Rabbi Sol Solomon’s celebrity interviews, Rabbinical Reflections (sermons), songs, and other appearances on the show.
INDEX: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407
Segment aired Aug. 3, 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 on Rabbi Sol Solomon: www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #73 (7/28/2013): Abortion in Texas
Aired July 27, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/ZxR-DF7zXb0
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 28th, 2013.
Remember the Alamo? It was the last time someone put Texas in its place, and perhaps another whuppin’ is long overdue. Texas wants to be in the forefront of stopping legal abortions in this country. This is ironic because Texas is the state of the union with the most people in it who should have been aborted.
Last week, governor Rick Perry signed a bill that would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. That’s four fewer week than Roe v. Wade, which is federally protected by Supreme Court. So basically, Texas is saying: you gotta squash the little blob before it sprouts fingers.
On the surface, rolling back abortion’s legality to five months rather than six isn’t that horrible. Premature babies have been born at 22 weeks and lived. They went on to work at the DMV, but still . . . If a fetus can be extracted, incubated, and turned into a viable human being, pro-life activists have a point in saying that abortion at that stage is murdering a person. Granted, these same conservatives have no problem putting grown-ups in the electric chair and letting the poor starve to death, but teeny-weeny babies, ooh, gotta save every last one.
That’s what gets me about so-called pro-life activists. They’re all for rescuing little souls, but once they’re born, it’s everybody fend for themselves. If the mother goes on welfare, she’s a lazy leech. If the child grows up abused and unloved, there’s no money for free counseling and social services. If the kid turns criminal because that’s the only decent employment option available to him, lock him in prison for thirty years and let him get beaten, raped and demolished.
Hey, but at least he didn’t die in the womb, `cause Jesus would have a problem with that.
The new Texas law also says abortions can no longer be performed in clinics but have to be done in centers equipped for surgery. That sounds reasonable – mothers should have safe and sterile hospitals to go to in case the kid is born with two heads. But remember, if you take away the clinics, and the doctors who’ll do the procedure for $300 and some homemade pastries, you’re sending poor people without health insurance to places they can’t afford. Which really means you’re sending them to a cousin in a basement with a coat hanger and pillow.
The middle-aged white men of the great state of Texas even want to control birth control. Thanks to their new law, Texas women can no longer take RU-486 at home but have to be under doctors’ supervision. Which means, again, that if you have the money for continuous doctor visits, you’re granted more rights under the law than the underclass who don’t.
And I love how the pro-lifers always say that every soul is precious, and that the fetus you abort could be the next president. That embryo you just sucked out was the girl who’d grow up to cure cancer. You never hear the right-to-lifers say, “That unborn soul could’ve been the next Hitler.” They never think, “That future human floating around in your belly? Next marathon bomber. Next Osama bin Laden. Next Donald Trump.”
I, Rabbi Sol Solomon, go on record as saying that I am pro-choice. Not only that, I am pro-abortion. Early term, late term, rape, incest, frat-party mistake. If the child isn’t wanted and cannot be properly raised, don’t bring it into this overpopulated planet. I’m so pro-abortion, I think it should be retroactive. If I’m on an airplane and there’s a two-year-old screaming in the seat behind me, get the knife and pop the head. At that age, you can still de-vein them like a shrimp.
And, of course, the abortion battle still comes down to that age-old problem of religious zealots, mostly male, who want to control women. Not that I blame them; when was the last time a Jewish man controlled the women in his life? But seriously, if I get a tumor in my abdomen, God forbid, I go to the doctor, and he says, “It’s not cancer, but it’s like cancer. I recommend taking it out, but it’s up to you.” Nobody tells me what I have to do with my body. If I wanna leave the tumor in and watch it grow like those bulges on Dr. Phil’s head, that’s my business. If I wanna remove it and keep it in a jar near the gefilte fish – my choice. Don’t you dare tell me that something growing inside my own body is regulated by the church or punishable by law. And don’t tell a woman that the growth inside her is your business.
If abortion laws in this country become more restrictive for women, I say we should make dentistry illegal for men. If a guy has a rotten tooth, he has to keep it in his mouth for nine months – or, until it falls out of its own accord. If he doesn’t like it, he can go in a back room with a string and a doorknob. Come to think of it, that’s the way I used to do circumcisions.
Anyhoo, let’s keep a very sharp eye on Texas because the state that gave us George W. Bush, the assassination of Kennedy, and Astroturf has no business regulating morality or maternity.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews “Overweight Sensation” author Mark Cohen
Topics include: Allan Sherman, comedy, novelty songs
Segment aired July 27, 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 on Rabbi Sol Solomon: www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #72 (6/30/2013): Shalom Dammit in Greeley
Aired June 30, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS3_41e-NUc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 30th, 2013.
Do you live in Colorado? That makes you a very lucky person. Unless you’re getting burnt up by the forest fires, but other than that, the mountains are gorgeous, the weather is stunning, the prices are fair, and all the men carry guns, but they don’t point them directly at you.
If you’re in or near Greeley, Colorado next week, you’re even luckier because you get to see me, Rabbi Sol Solomon, live and in the flesh. On July 6th at two in the afternoon and seven in the evening, I’m going to be doing my one-man, two-person show, Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon, live onstage. The venue is the exciting new cultural center in town, Art Space Greeley. It’s this big building on the corner of 7th Avenue and 12th Street that used to be a garage. Which is appropriate because my first shul was in a gas station. My congregation would say a few prayers, then a car would come, we’d make a blessing, wash the windows, and siphon a gallon here and there to light our menorah. Ah, those were the days.
But now I’m a big off-Broadway star, because I did Shalom Dammit! last year in New York, and the critics raved! They also ranted, but mostly they raved. They called my show hilarious, outrageous, biting, wildly funny, courageous and even a little dangerous. Those are actual quotes – I didn’t even have to bribe anybody. Not that I could have on my budget. This is live theater; if it wasn’t for volunteers and sexual favors, nobody could afford to live.
Actually, there is a little money in this production, courtesy of The Community Foundation of Weld County. They actually gave us a grant to do Shalom Dammit! in Greeley, Colorado. They didn’t give us enough to do it right, but they gave us enough to do it. So I can go up there, shout at people for an hour and a half, sing some songs and then escape to the parking lot before the goyim come after me with torches. And because we have government funding for this production, tickets are cheap! Only five dollars for adults, seniors and the indigent. Students with valid ID pay only $3 to get in. That’s less than a latte! Three dollars – that’s six ten-thousandths of a cent per second – a bargain! Broadway shows, it’s worse than a taxi ride; it’s a dollar a minute! And forget about phone-sex lines. Especially on my budget.
But seriously: cheap tickets to see a hit show with me, Rabbi Sol, and my brilliant musical accompanist, Richard Shore on the piano. He’s a Harvard-educated musical director at the University of Northern Colorado, and ladies, he’s single! By the way, ladies, I am not. So stop with the candy and the letters and the threats already, my wife checks my mail.
Anyhoo, what is Shalom Dammit! about? It’s about 90 minutes, with no intermission. That’s right – we’ve streamlined it. We’ve cut and shaped and trimmed, added and deleted, polished and buffed. If you saw Shalom Dammit! when it was workshopped at the university two years ago, you’re in for a completely different experience. Well, 25-to-30 percent different, but with new songs, new jokes, and a laser-etched focus to my dyspepsia. In other words, it’s more of the same with less of the same, but more, more or less. I talk about politics, religion, the Jewish holidays, Arab terrorists, assimilation, Christianity and my prostate. All the things that Jews are scared of.
So please, if you’re in Greeley during Stampede Week – be careful, you could get trampled. But on Saturday July 6th, come to my show, matinee or evening, of: Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon, at Art Space Greeley, 705 12th Street. For more information and reservations, visit my website: Shalomdammit.com. That’s dammit with two M’s, d-a-m-m-i-t. M and M. M & M? That reminds me, I’m hungry – for the spotlight! See you at the theater on July 6th.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews comic actor Jay Rogers
Topics include: theater, cabaret, Howard Crabtree, When Pigs Fly.
Segment originally aired June 29, 2013, as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Sad Note: Our friend of the Daverhood, Jay Rogers, passed Oct. 28, 2022.
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
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 (6/23/2013): Michael Karkoc
Aired June 22, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5RnQxvRcc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 23rd, 2013.
The Holocaust. We couldn’t live with it, and 70 years later, we can’t live without it. When it comes to Germany, I believe we can do business with them, we can visit, we can share their arts and culture, and we can even appreciate that the grandchildren of Nazis and the third Reich are blameless for the events of World War II. Nevertheless, it is premature to forgive and forget and make like the Holocaust was ancient history.
We don’t have to wallow, but we also don’t just shake hands and say, “ehhh, the gas chambers were before color TV, so no hard feelings. Your grampa’s a good egg, no matter what paraphernalia he keeps in a trunk in the attic.” We are still reminded of the legacy of that era, most recently by the former Pope, who was a Hitler youth. Yes, every kid was forced to be Hitler youth back then, so it didn’t make the Pope evil, but it sure didn’t make the sonofabitch holy.
And now, in Minnesota, we learn that a Nazi has been living in plain sight for nearly 60 years. Michael Karkoc, 94 years old, lied to American authorities in 1949 when he told them he never did military service for the krauts. Turns out, he was commander of a legion that massacred civilians in the Ukraine and helped stamp out the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto. Proving that he, directly, killed or tortured anybody will be virtually impossible, but they’ve got strong evidence that Michael Karkoc was yet another pimple on the ass of inhumanity.
What was the smoking gun? His own memoir! This moron published his autobiography, in the Ukrainian language, back in 1995. It’s in the Library of Congress for chrissakes. Shelved right between the book of Job and Milan Kundera. Of course, in his American years, Michael Karkoc has been a model citizen, active in his church, a member of the carpenters’ union and cute like a teddy bear. If he was my next-door neighbor, I probably wouldn’t have suspected a thing – well, unless the lampshade in his window looked suspiciously like my father’s cousin.
But seriously, people are questioning how this demon was allowed into the United States. How did he avoid Nuremberg and get to Minnesota? Granted, living in Minneapolis is its own torture, but still. It is common knowledge that dozens of semi-innocent Germans were given a free pass by the American government for their scientific knowledge and skilled labor. Other war criminals forged documents, paid bribes or lied their way into the good old USA. Ancestry.com and Google did not exist in 1946. Back then, if you didn’t find the birth certificate or the Hollerith card that said, “This guy experimented on gypsies” or “that guy built a scaffold for carrot stealers,” how would you know? In Michael Karkoc’s case, they blew it.
And now you’ll have ignoramuses compounding the travesty by saying, “He’s 94 years old, he’s been a good American, he didn’t pull the trigger – why waste time and money prosecuting a harmless old fart? How many villages is he gonna burn down when he can’t even stir his own Metamucil?” By that logic, every senior citizen behind bars should get a free pass. Charles Manson, Son of Sam – hey, Mark David Chapman isn’t going to kill John Lennon again. Let’s give him fifty bucks, a shoeshine and a rent-controlled apartment in the Dakota.”
Insanity. Some crimes against the world mandate that whoever committed them be removed from society and punished. There is no statute of limitations on the Holocaust. When the last German, or Austrian, or complicit Frenchman or Italian collaborator – when the last person who was alive in 1945 drops dead, then we can truly talk about the Holocaust being history. Until then, I don’t care if you’re 94 or 114, you should be shot like a wild dog and your body dumped in a compost pile for pigs to feast on. Of course, I also feel that way about Kenny G, but this is different. Living a long time does not make you innocent. It makes you lucky to escape the retribution you should have endured way back when. And if Michael Karkoc was just following orders, well, so are the Polish prison doctors who’ll strap him to a table and jam that last needle in his arm. Cruel? It’s an easier way to go than his victims.
So congratulations to the justice department for finding this insect, better late than never. And even if Michael Karkoc joins the choir of eternal hell before standing trial, may he never sleep another peaceful night, may he watch his wife – yes, he has a wife – may he watch her die of heartbreak and shame. And cancer. And may Karkoc’s son – who, of course, denies that his father was a Nazi – like he would know – may his son become like a beacon unto the world. By pouring gasoline on himself and lighting a match.
In this case, the sins of the fathers do get visited onto the children because the father was allowed to live and procreate – a blessing denied the dozens of Jews shot to death or burned alive by his military unit. Yes, I may sound extraordinarily punitive, but nothing about the Holocaust was, or should ever be, ordinary. For the past seven decades, Michael Karkoc passed himself off as an ordinary man. And soon, he will be an ordinary corpse in an ordinary grave. In fact, the only thing out of the ordinary will be the stench of my urine on his weeds.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Broadway and film composer Alan Menken
Topics include: Little Shop of Horrors, Leap of Faith, Newsies, Howard Ashman.
Segment originally aired June 22, 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 on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas
Aired June 15, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNbhdtkQgw
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 16th, 2013.
How much do we really need to know about the private lives of celebrities? Everything – these days, it seems. We know what Gwyneth Paltrow eats for breakfast, what Kirstie Alley eats for dinner, and now, what Michael Douglas eats in bed.
No one forced him. No one put a gun to his head – I don’t mean the eating part, I mean telling the world about it. Three weeks ago, Douglas told the Guardian magazine of London that his throat cancer probably did not come from his smoking or his drinking. He said, hint hint, you can also get the Big C from doing the little C: cunnilingus. Until last month, I had no idea what the hell that was. Cunnilingus. I thought it a was low-cost Irish airline.
But it is not. Cunnilingus is when a man, or a woman, or, on certain internet sites, a German shepherd, performs oral sex on a lady. Please don’t get me wrong; muff munching is a normal, enjoyable, intimate part of the sexual experience, providing the woman doesn’t smell like a trench, and the man has muscles in his jaw that don’t lock up after three minutes, or five minutes, or, well, honestly, after ten minutes, the woman should either fake it or lie back and think of Jerusalem.
Even though high-school health teachers, aka gym teachers, taught us that you can certainly contract VD from oral sex, I don’t think people take that as seriously as the other kinds of nookie. A girl on a date figures, “Ehhh, I don’t wanna go all the way with this guy, and Biff doesn’t like to deal with condoms. But if I give him a little mouth love, maybe he won’t dump me for Darlene with the bangs, the boobs and the booty.”
When we think of venereal disease in this country, we think of . . . the Kardashians. But we also think of regular penetrative sex or, perhaps, tushie sex. The more intolerant among us would point to the gays during the AIDS crisis and say, “If you can’t stop doing that, at least wear a condom. And stop writing bad Broadway musicals.” As a culture, we all modified our behavior as a way to stem the plague of HIV, as well as gonorrhea, herpes, and Sunday afternoon phone conversations that started with, “Yes, we did have fun last night. But I noticed this rash…”
In his own paradoxically embarrassing and self-aggrandizing way, Michael Douglas has reminded us that HPV isn’t just a high-definition sister channel of HBO. It’s a disease you can get from licking someone in the place that they pee. Such as the Penn Station men’s room.
Much the way Angelina Jolie made breast-cancer prevention a national conversation when she bid tah tah to her tah-tahs, Michael Douglas may be doing us the same service by telling us where he put his tongue, and where his tongue has put him. How does Catherine Zeta Jones fit into all this? That’s a private conversation for the Douglas home. I certainly don’t see her putting her name on a line of douches anytime soon. Unless they start making them with penicillin. Or industrial-strength Raid.
But I do wish Mrs. Douglas good mental health; we know she’s been struggling with mood disorders. Well, who hasn’t? And I hope Mr. Douglas has licked his cancer. God knows, he’s licked everything else. And I advise all my listeners to be sensible and careful in all your carnal endeavors. If you meet a girl who smells like a petri dish, find another way to stuff her knish. Carry condoms, use dental dams – or, as I like to call them, dental goddamns. In other words, if you can’t eat `em, groin `em.
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 #69 (6/9/2013): The Tonys 2013
Aired June 8, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kY7pP-rSoQ
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a special theatrical Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 9th, 2013.
It is that merry time again when the Broadway community – those special people who sing and dance and check their voicemails twenty times a day – Broadway pats itself on the tuchas and gives out the Tony Awards.
For folks like me who love the theater, it is a time to celebrate the artistry of show business. Even in this age of Netflix and X-Box and downloaded apps and uploaded crap, something about Broadway still causes relatively sane individuals to reach into their depleted bank accounts and pony up the bills for an hour or two of live stage magic.
This season’s Tony Awards feature an array of stars, genres and talents. But as I always ask this time of year: Where are the Jews? Where do my people fit in – as they always do – in the fabric of 42nd Street. Look no further than the Best Play category, where nice Jewish boychik Richard Greenberg has a show called, The Assembled Parties, all about a New York family on the Upper West Side. It’s an annoying play, frustrating and not worth the effort. Why? For one thing, the Jewish family in The Assembled Parties is so assimilated, they celebrate Christmas! No explanation is given for that, so I’ll simply ascribe it to the playwright having a few too many at Joe Allen’s before tackling rewrites.
I much preferred Lucky Guy, a lively look at the newspaper business from the pen of that late Jewess, Nora Ephron. Played by Tom Hanks, the lead character is a hard-bitten, hard-drinking, morally suspect loudmouth – but he’s Irish, so that’s fine. Lucky Guy is up against The Testament of Mary, a one-woman show about Jesus Christ’s mother – ughhhhh – and Christopher Durang’s wonderful comedy, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and Irving and Leopold and Morris the Cat. The play doesn’t have any Jews in it, but it feels like good Neil Simon, so we’ll give it our blessing.
Broadway musicals up for the Tony are a distinctly goyische bunch, so we’ll skip those, although Harvey Fierstein did write the book for Kinky Boots, and Benj Pasek co-wrote the songs for A Christmas Story. I know, I know. The things Jews will do for money. Not surprisingly, the category – Best Revival of a Musical is hopping with Hebrews. Annie has a score by Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse. It also has a Christmastime finale. Again with Jews and that farshtunkeneh holiday! Honestly, how many Mormons are writing about Kwanzaa?
Also in Musical Revivals you’ve got Pippin by Stephen Schwartz, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood written by Rupert Holmes. You know what his real name was before he changed it? David Goldstein. God forbid Rupert Holmes should keep his original handle. I guess he wanted to pass and not get beaten up by the other English boys, because, you know, “David” is such a funny, exotic name. Much better to go with Rupert. I hope he got his tuchas kicked. Oh, and filling out the Best Revival category: Cinderella, by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Oscar was brought up Episcopalian – but he had a Jewish grandfather, which explains why so many characters in R&H musicals are wracked with guilt.
Returning to our Jew-spotting: special Tony Awards this season are going to producers Bernard Gersten and Paul Libin and set designer Ming Cho Lee – well, two out of three ain’t bad. And considering how much Jews love Chinese food, Ming’s borderline anyway.
A special Tony will also be awarded to Larry Kramer, who wrote The Normal Heart and founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. He’s not only a Jew, and not only a gay Jew, but he’s an angry, kvetching, sentimental, in-your-face Jew – that’s like five Jews in one!
But no matter what your religion, the Tony Awards are about healthy competition and the elevation of entertainment into an art form. If that doesn’t sound like a big deal, remember: other organizations give out awards for things like advertising and, God help us, country music. So hooray for the theater and blessings to Broadway. Just like the Jews, it’s a tiny little subculture, but how poor the world would be without it.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection with a standing ovation from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews rock-and-roll veteran Gary U.S. Bonds
Topics include: That’s My Story, Otis Redding, Elvis Presley, touring, family.
Segment originally aired June 1, 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 on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
