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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #123 (5/3/2015): Popeyes

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #123 (5/3/2015): Popeyes

aired May 2, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/FgAWY957oPY

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 3, 2015.

I don’t know how much a gold nugget is worth, but I’ll tell you how much a chicken nugget is worth: $400. Let me explain.

Last month, Marissa Holcomb was working at a Popeye’s fried chicken in Channelview, Texas. We can already feel sorry for Marissa Holcomb because if there is a tenth layer of hell, it would be a Popeyes Fried Chicken in Channelview, Texas.

So Ms. Holcomb is doing whatever managers do in a Popeyes franchise—dipping claws and beaks into a secret combination of garlic and sawdust, keeping the grill reasonably free of pestilence, and coping with the kinds of customers who find Kentucky Fried Chicken too high-end. And this was a busy night for Popeyes because they were running a special: two nuggets for $1.19. I mean, why pay more for arteriosclerosis when you can get two lumps of toxic entrails for the price of a Bruno Mars download?

So Marissa Holcomb, mother of three, with another on the way, is selling customers breasts and thighs—since she was obviously giving hers away for free—when in comes a robber. He leaps over the counter, waves his big, scary gun around, and gets away with $400 out of the register.

Now, you would think this thief, this animal, this cowardly piece of garbage with a weapon in his hand and a beanie over his face—you’d think he was the villain of this story, but oh no. He’s not the Bluto of this Popeye parable.

After the robber runs out the door, one of Holcomb’s superiors approaches her. Does he ask her, “Are you okay?” No. “Would you like the rest of the day off?” No. “Do you need to change your underwear?” No. The manager says, “you owe Popeye’s $400.”

“Exqueeze me?” says Holcomb, her eyes popping. Because it’s Popeyes.

“You owe us the 400 bucks the thief took when you were on your shift.” Why? Because employees are supposed to make sure that the cash registers don’t hold that much money at one time—specifically because it encourages crime, and if a thug does rob ya, he gets away with pocket change instead of a big score.

So because this woman was too busy to unload the till, she was on the hook for what the crook took. Still, she told her overlord, “I just had a gun to my head, and if you think you’re going to hold me up for 400 bucks, you know where you can put that drumstick.” They fired her, and that’s when the fire-storm began. The story went viral, with readers swearing they would never set foot in a Popeye’s restaurant—and those were just the ones trying to avoid diarrhea.

Of course, at Popeyes corporate, the high mucky-mucks were shamed into making nice-nice. They explained—and this is true—that they can’t be there to oversee every manager and every decision at every independent franchise. It’s like asking the Baseball commissioner to stop players from grabbing their nuts and spitting; he can only fine them after the fact. And heck, I can’t even get the Rabbinical council to stop doing it.

More importantly, Popeyes apologized to Holcomb, offered her her job back AND $2,000 in lost wages . . . which is a small price to pay for the company to win back a smidgen of consumer respect. Too small. As of this writing, Holcomb was weighing her options, which no doubt include hiring a lawyer to sue Popeyes for $80,000 per nugget.

To be fair to Popeyes, this woman had apparently been warned a few times to make sure the cash registers weren’t bulging wider than Aretha Franklin’s stretch pants. So she may have been due for a dressing down or even a suspension for ignoring an important rule. But that was not the time. You don’t tell a person crawling out from under a desk after a California earthquake, “I told you not to put the stemware in the breakfront!”

Like so many mega-businesses, Popeyes put profit before the proletariat. The truth of the matter is: If I was working in a store and someone came up to me with a gun, I would give them the register, the silverware, the carpeting and three of my best-looking daughters. And if I was managing a store where this happened, I would send the employees for counseling, give everyone a week off, and hire a big, shtarka security guard. I couldn’t pay him much, but he could have the leftover daughters. And if I was a thief hoping to rob the store, I’d move to Baltimore where everybody’s getting stuff for free! And if I was a customer hoping to eat Popeyes’ chicken, I’d look both ways, carry a gun, and double-check to see if there are any stray cats left in the neighborhood.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, crossing the road with the proverbial chicken, to Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-1VU

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (4/19/2015): Campaign 2016

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #122 (4/19/2015): Campaign 2016

(aired April 18, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/h-wdAa7RXFM)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 19, 2015.)

Well, the Presidential race for 2016 officially began this week when Hillary Clinton threw her hat into the ring as the presumptive Democratic nominee. Her decision to run came as a shock to an order of Trappist Monks in Burkina Faso, but pretty much everyone else in the universe was expecting this, oh, seven-and-a-half years ago.

And why not? For all the negative publicity and setbacks, the past six years of Obama-America has been moderately successful—spectacularly successful if you compare them to the previous eight years under Shrub. The economy slowly turned around, real-estate is up, gas prices are down, we managed the wars that Dubya started, gay marriage and legal pot became the norm (and, astonishingly, the empire did not collapse), people who couldn’t afford healthcare . . . still can’t afford healthcare but now they have to have it, we’re making nice-nice with Cuba, and we turned bin Laden into fish food. Not perfect but not bad, considering Obama inherited a country that was so rotten, it could have been a Renny Harlin movie.

Through it all, Hillary Clinton took her lumps in 2000 and bided her time visiting a million countries between then and now in order to keep us out of new wars and, let’s face it, to avoid spending quality home time with her husband. The GOP is gonna hammer Hillary over Benghazi and ISIS and her seeming inability to answer a direct question, but half the Republican candidates won’t answer a direct question, either–`cause they can barely speak English.

I kid, I kid, but look at what the Red States are throwing at the next election: Jeb Bush. Do we really want to hear that last name connected with the White House ever, ever again? Sure, comparing Jeb to his brother George W. is like comparing Steven Spielberg to the guy who directed “Gummo.” But Jeb’s intelligence is a danger in itself. Let’s not forget who was governor when Florida hijacked the presidency from Al Gore 15 years ago. (In case you forgot, it was Jeb Bush.) And while he’s pro-education and more sensible than most in his party about immigration, he would decimate social services and be so right-wing on abortion, he’d make jacking off illegal because you’re killing a bajillion potential human beings in spermatozoic form.

Then you’ve got Ted Cruz. He looks like Joseph McCarthy, sounds like Rick Santorum, and comes off like a Sunday preacher on acid. Gotta love him for being pro-Israel, but no Federal money for Hurricane Sandy? No leeway on gun control? No compassion for unwed mothers? No comprehension of global warming? No remorse for shutting down the government in 2012? No admitting that he can’t even run for president because he was born in Canada? (Actually, he can `cause his mom’s American, but why isn’t he up north shooting moose and ordering Terrence and Philip to get a haircut?)

Then you’ve got Marco Rubio, who makes one crowd-pleasing speech, and suddenly he thinks he can run the free world. (Remember how that hot-speech thing worked out for Sarah Palin?) Anyway, he’s Latino, and he’s got charisma. Good for him. I liked Desi Arnaz, but I wouldn’t’ve voted for him. Rubio is anti-same-sex marriage and has so little experience in foreign policy, he makes pre-2008 Barak Obama look like Henry Kissinger. Including the glasses. Worst of all, Marco was mentored by none other than Jeb Bush — the guy he’ll run against in the primaries. Who says there’s no loyalty in politics? I do; I say there’s no loyalty in politics.

Also in the hunt: Rand Paul. He’s so right wing, he makes the Koch Brothers look like Emma Goldman. Paul is another of those religious fundamentalists who thinks conception begins in the nut sack, and he is the epitome of the Republican who believes the way to govern is to block anything and everything the Democrats wanna do. If Obama says walruses have tusks, Rand Paul will filibuster to make sure they’re called “long teeth” instead.

Other rambunctious Republicans who might give Jeb a jolt include Chris Christie, who was desperate enough to accept a Democratic handout but arrogant enough to clog up the George Washington Bridge. Rick Perry, who is currently under indictment, hates gays, hates abortion, and worst of all, comes from Texas. Scott Walker comes from Wisconsin, for which he deserves sympathy. And I hear he’s very much an advocate of two-year colleges – by which I mean that he’s cut so much funding from state universities, they won’t be able to afford four years of teachers.

And did I mention Donald Trump was running again? Just take a moment to process that. Donald Trump, who went bankrupt three times and yet brands himself as a financial genius. He does have a magnificent knack for self-promotion, but he spends money he doesn’t have like it’s going out of style—so why isn’t he running as a Democrat?

Oy. It’s gonna be an interesting year and a half. Night after night of Rachel Maddow shilling for Hill and Sean Hannity sugarcoating anything the Republican party scrapes off its shoe and smears on a ballot. My parishioners tell me, “Rabbi, you bitch and bitch and bitch but don’t offer an alternative. Why don’t you run for President, you’re so smart?” The answer is, I’m smart enough to know my limitations. If I were President, the first thing I’d do is declare war on every country threatening Israel. The second is to make it illegal to use the New Testament as anything more than literature or a doorstop. And the third would be to make pastrami a mandatory part of all school lunches. As for immigration: look, my wife and I have 21 ½ children. Where the hell are we supposed to get nannies for less than six bucks an hour if we send back all the illegals?

Global Warming? Half my relatives live in Florida, and their skins are like komodo dragons from the sunshine. For the sake of the Jews, let’s at least get some umbrellas down there and maybe a few icemakers. Quality of life crime, like graffiti or noise pollution? A simple and effective plan. First offense, 25 hours of community service. Second offense? Death penalty.

As you can see, I am not meant to be the leader of the free world. `Cause I’m a schmuck. I’m saving you the trouble; I’m telling you, I’m a schmuck. The hard part is keeping some other schmuck from becoming president. For 227 years, we have failed at this almost uninterruptedly. I wouldn’t hold out much hope for the next four.

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

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-1YP

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #121 (4/5/2015): Passover

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #121 (4/5/2015): Passover

(aired April 5, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27305. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/P5iBQJD75tg)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 5, 2015.

Friends, are you constipated? I certainly hope so, because that would mean you are eating your matzah, the traditional food of the Passover holiday, which we are in the midst of celebrating as we speak. Well, as I speak; you’re just listening.

But yes, Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays—certainly the most labor intensive. Other holidays, you cook a meal, you make a blessing, maybe you don’t eat for a day—boom, you’re done. Okay, Sukkos, you have to build a little house, which is a pain in the ass, but you get to use it for a week, and you can make believe it’s a gazebo or a cozy shed. And if you’re too lazy to build, you can always go to the local shul and stay in theirs. Just make sure to use the guest towels.

But Pesach? Oy, what a production. You have to clean the whole house, top to bottom, of every crumb, every last bit of leavened bread. You have to sell everything in your fridge and cupboards to your local Rabbi–because what Rabbi doesn’t want to be responsible for two-week-old meatloaf? You gotta change all your dishes and cutlery, because a fork that touched pizza is somehow satanic for a week. And then, throughout Passover, you can eat only foods that are approved for holiday use. Wheat and beans and whole-grain products are verboten, and everything you reach for has to be certified Kosher L’Pesach. Which means a bottle of ketchup that’s $2 the rest of the year now costs $7.50. Why? Because some mashgiach was there to make sure that no tomato came into contact with a pretzel. HaShem forbid.

It’s a lot of nonsense, of course, but like all religious rituals, the doing of them forces us to remember who we are and the legacy to which we are tied. God doesn’t give a rat’s tushie if we hide the Afikomen or not; but my great, great, great grandfather hid the Afikomen—probably from the Cossacks—and my 21 ½ children will hide the Afikomen from my (god willing) 150 grandchildren. It’s not the activity; it’s the legacy.

Or, on Passover, it’s leprosy. And blood and frogs and boils and murrain and darkness and death of the first born and all the things usually caused by Comcast/Xfinity. We remember the 10 Plagues God visited upon the Egyptians as payback for subjugating the Hebrews. And when Moses visited Pharaoh and told him, “Look, we’re leaving. Can we get a severance check and a few weeks of interim health insurance?”, Pharaoh said no, so God made him suffer. Actually, Pharaoh didn’t say no. I mean, at first he did, when Moses was turning water into blood and making frogs jump out of underwear drawers. Pharaoh saw a bunch of magic tricks and said, “Copperfield does them better.”

But as the plagues turned nastier, Pharaoh was ready to be done with the Jews and let our people go. Until HaShem hardened his heart–I guess with some kind of aortic Viagra–and forced Pharoah to make ruinous choices, essentially robbing the king of Egypt of his free will.

I admit, I’ve always found something unsettling in that story. It’s one thing if Pharaoh is so evil, or so moronic, that he invites torture upon his empire through his own pig-headedness. But the Torah makes it clear that God is pulling the strings. He’s like the schoolyard bully that grabs your fists and makes you sock yourself in the face, all the while saying, “Stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?” In the Pesach story, God puts Pharaoh through ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and then a bonus round with Muhammad Ali. The Jews finally hit the road, Pharaoh sends soldiers after them—presumably all second-born sons–and what happens? They all drown. God is nothing if not thorough.

So what do we learn from that gruesome fable? First, that if you mess with the Jews long enough, you get payback of biblical proportions (pun intended). After all, the Hebrews served as Egyptian slaves for generations before the big rescue. Stopping the punishment at flies or even flaming hail just wouldn’t send the same message as mass murder.

The second thing we learn is a rational reason why we spill drops of wine during the Passover seder. The Haggadah explains that even though Pesach is a happy holiday, and we’re delighted to recall the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, we’re not supposed to celebrate a hundred percent. We diminish our wine glass literally and our joy metaphorically, because even though our enemy treated us worse than the worst Jennifer Lopez movie, they are still human beings. They are still God’s children being destroyed.

Personally, I don’t spill a whole lotta wine on Passover—and not just because we have to use the same tablecloth for two nights. I rejoice freely when my enemy falls. When the Navy Seals took out bin Laden, I tore off my clothes and started dancing naked around the house. Which caused some problems because I was outside. But oh boy, did I shake my tailfeather! Miley Cyrus could have studied my tuchas for twerking lessons. And if I’d been alive in 1945 to witness V-E Day, I would have kissed a girl for every German that got a bullet through his eye or a bayonet through his heart. (You could probably call it VD Day…) I still would do this, so if any young girls want to stand in the street and let me kiss them, drop me an email, and I’ll get my sailor suit out of the cleaners.

Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea of being a good sport when my adversary is vanquished, but in reality, the misery and death of my enemies gives me less pause than a skip on my CD player. (For those of you under 30 who don’t know what that is, a CD player is like Spotify on a pancake.)

Anyhoo, my point in all this is however you celebrate Passover—if you follow all the rules, some of the rules, or if you serve bacon croissants during the Seder—and however you feel about Passover—whether you’re there just for family or you’re looking for a greater spiritual purpose in choking to death on horse radish—enjoy the holiday, appreciate the history, and take comfort that you don’t have to fast and no one gets circumcised.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27305

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #120 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

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Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #121 (3/29/2015): Bibi’s Back

aired March 28, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/t7yMCkes6B8

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 29, 2015.

Much to many people’s surprise, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected for a third term as the Prime Minister of Israel. Everyone assumed Labor would win. Everybody thought Netanyahu’s hard-line, status-quo policies were on the way out, and peaceniks were on the way in. Well, pre-April fool! Or technically, Adar fool, since it’s the Jewish calendar we’re dealing with.

But let’s be clear: for all Israel’s weariness of war, and for all the country’s gratitude to the United States for support, for money, for defense, for money, for money, for money . . . Israeli voters nevertheless sent a strong message and a mandate. The safety and security of Eretz Yisroel comes before everything else. It comes before friendship, before negotiations, before swallowing the latest Palestinian PR. They said to Netanyahu: “Give us strong borders and a promise that you won’t sell our country down the river—Jordan or Nile—and we’ll vote for you again.” He did, and they did.

Therefore, much to the chagrin of President Barak Oblivia, Bibi is back. And the shocking part is: he did it, not by kowtowing to the left, not by lying about the potential for peace with our sworn enemies, but by facing facts. The Arabs hate us, they won’t even recognize Israel on their maps or GPS systems, and any chance they get, they’d gladly send the Jews on a blind date with Robert Durst.

In his campaigning, Bibi went so far as to say that on his watch, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is harsh to hear even for a die-hard Zionist like yours truly. I’ve always said, I have no objection to a Palestinian state . . . in Algeria, in Curacao, maybe somewhere north of Omsk. The two-state solution, however, just seems like a disaster on the drawing board: unsafe, untenable, and you know it would just turn Jerusalem into a ping-pong ball. Filled with explosives.

Still, you’re not allowed to say that. If you’re a diplomat or a head of state, you’re supposed to make believe there’s always room for negotiation, that the Arabs really will lay down their arms and be all neighborly-like. Because, hey, they’ve been such good citizens in Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Libya – fill in the name of a country; the Muslims have probably terrorized it.

Our President won’t admit that, of course. It’s like he’s living in the movie “Candyman.” If you say the name “Moslem” five times to a camera lens, the bad guys’ evil will be unleashed. But here’s news, Mr. Pres, the bad genies are already out of the bottle, and if there’s one country on earth that knows not to trust the Bedouins, it’s their Semitic brethren.

Now, for the sake of diplomacy, Benjy Netanyahu has already gone back on his pre-election speechifying. He says he didn’t really mean there was no solution, that he’s always willing to schmooze with Abbas, and we should take his posturing with a grain of hummus. He’s a politician. He says what he has to to get what he wants. Once he’s got it, then he can be more truthful. Not completely truthful, but a percentage.

Meanwhile, the President, who has been going through an otherwise impressive stretch of lame-duck vigor, is pitching a hissy fit over Bibi’s bonanza. Obama wants to be the next Jimmy Carter, brokering the all-but-impossible peace deal that will cement his legacy for the ages. But lemme tell you, Barack, if you’re listening, which I know you are: with Israel and Egypt, Jimmy Carter did an amazing, impossible, fantastic thing. No one can take that away from him. But if you ask anybody about the legacy of James Earl Carter, 39th President, the response will be: hostages, oil shortage, inflation, Cold War, losing the Panama Canal, and a general American bad mood. In other word, that peanut-brained peanut farmer had as much business ruling the free world as Bill Cosby would have running a rape crisis center. So if Obama thinks he’s got anything to gain by twisting Israel’s arm into a phony truce with terrorists, he’s in for a rude awakening.

And yes, it was rude of Netanyahu to visit America and gab with Republicans when the White House all but begged him not to. But I repeat: maybe, just maybe, Bibi knows whereof he speaks when he cautions that trusting Iran to scrap its nuclear program is like trusting Bill Cosby to run a rape crisis center. I know, I already used that joke, but I’m hungry, and I want to finish this stupid essay and get to my brisket.

Folks in Washington are saying that relations between Israel and the United States are nearly at an all-time low. But I think—or at least, I hope—that’s overstating the case. Deep down, both American parties are very committed to Israel and realize how strategically important it is to the West, as well as its moral right to exist in a post-Holocaustal world. If Obama wants to rattle his saber—and you know, those people are blessed with long sabers—it could be the same kind of bluff and bluster Netanyahu was using to win his election. What actually goes on behind the scenes . . . that’s for statesmen to know and Aaron Sorkin to fabricate.

So I hope this is all just smoke and mishegoss, and that the Democrats—especially their presumptive 2016 candidat-ess—remember that what’s good for Auntie Israel is what’s most prudent for Uncle Sam. Or, put another way, don’t throw the Bibi out with the bathwater.

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

–> https://wp.me/pzvIo-20j

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #119 (3/8/2015): Dave’s 500th

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #119 (3/8/2015): Dave’s 500th

aired March 7, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/SJrDutZ8dpc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 8, 2015.

Some inventions in this world are amazingly useful, life-changing, relevant, exciting, and crucial to every single person on the planet. And then there’s radio. Oh sure, 80 years ago, if you lived on a farm with one telegraph pole and a half-dead chicken, being able to dial your wireless to hear the latest barn dance down the road was a blessing. Think of families in the Forties, gathered around the console to hear Fred Allen, The Shadow, Fibber McGee, Father Coughlin — everyone staring at the speaker as if waiting, waiting, waiting for David Sarnoff to invent television so they wouldn’t look like idiots staring at nothing all night.

Well, eventually, television did come. As did walkmen, and video games and iTunes and Netflix, and now the only people who listen to radio are the ones who — no, nobody listens to radio. Except blind people. And even they’re watching television; they just think it’s radio. However, despite the obsolescence of Arch Obeler, some people still MAKE radio! Don Quixotes tilting at the windmills of modern media, not caring that while the rest of the world is using washer-dryers, they’re still bashing dirty clothes on a rock. Yet that is part of the mystique that still affords radio whatever charm it has left. A human at a microphone reaching through the airwaves to communicate with another human stuck at a red light.

Even in this hypersaturated visual era, some radio personalities have broken through to become superstars: Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, the dead guy who laughed a lot on that car show — yes, radio has been bery bery good to .00003 percent of the population. And then there’s Dave Lefkowitz. Twelve and a half years ago, not content with being an underpaid arts journalist, a marginally produced playwright and an unemployable actor, Dave tried his hand at the media world’s oldest profession. He knew he wanted to do something different but not too different, since Jews are terrified of risk. And he knew he wanted to be funny and interesting and worth spending time with. It never worked with women, so he figured it might work with listeners. In a musical market then dominated by Celine Dion, Britney Spears and Hoobastank, Dave wanted to play Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Frank Zappa, Joni Mitchell, Tom Lehrer, and Shooby Taylor. (Personally, I don’t think he plays enough Rabbi Moshe Koussevitsky, but that’s just me.) Dave also wanted to talk to heroes of his youth, like Doctor Demento, Joe Franklin, and the opera fanatic who talked like he was castrated but nevertheless was shockingly heterosexual.

These people did appear on Dave’s Gone By, as did Neil Sedaka, Carl Reiner, Carol Channing, Charles Grodin, Bonnie Franklin, Sheldon Harnick, Dick Cavett, Judy Collins and, most importantly, yours truly. I was on that very first episode, October 6th, 2002. It was 11 o’clock at night on a Sunday, so you can tell just how important the station thought this new show would be. That station is still around by the way, except now, all day long, they play news and music in Mandarin Chinese. It’s a brilliant strategy, actually, because you hear it, and then an hour later, you wanna hear it over again. But back then, the station was a lot more eclectic, and Dave came on with his jokes and sketches and theater reviews and oddball segues, and I have to say my radio was never the same again. Because I dropped it in the toilet while I was listening.

But as I said, I was on the debut show, offering my benediction for success and an important public-service segment about monitoring for breast cancer. My small hope was to alert women to the importance of early screening — by having them come down to the station and let me check their boobs for lumps. That didn’t quite work out, but my connection to Dave’s Gone By was solidified that night, joined together…like an unidentified fibrous mass under a nipple. Since then, it has been a joy and an honor to be a dweller in the Daverhood. I get to share my weekly Rabbinical Reflections on this program, where I can rant and rave and embarrass Dave. These reflections have encompassed everything from Coca Cola to gay rights to Regis Philbin to the relentless insanity of the Arab world. Considering some of the things I’ve said, it’s a miracle I haven’t had my head handed to me – literally, by some English yutz in ISIS.

Think about what radio has come to. Go up and down the dial, and what do you hear? Obnoxious debt consolidators, obnoxious mariachi music, obnoxious preachers spouting that Jesus is the answer to everything when we all know that chocolate is the answer to everything. You’ve got your right-wing, talk-radio goons who think our President is worse than AIDS, and you’ve got your hand-wringing, public-radio schlemiels who think we should cut off Israel’s aid. You get one classical-music station that’s always playing Mozart, because nobody can tolerate anything else. And, of course, 20 rock stations doing their own unique formats of top-40 pop, which all uniquely suck dog poop in their own unique ways.

Somewhere in that vast audio wasteland, you also get sports talk, lite jazz–which is what the devil listens to when he’s not torturing bin Laden—and commercials, commercials, commercials, commercials, commercials, commercials, public-service announcements, commercials, station IDs and commercials. Thank haShem for college radio: for a few spots on the dial that have real kids with quirky personalities playing the shitty music that they love. At least it means something to them.

My friend Dave has found a home on college radio, and so have I. Especially since we both like co-eds. UNC Radio may be a pup tent in a land of high rises, but we can speak freely and not fit into some politically correct, constrained, corporate idea of what a deejay is, or what a Rabbi is, or, in the case of Bill Clinton, what “is” is. And besides, everyone says fame and fortune can make you just as miserable as poverty and obscurity. To which I say, “Prove it! Prove it on me! I am so ready to be miserably wealthy, you can’t imagine!”

But I digress. Dave, my friend, my acolyte, my Miller Lite, mazel tov on your 500th radio program of the air. It’s an achievement that speaks to your tenacity, your talent, your endurance, your inflated ego, and your belief that a moribund medium can still reach one or two lonely people out there, in the dark, who aren’t necessarily serial killers.

Radio isn’t always an honorable or dignified profession, but Dave, that’s why it suits you. I wish you 500 more shows – nay, 5,000! 5,000,000! 5 shmagillion – whatever comes after that. I know you’ll keep doing radio as long as the inspiration holds. And when inspiration goes and you have nothing left to say? Well, there’s always blogging.

Until then, Dave Lefkowitz: more you, more me, immortality. 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 #118 (3/1/2015): New Purim Jokes

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #118 (3/1/2015): New Purim Jokes

(aired Feb. 28, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/UAS7Oif5pBA)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 1, 2015.

(sings) Shout hallelujah, come on, get happy!
It’s the Purim holiday
Though the rest of the year is crappy
We can drink all our blues away.”

Yes, my friends, this Wednesday night, the Purim holiday arrives, bringing with it the chance to celebrate our Jewishness, to dress up in funny costumes, and to recall a time in our history when, like the Crusades and the Holocaust, we were almost wiped out but saved at the last minute. Actually, no Jews died on Purim, so as happy holidays go, this one’s like hitting Lotto on the day your baby’s born.

On Purim, we read the Book of Esther — returning it to her after we’re done — and we rejoice in a holiday that is truly about fun. F – U – N. I spell it out, not because I’m worried the FCC thought I said something else, but because “fun” is not a word we often associate with my tribe, so we grab it when we can get it. And I get it on these Rabbinical Reflections by sometimes sharing jokes with a Jew-y theme and a Purim-packed punchline.

Our first joke is about my cousin Irving, who lives in Brooklyn and gets on a bus. He’s carrying this big duffel bag, and he asks the driver if he can get a senior discount. The driver looks at him funny and says, “You don’t look a day over 40. Show me some ID.”
“I left my wallet at home,” says Irving. “All I have is change for the bus. But I still I demand a senior discount.”

“You’re not old enough!” yells the driver. “What are you trying to pull?”

“How dare you!” screams Irving. “I demand my rights!”

The two start arguing and going back and forth and screaming. Finally, the bus driver gets fed up. He pulls to the curb, opens the doors, grabs the duffel bag and hurls it from the bus onto the sidewalk.

“You bastard!” says Irving. “Just because I wouldn’t pay full fare, you try to kill my son?”

Now, this joke trades upon two of the worst stereotypes you can foist upon the Jewish people: we’re cheap and conniving. We would do anything to save a penny, including lying and cheating. How this became a quote-unquote “Jewish” characteristic is beyond me. Ask a Scotsman. And it’s a hard stereotype to fight because I am stingy and proud of it! I’ll clip every coupon, I’ll visit museums only on free nights, I’ll bring a doggy bag to restaurants – not just for my leftovers, but from anyone else who wants to donate. In a world where one percent of the population keeps 90 percent of the money, who am I to play the big shot?

However, to intimate that the Jewish race is so miserly as to commit knowing and brazen fraud is an ugly over-generalization. For every Bernard Madoff, you’ll find a dozen philanthropists. For every Yid who doesn’t tip a waitress, there are two dozen who overpay just so they don’t look cheap. So please, bear that in mind when you see me in the hallway at the multiplex next week, sneaking from “American Sniper” to the SpongeBob movie. I’m already in the building; I should pay twice to go in a different room?

Anyhoo, let’s move on to our next verbal amusement. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin are sitting in a Berlin bar in the late 1920s. They’re planning and plotting and dreaming and scheming when an American tourist takes the stool next to them. “Hiya,” says the stranger. “I’m Chris from Ohio.”

“Nice to meet you,” says Hitler. “I’m Adolf, and this is my friend, Josef from Russia. We’re in politics, and we’re strategizing a great social undertaking. We’re going to murder six million Jews and a bicycle repairman.”

“Wow,” says the stranger. “Why a bicycle repairman?”

“See?” Hitler whispers to Stalin. “I told you nobody cares about the Jews.”

This joke has a dark underpinning because had these lunatics stayed friendly and non-aggressive, they truly would have succeeded in exterminating the Jewish population. Mercifully, this did not occur because HaShem hardened Hitler’s ego and made him fight on two fronts. Why God waited until 1945 to stop Der Fuhrer is a question that even the wisest Talmudic spin doctors lose sleep over, but since this is Purim, I’m not going to. I’m just going to tell one more joke.

An Italian mafioso and his Jewish lawyer are walking down the streets of Rome when they see a curvaceous lady bend over to fix her shoe. “Mamma mia!” says the mafioso. “I would love to screw her.”

“Really?” says the lawyer. “Out of what?”

Ahh, lawyers. Where would humor be without them? Actually, on the scale of evil, Wall Street tycoons have leapfrogged over attorneys in the annals of disdain — maybe because we need lawyers to put all these stockbrokers in prison. Still, with litigation the second-most popular American pastime after football, it’s hard to stick up for lawyers, since they’ve been sticking up taxpayers for years.

And before women complain that the joke has a sexist component because just the sight of an attractive lady bending over turns grown men into wolverines, please remember that just the sight of an attractive lady bending over turns grown men into wolverines. It’s funny because it’s true. So…

(sings) Hallelujah, come on, get happy
We’re gonna laugh at offensive yoks
So if hot women get you fappy
Grab some baby oil and two old socks

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27414

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #117 (2/22/2015): Oscars 2015

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #117 (2/22/2015): Oscars 2015

(aired Feb. 22, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/Qx2atxKOxbQ)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 22nd, 2015.

Problems in the Middle East got you down? Sick of the fighting over healthcare and immigration between the left and the right? Constipated by last night’s meal? (I know I am.) We’re still in the ass-end of winter, the Super Bowl has come and gone, and Purim is mainly for kids, so hurray for the Academy Awards, here to give grownups a shpritz of glitz and a glimpse of glamour, if only for a night. It’s a chance to forget our woes and wallow in Hollywood worship. Three-and-a-half hours of people who make more money in a week than you will in a lifetime, patting each other on the back over just how hard their jobs are.

I’m being sarcastic but, you know, you can take 80 million dollars and make a piece of drek, or you can take that same amount of money and create something memorable and touching and fun. Or best of all, you can take 80 million dollars, give me two million, and I don’t give a crap what you do with the rest.

Anyhoo, this year’s Oscar roster is an eclectic bunch. It seems they always are now that they allow something like 37 movies up for Best Picture. There’s been controversy this season over how white all the acting nominees are. Not one best or featured actor is a person of color – unless you count Robert Duvall, who’s grey, or Benedict Cumberbatch, who, if he were a paint, would be eggshell.

This could be pushback from last year, when “12 Years a Slave” won for best picture, and you had African actors up for other prizes. Considering what John Travolta did to that nice Jewish girl Idina Menzel, maybe the Academy is just terrified of what he’d do to “Selma” actors like David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo.

Up for Best Picture is “Selma” – so I feel bad for her sister, Patti – as is “American Sniper,” which is also controversial because in one scene, Bradley Cooper is holding a baby, but it’s obviously a plastic doll. The screenwriter later tweeted that the first infant got sick and the second didn’t show up, so they had to go with a fake. Still, viewers are crying foul, saying how dare Clint Eastwood ask us to use our imaginations and suspend disbelief. That’s what Fox News is for.

Vying with “Selma” and “American Sniper” for Oscar honors are “Birdman,” “Whiplash,” “Boyhood,” The Grand Budapest Hotel,” The Imitation Game,” and “The Theory of Everything.” “Birdman” is about a washed-up actor who keeps trying to make a comeback on Broadway. Or, as I like to call it, the Tony Danza Story. “Whiplash” stars J.K. Simmons as a music teacher so obnoxious and abusive, he missed his calling and should have become a New York City cop.

Then you’ve got “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a Wes Anderson confection about an old man who can’t give up the one thing that keeps him young. Or, as I call it, The Bill Cosby Story.

We also have “The Imitation Game,” which tells the tale of Alan Turing, a genius who cracked the Nazi code in World War II, only to be hounded to suicide because he was a faigeleh. The tragedy of Alan Turing is that he voluntarily underwent chemical castration, when all he had to do was find the right woman, marry her, and she’d castrate him every day of his life.

Also up for the big prize is “Boyhood,” a story of adolescence that has the critics kvelling because Richard Linklater shot it over the course of 12 years. That’s not inspiration, that’s laziness. Instead of using makeup and padding to make Patricia Arquette look old and fat, he let God do it.

And finally we come to “The Theory of Everything,” a bio-pic about astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. You know, the guy who wrote “A Brief History of Time,” which everyone bought but no one could understand. Kind of like Reaganomics. The point of the movie is that Hawking didn’t let Lou Gehrig’s disease cramp his mojo, especially since it didn’t affect his brain. Well, not until 2013, when that homely hobbit chose to boycott Israel over its supposed mistreatment of the Palestinians. The only black holes Stephen Hawking should be concerned with are the ones in Muslims’ hearts.

So there you have it: the nominees for the 87th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. I would be remiss, however, not to mention one of the nominees for best Foreign Film: “Ida,” about a Polish woman who’s about to become a Catholic nun when she learns that her parents, murdered during the Holocaust, were actually Jewish. You can tell that the movie is Polish because it’s set in 1872. Just kidding. You might also check out the Animated Feature Film nominee called “The Boxtrolls,” just because that’s what they really should rename the remaining women on “The View.”

So everyone get your popcorn, your ballot sheets, your No-Doz for Sunday night, February 22nd, when the Oscars arrive and all’s right with America. I’ll miss Joan Rivers on the Red Carpet. Though she was more fun on the kitchen table. Again, just kidding. In closing, I’d like to thank the Academy, my parents and the Lord. And I’m not even schvartz.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27419

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #116 (2/8/2015): UC Dervish

(aired Feb. 7, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/jisuZvALtjg)

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 8th, 2015.

What is the purpose of education? In an idealistic sense, it is to broaden the mind, to open young people to a world greater than themselves that they have to wade into in order to become productive members of society. Or, more simply put: live and learn. But one can also say the purpose of education is to take a bunch of kids who are too stupid to be left alone during post-adolescence, and corral them all in one place before we inflict them willy-nilly upon the planet.

Well, you don’t get kids much dumber – or potentially dangerous – than the yutzes at UC Davis, the University of California, Davis. Pro-Palestinian, liberal wackjob teenagers, who comprise the rotting corpse that is the student body, voted to boycott Israel over the country’s treatment of the poor, poor Palis. In a vote that passed 8 to 2, these bleeding-heart buttheads recommended that the University divest itself of all business dealings with the land of milk and honey. The SJP, whose letters stand for Students for Justice in Palestine (though they could just as easily stand for Suck my Jewish Penis), the SJP cheered and waved Palestinian flags as the vote went down in their favor. Best of all, as Jewish and pro-Israel students shuffled out of the meeting hall, the Arab-sympathizers began chanting, “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”

Now, where have we heard that poem before? Oh yeah, every time a Muslim with a grudge and an AK-47 decides to vent his spleen on a bunch of innocent civilians, those are the words: “Allahu Akbar.” It may sound like a religious prayer, but it’s more like a death yell. We heard it from Nidal Hasan, who killed 13 people in Fort Hood a few years ago, and we heard it last month, with a French accent, when the Koran Krazies lit into Charlie Hebdo for drawing cartoons.

I don’t need to tell you how I feel about the Israeli-Palestinian situation. But I will anyway. As I’ve said fifteen quadrillion times, Israel is a country — the size of a postage stamp — created after the Holocaust for Jewish people to finally have their own homeland. Anyone else on it either has to live by Israel’s rules or get the Allah out. And if you live in a country bordering Israel, or on land Israel gave back in the vain hope of trading acreage for peace, you better not be hostile, or we’re gonna stomp you like a wine glass at a wedding. But alas, up until that time, it’s the Arabs and their misguided sympathizers that do the violence, over and over again.

After the UC Davis vote – that the SJP won – the anti-Semites weren’t even satisfied with that! Two days later, someone painted swastikas on the walls of the Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi. (Actually, they should call it Aleph Epsom-Saltz Chai, but that’s for another time.)

It’s unclear whether this act was perpetrated by Arabs or just white kids goaded by all the latent Hebrewphobia stirred up by the vote. Either way, UC Davis has a nasty hurricane coming. I don’t mean a riot. I mean the whooshing sound of Jewish students exiting a place of higher learning that has sunk to a valley of lower squirming. It’s the sound of Jewish alumni divesting their donations and bequests from UCD and sending them to the UJA. It’s the whooshing sound of freshman applications – and application fees – being turned into paper kites because little Missy Horowitz and her 1500 SAT score now chooses to attend USC or UC Berkeley instead.

People at the University say the graffiti and the protests and threats are coming from outside sources and not the college kids themselves. How convenient. You light a torch and you wonder why someone behind you screams fire. Well, I’m screaming, too. Screaming at the retarded students of UC Davis who buy into this wahh-wahh, right-of-return, push-Israel-off-the-map garbage. And all this time, what’s been happening in the Arab world? More beheadings, hostages being burned alive, kidnapping and attacks – business as usual in the radical Muslim cyclone everywhere they are. And yet Israel is the bad guy.

Students of UC Davis, in my gradebook, you get an F for Flunk and a U for Uninformed. I realize you probably can’t spell, so I’ll put them together for ya: F. U.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27424

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #115 (2/1/2015): Letters, I Get Letters

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #115 (2/1/2015): Letters, I Get Letters

aired Jan. 31, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/9h85v4ZV3lY

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 1st, 2015.

(sings) Letters, I get letters. Actually, I don’t get letters. I get emails and tweets and instant messages and the occasional bomb threat. And while it’s true that people only write to you for two reasons: to complain–or it’s your birthday—either way, I am happy to be acknowledged and on the radar, so to speak. It’s like an actor: you can get great scripts or you can get Vin Diesel scripts; it’s all good . . . until the phone stops ringing.

Well, my proverbial phone has been ringing off the proverbial hook, so I thought I would share some of these messages with you, my proverbial congregation. Now, I was terribly broken up last week by the death of Joe Franklin. Legendary talk-show host, magnificent New York character, and more than a passing acquaintance of my good friend Dave, who hosts the Dave’s Gone By radio program, of which I assume you are familiar. Joe came to my stage show, “Shalom Dammit!”, when it was at the Roy Arias Theater in Times Square a couple of years ago. Joe stayed through both acts, he applauded, I think he was eating a tomato—but he did not throw it—and he said very nice things about me and my performance.

But even if he hadn’t, there will never be another like Joe Franklin, who carved out his niche—which sounds both erotic and painful—and made a life in show business for seven decades. I should only be so lucky. I’m already so short.

So in the spirit of Joe’s eccentricity and sly obliviousness, I took to Twitter and wrote this message: quote, Joe Franklin was a legend, and I’m proud that he came to my stage show, “Shalom Dammit!”. Then, after the show, we both raped Sarah Silverman.” Unquote.

I know, shocking. How could I possibly fit all that information into 140 characters on Twitter? But more to the point, how could I make a joke about sexually assaulting the best-looking Jewish comedienne since Totie Fields still walked on twos? So a lady wrote to my Facebook page to opine that, quote, “Rape is not a joke punchline.” I guess she never met Bill Cosby. “I love your posts,” the woman said, “but this one is VERY OFFENSIVE!” She put that in capital letters, I guess because she knows my eyesight tends to fail right in the middle of messages. Very thoughtful. She also worried about, quote, a backlash against me and this radio program. Thank you, ma’am, but in order to have a backlash, I first have to have a lash. I don’t have enough followers for an eyelash!

But seriously, for those of you, like this worried woman, who thought my joke was off the grid, you do have to keep in mind that it was Sarah Silverman who started the ball rolling in the first place. She was in that movie, “The Aristocrats,” where all these comedians tell different versions of a long, scatological joke about a showbiz family and their disgusting, depraved, sick and kinky exploits . . . basically the Palins. So Sarah Silverman is in there, and she does her own twist on this twisted joke, one that implicates Joe Franklin by name, accusing him of sexual molestation. Cue the giggles.

To be fair, Joe didn’t find it funny, and he contemplated suing her for defamation of character. Joe’s friends and colleagues reminded him that she was just kidding, and he should lighten up, and that, really, he had no character. But seriously, the rape joke was hers, she put it out there, making it fair game for my tweetmaking.

Which does point to a larger issue: the idea that rape is never funny and can never be funny under any circumstance. Same with the Holocaust, 9/11, retarded people and Nelson Mandela. If you’re like this woman who wrote to me, you can’t possibly find anything amusing, ever, about any of those four things: Holocaust, 9/11, retards, Mandela. If you’re like me, you’re already picturing a retarded Nelson Mandela trying to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, but he’s brain damaged so he crashes into Elie Wiesel’s house by accident.

Anything and everything is fair game depending on time, context, delivery and audience. When Michael Richards used the “n” word at that comedy club years ago, he wasn’t wrong for trying; he simply misjudged the material and the crowd. I use the “n” word in my sermons all the time, and everyone laughs and laughs. Except the janitor.

But moving on to my next letter, this one comes from Marie, an elderly lady in South Florida, or, as I like to call it, Israel East. Marie is responding to my Rabbinical Reflection about the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo magazine. Says Marie, quote, “I couldn’t agree with your comments on Islam more. The Paris thing makes me sick. I don’t like Charlie Hebdo, but I don’t think one should kill someone for cartooning.” Unquote. One time I came close with “Ren and Stimpy,” but I got over it.

Marie goes on to say that “People don’t know history! They act,” she says, “as if Israel went to battle to take over the West Bank instead of being attacked. The problem goes all the way back to the Middle Ages, when the Muslims tried to take over the world. They made it all the way up to France until they were stopped in the Battle of Tours in 732.” Personally, I thought the Battle of Tours was 1965 when the Rolling Stones were trying to out-sell the Beatles, but I digress.

“Why is it,” writes Marie, “that in Paris, the Jewish Museum has to have antechambers and all sorts of protection, but the huge Arab Institute needs no protection?” Maybe it can’t fit the condom over the dome. “Why are we not hearing in the news,” continues Marie, “about Muslims from North Africa trafficking humans and, if caught on the seas, killing them?” I dunno, Marie, maybe because they’re not inadequately trained police officers.

And finally, says Marie, “If the Western World is so bad, why are all these Muslims here, or coming here? And why are we not hearing about the consistent, casual rapes by Palestinians in North England?”

Good point, Marie, although I’m not sure what a casual rape is. It’s like, “Hey, baby, I kinda wanna rape you, but, you know, no strings, and I don’t want you to wake up in the morning and feel weird about it. And for god sakes, don’t tell my friends because they think I’m still raping my ex.”

Oh no, oh no! I made a rape joke. Which, for some people, renders me worse than those who are out there actually committing such crimes. Sorry, but no comparison. And besides, if unwanted sexual advances are never funny, how come when I pull down my pants at night, my wife starts laughing?

Thank you, by the way, for your letters and comments, which you can send to shalomdammit@aol.com, that’s shalomdammit@aol.com, or find me on Facebook at Sol Solomon, or twitter me at RabbiSolSolomon or, best of all, leave me alone; I have a deadline for a fan fiction piece I’m writing about Mayim Bialik being violated by Prince Andrew. It’s hot . . . and funny.

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27462

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #114 (1/11/2015): Political Cartoons

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #114 (1/11/2015): Political Cartoons

aired Jan. 10, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/mRq5DBLqUGA

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 11, 2015.

Where’s the King of Cartoons when you need him? Remember him, from the Pee-Wee Herman show? He was a big old schvartze with a super 8 projector, and he’d show nostalgic animations to the kiddies at home. It wasn’t exactly “South Park,” but at least, the cartoons had a big brother, an overseer, someone who would, presumably, also protect harmless, defenseless cartoonists.

Protect them from what? What else? Muslims. Crazy-ass, psychopathic, radical Muslims. Muslims who stormed into the offices of a satirical newspaper in Paris and methodically killed a dozen people, wounded a dozen others, and got away in their black Mohammed mobile while shouting “Allahu Akhbar,” which, of course means, “whose turn is it to pay for White Castle?”

Seriously, though, I am getting so tired of hearing, “Oh, it’s just a small faction. You can’t fault the whole religion. A zillion people follow Islam all over the globe, and they’ve never killed anyone . . . Yet.” Sure, that’s true. But why is it every time you turn on the news, and some lunatic causes mayhem and chaos, 99 times out of 103, it’s a douchebag in a black hood shouting how much he loves him some Allah?

And God forbid we should say there’s a pattern. God forbid we should profile towelheads at the airport. No, better we should blame the cartoonists for riling up our enemies with naughty pictures. You know, if I tracked down and shot every schmuck who made an anti-Semitic comment on youtube or Huffpo, I’d be a killing machine to rival Chuck Norris. I’d have to hire my accountant, Morty Birnbaum, just to keep a ledger of all the worthless bastards I’d executed. I’d walk through every school in the middle east with bandoleers criss-crossed over my chest like Pancho Villawitz. And I’d put a bullet through the head of every man, woman and child who ever said a word against me, Israel, or “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” I’d leave so many bodies lying around, the 2004 Indonesian tsunami would look at me and go, “Dude, I’m not worthy.”

Homicidal fantasies aside, I do not do these things. I dream about them. I rant about them. But I do not do them. Why? Because I’m a coward. And also a human being. Occasionally. I know there’s a difference between right and wrong, and that committing mass murder to prove how religious you are is like drinking three sixpacks to prove you’re not an alcoholic. But someone in Arabia didn’t get the memo. And he certainly didn’t forward it to his gun-toting, Koran-spewing buddies.

If I sound like a broken record, it’s because I’m a broken-hearted record. Every couple of weeks I have to do one of these Rabbinical Reflections, not about a Jewish holiday, not about social causes, but always about Arabs with a mental defect and a death wish. But when I call a spade a spade, I’m a racist, I’m part of the problem, I’m promoting the crypto-zionist western-fascist Jew-owned police state that’s oppressing the poor little Bedouins and their cutesy-wutesy oil wells. Well, shtup that and shtup them.

As of this writing, one of the terrorists has given himself up, and authorities are on the trail of two French-born, Islamic brothers who helped pull off the bloodbath. May all three be caught, strapped to an easel and stabbed in the throat with a sharpened Faber Castell polychromos yellow. And, at the moment of their deaths, may the King of Cartoons draw a thought bubble, in permanent marker, next to their heads, with the words inside reading, “Suck it, Allah. Mohammed’s a joke!” Or whatever the Arabic version of that might be.

Then, may his highness, the King of Cartoons erase these three Islamic smudges from the book of life, and may God create another tsunami, this one in the middle east, wiping out every terrorist and enabling Muslim caliphate, leaving just Israel intact, surrounded by millions of miles of pure, pristine sand. “Well,” God will say to the King of Cartoons, “back to the drawing board.”

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

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27467