Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 359th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Aug. 20, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guests: Riders in the Sky, comedian Aaron Berg and broadcaster Joe Salzone.
Featuring: Dave chats with comedian Aaron Berg and with Too Slim, Ranger Doug and Joey the Cowpolka King of the western swing band, Riders in the Sky. Plus: A chat with broadcaster Joe Salzone, Inside Broadway, Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (downturn) and a brief Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later segment on schooldays.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:13:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – While We Were Out 00:42:30 GUESTS: Riders in the Sky (Ranger Doug, Too Slim & Joey the Cowpolka King) 01:31:30 GUEST: Aaron Berg 02:08:30 Sponsors 02:11:30 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on the economic downturn 02:19:30 INSIDE BROADWAY – news 02:24:00 Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (schooldays) 02:31:30 GUEST: Joe Salzone 02:57:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Aug. 20, 2011 Playlist: “Time is on My Side” (01:10:30; Rolling Stones); “When Summer’s Ended” (00:13:00) & “You’ll Never Get to Heaven” (00:20:30; Bill Morrissey); “Wake Up Alone” (00:17:00) & “You Know I’m No Good” (00:27:00; Amy Winehouse); “Pata Pata” (00:24:00; Miriam Makeba); “The Land Beyond the Sun” (00:39:00), “Saddle Up” (00:54:30), “Song of the Trail” (01:09:30), “There’s a Blue Sky Way Out Yonder” (01:25:30), “He Walks with the Wild and Lonely” (03:02:00; Riders in the Sky); “Carry That Weight” (01:30:00; The Beatles); “The Untitled (aka The Hardy Boys at the Y)” (02:02:30; Loudon Wainwright III); “Subterranean Homesick Blues, Take 1” (02:24:00) & “Life is Hard” (02:27:00) (Bob Dylan).
Riders in the SkyAaron BergJoe SalzoneRabbi Sol Solomon
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 21st, 2011.
It’s 12pm – do you know where your money is? First it’s up, then it’s down, then it’s up, then it’s down. If you have your money in the stock market, your portfolio is bouncing up and down faster than a hooker on an epileptic.
I go away for a few weeks, take a little time off, and what do I miss? Oh, nothing. Just America going bankrupt.
How does that work anyway? If we’re supposed to pay three billion dollars to Brazil, and we don’t have it, what do they do? What can they do? Send some guy to the White House – “Hola. My name’s Jorge; I’m supposed to break the President’s legs. If you give me one billion now, I can just break his toes.”
I mean, what does going bankrupt really mean? China won’t loan us any more money? Why are we borrowing from them in the first place? I don’t even like Chinese money. You spend a hundred yen, an hour later you feel like shopping again.
But seriously, if the United States crashes to the floor, every other country crashes to the sub-basement. So maybe they can forgive a loan or two; give us another year to pay off. Let us get to that middle period between our current recession and our next corporate fraud.
You gotta love the arrogance of Wall Street. Last month, all the politicians get together, frantically making a deal to raise the debt ceiling. They’re borrowing from Peter to pay Paul – or, in my lingo, borrowing from Faivel to pay Moish – just so we’re spared embarrassment, shame and having to raise goats and churn our own butter.
America stays solvent, and what happens? Two days later, the stock market plummets a thousand points. We go from a triple-A credit rating to double A. What does that mean? What, we have to get our parents to co-sign a loan – fine, dig up George and Martha Washington, will that be enough?
All the topsy-turvy turbulence of the Dow Jones has nothing to do with jobs or debt or wages or social security. It’s all about rich people playing a game with money that doesn’t exist. That’s all Wall Street is – monopoly played by frat-boy pricks. Which is why, even when 90 percent of us are suffering, 10 percent are making money by the bucket and paying taxes by the thimble.
As for the double-dip… Remember what I said half a year ago about gas prices? Go look it up, I’ll wait. But I’ll also refresh your memory. I said that the country would be fine and recover from the George Bush years – unless gas prices went up. If they hit four dollars, we’re shtupped. So what happened weeks ago? Gas prices zipped past 3.50, people shut their wallets, businesses got scared, supermarkets jacked their prices – voila! economic downturn.
The only good news? Now that the market’s in a lull, oil prices are taking a hit. Sure enough, people will start to spend again – so long as they’re not spending it all on the brown crap the Arabians pump out of the ground.
You want houses to sell again? Make it so it doesn’t cost 500 bucks a month to heat them in the winter. You want folks to take vacations? Make it so the airlines don’t have to charge 50 bucks for luggage to offset gasoline they’re just gonna dump over the Atlantic Ocean anyway. You want Americans to have jobs? Make it so you’re not paying people a measly minimum wage to fry McNuggets and scrape canola from a fryer. Come to think of it, we don’t have to frack in Pennsylvania to strike oil; just hit the kitchen of a Denny’s.
Maybe the answer is: instead of borrowing money, we should just borrow oil. Borrow it, use it, refine the waste product back into petroleum, and then return it to OPEC with a few quarts of ethanol for interest. Of course, it still doesn’t pay the Arab world back for 9/11 but, like with everything else nowadays, we’ll write them an I.O.U.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #20 (7/3/2011): July 4th
(aired July 2, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: Jhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVfXgUoNdyQ)
Yankee Doodle Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 3rd, 2011.
Yes, we are approaching the 235th birthday of the United States of America, the worst, most corrupt country in the world – except for every other country in the world. Don’t listen to polls that show that country has a better standard of living, that country has better healthcare, that country takes care of its poor, that country has cleaner beaches – all these things may be true in dribs and drabs, but there is still no country greater than the good, not-so-old USA.
When my great grandparents had to get the hell out of Russia, this is where they came. When my grandparents had to get the hell out of Germany, this is where they came. When my parents had to get the hell out of Saint Croix – because they were on vacation and mom got a sunburn and the souvenir shop was out of aloe vera and the hospital there was a shack with an aspirin bottle – this is where they came – and couldn’t wait to come back to.
Are these ideal days for the American people? No, tough times. We are still suffering from a recession George Bush built and Barack Obama can’t tear down. We have crime and drugs and pollution and overcrowding and the Game Show network. We have young people dying and killing in a sandpile called Arabia.
We have cameras at every stoplight, and we have super-computers that know the size and shape of every poop we take before we even eat the food that’s gonna turn into poop.
Worst of all, we have the first – or maybe it’s already the second generation of Americans – that isn’t doing as well as the one before. Even in the darkest jungles of Africa, the son of a chief can tell his father, “Dad, thanks, but I don’t need your shrunken heads. With my new position, I should be getting five, six decapitations a month, and if I make my quota, the wives and I get a ceremonial drum. I know dad, I know. When you were my age you had to castrate a rhinoceros for fuel, but times have changed. And with that new medicine man and his herbal remedies, who knows? I might even outlive you and make it to 40!”
But seriously, so America is in a rough patch. Meanwhile, we have cars that can tell us directions so we don’t get lost. We have ipods that put more music on a chip than a man 100 years ago would have heard in a hundred years. Just a week ago, we passed a law in New York where two people of the same sex can finally marry each other – instead of getting stoned by a mob. And pretty soon in Colorado, it’ll be legal to get stoned in a mob.
Not everything gets better, but before you go all nostalgic for the America of yesteryear, answer me this: Which would you rather have? God forbid you need heart surgery, would you rather have it now, or 1950? It’s a heat wave, and you’re trying to get some sleep in your bedroom. Would you prefer 2011, or 1911? Maybe you work in a factory, or an assembly line. Now…then? Or maybe you came in late and missed your favorite show on TV. Instant gratification on your cable box…or 1970? You’re trying to sell your house – today…or last year?
So you see, even in the worst of times, we usually have the best of times. Think of that as we head into – God help us – election season. Out will come all sorts of garbage, back and forth, right and left, all of it boiling down to one side saying, “We’re doing our best and hope to do better,” and the other side saying, “Your best isn’t good enough, and it couldn’t be worse.” As the mud is being flung and the bull is being shoveled, just remember that two-and-a-half centuries ago we belonged to another country. We bowed to a king, and we paid taxes to a government building roads and schools 3000 miles away. Well, we’re doing that now in Iraq, but still…
On this Independence Day, let us honor this republic, this democracy, this place that still takes immigrants – legally or otherwise – and gives them a shot…that isn’t from firing squad.
On this July 4th, as I stand at my barbecue and press my Hebrew Nationals into the Happy Hot Dog Man, I look over one backyard fence, and there’s the O’Malleys, drunk; over the other fence, the Tortorellis, stupid; down the street, the Gonzalezes – cheap bastards, but friendly – and two blocks down, not on this block, thank God, the Roosevelts. All good people of different backgrounds just trying to get by. One nation, under you-know-who, indivisible, with at least an impossible dream of liberty and justice for all.
Oh say can you see… my Ketchup Critter? Because I put it down, and now I can’t find it, dammit.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.
Topics include: comedy, Addicted to Show Business.
Segment originally aired July 2, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Interview 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: Full Episode
All content (c)2011 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 358th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, July 2, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guests: comedian Dave Konig, and Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedian Dave Konig. Plus: a Saturday Segue of freedom songs, Inside Broadway (news & Nixon’s Nixon), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (July 4th), Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections on July 4th, and Dave & his wife Joyce reminisce about their trip to Italy.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:08:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Freedom 00:33:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Dave Konig 01:25:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (News & Nixon’s Nixon (01:38:30)) 01:47:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – more freedom songs 01:53:30 Sponsors 02:01:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later: July 4th 02:37:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #20: July 4th 02:45:00 DAVE GOES AWAY – to Italy (aka Wakka-Wakka Boom-Boom Pigs), w/ guest Joyce 03:11:30 DAVE GOES OUT
July 2, 2011 Playlist: (part one) “Absolutely Free” (00:08:30; Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention); “Freedom Now” (00:12:00; Tracy Chapman); “Free” (00:15:30; “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, 1996 Bway cast); “Set Me Free” (00:19:00; John Cale); “I’m So Free” (00:23:30; Lou Reed); Marriage (00:28:30) & Jewish (01:16:00; Dave Konig, youtube clips); (01:22:00; Follies 2004 Paper Mill Playhouse cast); “Free as a Bird” (01:47:30; The Beatles); “I’m Free” (01:51:00; The Rolling Stones); “Tears of Rage” (version 2) (02:02:30), “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” (02:05:00), “Tombstone Blues” (live) (02:09:00), “Lone Pilgrim” (02:13:30), “Angelina” (02:16:00), “Band of the Hand” (02:23:00) & “This Land is Your Land” (02:27:30; Bob Dylan); “Mambo Italiano” (02:43:30; Dean Martin); “Freedom” (live) (03:14:30; Richie Havens).
WVTL-FM’s Bob Cudmore interviews Dave Lefkowitz about Broadway
Topics include: Broadway, Tony Awards, Spider-Man.
Segment originally aired on WVTL FM (Amsterdam NY) June 21, 2011 as part of Bob Cudmore’s morning show, “Coffee with Cudmore” and was rebroadcast June 25th on Dave’s Gone By.
Please Note: Interview 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)2011 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Dave Lefkowitz interviews theatrical lighting designer Richard Pilbrow
Topics include: theater, lighting, producing.
Segment originally aired June 25, 2011 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Interview 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: Full Episode
All content (c)2011 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 357th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, June 25, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guest: lighting and theater designer Richard Pilbrow, radio host Bob Cudmore
Featuring: Dave chats with Broadway lighting wizard Richard Pilbrow. Plus: a Saturday Segue of light songs, Dave Says Bye to Peter Falk, Dave’s appearance with Bob Cudmore on WVTL’s “Coffee with Cudmore,” Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (light), Dave Says Bye to Clarence Clemons, and Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on the death of Jackass star Ryan Dunn.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:08:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Light 00:30:00 GUEST: Richard Pilbrow 01:20:30 INSIDE BROADWAY – News & Peter Falk (01:25:30) 01:39:30 DAVE on “Coffee with Cudmore” w/ Bob Cudmore (WVTL-AM 1570, taped 6/21/11) 01:54:00 Sponsors & Weather 01:59:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Light) 02:32:30 DAVE – Upcoming 02:39:30 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on “Jackass'” Ryan Dunn 02:55:00 DAVE SAYS BYE – Clarence Clemons 02:58:00 More Sponsors & Friends 03:03:00 DAVE GOES OUT
June 25, 2011 Playlist: (part one) “In a Different Light” (00:09:00; Bangles); “In the Light” (00:12:00; Led Zeppelin); “It’s not the Spotlight” (00:19:30; Beth Orton); “Color and Light” (00:25:30; Sunday in the Park with George, 1984 Bway cast); “Arrows of Light” (00:55:30; Bruce Cockburn); “Shadows and Light” (01:16:00; Joni Mitchell). “When the Deal Goes Down (02:00:00), “Chimes of Freedom” (02:04:30), “Something’s Burning, Baby” (02:12:00), “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” (02:16:30), “Every Grain of Sand” (02:20:30) & “Moonlight” (02:26:30; Bob Dylan); “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out (02:45:00), “Pink Cadillac” (02:48:00), “Bobby Jean” (02:52:00) & “The Long Goodbye” (03:06:00; Bruce Springsteen).
Richard Pilbrow
Bob CudmorePeter FalkClarence ClemonsRyan DunnRabbi Sol Solomon
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #19 (6/25/2011): RYAN DUNN
(aired June 25, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. YouTube Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGoZRYSFmX0)
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 25, 2011.
What is the definition of a jackass? A donkey, of course. Also, a stupid person, a fool. That’s according to Webster’s Dictionary and to me, when we talk about the late Ryan Dunn.
Dunn was a castmember on the MTV television program, Jackass, which had crazy people doing idiotic, dangerous things. Putting their heads in beehives, skating into walls, firing objects in and out of their tuchases, and falling on things – lots and lots of falling on things. This is what passes for entertainment in the new millennium. And hey, sometimes it’s funny. A person walking on the street slips on dog poop – it’s amusing. Unless they’re badly injured, in which case it’s hilarious.
Goofy people pulling stunts that the rest of us are too mature or just too cowardly to do can be an appealing form of comic relief. After all, it answers one of the basic curiosities of mankind: “What would happen if?”
What would happen if I ride a motorcycle into a group of midgets dressed like nuns? What would happen if I cover my best friend with firecrackers, make believe I’m going to light them, but instead, I kick him really hard in the nuts? Hours, my friends, of delightful, high-class entertainment!
Along with Johnny Knoxville and Steve O, Ryan Dunn took part in these perilous shenanigans. And there was always controversy. Parents worried that their children would imitate these yutzes and put themselves in the hospital – or worse. But that never bothered me. These were professional pranksters. If they wanted to strap raw meat to their behinds while being dangled over a swamp full of alligators – who am I to judge? And if your kid is stupid enough to copy that, well, alligators have to eat, too. So if you want to hurt yourself or your willing accomplices, that’s between you, your friends, and the guy holding the water cannon.
But I call Ryan Dunn a jackass – and a putz and a moron and a bastard – because on the night of June 20th, he had enough drinks to befuddle Russia, and then climbed in his Porsche and started to drive. Eventually, his fancy car came to a stop. Unfortunately, it was in the middle of a tree.
Police estimate the automobile had been going 130 miles an hour, and that Dunn’s blood alcohol was more than twice the legal limit. And yet, a miracle occurred. Oh yes, Dunn and his friend in the passenger seat were both killed, but thank God, they didn’t kill anyone else.
A car is a loaded weapon – especially if you’re loaded. You’re rich, you’re famous, you think you can get away with anything, and you’re gonna live forever. Guess what? You’re rich, you’re famous, but if you have three Stolis and a whiskey sour when you get behind the wheel, you will not live forever, nor will you deserve to.
I don’t care if you’re Mel Gibson, or David Cassidy, or Gary Collins, or Lindsey Lohan, or Nicole Richie, or Rip Torn, or Rick Springfield, or the woman down the street with three kids and a Percodan habit – if you’re driving under the influence, you should be arrested for attempted homicide.
When you get in a car – sober and alert – you depend on your own ability to get safely from where you start to where you want to end up. Alas, you are also dependent on everyone else on the road obeying the rules and maintaining the same level of caution. These include schmucks on their cellphones, women doing their makeup in the rear-view mirror, idiots on bicycles who think the road is their own personal videogame, and the prick in the SUV who thinks a couple of beers won’t affect him if he just drives a little more slowly. The only thing that shocked me about those drive-by shootings in L.A. is that they were done by gang members and not white-collar working stiffs just trying to get home without being cut off at 70 miles an hour by a Jeep Cherokee blaring Lynyrd Skynyrd.
And so, I come not to praise Ryan Dunn, but to bury him. Thirty-four years old and a victim only of his own arrogance and negligence. When they put the word “Jackass” on his tombstone, his fans might take it one way, but anyone with a brain will know exactly what it means.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 356th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, June 18, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guest: Dave’s dad, Philip Lefkowitz
Featuring: Father’s Day episode featuring Dave’s dad, Philip Lefkowitz, an Inside Broadway recap of the Tony Awards, plus a farewell to Wild Man Fischer, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later, and Dave’s thoughts on his trip to L’Aquila, Italy.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:08:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Summer 00:34:00 GUEST: Philip Lefkowitz 01:02:30 Sponsors 01:05:00 INSIDE BROADWAY – Tony thoughts 01:29:30 DAVE SAYS BYE – Wild Man Fischer 02:09:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (dads & summer) 02:39:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on Father’s Day 02:48:00 DAVE GOES AWAY – L’Aquila, Italy 02:58:30 Friends 03:01:00 DAVE GOES OUT
June 18, 2011 Playlist: (part one) “Summersong” (00:08:00; The Decemberists); “Summertime Blues” (00:11:00; T. Rex); “In the Summertime” (00:14:00; Mungo Jerry); “Indian Summer” (00:17:30; Lee Konitz); “The Hissing of Summer Lawns” (00:20:00; Joni Mitchell); “All I Have to Do is Dream/A Summer Song” (00:23:00; Christine Lavin); “The Summer of My Wasted Youth” (00:26:00; Amy Rigby); “Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Days of Summer” (Nat King Cole; 00:29:00); “Sweet Little Papa” (00:59:00; Louis Armstrong); “Hello!” (01:27:30; The Book of Mormon, 2011 Bway cast); “My Name is Larry” (01:29:30), “Don’t Ever Get Mad at Me” (01:42:30), “I Light the Pilot” (01:43:30), “I’m Selling Peanuts for the Dodgers” (01:45:30), “Go to Rhino Records” (01:51:30), “The Wild Man Fischer Story” (02:02:00) & “Love, Love, Love in Everything You Do” (03:08:30; Wild Man Fischer); “Summer Days” (02:10:00), “In the Summertime” (02:15:00), “Ain’t Talkin'” (02:18:30), “Precious Memories” (02:27:30), “Sittin’ on Top of the World” (02:30:30) & “Father of Night” (02:35:00; Bob Dylan); “West of Rome” (02:44:00; Jeff Finlin).
