Rabbi Sol Solomon’s celebrity interviews, Rabbinical Reflections (sermons), songs, and other appearances on the show.
INDEX: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407
Topics include: Frank Sinatra, American songbook, Liberace, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Cosby, Merv Griffin.
Segment scheduled to air Sept. 5, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 23, 2015.
Two weeks ago, 90-year-old former president Jimmy Carter announced that he was battling an advanced stage of cancer—or, as Jewish people call it (whispers) cancer. Snipped from his liver was a tumor, but they also found badness elsewhere, which is not surprising since both of Carter’s parents, his two sisters, and his brother all died of pancreatic you-know-what.
Jimmy still has his 87-year-old wife, Rosalynn, who says she will be “right there with him” throughout his treatment. So will the town of Plains, Georgia, and a lot of Americans who remember Carter as one of the smartest, most honest, and most decent of men to occupy the oval office.
My feelings are a mite more mixed, however. Just because Carter was a mensch doesn’t mean he was a good President. In fact, up until George W. Bush, he was the worst Commander in Chief in a hundred years. And considering that crop included Richard Nixon and Warren G. Harding, that’s saying something.
In case you weren’t around from 1977 to 1981, what you missed was the recession, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis, the Cold War, and the confidence crisis. You know your President is a bona fide schlemiel when he has to go on television to tell everyone, “It’s not me, it’s you. Have a little faith.” Faith is hard to come by when you’re idling at the gas station for two hours on odd and even days, or when you can’t find a job to pay what gasoline costs, or you’re turning your thermostat to 50 because the Mullahs at OPEC want you to.
And speaking of the Arabs, the Carter years were also, of course, the years of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Fifty-two American hostages were taken prisoner as part of the Iranian Revolution. I suppose we should be grateful all the hostages survived. If they were captured now, Isis would cut their limbs off and rape the stumps. Still, these Americans remained in captivity for a year and a half, until Ronald Reagan made backroom deals to have them released on the first day of his presidency.
Until then, Jimmy Carter had three responses to the Iranian hostage crisis: He barricaded himself in his office for a hundred days, because as any eight-year-old knows, if you hide in the closet, nobody knows you’re there, and all the bad stuff goes away. His second tactic was to wear sweaters, because that’ll show those big bad oil sheiks we can live without heat. And finally, he sent helicopters to try a rescue mission—and they all crashed in the desert.
It was right about then America stopped laughing at Billy Carter and turned her woeful eyes on his older brother. If Watergate was a cancer on the Presidency, Jimmy Carter was a herpes all over it.
Still, lousy as Carter’s term was, I would still want to respect the man. After all, he brokered an impossible deal between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to create a small piece of peace in the Middle East. It truly was and remains an unbelievable, wonderful, and, alas, one-of-a-kind event in that region. And yet, can peanut boy leave well enough alone?
No, he spends the last few years bleeding through his sleeve for the poor, poor Palestinians. He writes a damn book with the inflammatory title, “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid,” equating Israel with racist South Africa—even though the Palestinians are demanding land that belongs to Israel, land Israel annexed after being attacked, land that should be for Jews and Israeli citizens because the Arabs have a zillion other places to live.
Carter tries to play both sides of the fence. He sometimes makes nice-nice to Israel, saying he doesn’t support a boycott of the country over its policies. But then he turns around and chastises Eretz Yisroel for the way she conducts a war against an enemy that’s lobbing rockets in her backyard.
Like so many liberals and misinformed do-gooders, Jimmy Carter loves to invent a moral equivalency when there isn’t one. “Both Israel and Hamas are equally wrong and share equal blame,” which is not true; and let’s harp on Israel but be really gentle with the Arabs because we don’t want to make them mad. After all, Islam, the religion of peace, blows a ton of shit up, peacefully.
My main point is: considering his failure at almost every aspect of domestic and foreign leadership, and how he was humiliated by the Ayatollah—a guy who looked like Sean Connery wearing a microwavable heat wrap on his head—Jimmy Carter has as much business telling Israel what to do about the Muslims, as Michelle Duggar has telling the Pritzkers how to raise children. Of all people, Jimmy Carter should be the last one to believe you can reason with radicals, bargain with bullies, and mollify murderers.
After all, as we speak, Jimmy Carter’s body is being invaded by cancer cells that mean him only harm. Should the president’s doctor say, “Well, it’s not right to kill these invaders; it’s your fault for having a desirable host they want to live in. But tell you what. Why don’t you sacrifice so you can live in harmony with your cancer. Let them take your pancreas, your liver, your balls and your bones, and you can live side by side. And they promise never ever ever to move into your blood. Or least not for a week or two. Whaddya say?”
I say, “Jimmy Carter, you’ve done some good in this world, so I don’t wish you prolonged suffering. Still, if you had to get the big C, couldn’t you have gotten it in your mouth?”
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress Christina Pickles
Topics include: Break a Hip, Friends, Another World, Broadway.
Segment scheduled to air Aug. 15, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actor-director Gary Waldman
Topics include: What I Learned in Fallsburg, Paul Simon, Catskills
Segment aired Aug. 8, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 2, 2015.
As if there weren’t already enough reasons to hate dentists, last week brought us Walter Palmer. Wally, who obviously makes a good living from his crowns and extractions, paid $50,000 to go on a hunting expedition. More specifically, he wanted to take his little bow and arrow and bring down a mighty king of the jungle. Which he did.
In early July, Palmer trekked to a nature preserve in Zimbabwe and lured a mighty lion to a spot where he could shoot him in the ass and kill him. Palmer only wounded the beast, which then had to be tracked down and shot in the head. Isn’t hunting a fair and noble sport?
The sad part isn’t just that African lions are endangered, but this was Cecil, a beloved 13-year-old jungle cat who brought in millions of tourists dollars to the preserve. Nobody wanted to slaughter him; they just wanted to drive by slowly, be frightened a little, and get the hell out of there and buy a stuffed panda at the gift shop. And yet, poor Cecil the lion spent much of his adult life in captivity only to die by assassination. Hell, even JFK left the White House to shtup Marilyn once in awhile.
Now this sadistic dentist—which Little Shop of Horrors reminded us is a redundant phrase—this Walter Palmer was not some lunatic running around like Cupid with a bow and arrow and a “George of the Jungle” fixation. This trophy hoarder is a life-long big-game blaster who used legal permits and guides for his latest expedition. Which means there were people who allowed this man to lure a fish out of a barrel . . . and give it both barrels.
What’s funny and marvelously ironic is that in the days after this yutz posted his victory spoils on social media, public outrage has been so vituperative that Palmer has gone into hiding. Faced with death threats, protests, cancelled cavities, Walter Palmer is crouching behind the high grass until the public cools off or gets bored or find another Bill Cosby victim to wonder about.
I say, what we need to do about Palmer in hiding is find the motel he’s staying at, and have two guys knock on the door and say they’re from Publisher’s Clearing House, and he’s won a million dollars. Then, when you’ve coaxed him to the parking lot – BAM! – turns out the guys are really Jehovah’s Witnesses, and boy, is he in for a miserable afternoon!
Seriously, though, I am not against hunting per se. I love steak and duck and venison and the occasional kosher muskrat. And if you are using the inside for beef and the outside for clothing, I believe you are abiding by the natural order of things. I’m not some Birkenstock-wearing vegan shouting “meat is murder” and making believe tofu actually tastes like something edible. Also, there are legitimate times when you need to thin the herd and stop a breed from over-multiplying. I wish we could do with the Kardashians.
But when you are killing just for sport, and you take the sport out of it, what’s left is bloodlust and murder. Walter Palmer may not have broken the law, but his ethics are lower than a Republican’s IQ. Remember, this is not about gun control; it’s not about the NRA; it’s not about ditching the second amendment. It’s about the rich getting away with murder. In this case, it’s literal, but you could say the same about some company that pays hush money to dump chemicals in a lake, or oil companies that bribe politicians for fracking rights, it’s about paid-off scientists who’ll fudge numbers that show Antarctica isn’t melting, it’s about the teenager next door who’ll show you her boobs for $20. All right, not all of these are bad, we can’t keep allowing millionaires to stick pricetags on everything they want, or, in other words, money must never dictate morality.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon. And, if you would like me to come speak at your next corporate event, my fee is $30,000. $50,000 if you want me to endorse Palestinian statehood. Hey, I’m only human. And you can find me at Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actress Kathryn Crosby.
Topics include: Bing Crosby, State Fair, Gary Crosby, Peter Lorre, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rooney.
Segment aired July 18, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Farewell to our Friend of the Daverhood, Kathryn Crosby, who passed Sept. 20, 2024 at age 90.
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)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews author Louise Harrison
Topics include: George Harrison, The Beatles, Brian Epstein, “My Kid Brother’s Band”.
Segment aired Aug. 2, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews producers Sue & Lloyd Ecker about their documentary, “The Outrageous Sophie Tucker.”
Topics include: Sophie Tucker, business, filmmaking.
Segment scheduled to air July 18, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL: Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, the founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches.
DAVE: And this is Dave Lefkowitz, host of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show –
RABBI SOL: with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 12th, 2015. Take it away, Dave.
DAVE: Those of you who have seen Rabbi Sol onstage know that he loves music. It doesn’t always love him back, but the Rebbe feels that music and lyrics –
RABBI SOL: And a well-placed trombone solo –
DAVE: The combination of all those musical elements can say more in three minutes than a dozen speeches.
RABBI SOL: Or even a baker’s dozen, which is 13, and a nice deal, since you’re paying for 12, and they throw in an extra one for no charge. They should do that with condoms. Anyhoo, because music is so potent, songwriters are obligated to write lyrics that say something. Not just, “Ooh, I wanna shtup you,” or “Ooh, why did you stop shtupping me?”, or “Ooh, why are you shtupping my best friend?” or, if it’s a country song, “I love my truck.”
DAVE: And songs can also be cryptic, or indirect, with words that convey multiple meanings. Every tune is a byzantine Rorschach test for the listener.
RABBI SOL: Boy, doesn’t that sound like fun? My job as Rabbi is to help guide you, my listeners and parishioners, through the truth of these songs. The subtleties, the answers, the keys to their changing meaning and the meaning to their changing keys. I also chastise the songwriters if they’re being lazy or prurient or Michael Bolton.
DAVE: To that end, Rabbi Sol has volunteered to deconstruct a popular song, line by line, and offer his commentary. You may not agree with his interpretations, but as the Rabbi says:
RABBI SOL: Who the hell are you? Write your own Talmud.
DAVE: Today’s song is a classic by The Beatles. Written by Lennon and McCartney and sung by Ringo on their “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” record.
RABBI SOL: A concept album that pretty much runs out of concept after the first two songs.
DAVE: Nevertheless, “With a Little Help from My Friends” remains among the catchiest and most enduring of The Beatles’ pop hits. But does it stand up under the Rabbi’s scrutiny?
RABBI SOL: I dunno, does it?
DAVE: Let’s find out. I’m gonna sing “With a Little Help from My Friends,” and Rabbi Sol will interrupt when he has something to say. Or even when he doesn’t.
RABBI SOL: Wait a minute. You’re gonna sing? You’ll do more damage to The Beatles than Yoko!
DAVE: Very funny, Rabbi.
RABBI SOL: You’re telling me! I saw you in a nightclub once where you promised to sing an entire album by the Beatles. You asked for audience requests. Everybody said, “Help!”
DAVE: All right, all right. Are you ready?
RABBI SOL: Am I ever?
DAVE: This is “With a Little Help from My Friends” . . . and from Rabbi Sol.
(play song with commentary)
DAVE: “What would you think if I sang out of tune?”
RABBI SOL: I’d think, “why are you singing? What, do you wanna torture me?”
DAVE: “Would you stand up and walk out on me?”
RABBI SOL: No, I would probably stay until the end of the song; I would be polite. But I would not be buying the CD.
DAVE: “Lend me your ears, and I’ll sing you a song.”
RABBI SOL: You just told me you sing out of key. Why are you gonna sing me a song?
DAVE: “And I’ll try not to sing out of key.”
RABBI SOL: Oh, you’re gonna try. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you so much for your mercy! I’m gonna try not to vomit in my mouth.
DAVE: “Oh, I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Ah, don’t we all?
DAVE: “Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: You must live in Colorado.
DAVE: “Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Yeah, try harder.
DAVE: “What do I do when my love is away?”
RABBI SOL: Flirt with teenage girls on Facebook?
DAVE: “Does it worry you to be alone?”
RABBI SOL: Worry me? I love being alone! I have 21-and-a-half children; I’m never alone!
DAVE: “How do I feel by the end of the day?”
RABBI SOL: How do you feel by the end of the day? Obviously, not exhausted by singing lessons.
DAVE: “Are you sad because you’re on your own? No, I get by with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Maybe you need some more help.
DAVE: “Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: So, basically, your friends are enablers?”
DAVE: “Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: I really hope they’re helping.
DAVE: “Do you need anybody?”
RABBI SOL: Yes, I need a roofer.
DAVE: “I need somebody to love. Could it be anybody?”
RABBI SOL: Well, it’s carpentry work, so I would prefer Irish.
DAVE: “I want somebody to love.”
RABBI SOL: Yes, you and me both. Natalie Portman, are you listening? And do you charge by the hour?
DAVE: “Would you believe in a love at first sight?”
RABBI SOL: Yes! Me and a pastrami sandwich!
DAVE: “Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time. What do you see when you turn out the light?”
RABBI SOL: When I turn out the light, it’s dark. I don’t see anything. What are you, a moron?
DAVE: “I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.”
RABBI SOL: I don’t know what’s yours but don’t be touching it in the dark. That’s just perverse.
DAVE: “Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Oy, again with the friends.
DAVE: “Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Again with the high? Have you tried edibles?
DAVE: “Yes, gonna try with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Keep trying.
DAVE: “Do you need anybody?”
RABBI SOL: I need a minyan this Friday night.
DAVE: “I just need someone to love. Could it be anybody?”
RABBI SOL: We’ll take men, women, dogs. Doesn’t really matter.
DAVE: “I want somebody to love. Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: You need a lotta help, buddy.
DAVE: “Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: I get chai with a little help from my friends! Heh heh.
DAVE: “Yes, gonna try with a little help from my friends. With a little help from my friends. With a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: So, nu, where are these friends who are supposed to show up already?
DAVE: “With a little help from my friends.”
RABBI SOL: Oy, I need a lotta help from my iTunes if it’s playing this shit.
(song ends)
RABBI SOL: Well, that was painful. But I hope you all learned something about not taking songs for granted. The composers are trying to tell you something, so it’s important to listen, digest, and make up your own mind. Or make up your own lyrics. (sings, “There’s a bathroom on the right…”) Speaking of which . . .
DAVE: Oh dear, it’s the Rabbi’s private time. With his privates. So this has been a Rabbinical Reflection with me, Dave Lefkowitz. (sings) Her majesty’s a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say.”
RABBI SOL: Count yourself lucky. I got a queen at home; she never shuts up! Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. and ani, Rabbi Sol Solomon
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #128 (6/28/2015): Scalia
(aired June 28, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/TzqQMAOhz7g)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 28, 2015.
Well, it’s taken awhile, but I know what I wanna do when I grow up. I wanna trade places with Antonin Scalia. Appointed by Ronald Reagan, he’s the longest-running chief justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Thirty years on the bench voting strictly along conservative lines and interpreting the constitution so narrowly, you couldn’t fit a dragonfly’s wing between “we” and “the” in “we the people.”
This man has held back—or tried to—the progress of American civilization, be it women’s rights for abortion, minorities facing discrimination, immigrants facing deportation, and gays being able to do their thing…gaily. They should just pull Antonin Scalia off his bench and replace him with a television airing Fox News; it’d be the same thing.
Of course, Scalia got his head handed to him twice last week. First, the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. Surprisingly, they voted the spirit of the law–rather than the letter of the law. “So what if the wording is vague,” said the Court. “The President meant well, and he’s trying to help people.” Six justices agreed, including all the liberals, plus Roberts and Kennedy. Scalia dissented, angrily, as did Alito and the schvartze.
Twenty-four hours later, the court made another historic ruling, this one on gay marriage. They’re for it. Well, five out of nine of them were. Amazing how this Court had more consensus on a twisted insurance law than they did on two people wanting to tie the knot.
John Roberts was the stick-in-the-mud this time. He argued that he had nothing against same-sex chupahs, but making it the law of the land somehow circumvented peoples’ rights to vote yes or no on it. Whatever. The fun part is reading Scalia’s dissent. In challenging the idea that sanctioning gay marriage would expand personal freedom, he argues: “hey, on what planet has any marriage ever expanded freedom? You’re stuck together, day in, day out; you can’t leave unless you separate or divorce, and in the bedroom…?” I think comedian Chuck Bartell put it best when he said, “If you enjoy watching the same porno film over and over and over again . . . you’re great marriage material.” So Scalia has a point when he writes, quote, “One would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie.”
Granted, the last time anyone saw a hippie was 1973, but you get the gist.
Unfortunately, it’s the gism that bothers Scalia, and he’ll torture the words of the constitution to make sure that his good religious values aren’t ruffled by anything as upsetting as two dudes feeding each other cake on a dais.
Which is why I belong up there in Washington DC holding forth on legal and moral issues, while Scalia would kill on radio and TV. The man’s got a gift for phrasing, like when he likened Roberts’s opinions to the contents of a fortune cookie. Or back when he was asked whether he found it difficult to vote on complex issues. “The death penalty?” he said. “Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state,” unquote.
So this is a dangerous guy, but a funny guy. He doesn’t b.s., and like Bill O’Reilly, he gives really good soundbyte. He expresses himself with crystal clarity — even when his morality becomes a fatality. So he’d be terrific doing these mini-sermons, my amusing, Robert Fulghumian ruminations. Meanwhile, I should be in the Supreme Court, agreeing with Justice Kagin, arguing with Justice Thomas, diapering Justice Ginsberg . . .
See, I can spout crazy, offensive things, and the occasional brilliant, profound thing, and listeners can take it or leave it. I’m an entertainer, a pundit, a gadfly, a horsefly even. And so is Scalia. It’s just that his word is law, literally.
We do have commonalities. Scalia is a devout, Italian-American Catholic; I’m a depraved Jewish-American Jew. But I’m not sitting on the highest court in the land trying to turn the clock back on social progress.
So Anto, bubbie, let’s do celebrity life swap. I’ll take your robe; you take my tallis. I’ll listen to people drone on and on about the most tedious minutiae; you listen to my wife talk about her day. I’ll make laws that advance human rights and personal freedoms; you get on the radio once a week and tell prostate jokes. Whaddya say? I’ve even come up with your catchphrase: “Buongiorno Cazzo!” Heh? Not bad, right? Scal, my pal, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Court is adjourned.
