical Reflection aired Saturday, April 10, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By. Watch & Listen on Youtube: https://youtu.be/FBe-_trL2vI) / https://davesgoneby.net/?p=25519

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a special Rabbinical Reflection for the Rave Social Distancing Festival of 2020.

Now let’s be honest. If you personally have not gotten sick with the COVID-19. And nobody close to you has died. And your job, God willing, is safe. It really hasn’t been a bad disease.

I know: the store doesn’t have your favorite toilet paper, so you’re using the scratchy kind that hurts your tuchas. You have to wear a mask when you go outside. Lemme tell you something: the vast majority of us are so homely, in public we should wear masks. You can’t see a show on Broadway. Big deal. Netflix has tons of homosexuals. And one of them raises tigers. You don’t see that in Hamilton. The lions inThe Lion King? Not real! What a gyp!

So in terms of social distancing . . . Nisht gefelech. No big deal. So you can’t go to work and see your colleagues five days a week. Ask yourself: the day you retire, will you miss any of those assholes one bit? Even the nice assholes? Of course not! So why miss them now?

But people are all upset about these minor alterations in behavior. Like when Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the coronavirus task force, told a reporter that if we’re really serious about stopping the spread of infectious disease, we would never shake hands again. Never shake hands? How do you end a job interview? (mimes OK signs) “Thank you!” (and double handjobs) “When will you be deciding?”

Americans have this attachment to the hearty handshake. Extend your forearm, look your adversary in the eye, shake vigorously without bruising any cartilage, smile and start your business. This is the universal language of macho respect. It’s also a fantastic way to transfer the germs and the yuch and the hangnail and the paper cuts on your fingers to a perfect stranger.

You ever meet someone who wears too much fragrance, you shake their hand, and the whole rest of the day, your hand stinks like them, no matter how many times you wash it? And you can’t help yourself. The rest of the day, you’re smelling your own hand. You’re working on something, you’re eating dinner; you tell yourself not to… and yet you bring your hand to your nose and goddammit, it’s still there. Well, if that eau de Toilet stays on your fingers 10 hours, imagine how long their phlegm SARS will stick around.

Dr. Fauci has a good point. We don’t need to press the flesh to impress the fresh. Why can’t we bow like the Japanese? A deferential tilt of the head, a bend at the hips like you’re davening. Then you stay on your side of the tatami mat, and I’ll stay on mine. And you know what with the Japanese? No sushi. I love my wife, but it tastes like her vagina. And not, like, 30 years ago when it was tolerable. Now it smells like someone farted into rubber cement. It’s horrible.

But I digress. We need to find ways to greet each other that don’t involve hand-to-hand microbial combat. We could adopt the royal wave. Queen Elizabeth is 187 years old; you think she wants people getting close to her? She gives a little wave, her subjects bow, no one gets chlamydia.

Maybe we can do the namaste thing. “The Divine in me honors the Divine in John Waters movies.” I show my respect to you by shaking my own hand and leaving yours alone. Because I can tell, that’s your Pornhub hand.

And then there’s the Israeli way: say “shalom,” back off six feet, and be ready to shoot.

Either way, we can keep in touch without keeping touching. If the new normal means shifting a few cultural practices that threaten the greater good, we should make the effort. Personally, I think we could eradicate 99 percent of all diseases if we got rid of doorknobs. And the underside of toilet seats. And Dennis Rodman.

But until then, let’s all do our part to keep each other safe and healthy so that after this strange and difficult Passover, we can finally have a true exodus.

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

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NOTES & BACKSTORY:

[April 2020] This Rabbinical Reflection, written during the COVID-19 crisis, was specially created to be part of the Rave Social Distancing Theater Festival, an online-only fest to which playwrights and theater artists submitted pieces of five minutes or less that dealt with social isolation and other aspects of life during a pandemic.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #159 (6/1/2019): 2019 TONYS

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #159 (6/1/19): 2019 TONYS

Watch & listen on Youtube: https://youtu.be/aHTLs09fLX8

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 2, 2019.

Well, this American Son and synagogue Choir Boy feels like King Kong when I get to be part of the annual Dave’s Gone By Tony show. And this year, I’m Head Over Heels like I’m going to The Prom; I couldn’t Be More Chill, and I Ain’t Too Proud to talk about the nominees for the Tony Awards. I just wish this show were on a Network, and that the theater had more Straight White Men.

But seriously, I do my annual Rabbinical Reflection about the Broadway season and the Tonys specifically looking for Jewish content and connections—of which the Best Play nominees have . . . bupkis, zero, nada, zilch. Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, is about a bunch of clowns cleaning up after a massacre in ancient Rome. There’s a lot flatulence, which is very Jewish, but otherwise, it’s a tiresome goyfest. Then you got Choir Boy, about a faigele schvartze in a prep school. Again: learning, studying: Jewish. Everything else: not. There’s The Ferryman, a magnificent drama about the Irish, and What the Constitution Means to Me, about a shikseh getting an abortion. That leaves Ink, which studies the newspaper business and how Rupert Murdoch built his empire. That right-wing mogul has always been very pro-Israel, but he ain’t Jewish, and neither is the play. In fact, the only Hebraic character in a play the whole season was Sarah Bernhardt—and she was baptized!

Okay, so maybe we’ll do better in musicals? Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations. Well, no. That’s a little closer to a Million Man March than a minyan. However, The Temptations’ manager, Shelly Berger, is a prominent and sympathetic character. That’s how we know the show wasn’t written by Spike Lee.And speaking of stereotypes, The Prom has a Jewish character, Sheldon Saperstein, who is—guess what?—an agent. The Prom also features a flamboyant, effeminate lead character, Barry Glickman, who turns out to be a mensch, so okay. Two other musicals have jerks in them, from hell, in Beetlejuice and Hadestown—but they’re goyim, so I’m fine with it. Meanwhile, Tootsie, both the movie and the Broadway musical, are swimming in Jewish-style humor—even if the characters are safely non-denominational. The composer is David Yazbek, a Yid, whose Tony-winning show last year, The Band’s Visit, took place IN Israel! So he could win a Tony every year; I’d be fine with that.

But where are the Jews this year? Well, there’s Arthur Miller and Harvey Fierstein, in the play revival category with All My Sons and Torch Song. Richard Rodgers and the semi-Jew, Oscar Hammerstein, creators of Oklahoma!, the musical revival. Not to mention Sam and Bella Spewack, who adapted William Shakespeare into Kiss Me, Kate. But the acting nominees this year? Not so much. Bryan Cranston, the star of Network, has a teeny bit of Jew in him, but that’s it for his category. I mean, he’s up against a black guy named “Pope”! Yikes!

Leading Actress? Annette Bening—Episcopalian. Laura Donnelly—Irish. Janet McTeer—English. Laurie Metcalf—midwestern. Thank God, Elaine May kept her Equity card. In The Waverly Gallery, she played an old crank who can’t remember anything and gets on everybody’s nerves. If that isn’t Jewish, what is?

And most of all, let’s pay tribute to the winner of a special Tony Award this year: Judith Light. She’s getting the Isabelle Stevenson Award for making a special and brave contribution to humankind: putting up with Tony Danza for eight seasons of “Who’s the Boss.” Of course, she’s also a terrific actress and an outspoken advocate for gay rights and the fight against AIDS. But screw all that, the best thing about Judith the Jewess is that in her second Broadway show, she played Julie Herzl—the wife of Theodore Herzl, Zionist visionary and spiritual father of Israel. That’s a light I wanna turn on!

Experts are saying that this particular Broadway season is marked by diversity, a wider acceptance of non-traditional casting like a female Lear and a wheelchair-bound Ado Annie in Oklahoma!. And we get more goofy, risk-taking shows like Gary and Hadestown and What the Constitution Means to Me. Does this ring the death knell for the old-fashioned Jewishy shows that made Broadway the greatest live entertainment since public hangings? Are the Neil Simons and Wendy Wassersteins of tomorrow all going to be gender-shifting provocateurs who think rising action is what you get in a gay porn flick, and a deus ex machina is a cappuccino maker?

That remains to be seen, but if I know Jews—and I do know some Jews—we will always have a place in the theater. Because we have imagination, creativity, ingenuity, and soul. And because all the goyim are busy doing anime.

So a toast once again to all the nominees, producers, directors, actors, designers, production stage managers, ushers, crew, those guys outside the theater who paw through your briefcase looking for firearms—all of them unite to make Broadway the magical place that it is. L’chaim.

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

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #158 (1/2/2019): Farewell 2018

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #158 (1/2/19) – Farewell 2018

Aired Dec. 31, 2018 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/8RIIElz0hH8

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Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the New Year: January 1, 2019.

Well, you can’t say it wasn’t interesting. Even though we had no major war, the economy was robust, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg somehow stayed alive, 2018 was still a pretty goofy year.

We had winter Olympics in South Korea, while President Trump flirted with the supreme leader of North Korea. And who knows what the real relationship is between Trump and Vladimir Putin? Robert Muller is trying to figure it out, although his investigation is going on longer than the Torah portion at a stutterer’s bar mitzvah.

Meanwhile the stock market, which has been on an almost uninterrupted winning streak since the final weeks of George W. Tush, finally obeyed the laws of gravity and dropped 4000 points by early winter. That said, the numbers have been so topsy-turvy, by mid-January we might be back at new highs again—and even newer highs now that Jeff Sessions is out as attorney general. So it’s likely just a matter of time before—just as in Canada now—you can get marijuana anywhere you wanna.

Sessions wasn’t the only one through the revolving door of Donald Trump’s cabinet. The EPA-hating head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July. Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson over his support of the Iran deal. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis disembarked after disagreeing with The Donald about having troops in Syria and Afghanistan—because they’re doing so much good there, right? And even UN Ambassador Nikki Haley hailed a cab—but not before she and the administration made good on their promise to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. The new Embassy opened on May 14—the 70th anniversary of the founding of Eretz Yisroel, so whatever else bad I have to say about our President, he gets a big “mezuzahs up—way up!” from me about that.

But not everything was good for the Jews in 2018. In October, a racist lunatic opened fire on Shabbos services, killing eleven at the ironically named “Tree of Life Synagogue” in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, in Israel, Bibi Netanyahu has a friend in Trump but not many supporters on his home turf. He’s likely to be indicted in two separate fraud investigations. His wife Sara is already indicted on charges that she bilked the government out of $100,000 worth of free meals. I know Kosher food is expensive, but sheesh!

Speaking of folks facing prison time, Bill Cosby is doing 3-to-10 in the pen as punishment for decades of making women stir his pudding. Harvey Weinstein lost his movie company and faces criminal charges over his naughty behavior. And Kevin Spacey struck a blow for equality by proving that gay men can be just as creepy as straight ones.

One creep who got away with it and then some is Brett Kavanaugh, who probably did some bad drunken things to even drunker girls back in the day. But without any real evidence against him, he beat the rap and is now tilting the Supreme Court so far right, it’s a wonder all the benches don’t slide to the window.

And yet, even with so many countries—like Brazil and Hungary—electing hard-line xenophobic nationalists—under the guise of “populism”—good things have also occurred. By a popular vote of two-to-one, Ireland repealed its ban on abortion. India finally decriminalized homosexuality. Iceland made it illegal to pay men more than women for the same job. And after a 35-year ban, Saudi Arabia reopened its movie theaters and gave women the right to drive. They even opened an amusement park with a house of horrors—no, wait, that’s just the Saudi Arabian Embassy.

In the 2016 US midterm elections, a record number of women were voted into Congress—most of them Democrats, so the GOP now faces a government more split than Chris Christie’s pants. Even before the House pivots left next week, the White House faces gridlock. As we speak—well, I’m speaking—we’re in a partial government shutdown because the President wants a wall, and the Democrats prefer a bridge. At stake are a few measly billion dollars, which, considering we’re facing a trillion-dollar deficit next year, is really chump change. And hopefully we’ll change the chump in 2020.

Some not-so-nice changes happened to the internet this year. Facebook knows your voting habits, food preferences, and underwear color—and they’ve been selling that information to data-mining firms for years. And the FCC torpedoed “net neutrality,” so now big media companies can charge more for faster internet—or slow down or block sites that aren’t theirs. You think it’s no big deal, but just wait till it takes eight hours to watch a threesome on Redtube.

And speaking of hot, California nearly burned to the ground with wildfires. Too bad Indonesia didn’t loan them their tsunami water. And summertime saw heated protests over gun control after yet another school shooting—this one at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Seventeen people were killed, though many who survived created the gun-control activist group, Never Again. I kind of wish they’d pick another phrase, since that one is reserved for a previous horror, but be that as it may, one kid who survived became a real spokesman for the movement and has just been accepted into Harvard. Boy, the requirements to get into the Ivy League just get tougher and tougher, don’t they?

We had some tough losses in 2018: Penny Marshall, who was in a league of her own. Stan Lee, who was Marvelous. John McCain, a war hero who voted his conscience. (He didn’t always have the brightest conscience, but who does?) We lost both Barbara Bush and George Herbert Walker Bush, who had a mediocre Presidency but absolutely horrible sperm. He also had a funeral that lasted longer than a stutterer’s Bar M—oops, I used that one already. Farewell to film directors Milos Forman and Bernardo Bertolucci, who made people say, “I can’t believe that is butter.” Goodbye to Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, who were luckier than 99 percent of the world population but still chose the next life over this one. Aloha to Stephen Hillenburg, who had this crazy idea that a sponge and a starfish would make a fun cartoon, and Stephen Bochco, who actually believed TV viewers would want to spend an hour every week with lawyers. Go figure. Farewell to Burt Reynolds, who posed in Playgirl magazine to show his longest yard. We lost Bill Daily of I Dream of Jeannie, David Ogden Stiers of M*A*S*H, Harry Anderson of Night Court, and Hugh Wilson who created WKRP in Cincinnati. Novelist Tom Wolfe, who had the right stuff. Country musician Roy Clark—Salute! Aretha Franklin—Respect! Dolores O’Riordan, who should have lingered a little longer. Neil Simon, who, lucky for us, was always Broadway bound. Stephen Hawking, who popularized physics but bashed and boycotted Israel, so wherever he is, I hope he’s still in a wheelchair.

Returning to happier news this year, Ethiopia and Eritrea declared a truce after 20 years of war. Who knew? And a whole soccer team and their coach were rescued after three weeks trapped in a cave in Thailand. And water was discovered on Mars. Meh. If they discover seltzer there, then they’d have something. But everyone was looking up at the sky on August 11th, when a partial solar eclipse made us put aside the violence, the politics, the dysfunction, and just take in the wonder of nature. It was the moment we all realized that no matter how crazy things are every day, at any minute the earth could spin off its axis, and we could all be obliterated, so why worry?

My hope for 2019 is that we all work together, we all help each other, and that we actually do discover seltzer on Mars. Hey, it’s better than getting chocolate milk from Uranus.

I wish you all a most happy and healthy Shanah Tova Americana. 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 #157 (12/15/2018): Cold Outside

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #157 (12/15/18): COLD OUTSIDE

(aired Dec. 15, 2018 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JY54SIUvu0M&feature=youtu.be)

click above to watch.

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 15, 2018.

(sings) “I really can’t stay (Bubbie, it’s cold outside). I gotta go away (Bubbie, it’s cold outside).”

What a catchy holiday-season tune that is—and what a surprise entry in the hashtag-Me-Too era of political correctness. In case you haven’t heard, two weeks ago, a radio station in California banned the song, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” on the grounds that it has sexist overtones that could encourage rape.

Written more than 70 years ago by a nice Jewish boy named Frank Loesser, who also gave us the forgotten sexist musicals, Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” does have an uncomfortable undertow. After all, it’s all about a man imploring his date to stay the evening and cuddle instead of braving the icy winter weather. Just because the air is frigid doesn’t mean she has to be. However, one line in the song has the lady questioning what’s in her drink—which is what every woman who ever dated Bill Cosby would like to know.

So the champions of other people’s feelings decided that this song—which has been performed by such chauvinist pigs as Eydie Gorme, Bette Midler, Anne Murray, Lady Gaga, and Idina Menzel—this song was suddenly inappropriate for radio airplay. God forbid a woman who was coerced into an uncompromising position—or several uncompromising positions—should be sitting in an Uber and hear this come on the speakers. Oh trauma! Oh PTSD! Oh, come on now.

I’m not saying there isn’t something a little ooky about Leon Redbone begging Zooey Deschanel to stay for another round of spiked eggnog, but this is sensitivity gone berserk. If you start taking songs written a zillion years ago, with PG-rated intentions, and see them with modern, X-rated glasses, you’ll never put on Spotify again.

Remember when “Louie Louie” was banned because radio programmers couldn’t figure out what the lyrics meant? Remember when the BBC banned The Who’s “My Generation”—I kid you not—because they thought Roger Daltrey was making fun of stutterers? And, yes, The Bangles’s “Walk Like an Egyptian” was banned by Clear Channel so as not to offend people of Middle-Eastern descent. Perhaps they should have changed the song to “Walk like a Saudi Arabian?” (sings) “Go in the embassy don’t come out. Get yourself hacked into bits…”.

As someone who appreciates art, and comedy and free speech and pornography—and not necessarily in that order—I am sick to death of the political correctness blanketing and suffocating the writers and performers of today. Look at Kevin Hart. He does a stand-up routine eight years ago poking fun at black people by poking fun at gay people—and suddenly he can’t host the Oscars anymore. And I thought gay people liked being poked.

And what about Michael Richards, from Seinfeld? He tries improv-ing a riff on race at a comedy club, fails miserably—and for a decade, his career was laid flatter than Rachel Corrie.

Now, if Rachel Corrie’s family is listening, I apologize for that joke. I’m not sorry for making it, but if I personally hurt your feelings, my apologies. And, of course, that’s never enough. Nowadays, if you apologize for offending someone—that’s getting you off too easy. You have to make believe you personally are filled with remorse and disgust for even thinking of the terrible thing you blurted out. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not that sorry. If you can’t listen to a joke without getting heart palpitations, your cardiologist owes you an apology, not me.

But back to “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”—which, by the way, was reinstated by that California radio station after an overwhelming number of listeners objected to the ban and said the tune was part of their harmless holiday hoopla. I’m gonna add one more h: hypocrisy. How easy for a self-righteous, snowflake radio programmer to say, “ooh, lemme score brownie points with women listeners by pulling this questionable song off the playlist.” Sure, but aren’tcha being a bit selective? The history of popular music is replete with tunes that are sexist, racist, and tasteless. Heck, the Rolling Stones wouldn’t have a career if they treated women as equals. “Under My Thumb”? “Look at that “Stupid Girl”? “Let’s spend the night together, now I need you more than ever?”—that sounds like coercion to me. “Midnight Rambler”—“I’ll stick my knife right down your throat?” And don’t get me started on “Stray Cat Blues”—“I can see that you’re 15 years old. And bring your friend who’s even wilder than you are.,,`cause baby, it’s cold outside.”

And the Stones aren’t the only ones. How about the Beatles? “Catch you with another man, that’s the end little girl” —that sounds like a direct threat and grounds for a restraining order. The Beach Boys: “I wish they all could be California girls.” Why, Brian Wilson? Because they’re blonde and white? Whatsamatter with girls from Boro Park or Harlem? Led Zeppelin—forget Jimmy Page shtupping an underage groupie in real life—even their songs. “Gonna give you every inch of my love?” What if she only wants half your inches? Or a third. Who are you to force her to take the whole megillah? I mean, in my case, it’s two-and-a-half inches, so no harm done, but be that as it may…

So many songs push the envelope of discomfort. If we censor one, must we not censor all? Even the less overt ones? Take “Blowing in the Wind.” Oh, sure, most see it a protest song, but I’ll betcha it triggers a girl or two who was blowing in the back seat. And what about “America, the Beautiful?” Alternate national anthem, you say? Homophobic, I say! “Above the fruited plain”? Fruits belong above with everyone else—just like in the West Village.

Goyim, are you dreaming of a White Christmas? Maybe it’s because you’ve zoned the blacks out of your neighborhood. Simon and Garfunkel—“The Sound of Silence.” Silence has no sound; you’re just fooling deaf people. How cruel! And speaking of sadism, let’s not forget that bastion of insensitivity towards the differently abled: “Amazing Grace.” “Was blind, but now I see.” So you’re saying you’re better than people who are still sightless? “Oh, I was blind, but then I cleaned up my act and now, “Pfffth on you, Ray Charles! Go read a waffle iron, Helen Keller! I’m in the seeing crowd now!”

I’m not saying every song is kind and correct. Some tunes could use a parental sticker: “Warning: Written in 1947 when women were still considered property.” But it’s time for the arts to kick out bleeding hearts. Too many careers are being stunted, too many writers are self-censoring, too many knee-jerk decisions are being made on the basis of, “Gee, there’s a manic depressive somewhere who might hear this and kick over the stool.” Let’s all calm the hell down. If we’ve gotten used to the President’s tweets, we can sing along to a tune with a wince-worthy lyric.

After all, on Passover we end the Seder with “Chad Gadya,” a children’s ditty about animals being beaten and butchered, eating each other, the angel of death kills a guy—if there’s a song that’s gonna send some nine-year-old into math class with his dad’s AR-15, “Chad Gadya” is it.

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 #156 (8/11/2018): JOKE TIME

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #158 (8/11/18): Joke Time

(aired Aug. 11, 2018 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAW_GRHETiI)

click above to listen.

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of Aug. 11, 2018.

Well, my friends, I hope you’ve been having a terrific summertime. I haven’t. I’ve been in pain, I’m getting angry letters from my accountant, and my local deli raised prices on everything but the free mustard, so I am seething, my friends. But what better way to get me out of my funk, out of my relentlessly pissed-off state than with jokes? I love sharing jokes with a Jewish flavor and then offering a bit of interpretation, some talmudic reconnaissance, if you will, to put the comedy in a Kosher context.

Full disclosure: This joke comes from the comedian Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling, who is not Jewish but might be circumcised. It’s about a guy who has suffered for years with terrible headaches. He’s been to doctors, neurologists, acupuncture, meditation—nothing helps. Finally, he visits a specialist who checks his eyes, checks his pulse, listens to his heart, and tells him, “Okay, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. The good news is: you can cure your headaches completely once and for all.”

“That’s amazing!” the guy says. “What do I do?”

“The bad news,” the specialist says, “is that you must have your testicles removed.”

“What?” screams the man. “Castration?”

“I’m sorry,” says the doctor. “That’s the only way. Chop off the testicles, and you’ll be fine.”

Distraught, the man goes home to think it over. But he can’t think because his headaches are so bad. Finally, he says, “I can’t take this anymore. I’ll do it.”

So he goes for the surgery: cuts his nuts off. After a couple of days recovering, he’s walking around the house cleaning, dusting…and he realizes, “Oh my God! I’m not in pain. My headache is gone! I feel great!” He starts dancing, singing—he’s so happy, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. That’s when he thinks, “You know, I feel like a new man, so I’m gonna change my life. And the first step is getting myself a new suit of clothes. I feel like a million bucks; now I wanna dress like it.”

So the guy does some research and learns that the best tailor in New York is, of course, in the garment district. He makes an appointment saying money’s no object, shows up at the cramped little shop on 38th Street, and asks for the famous Chaim Shmulovitz.

After a couple of minutes, a wizened old Jewish man shuffles out of the back room. He says nothing as he stares at the visitor, taking him in from head to toe. “Okay,” says Chaim. “You need a Borsalino hat, short-brim, size 7 1/4. Then we’ll get you a double-breasted, executive-cut suit, two buttons, size 40 regular. The pants also 40 with a 28 inseam. Silk tie with patterning. Shoes you’re an 8 1/2, wide-width, Oxford. Oh, and can’t leave out the underwear: you take a Hanes medium V-neck and size 38 briefs. Come back in a week, and you’re all set.”

“Wow,” says the guy. “I heard you were good, but that’s amazing! Just by looking at me, you got my whole style to a T, including the sizes.”

“Of course I did,” says Chaim. “I’m not in the business 60 years without being the best.”

“However,” says the guy, “you did make one mistake. For the underpants, I take a 34 brief, not a 38.”

“Mister, don’t tell me my job. You take a medium undershirt and size 38 on the briefs, and that’s that.”

“Excuse me,” says the man. “You may know your job, but I know myself, and I’ve been shopping for my own clothes all my life. I take a 34 or I take my business elsewhere.”

“Okay, okay,” says Chaim. “The customer is always right—even when he’s wrong. You want a 34? 34 it is. But I warn you: if you wear size 34 briefs, your left testicle is gonna slide out the side and hang down, the right testicle is gonna spill out and mash against your thigh, the middle will pull up in between. You will get the most terrible headaches.”

Now what do we learn from this joke? First of all, if you do business with an old Jewish man who has six decades experience, you probably want to listen to him—just as when we consider laws in the bible. HaShem invented these rules for living 2000 years ago, so even if we think we know better, we probably don’t know better. So if you’ve been coveting thy neighbor’s ox, even today, you’re better off disregarding your neighbor and buying your own ox. And getting therapy.

We also learn from this joke that sometimes the solution to a problem is easier than you think—you just haven’t thinked it yet. God knows how many different chemical compounds Alexander Flemming was futzing around with before he came back from a vacation, saw mold growing in a petri dish, and bing-bang-boom! goodbye syphilis. So whenever you think you have a solution for a crisis, take one more moment to make sure you’re not cutting off your beitzim to spite your punim.

On to the next joke:

Irving, my second cousin, is a very troubled man. Every night, he gets drunk on Manischewitz, and then his wife starts yelling at him, “Oh, you’re killing yourself with that alcohol. You keep drinking that much, you’re gonna die.”

Finally, last week Irving wakes up after passing out the night before, looks across the room, and starts to laugh. “Serves you right, Marjorie,” he yells. “You’re so worried about me killing myself with booze, but you’re the one lying dead with your head bashed in.”

What do we learn from that joke? Nothing, we learn absolutely nothing from that horrible joke. Let us just move on.

Although he denies it, my uncle Benny has been having hearing problems. He and my aunt Sophie argue about it all the time. Finally, she demands he visit an audiologist. Benny tells the guy, “I’m fine. There’s no problem. I’m only here because my wife says she has seen some changes.”

“Oh?” says doctor. “Can you describe the symptoms?”

“Of course I can,” my uncle says. “There’s Homer, who’s bald and yellow. His wife Marge who has big blue hair…”

Ah, the vanity of older men. We don’t want to admit that once we’re 50, everything goes downhill faster than a Raisinet falling out of the box and rolling under your couch. For many of us, admitting to a physical or mental weakness is tantamount to giving up. Today we spot one gray hair in the beard, tomorrow we’re in a nursing home. But as we live longer and longer in the world, we have to get used to diminished capacity and asking for help when we need it. If you can’t walk across the room without a cane, you don’t vist avek forever in a chair; you grab a cane and walk. If you have diabetes, you poke your thumb every morning and get on with your day. If it’s your anniversary and your wife wants a little fun, you take a blue pill, you wait an hour, and then you give her the best two-and-a-half minutes of her life. In all cases, you acknowledge the obstacle and then work your way around it. Just remember: whether it’s diabetes, hearing, or headaches, change your underwear first. You never know.

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