Rabbi Sol Solomon’s celebrity interviews, Rabbinical Reflections (sermons), songs, and other appearances on the show.
INDEX: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews cabaret lyricist & Jeopardy champion Tom Toce
Topics include: Cabaret, Broadway, theater, Jeopardy, Andrea Marcovicci, Douglas J. Cohen.
Segment aired Jan. 4, 2014 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)2014 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
aired Dec 29, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/kCb-wFiJvIQ
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 29th, 2013.
Boy, this year really bit the big one, didn’t it? You had the bombing at the Boston Marathon, flooding in Colorado, civil war in Egypt and Syria, the spying nonsense with Edward Snowdon… And let’s not forget the whole government shutting down because Republicans are Machiavellian and miserable, and Democrats are stubborn and stupid.
2013 wasn’t a terrible year. It wasn’t 1941 or 2001 or the year I had my gallstones out.
Still, everyone I know had a lousy time of it. Deaths in the family, illnesses, accidents, bad luck and bad news. The good part is: it’s over, and we’re still here. No matter how crappy and ignominious your year was, you still came out better than Peter O’Toole, Lou Reed and Nelson Mandela.
And, of course, there’s always the hope that next year will be better. At Passover, we all say, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Or, more realistically, Boca Raton. “L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim” doesn’t just mean we’d rather be in the Holy Land than Weehawken, New Jersey. It means we hope that a year from now, we’ll find ourselves in a better place where we’ll be happier. Yes, that’s as likely as the Jets winning another Super Bowl, but we hope anyway.
For the Jewish New Year, we dip an apple in honey to represent sweeter times ahead, and we blow the ram’s horn because in ancient times, they didn’t have saxophones. All these things are meant to signal a new beginning, a clearing out of the dust and schmutz of the previous year, and starting the next annum with fresh breath and a snazzy hat. Or snazzy breath and a fresh hat; your choice.
For this Western New Year, crazy people will stand for hours in Times Square to usher in 2014. This, I don’t understand. If I want to see a ball drop, I’ll look in the mirror when I take off my underpants. But there’s something to be said for a communal, brotherhoody way to exit one train and hop another. And if standing around, drinking Coors Light from a sack, huddling for warmth and peeing into your Depends works for some folks, who am I to say no?
Me? I’ll be home with my dear wife, Miriam Libby, our 21 ½ beautiful children, my TV fixed on the “Honeymooners” channel, and my wine glass full of schnapps and Metamucil. I look forward to greeting you all next year, same time, same place, different grievances. L’Shana Haba’ah B’Radio, B’Youtube, B’Twitter and B’Wildered.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #085 (12/22/2013): Passings in 2013
Aired Dec 22, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/-XJcnuKO1O0
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 22nd, 2013.
My friends, this is that time of year, between Chanukah and Tu Bishvat, when we become reflective, we take stock, when we look towards a new year with a sense of hope that the previous year has nearly crushed out of us.
But before we move forward, it is good to look back and remember some of the special people that we lost over the past twelve months – or 13, if you’re counting in Hebrew time. People who made their mark on our lives and were, therefore, bigger than life. Although, obviously, not bigger than death, because they died.
So farewell, to some major humor beings. People like Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa who could have spent his time in power going, “Hmm, how many white people can I get back at?” Instead, he forgave and included. If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, just compare it to the way Moses and the Israelites left Egypt: plagues, bloody water, frogs, death of the first born. Not as if the Afrikaaners didn’t deserve the occasional boil outbreak or locust infestation. But Nelson Mandela was above that – which makes me jealous, because I’m not.
Another thing I’m not is psychic. And neither was Sylvia Browne, that woman you saw on Montel Williams telling everybody their future, except she knew less about the future than air-traffic controllers on September 10th. It pains me to speak ill of the dead – well, no it doesn’t. And in this case, I think psychics should have the same credo as doctors: first, do no harm. You wanna make people feel better about their dead loved ones looking down from above – or up from below? – fine. But Sylvia Browne served as a paranormal consultant on police murder cases, giving families false optimism and getting virtually everything wrong. Meanwhile, she predicted her own death at 88. And she got THAT wrong, by 11 years. I predict a few years in limbo for this charlatanette.
In 2013, we also lost Roger Ebert, a Pulitzer Prize winner who made talking about the movies even more fun than going to the movies. I didn’t always agree with his thumbs down, but I liked the way he kept his chin up. Well, his original chin, anyway.
Jonathan Winters died this year, a man whose comedy paved the way for Robin Williams, Gallagher and Carrot Top. So Jonathan may be doing some hell time. We also bade farewell to Esther Williams, who could dance in a swimming pool for hours and still look glamorous. If I’m in water more than two minutes, my face looks like a carp, and my body could double for Eubie Blake. And speaking of bodies, farewell to Harry Reems, the porn star of “Deep Throat.” Born Herbert Streicher, Harry Reems was blessed in a way most Jewish men are not, and he used it in a way most Jewish men aren’t capable of. Reems later had a drug problem and then converted to Christianity, but I’d prefer to remember him as a risk-taking Jew who worked hard. Sometimes rock hard. Which brings us to Al Goldstein, the man who founded Screw magazine and for 30 years hosted “Midnight Blue” on cable television. He was known for giving the middle finger to anyone and everything that he felt impinged upon his God-given freedoms, and for that, I hope God gives him five fingers in a hearty handshake. Oh, and we wouldn’t even have sex in this country if not for the late Virginia E. Johnson. In Masters & Johnson, she was the Johnson. And he had the Johnson.
In 2013, we lost Dr. Joyce Brothers, the psychiatrist and advice columnist who, because she was Jewish, was usually right. Late in the year, we lost Peter O’Toole, who played a crazy Arab sympathizer in “Lawrence of Arabia” but made up for it by schmoozing with Brooklyn Jews in “My Favorite Year.” 2013 was also the year we saw the wonderful Jean Stapleton stifled, and the passing of Mouseketeer Annette Funicello, who taught so many young boys about courtesy, good manners and tight sweaters. We lost Tom Clancy – the writer, not the Clancy Brother; and Joan Fontaine, the actress who wishes she could trade places with her sister.
Some Jewish notables taken from us in 2013 included Bonnie Franklin, who used her acting skills to play an Italian single mother, and Ed Koch, who used his acting skills to play a heterosexual mayor. Koch had great charisma, and his sexual preferences were his own business, except his fear of being “out”ed kept him on the sidelines during the AIDS crisis. I can just see Mayor Koch reaching heaven and asking HaShem, “So, how was I doin’?” And God saying, “Well, Ed, there’s a few thousand faigeles who want to answer that question for you. Now bend over.”
2013 also took from us another politician with a questionable legacy, Margaret Thatcher, who was pro-America and pro-Israel but furiously anti-union. I hope she doesn’t have too much trouble with Archangels Guild 603. On the other side of the spectrum, there was Helen Thomas, the big-mouth White House correspondent who thought she was queen of the Nile because she got a front-row seat to ask presidents a question. What a meeskeit of a woman, physically and every other way – screaming at politicians, in her dotage, that Jews should get the hell out of Israel. Finally, God said to Helen Thomas, “Get the hell out of planet earth.” At least he gave her a long illness before he knocked the bitch off.
To be fair, I’m sure Helen Thomas was just bitter because she was so mind-bendingly fugly. Oh, ladies and gentlemen, sex-wise, Helen Thomas was a three-bagger. One bag for her head. The second bag for her head in case the first bag broke. And the third bag for your vomit in case the first two bags broke. Helen Thomas was so ugly, at press conferences, they’d put a microphone in front of her face, and it would droop. She once asked Bill Clinton if he wore boxers or briefs, and he said, “With you? Armor.” Helen Thomas was so ugly, her coffin requested a blindfold. If you put a black wig on Popeye, fattened him with chemotherapy drugs and hit him in the face with a rake, he’d still look like a GQ model next to Helen Thomas.
But enough of that; let’s talk music. Slim Whitman died this year, which brings yodeling one step closer to blessed extinction. Ripped from the book of life was Patti Page. And The Doors’ Ray Manzarek died, so we can finally forgive him for that endless, boring middle part of “Light My Fire.” We forgive George Jones for all of his excesses, not because he was a great country star but because he seemed like a nice guy underneath. Well, underneath 6,000 pounds of cocaine and 12 million bottles of vermouth.
And I guess we forgive Lou Reed, too. Can you separate the man from the music? The genius who gave us “Berlin” and “Transformer” and “Ecstasy” and The Velvet Underground and “Walk on the Wild Side” versus the tush-hole who walked on the nasty side with almost anyone who tried to have a conversation with him. For years, Lou the jerk was inextricable from Lou the drugged and debauched artiste. Even after he sobered up, he was still a dick half the time, so art is no excuse. However, Lou wouldn’t be the first artist who turned messes into masterworks. Look what God did with Noah’s Ark: horrible event, great book chapter. So if the recorded legacy of Lou Reed, who, by the way, wrote a song bashing Kurt Waldheim, Jesse Jackson and the PLO – outlives the man’s pettiness, that’s all right by me.
Oh, by the way, my heart goes out to John Cale. He’s very much alive, but with the death of Lou Reed and the no-relation JJ Cale, I’ll bet he unplugged his phone for a few weeks. Speaking of unplugged, farewell to folkie Richie Havens. One of the few entertainers who had a voice even more gravelly than mine. At Woodstock, he was supposed to do a couple of songs and clear out before The Who started breaking things. When he was asked to extend his set and keep playing, he vamped and improvised and created “Freedom,” one of the most thrilling live performances of all time. Up there with Elvis on Ed Sullivan, Dylan in Manchester and Sharon, Lois and Bram at the Wantagh Performing Arts Center.
And when it comes to live performances, let us not forget Sid Bernstein, who brought the Beatles to Shea Stadium, where no one could hear them, and Israeli songstress Yaffa Yarkoni to Carnegie Hall, where I saw her three times. It was only one concert, but I was wearing bad glasses.
Let us raise our good glasses, however, in a toast to those who left us this year. Honor their memories; celebrate their legacies. L’chaim.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Broadway producer Larry Kaye of HOP Theatricals
Topics include: theater, Broadway, The Velocity of Autumn.
Segment aired Dec. 21, 2013 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)2013 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 singer and PS Classics co-founder Philip Chaffin
Topics include: Broadway, musicals, PS Classics, Tommy Krasker, Stephen Sondheim, The Frogs, Nine, Ray Conniff.
Segment aired Dec. 21, 2013 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)2013 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 actress Carol Lawrence
Topics include: West Side Story, Handle with Care, Robert Goulet, Saratoga, Shangri-La, Mickey Katz.
Segment aired Dec. 14, 2013 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)2013 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’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #84 (12/8/2013): Ronnie Smith in Benghazi
aired Dec 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/T291vu3Z7CY
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 8th, 2013.
This-past Thursday, Ronnie Smith, a science teacher, was shot and killed while going for a jog. No, this didn’t happen in Chicago, or Detroit, or the Bronx, it happened in Benghazi, Libya, where Smith had emigrated with his family to spread the gospel and help children there get an education.
Okay, many things to consider in this senseless act of violence. First of all, Benghazi is the place rebels took when they ousted dictator Muammar Khadaffi from power. Now, Khadaffi was no sweetheart. He was an Islamic fundamentalist – which means, he was fundamentally crazy. Also, you could have run a small city for ten years on the energy he expended hating Israel. He funded Jihad and even the Black September terrorists of the Munich Olympics. Bad guy. Not someone I’d want at my pizza party – unless I could take the molten cheese and smear it over his ugly face, and watch the grease droplets melt into all those little pockmarks on his godforsaken punim. But I digress.
Out went Khadaffi and his Shariya law, in went rebel forces and a bunch of moderate Muslims supposedly carried along on the happy rainbow of the so-called Arab spring. All went swimmingly for, oh, a month or two, until Islamic militants attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing our diplomat there. Since then, Libya has not exactly been St. Maarten’s for American visitors.
And yet this guy, Ronnie Smith, he’s on a mission. He thinks God wants him in the middle of Libya, doing good works and maybe spreading some gospel to the heathen. So he brings over his wife and kid, and he’s at the International School teaching chemistry. Does it occur to him that he’s teaching chemistry to a bunch of teenagers who will use that information to make bombs and chemical weapons? For his troubles, and his kindness, and his humanitarian beliefs, Ronnie Smith was shot down like a dog on the street. Allah works in mysterious ways.
So I feel sorry for his family – who were already back in America for the holidays when this happened. And I hope the Libyan government – a phrase which may be an oxymoron at this point – I hope they pay more than lip service to hunting down the Muslim madmen who keep doing, well, what Muslim madmen do.
But let’s be honest: what was this idiot doing in Libya? Really. Who asked him? America’s got public schools that are one step removed from penitentiaries, but this guy has a calling to go help our enemies overseas. And what’s more, the main argument that liberals and “We-are-the-World” types make that can even remotely come close to defending events like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon, is that America sticks its nose in where it doesn’t belong. We go scavenging for oil and scamming for capitalism in any country we can get our grubby red, white and blue hands on. Some of these countries – in Latin America, in North Africa – they don’t want our help. They don’t need our processed foods, our politics, our pornography – but they’re getting it.
In a statement, Smith’s widow, Anita Smith, said, quote, “Ronnie’s greatest desire was for the people of Libya to have the joy of knowing God through Christ,” unquote. Anita, darling, they don’t want your Jesus any more than they want my Jews. And it’s the one prerogative they really are entitled to; if they think the Koran’s gonna get them some virgins, who are we to force our equally crazy religions down their ululating throats?
The death of Ronnie Smith was tragic, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time for what he fantasized were the right reasons. He knew the risks and admitted as much, but that’s cold comfort to his son, who’s getting a dead father under his Christmas tree. When the American government issues a warning that it’s not safe for white-looking western people to go jogging where they hate us, maybe Jesus, instead of telling his followers, “Go, spread my truth,” should say, “You’re in a war zone, schmuck! Get your tuchas out of there, and go teach at MIT.”
With all due respect to the late Mr. Smith, if you’re a homeless person in London, you can choose to sleep on a bench in Trafalgar Square. But if you wake up covered in pigeon poop, literally and figuratively, that’s on you.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews dancer-actress Donna McKechnie
Topics include: A Chorus Line, Michael Bennett, Company, Stephen Sondheim, State Fair, arthritis
Segment aired Dec. 7, 2013 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)2013 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 The Cheese Lady! Sarah Kaufmann
Topics include: carving cheese and carving more cheese
Segment originally aired Nov. 30, 2003 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2003 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 1st, 2013.
When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars – who gives a shit? I don’t follow astrology. But when two happy holidays intersect, that can be a time of much joy and reflection.
Now, all too often, Christmas and Chanukah fall around the same time. This has been hell on Jews, because the media conflates the two festivals into one big secular holiday, which it is not. There’s no such thing as Chrismukkah. Judah Maccabee did not find the baby Jesus in the Syrian temple, and Christ was not crucified on the shamash of a giant wooden menorah.
And yet, the proximity of Yuletide and Chanukah made for an uneasy coexistence. Jewish children would see their goyishe friends on Christmas Day riding new bicycles, playing X-box, unwrapping a new drum set. Then the Yiddishe children would come home, light a candle, sing a song, and then hold out their hands for a big present. Wow! Two ounces of chocolate money. A day-glo dreidel. Next door, the blonde kid gets a Vespa; in the Jewish house, “happy Chanukah, here’s a dollar. Give half to charity.” Is it any wonder the yidlach would look longingly at outside culture and say, “I want to go to there!”?
So Jewish families started playing catch-up. It wasn’t enough to put a menorah in the window. Now we have to decorate, just like the goyim. And the first night of Chanukah is meant to approximate Christmas Eve, so the kid gets a half decent gift. That way, the Jewish child can go next door and say, “Ha ha! Sure, you got all that stuff from Santa. But at 12:01am on Christmas Day, you’re done. No more presents. I got an iPad tonight, and there are seven more days of presents to come. Good stuff like chocolate or money, or chocolate that looks like money. Have fun cleaning up pine needles for a month, you foreskin-totin’ suckaah!”
Even so, the drawbacks of an omnipresent Christian holiday overshadowing a Jewish one can be oppressive. It’s like people who have their birthday on Christmas. You get screwed, because not everyone double-gifts. You receive a single present, and it’s marginally better than the two items you would have scored had your parents shtupped in February instead of April.
But sometimes, holiday alignment isn’t a bad thing. This year has a rare occurrence of Chanukah falling at the same time as Thanksgiving. Wednesday night we light the first candle, and Thursday is turkey day, with Chankuah continuing all through Thanksgiving weekend.
We can draw parallels between the two festivals. First of all, they both call for gratitude. On Thanksgiving, Americans are grateful that the Indians were trusting and outmatched in warfare, so the Pilgrims could take advantage of them, give them smallpox and take their land. Thanks Pocahontas, pass the giblets. In the Chanukah story, Jews had to fight against Hellenism. I don’t know what they had against girls named Helen, but there you go.
After decades of treating the Jews fairly, the Syrians changed their tune to a song of anti-Semitism. They killed and pillaged, they made Judaism illegal, and they defiled the Hebrew temple in Jerusalem. This caused a number of Jewish families to revolt – and God knows, I’ve met some revolting Jewish families. But you had Mattathias and his son, Judah Maccabee, who fought the Syrians of the Greek empire and drove them out of Judea. They Hebrews and re-dedicated the temple, so we’re grateful to them and to HaShem for saving the Jewish people from conversion, death and unidentifiable gyro meat.
Chanukah and Thanksgiving have other things in common, as well. They’re both pretty secular. Chanukah is post-bible; it’s a cultural tradition rather than a top-down mandate. And Thanksgiving is for anyone happy to be living in the good ol’ USA. Both holidays also share special foods associated with each. Chanukah, you have potato latkes and jelly donuts. Thanksgiving, you have turkey and Dunkin’ donuts. Sports are also a part of both holidays. Thanksgiving, you sit in your armchair and you watch people who aren’t fat and lazy play football. Chanukah, children sit on the floor with a dreidel and learn the basics of gambling. You start with a pot of money, and then try to take money from everyone else. Is it any wonder Jewish children grow up to be bankers?
Chanukah is the festival of lights; Thanksgiving is a feast of lite beer. Both holidays also incorporate fire. Thanksgiving, we recall the way our ancestors burned down Indian teepees and villages. Chanukah, we stand at a menorah holding a colored candle while molten wax runs down our hands. You’d think after 5,000 years they could invent a candle that doesn’t make you look like the accident guy on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Most of all, both holidays are about spending time with family and friends. They’re about women arguing in the kitchen, men falling asleep during halftime, children getting loaded up on snacks and then being forced to eat cranberry sauce – does anybody enjoy eating cranberry sauce? Chanukah and Thanksgiving are about expressing our appreciation to HaShem for keeping us alive, either by letting us defeat empires or giving us delicious crops to harvest. Either way, it’s something worth singing about:
“Over the river and through the woods to Bubbie’s apartment we shlep;
It takes quite a while, and she’s kind of senile And the baby comes home with strep.
Out of the tunnel, across the bridge and through the old neighborhood The latkes were yucky, the presents were sucky And yet, and yet, life’s good.”
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
