Rabbi Sol Solomon’s celebrity interviews, Rabbinical Reflections (sermons), songs, and other appearances on the show.
INDEX: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25407
Topics include: E.T., healing, Cujo, Steven Spielberg, Wes Craven.
Segment aired Feb. 22, 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
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews humor columnist Mike Ball
Topics include: newspapers, writing, Dr. Mike and the Sea Monkeys, water skiing.
Segment aired Feb. 1, 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
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 2nd, 2014.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but I am not a Belieber. Oh yes, I am a believer in God, in the Torah, in chicken soup when you’re sick – but I am not a Justin Bieber belieber. I don’t listen to his music, since I’m more of a Moishe Koussevitzky fan, and his exploits do not interest me.
If Justin Bieber gets a tattoo, or shtups a model, or posts a selfie from the hood of his Lambo, more power to him for living the high life. When I was 19 years old, I was in Yeshiva studying Talmud, I was suffering through clarinet lessons, I was in bed sleeping by 10pm…because I didn’t have a girlfriend.
If I had $20 million at that age, would I have done things differently? You’re damn right I would have! My God, I would have bought the Streits Matzoh factory and had chocolate-covered matzoh every day of the year. I’d have tricked out my Volvo with curtains and a practice bimah. I’d have bribed ushers for backstage passes to every Yaffa Yarkoni concert in the tri-State area. Would I have gotten tattoos? No, that’s a religious no-no. Plus, how would I really feel about a tramp stamp of Marvin Hamlisch when I’m 50?
But with that kind of money, sure, I might get a little meshiggeh. And having young girls clawing at me and screaming – and not screaming `rape!’ – of course that would go to my head, and I would sample the pleasures of the flesh and the fleshures of the plesh. I do not begrudge Justin Bieber any of these sybaritic activities that he has earned by making music that pushes teenage girls right past puberty into menopause.
However, this past week, little Justin crossed the line. He was arrested in Miami Beach for DUI, drag racing, driving without a license and mouthing off to cops. When he was yanked, bleary-eyed from his yellow Lamborghini, he said, “Why do you have to search me? What is this about?” And two seconds later he told the police, “Oh, by the way, I’m high, I’ve been drinking, and I’m on a couple of prescription medications.” Somewhere a prosecuting attorney is on his knees in shul saying, “Thank you, God. Sometimes you send them to us gift-wrapped.”
Now, much as I hate giving anyone who sings songs with titles like “Beauty and a Beat,” “Baby” and “Eenie Meenie” the benefit of the doubt, if Justin Bieber wasn’t impaired that night, then this is just another case of the media looking to crash the monster it created. Yes, Bieber was a putz for mouthing off at the cops. If he’d been poor and black, he’d still be searching for his teeth on the sidewalk. But if he wasn’t drunk or high and was just driving a little too fast, give the guy a ticket, get his autograph for your kids, and be done with it.
However, if Justin Bieber was driving under even a mild, chemically induced goofiness, then throw the book at him – not because he’s famous, but because he’s a danger to others. In one of my early Rabbinical Reflections, I took some heat for kicking Ryan Dunn’s corpse before it was even cold. Who was Ryan Dunn? He was one of the “Jackass” crew on TV – men who would do crazy, stupid, dangerous things to each other for poops and giggles. These were consenting friends under controlled circumstances; who am I to say, “what the hell is wrong with you?” Especially when they’re funny. But nobody was laughing when Ryan Dunn poured himself into his Porsche and zoomed into a tree. Not only he died, but the guy in the passenger seat died, too. As Roger Ebert tweeted at the time, “Friends don’t let jackasses drive drunk.”
I have no sympathy for Dunn, or Paul Walker, or Justin Bieber if he put himself in the same situation. When I’m tootling down the highway in my 1996 Ford Fiesta, I wanna know that every other person on the road is being as neurotically careful as I am. At 50 miles per hour, a car is just a gun with wheels; point it in the wrong direction, and you’ve committed suicide and/or murder and/or skyrocketing insurance premiums.
Figuratively speaking, many have said that Justin Bieber is on a crash course, speeding out of control towards a Lohanesque junk-heap. I wish him no harm so long as he does no harm to others. Remember, this is the boy who said that if Anne Frank were still alive, she would be a Belieber – meaning, in his obnoxious, self-absorbed way – that she’d be a typical teenage girl with posters on the wall, bubblegum music on her iPod, and, presumably, 200 stuffed animals on her bed. Of course, this is a ridiculous statement. First of all, if Anne Frank were truly alive today…she’d be kicking and pounding at the lid of her coffin. Also, she’d be 85 years old, which means her musical tastes would have settled somewhere between Glenn Miller and Chubby Checker. The only posters on her wall would be a reminder for her medications and a calendar from the nearest Jewish funeral home. As far as liking Justin Bieber’s music, for gosh sakes, this woman lost her mother and her sister in the Holocaust and coughed herself to death in a concentration camp at age 15. Didn’t she suffer enough?
People who hate Justin Bieber just for being Justin Bieber, are saying he should be deported. We should send him back to Canada. Why? So he can spend all his millions across the border and let Canadian strippers, casinos and car dealers reap the benefits? I say, give the teeny-botcher the benefit of a doubt; let him stay – unless they prove he was drunk or stoned in that car. If he was, handcuff him and put him in the first trolley heading to Quebec. Oh, and just for fun, make David Cassidy drive.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 26th, 2014.
Old soldiers never die, they just – well, no, old soldiers do die. They die all the time. Just try looking for World War I veterans.
Eisenhower died, Sherman died, Patton died, and two weeks ago, Israel’s Ariel Sharon died. And now, Japan’s Hiroo Onoda has died. He fought in World War II from 1941 through 1974. As Lewis Black would say: let me repeat that: Hiroo Onoda fought the Second World War for 33 years, approximately 29 years after World War II ended for everybody else.
Yes, this is the guy they made fun of on “Gilligan’s Island.” He’s the crazy loon living in the jungle so cut off from the world, no one’s told him about color TV, liquid paper, hula hoops or the end of armed military hostility between eastern and western civilization. Hey, it happens.
Ironically, Hiroo Onoda was an intelligence officer. Well, what was it George Carlin said about military intelligence? Anyhoo, at age 22, Onoda was stationed in the Philippines and told under no circumstances to surrender. Not even if they torture him with paddles and cigarette butts and Barbra Streisand movies. Being a good little soldier, Onoda followed his orders to the letter. And since Japanese letters are weird symbolic shapey things, I guess he never figured out that the Emperor surrendered.
Onoda didn’t even give up when the allies scattered leaflets over the Philippines reading, “Come out, come out wherever you are. There’s free barbecue. Or, as we like to call it, Hiroshima.” This loyal-to-a-fault yutz didn’t believe the authenticity of the leaflets, so he and his band of stragglers kept on fighting and killing and living off coconuts.
In 1974, a Japanese hippie – who apparently didn’t realize that hippies were over in 1971 – this hippie tourist visits the island, finds Onoda and gives him the bad news that the land of the rising sun sank in 1945. Onoda sort-of believed him but still wouldn’t surrender until he got official notification from higher up. His old Major had to fly to the island and officially relieve him of duty. Heh heh…I said “duty.”
Even though he murdered people in the jungle, Onoda was pardoned by Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos – I guess he didn’t want to be the pot calling the kettle – and Mr. What-Year-Is-This actually came home to Japan something of a national hero. After all, that level of devotion and honor is pretty rare in people. Granted, that’s because most people are sane, but still…
Hiroo Onoda actually didn’t like all the attention – even the adulation – possibly because the more people inquired into his activities during his three decades on Lubang Island, the more skeletons were dug up – literal ones. Onoda started spending half the year in Brazil, presumably because he liked to be surrounded by sexy women, Jacaranda trees and fellow war criminals.
On January 16th of this year, at age 91, Hiroo Onoda succumbed to pneumonia – the first time he surrendered to anything. Well, that’s arguable; he was married, after all. And while there is something to admire about his willingness to sacrifice everything for his country, including common sense, let’s not make too much of this loser. He was part of the army and the nation that attacked us for no reason in 1941. He fought against American soldiers and may have killed a couple before he went off to pineappleville. Try asking anyone who survived Okinawa or Iwo Jima how amusing they find Hiroo Onoda or the Nipponese mindset that made him. Ask them to think of anything nice to say, and they might ponder for a moment and then say, “I give up. Too bad Hiroo Onoda didn’t.”
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews radio legend Jerry Blavat
Topics include: rock and roll, Frank Sinatra, Mob, Mafia, Sammy Davis Jr., radio.
Segment aired Jan. 25, 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
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 19th, 2014.
It is with a sad heart that we bid farewell to Ariel Sharon, the former Prime Minister of Israel who died last Saturday at age 85. The end was a blessing because he’d been in a coma for the past eight years. Imagine, eight years without any kind of physical activity. Sort of like a Jewish marriage.
But seriously, Ariel Sharon was a war hero and a statesman and the kind of leader Israel needed again and again in its battles with the Arab world. In the 1948 war for independence, he was wounded but survived and came back strong. He was aggressive and rude and cocky – honestly, you’d never know he was Jewish. But he sure was, and in the 1950’s, he fought constantly against terrorism – sometimes killing civilians, which isn’t nice, and sometimes killing murderers, which is very nice. In 1967, as a general, Sharon took on Egypt and beat them in a war that lasted all of six days. I can’t get a passport in six days, this guy wins a whole freakin’ war.
And then in 1973, when the Jews were attacked on Yom Kippur – our holiest day of the year (if you don’t count Barbra Streisand concerts) – with Egypt’s Third Army massing against us, Ariel Sharon led 5,000 tanks over the Suez Canal and turned the tide of the war. Ariel Sharon was our Patton, our Sherman, our sword of vengeance and great protector.
Yes, he was a hawk, but kicking Egypt’s ass on Yom Kipper helped bring on the Sadat peace talks. And Sharon was willing to compromise for peace a lot more than other hawks around him. For years, he encouraged Jewish settlements in the so-called “occupied territories” – and why not? Gaza, the West Bank – those are places that Israel won, fair and square, in wars. What’s the point of conquering enemy territory if you’re not gonna build a Starbucks on it?
However, when Israel began negotiating with the Palestinians – or at least tried to – and settlements were standing in the way of progress, Ariel Sharon went in there and started pulling Jewish families out of their homes. Their land was then given over to Palestinian rule, and the Arabs were so grateful, they started sending rockets over with little red bows and thank-you notes. Oh well. The whole land-for-peace thing is a crock, but you can’t say Sharon didn’t try.
Now, no question, this man had blood on his hands. One time, he blew up an Arab village that he swore he thought was abandoned. It wasn’t. Well, it was when he got through with it. Another time, Sharon had the army surround a refugee camp and then allowed the Lebanese Christian militia to go in and look for terrorists. They may have found some, but it’s hard to tell, since the Phalangists wound up slaughtering all the refugees. So much for Christian charity.
But if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a trillion times: Israel is a safety net for the Jewish people. New York is over-crowded, and Miami has too many flying bugs, so Jews need the teeny-tiny country of Israel as their homeland. Arabs have all the rest of the Middle East and North Africa to call their own. All you need is a turban and a Koran, and you have eight-and-a-half million miles at your disposal. By comparison, Israel is the size of a King Soopers – and not even one of those big King Soopers that has furniture and garden supplies.
Ariel Sharon was our security guard. He was so feared and hated by our enemy that his mere visit to the Temple Mount set off a wave of Arab riots. I haven’t seen that kind of negative reaction to a personal appearance since John Tesh played Bonnaroo.
A big man with big appetites, Sharon paid for his high living with a stroke that put him on life support for nearly a decade. No one knows if he saw, heard or understood anything that was going on around him. Kind of like Chris Christie. But if those tragic eight years – plus the deaths of two wives and his only son – were payback for the bad things Ariel Sharon did, let the next thousand millennia in heaven reward him for his courage, his tenacity, and his devotion to Eretz Yisroel. Thank you, bulldozer.
Topics include: Gilligan’s Island, theater, Sherwood Schwartz, They’re Playing Our Song.
Segment aired Jan. 18, 2014 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Dawn Wells passed away Dec. 30, 2020 at age 82.
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
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews playwright Greg Kotis
Topics include: Give the People What They Want, Urinetown, NeoFuturists, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.
Segment scheduled to air Jan. 11, 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
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.
