Rabbi Sol Solomon’s celebrity interviews, Rabbinical Reflections (sermons), songs, and other appearances on the show.
INDEX: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407
click above to watchclick above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with writer CHARLES ROSENAY!!!
Topics include: The Monkees, Turtles, Beatles, conventions, horror, Judaism
Segment airs Aug. 8, 2026 as part of episode #1044 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Suzy Ultman’s “I Like Your Chutzpah”
This segment aired Aug. 1, 2026 as part of episode #1043 of the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
click above to watchclick above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor EDDIE FRIERSON
Topics include: Matty, Christy Matthewson, voicework, Power Rangers
Segment airs Aug. 1, 2026 as part of episode #1043 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Dave’s Gone By Skit (7/25/2026): STORYTIME – Rabbi Sol Solomon reads “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Carol McCloud’s “Have You Filled a Bucket Today?”
This segment aired July 25, 2026 as part of episode #1042 of the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
Subject: Rabbi Sol reflects on what we can learn from a viral raccoon.
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired July 25, 2026 on the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running Dave’s Gone By program (davesgoneby.com) and are also archived on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage shows, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon” and “Hate Speech…With Love: Another Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon.”
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #212 (7/25/2026): Jimothy
(c)2026 David Lefkowitz. airs July 25, 2026 on Dave’s Gone By.
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for late July 2026.
What happy things occurred this year to take our minds off the miserable state of the world? The New York Knicks? America doing okeedoke in FIFA? Travis Kelce making an honest woman of Taylor Swift? Democrats magically realizing that a lech with a Nazi tattoo might not be the best Senatorial candidate – even for progressives? I mean, they wanted a socialist, but a National Socialist?
All of those were bright spots in a brown year. The latest distraction from doomsday may not be the most dramatic, but it is the cutest. Last week on social media, a raccoon lumbering across backyards in Seattle, went viral. In fact, people thought the animal was viral because he was a mess. A hunchback with a foreshortened spine, the beast – lovingly nicknamed “Jimothy” – looked like a cross between a squirrel and a midget gorilla. And yet, although goofy looking, this rodent with a pudgy body and a stubby tail was doing everything raccoons normally do – sneaking around, foraging, forcing suburbanites to double bag their garbage.
And here lies the conundrum of Jimothy. Raccoons are viewed as a nuisance. They’re beautiful creatures, but in your backyard or your garage or, God forbid, your chimney, that’s a call to pest control. And don’t let children go near them `cause they could be rabid. Your garden-variety raccoon is the last thing you want to see in your garden.
Except when you have an abnormal, deformed, genetically fucked-up raccoon – then it’s love. Everywhere, Jimothy t-shirts, tattoos, murals, glass figurines! The University of Washington already has a mascot so they couldn’t adopt him, so they just gave him an honorary doctorate. (Not really, but check their Instagram.)
So, yes, people are besotted with this trash panda because he’s beating the odds. He’s living his best raccoon life despite being shaped like Danny DeVito. Jimothy’s deformity, his homeliness – which would ordinarily set off a Darwinian “ugh” – instead prompts a desire to mother and protect him.
So this got me thinking (which with me is always dangerous). What can Jews learn from Jimothy? I realize our problem is we’ve become too normal. We’re so assimilated, so taken for granted for blending in, people feel no guilt for hating us. Jews hold major positions in law, entertainment, medicine, technology. We have physically gorgeous actors and actresses on TV and in movies. And we may not own all the banks, but we probably own the buildings the banks are in.
Despite our tiny population, Jews are major players in every aspect of the world stage, which gives everyone from good-ol’-boy bigots to social-justice sophomores carte blanche to harangue us with insults, falsehoods, and blame. When Israel hit back after October 7th, the world went, “What??? The underdog isn’t supposed to take brutal revenge! If you’re not cowering in the corner, you must be the bad guys. Not to mention Christ killers.”
So, how do we Jews counteract this latest wave of anti-us-ism? Why not go the Jimothy route? Instead of being attractive, educated, erudite, cultural, influential, and basically normal, maybe it’s time for Jews to lean into the old stereotypes. Lose the attributes that have helped us pass – and surpass.
We all want to be Paul Newman, but it’s safer to be Arnold Stang. Why? People who fear commonplace raccoons adore Jimothy because he’s a harmless freak. Maybe we Jews should grow our noses out, run around with scraggly beards and smelly old coats, cough and limp and crap ourselves, and get partial lobotomies to make us retarded. And then we approach our enemies, with Sarah McLachlan music playing behind us, and say (retarded voice), “Shalom! Look how helpless and wretched we are. Won’t you let us live in peace in our own widdle country? Think of us as the Moo Deng of the Middle East.”
Now, granted. That approach might backfire. Zohran Mamdani might round up all the New York Hebes and throw `em in zoos. But just maybe, if we can convince our foes to view us as pathetic Jimothies instead of powerful Jews, perhaps we’ll dodge the next pogrom.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Jim-jimothy, Jim-jimothy, jim-jim-jeroo.
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with singer CHRISTINE ANDREAS & MARTIN SILVESTRI
Topics include: Mel Torme, S’Wonderful, Sammy Cahn, George Abbott
Segment airs July 25, 2026 as part of episode #1041 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Jake Lockett’s “My Life as an Asthmanaut”
This segment aired July 11, 2026 as part of episode #1040 of the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
click above to watchclick above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedian SHEBA MASON & actor/sound designer IAN WEHRLE
Topics include: The Jackie Mason musical, sound, nightclubs
Segment airs July 18, 2026 as part of episode #1041 of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2026 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
For this week’s StoryTime segment on Dave’s Gone By, Rabbi Sol Solomon reads Michelle Nietert and Tama Fortner’s “God, I Feel Sad”
This segment aired July 11, 2026 as part of episode #1040 of the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz. Full episodes also available on youtube, Facebook (davesgoneby), and on DavesGoneBy.com.
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #211 (6/27/2026): BAD COFFEE
Subject: Rabbi Sol reflects on a Brooklyn coffee shop’s anti-Semitism.
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired June 27, 2026 on the “Dave’s Gone By” video podcast program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running Dave’s Gone By program (davesgoneby.com) and are also archived on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage shows, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon” and “Hate Speech…With Love: Another Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon.”
TRANSCRIPT: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #211 (6/27/2026): Bad Coffee
(c)2026 David Lefkowitz. airs June 27, 2026 on Dave’s Gone By.
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of June 2026.
What the hell has happened to coffee? It wasn’t so long ago that if you wanted a morning brew in New York, there’d be a guy in a cart, and for a buck he’d hand you a fresh Folger’s, with cream and two sugars, napkins, a donut, and a tip on the third race at Belmont. Okay, maybe that was so long ago. For decades we’ve grown inured to the Starbucking of America. Jackie Mason said it best when he warned us, “Coffee in a coffee shop? Sixty cents, with cream. At Starbucks, it’s Cafe Latte: 3.50. Each French word costs another four dollars. No tables, no chairs, no busboy, you have to clean up — and it’s burnt coffee. If you get burnt coffee at a coffee shop, you call a cop. But when it’s burnt at Starbucks, it’s a blend.”
But at least Starbucks, which became a global powerhouse when led by a proudly Jewish CEO, stays mostly out of politics. Three years ago some of the unionized workers got mouthy about Gaza, but that simply triggered the most Jewish result of all: competing lawsuits. Since then, Starbucks has been extremely careful to say, “We don’t support Israel; we don’t not support Israel. We have stores all over Arabia, but the terrorists don’t get gift cards.” Like Switzerland in World War II, Starbucks’s neutrality is disingenuous and cowardly, but at least they didn’t join the other side like the French and Italians.
Nowadays, however, self-righteous identity politics is everything. It’s not enough to sell an eight-dollar mochaccino to some Gen Z schmuck; you also have to treat them to your Instagram-based musings on social justice. It shouldn’t surprise us that coffee pourers think they’re experts on decolonization. The whole point of coffee is de-colonizing – getting the crap out of our colons.
But a different kind of crap is being served up at one java shop in Brooklyn: Poetica Coffee, which is run by a jerk named Parviz Mukhamadkulov – and I wish this Mohammedan would cool off. Poetica refused to serve a pro-Israel Jewish politician. The store wrote on its official Facebook page, “Hey Congressman Dan Goldman. Do you see how our coffee doesn’t taste like genocide juice? Here at Poetica we don’t serve genocide enablers. We issued you a refund – your money’s probably coming from AIPAC anyway. Don’t ever come to Poetica.” Unquote. Obviously, this Parviz guy is chock full of nuts. But he’s getting away with this garbage! Hordes of Brooklyn millennials who fancy themselves baby Nelson Mandelas are cheering this douche-nozzle as he sells his rancid Robustas and gives only the Arabs Arabica. You gotta love a coffee shop that creams itself over equal rights while denying a customer . . . equal rights!
Tuesday’s primaries showed the New York Democratic party moving even further towards radical anti-Semitism, so Poetica’s perversion should not shock us. Still, the gall of this guy’s blatant Israel-bashing, that crosses way past altruism into straight-up Jew hate, can be met only with incredulity and rage. I am heartened by the counterprotestors who staged a pro-Israel, anti-Mamdani rally outside Poetica, telling those progressos to drown in their espressos. I am disheartened by Congressman Goldman losing in the primary to Jewish kapo Brad Lander, a bleeding-heart socialist who parrots all Hamas’s talking points about the “horrors” of Zionism. You know he’ll be getting free refills from the eyebrow-piercing crowd.
But the funniest part of all this – and none of this is funny – is that when Poetica refunded Dan Goldman’s cup of coffee and tip (because, yes, Jews do tip), he got back $9.82. That’s nearly ten dollars for heated brown water. And people pay it!
So here’s my idea: the most expensive coffee in the world is called kopi luwak. That’s the one where an Asian cat called a civet eats the coffee beans and then excretes them. Supposedly, the bowel movements taste fantastic with non-dairy creamer. Well, Parviz, let me go the civets one better. I will eat a dozen coffee beans then climb up on your counter and shit into your mouth and down your throat. The flavor will be rich, distinctive, and, if you have an enema handy, sustainable. Oh, sure, you might choke to death, and that would be poetic – and Poetica – justice.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Good to the last plop.
