Here is the 420th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 20, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Charles Grodin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segue (Boston bands), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (420), and Rabbi Sol on the Boston marracre.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: actor Charles Grodin
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:12:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Boston bands 00:49:30 DAVE GOES OFF – Boston Marathon Massacre 01:13:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Charles Grodin 02:16:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (420) 02:49:00 Sponsors 02:52:00 Friends 02:56:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #064 – The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word 03:01:30 Weather 03:03:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news: 03:03:30 / review: 03:19:00, A Year with Frog & Toad) 03:24:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 20, 2013 Playlist: “Winterlong” (00:13:00; The Pixies). “Decomposing Trees” (00:16:00; Galaxie 500). “All Mixed Up” (00:20:00; The Cars). “Invisible Man” (00:24:00; The Breeders). “Rip in Heaven” (00:27:00; `til Tuesday). “Fast Man” (00:30:30; Frank Black). “I Can’t Find My Best Friend” (00:34:30; Jonathan Richman). “You’ve Got a Friend” ({live} 00:37:00; James Taylor). “How to Say Goodbye” (00:42:30; The Magnetic Fields). “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” (02:18:00), “Trying to Get to Heaven” (02:23:00), “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” (02:28:00), “Tangled Up in Blue” ({live} 02:32:30), “Every Grain of Sand” ({acoustic} 02:37:00) & “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (02:41:00; Bob Dylan). “It’s Spring” (A Year with Frog and Toad; original cast).
Charles GrodinThe Boston MarathonThe Boston Bombers
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #54 (1/27/2013): THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Aired January 26, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnXLGyFEdC0
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 26th, 2013.
Let’s say I go to the supermarket and buy a box of donuts. “Why am I eating that?”, you ask. “Well,” I say, “donuts are a health food.” “Health food?” I hear you gasp. “But they’re loaded with sugar and white flour.” “Yes, but they’re a health food,” I reply. “But they’re glazed with chocolate coating made out of corn syrup,” you counter. “I don’t care, they’re a health food,” I persist. “But look at the box!” you yell. “Half the ingredients are red dyes and preservatives and fiberglass insulation.” “You’re making wayyy too much of that,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”
And now you start screaming, “But if you eat donuts, you get fat, your teeth rot, eventually you’ll risk heart disease and diabetes.” “Oh, don’t be so politically incorrect,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”
Sounds crazy, right? Like I should have my head examined for not admitting what’s plainly in front of my face – or in my stomach.
Fine. How many times have we heard left-wing pundits and middle-east apologists say that Islam is the religion of peace? That’s the big slogan – religion of peace. And no amount of 9/11’s or Munichs or Lockerbies or Benghazis will convince these people that maybe Islam isn’t such a friendly how-do-ya-do.
“Oh, it’s just a small faction; it’s just the radicals,” comes the response. True. The millions and millions of Muslims in this world aren’t out there blowing up embassies any more than every NRA member is out there shooting up schools. However, no other religion since Christianity in the Middle Ages has caused so much needless, vicious and sociopathic bloodshed. Except, perhaps, the Death to Disco Movement of the 1970s, but they had a point.
So this time, the horror springs from Algeria – instead of Iran or Pakistan or Egypt or Syria – or, well, point to a map of the Middle East and find an Arab country that isn’t a killing field. Last week, a hostage crisis in Algeria resulted in more than two dozen civilian dead, including one American. Plus, 32 dead hostage takers, or, as I like to call them, refuse.
The Algerian government is being blamed for jumping the gun on its rescue mission. After three days of a bloody stand-off, Algerian troops stormed the gas plant that was under siege – which resulted in pretty much everyone dying. Mainly because the terrorists began executing the hostages once the fun started.
Other countries are now saying, “Oh, we weren’t informed, we could have done it better, we could have ended this with more survivors, blah di bloo di blah.” Algeria’s position is, “Sorry, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” And to that, may I add, especially not terrorists who are killing the hostages anyway, who are strapped to the gills with explosives, and who come from a radical culture where suicide is the expected outcome of a violent event. Kind of tough to negotiate with someone who actually wants you to shoot him. It’s like going up to an alcoholic at a party and saying, “Look, I can either drive you home, or I can pour you another scotch.” That’s a win-win either way for the booze-hound.
Terrorists are sick, desperate people who can be dealt with in only the most extreme, desperate ways. Like full-on raids, waterboarding and being forced to watch “Teen Mom 2.”
We can mince words all we want so as not to offend Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE and other countries that could afford to buy the Statue of Liberty and sell it back to us in pieces. However, until every country, east and west, takes full action in crushing radical, violent Islam, we’re just gonna get more Algerias, more World Trade Centers, more Koran-concocted carnage. Just ask Israel, which has endured sixty years of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism disguised as Palestinian nationalism. Israel realizes: the only way to say “no more” is to say, “no,” more. And that means, when terrorism rears its ugly covered head, you gotta put the religion of peace in a world of pain.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #52 (1/13/2013): Al Gorezeera
Aired January 12, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKNhqPjnANY. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29258
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 13th, 2013.
I never liked Al Gore. Something about him – the smugness, the silver spoon, the hypocrisy – (we’ll get to that). And for all his left-wing democratic ideals, he married a woman whose claim to fame was begging Congress to put warning labels on record albums. Because in 1985, the greatest threat to our country was not Russia or the Middle East or poverty or famine but the Ramones. So there was always something shifty about Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Lord knows, his jet-setting lifestyle seems a little out of sync with his altruism about sustainable energy, but okay, it’s not as if we expect him to live in a hut. Neil Young can build electric cars, but he’s still tooling around in a `56 Crown Victoria.
Anyway, most of what skeeved me about Al Gore I couldn’t put my finger on. I think a lot of liberals felt that way when George Bush stole the presidency out from under him. After eight good years under Bill Clinton – we didn’t know how good we had it – people still couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever for Mr. Internets. True, the former vice president scored brownie points by making a movie about global warming. It left most people global sleeping but still, it was the right message that should have been listened to then and now. And with a whole TV network at his disposal, Gore had the chance to make a real difference in the content and dissemination of news around the world.
That his network, Current TV, failed financially is no shame. But his response was mind boggling – he sold it to Al Jazeera. That’s right, ground zero for Arab propaganda, Al Jazeera, now gets a bigger hoofhold in America. Al J paid Al G 500 million dollars for the privilege of reaching Comcast, Dish Network, Verizon and your local Etch-a-Sketch.
Now, let’s be fair. Most of the time, Al Jazeera functions as an objective journalistic outlet that covers the Arab world more directly than Rupert Murdoch or Reuters ever could. But make no mistake: Al Jazeera was founded and financed by people very close to the ruling family of Qatar. Yes, the network is privately owned – by the cousin of the Emir. And American journalists who have worked for Al Jazeera have complained that everything on it has an anti-American or anti-Israel slant. Remember – this was the place Osama bin Laden would mail his Mp3s to.
“Oh Rabbi,” I hear you say, “if the Zodiac killer sends his messages to the San Francisco Chronicle instead of to the cops, do you blame the paper?” No, and you can’t fault Al Jazeera for running with the story, even if their superstar was a mass-murdering lunatic that they could have helped bring to justice. As such, you can be wary of a network that lives to pish on the Western world. And if I want to watch Israel bashing in the guise of news, I don’t need Al Jazeera; I’ll just put on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.”
Al Gore did not have to do business with these people. If there can be entire networks devoted to game shows or old soap operas, surely Gore could have found a buyer with a 24-hour skateboarding channel, or a new MTV that actually plays music videos. And hey, Tipper’s now history, so you can even leave the obscenities in.
The biggest obscenity is that Mr. Gore, who has spent 30 years warning the world about oil being so scarce, how drilling depletes our natural resources and changes the weather, how pollution is melting the arctic, how there are so many cleaner and more efficient ways to make energy – this Al Gore just pocketed half a billion dollars from a company founded on the profits of oil drilling, consumption, fake shortages and price fixing. Not to mention a country governed under family dictatorship and Sharia law.
For years, I felt bad that I didn’t vote for Al Gore in the 2000 election. I went with Ralph Nader, because I believed his rap about Democrats being just as lousy as the Republicans – that both parties are owned by the same mega-corporations and drug companies. Nader was right, but eight years of Dubya also proved him wrong. I used to wonder how different America would have been had Al Gore been president instead of Bush. Now I know. He would have sold New Mexico to Saudi Arabia and made Mahmoud Ahmedinejad chairman of the B’nai Brith.
I am not one to advocate censorship. I’m not saying, “Hey everyone, call your cable provider and threaten to go back to rabbit ears if Al Jazeera gets a channel.” But the price of freedom is vigilance. If Current TV now morphs into wall-to-wall Intifadeh, with the most popular show being “Two and a Half Men Blowing Up Three and a Half Synagogues,” you know what to do. After all, the Arabs have spilled rivers of American blood. Must they now have blood and Gore?
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 #47 (11/25/2012): Gaza Gaza Hey
Aired November 24, 2012 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSL0TEmRah4&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 25th, 2012.
And so we find ourselves once again on the brink of war with our Arab brothers. We warn them: stop firing rockets in Gaza; they fire rockets in Gaza, and Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. We tell them, recognize the state of Israel so we can have a starting point for peace talks; they want to obliterate Israel, instead. We say, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have to be on the same page so we know whom to negotiate with; Mahmoud Abbas is a figurehead and Hamas fires weapons. It’s the same drek that’s been going on for sixty five years, and the tragedy is that it will go on long after our great-great-grandchildren are sipping prune juice in what’s left of Miami.
And, of course, Israel gets blamed. We’re the aggressors, we’re the ones occupying the territories, we’re the ones who own the pro-Jewish media, we’re the ones who keep making sitcom knock-offs of “Two and a Half Men.” A million and twelve times I’ve given my speech about how Israel belongs to Israel, how the Palestinians should go live anywhere else in the Arab world, and how no matter what Israel does – even if Israel were, God forbid, wiped off the map – that would not stop the Arabs from killing and terror and dragging the world back to the fifth century. If anything, it would only embolden them: “Ooh, we destroyed a democracy filled with people who have different social values. Gee, what other country can we do that to?”
Left-wing pundits are saying that Israel should not refuse to negotiate with terrorists. You have to negotiate with Arab terrorists or else there’s no one to talk to. Fine, let Israel negotiate with Hamas, just like we did with Yasser Arafat – because that was so productive, right? If Hamas, or Al-Qaida, or the Taliban, or the PLO, or the AFLCIO want to lay down their weapons and negotiate a true ceasefire – great, get a room at the U.N., we’ll bring the chips and dip. But sixty-five years of overtures to the Arab world have given us only one peace deal, with Egypt, and God knows where that’s headed after the revolution over there.
I’ll say it one more time: if Arabs want to live in Israel, fine. Let them live IN Israel, peacefully, as Israelis, in a Jewish state carved out of a tiny nugget of the middle east as recompense for the Holocaust. If the Arabs don’t want to live IN Israel, they can move to Jordan, or Syria, or Lebanon, or Iran, or Iraq, or Mexico, or Sudan – actually, I just threw Mexico in there to see if you were paying attention. And if the Arabs want to live near Israel, they have to stop sending us exploding Christmas gifts with “Made in Iran” on them.
Yes, Israel gets gazillions of dollars of weapons from the United States – so Israel can keep the Middle East stable instead of having to send American teenagers to do it. And yes, living conditions are grueling in the occupied territories – so don’t live there! Israel won those territories in two wars, they own it – get over it, get off it.
Israel is not going away. It’s our teentsy-weentsy little homeland, and the Arab world – which really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Palestinians or else the Palestinians would all be living there – the Arab world hates the West, hates the Jews, and has no interest in any kind of peace that does not involve total and complete annihilation of its enemies. Well, maybe not complete annihilation. They’d probably want to leave a few hundred behind just to torture.
At this time of Thanksgiving, let us pray for a cease fire, for cool heads and hopeful headlines, for lasting peace, and for a 48-inch HD TV with surround sound. Hey, at least I have a shot at that last one.
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 May 7th, 2011.
YAHOOOOOOO! Dammit. I am writing this while still under the euphoria, the magic spell of the big news on Sunday night: Bin Laden…been liquidated. Public enemy number one – and let’s hope when they came for him, he made number two!
This animal, this bastard, this ARAB, who created more chaos than a Loehmann’s white sale, has finally been found and put to death. It took nine and a half years. I don’t know why it took nine-and-a-half years. A six-foot-four, middle-aged man with a beard and a dialysis machine roaming around caves for a decade, sending out audio tapes – and we don’t know where he is? George Bush couldn’t find him, but then again, George Bush couldn’t find his ass in his underpants.
But finally, after thousands of days, hundreds of American casualties, billions of tax dollars, it took just one bullet. To kill the man responsible for four planes, a truck bomb, a dozen suicide squads, and 3000 bodies in lower Manhattan – one bullet: Allah not so akbar.
Was bin Loser the tip of the iceberg? Of course. Terror cells are like pimples; you squeeze off the head, a little pus oozes out, but an hour later, there’s a new head on it. So certainly, we must remain vigilant, and we shouldn’t be surprised if this strike at the heart of international terrorism only redoubles the efforts of the bad guys to be bad guys.
But for this window of time, let us be joyful, and grateful, and even a little giddy. This is Disneyland, Lotto, the Super Bowl and a Lady Gaga concert rolled into one dirty turban. Now, I know, on Passover, we spill a bissel wine from our glasses because we are not supposed to rejoice when our enemy suffers. But COME ON.
In fact, if I am less than completely ecstatic, it’s only because bin Laden did not suffer. In 30 seconds he went from sitting around his million-dollar mansion to taking a slug in the noggin’. Too quick. Too easy. This is the kind of guy you shoot in the foot, then in the knee, then in the hip, then in the arm, then you cut off his fingers, then you pull out his eyes, then you press his face on a Forman grill, then you cut off his ears – and then you start torturing him.
If it sounds like I’ve spent too much time thinking about these things, you’re right – nine-and-a-half years. Thanks to our good, close friends in Pakistan. “Osama who? Al Qaeda what? Nawwww… not in our country. You must be thinking of Canada.” Let me tell you something: venture just another mile or two from Islamabad, and I will bet you find Jimmy Hoffa, Natalee Holloway, Amelia Earhardt and my left blue sock that never made it out of the dryer.
Pakistan has a lot to answer for – and not just `cause their spicy food makes you crap blood. They could have helped us; they could have delivered Osama bin Laden to Washington D.C., put a bow in his hair and dropped him on the White House lawn. Instead, we have to sneak in like Jethro and that Israeli chick on NCIS. After it was over, then we call the Paki prime minister and say, “Oh, by the way, that library book you had out? Wink-wink. The one you said you couldn’t find, that you already returned, and that the dog ate? We came and got it. And the next time we ask if you have one of our DVD’s, you better rush the return box or you lose all borrowing privileges. Have a nice goddamn day.”
I do have to wonder – with everybody dying to see the pictures and the proof – why did the Navy Seals dispose of bin Laden so quickly? Obama said his body was prepared according to Islamic tradition – although where they got 100 pounds of camel dung on a Sunday night is beyond me. But really, did we have to give bin Laden a respectful cleanup? Of all people – we should have rubbed his lips with pork and hung a Jewish star around his neck.
And beyond that, we could’ve put him on display! Maybe a Pay-Per-View special with Geraldo Rivera; every hour he reveals another inch of the corpse. Vegas would go crazy. But what do we do? We bury the him at sea. If we wanted bin Laden to drown, just put him in a tank and let the families of 9/11 victims piss on him for an hour. Why deny America the satisfaction of seeing our mortal enemy vanquished? Instead, we have to take the word of the White House, the military, the DNA tests – and I’m willing to. But if there are people out there who deny the Holocaust and disbelieve that we ever put a man on the moon, how the hell are we supposed to make a bunch of Jihad jugheads believe their martyr didn’t really live out his life playing pinochle in Morocco?
I know. I’m being negative. It comes with the Jewitory. If there was ever a time to leap up and do a hora of delight, this is it. But there are still too many questions, too many terrorists, too many memories.
Osama, you ugly dead son of a bitch, you’re with your 72 virgins now. Bet you never figured they’d all be men. And they all look like Gary Busey. And they all have razor blades on the ends of their shmeckels. Let the eternal raping begin.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. Vengeance is mine saith New York.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 184th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on NY’s WGBB-AM radio, Aug. 13, 2006. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Peter Fitzgerald of WGLFAR chats with Botanic VP Patrick Cullina. Plus: Dave and guest co-host Jeff Goodman review Martin Short’s Fame Becomes Me and Kiki and Herb on Broadway.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:07:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN – “Disappearing Arabs” 00:18:00 DAVE GOES ON – “Rehab Month” 00:25:00 TITAN ARUM – Peter Fitzgerald interviews Patrick Cullina 00:39:00 DAVE – “Unrequited Songs” 00:51:00 DAVE & JEFF – “Short n’ Kiki” 00:58:00 DAVE GOES OUT
August 13, 2006 Playlist: “Coming Up” (Paul McCartney), “Taylor the Latte Boy” (Marcy Heisler & Zina Goldrich), “Knapsack” (Amy Rigby), “Invitation to the Blues” (Tom Waits).
Titan ArumPatrick Cullina with columnist Anita JacobsKiki & HerbJeff Goodman `n Dave
Segment originally aired July 28, 2005, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast: Full Episode
All content (c)2006 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Democracy comes to no man’s land. (Featuring guest voice Joe Salzone)
Segment aired June 17, 2004, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast:
All content (c)2004 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Some recommendations on how Arab terrorists can make their deeds more palatable to the West
Segment features guest voice Jeff Goodman and originally aired May 20, 2004, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast: Full Episode
All content (c)2004 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Democracy comes to no man’s land. (Featuring guest voice Joe Salzone)