cancel culture – Dave's Gone By

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #198: 1000 Daves

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #198 (9/20/2025): 1000 Daves

airs Sept. 20, 2025 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch here: https://davesgoneby.net/?p=127752

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for September 20, 2025.

It is an honor, a privilege, and a joy to wish Duvid Lefkowitz mazel on his 1000th episode of the Dave’s Gone By radio-internet-podcast-Morse Code program. This would be a stunning achievement even if he didn’t spend three full hours a week talking his head off about absolutely nothing. But he manages this feat in a surprisingly non-annoying way, and has been doing so for 24 years.

I was there from the very beginning, you know. On the debut episode of Dave’s Gone By, the host brought me on to talk about breast-cancer awareness. I am aware of both breasts and cancer, so this was a natural fit for me. Despite complaints to the radio station about my calling breasts “boobs,” instead of—I dunno, hooters, jugs, melons, or love lumps—my segment was a hit. And it set the template for what would become my Rabbinical Reflections—mini-sermons about life, Judaism, politics, and my non-stop nagging prostate.

Today marks my 198th Rabbinical Reflection, and I thank Dave for allowing me this platform to expound upon my small world at large. It hasn’t been easy. My defense of Israel and Zionism has cost Dave a number of friends. They’re self-hating Jews and miserable anti-Semite bastards, but still, they’re missed. By the same token, I am appalled at the MAGA cancel culture going on right now, with late-night television hosts in the crosshairs of a despotic purge. I hate to say it, but the left-wingers were right: Columbia gadfly Mahmoud Khalil might be a lump of rancid hummus, but if he wasn’t breaking any laws, he had the right to peaceful protest, whether he was an American citizen or just a visa visitor. Now he’s being deported, and the government has gone from over-prosecuting “hate speech” to indirectly silencing anyone who doesn’t bow down to the orange clown.

So Dave, I celebrate your longevity and success. Such as it is. But I also urge you to speak your mind. You’re no Steven Colbert. You’re no Jimmy Kimmel. (If you were, let’s face it, you’d still be banging Sarah Silverman.) But you are you, an opinionated aging Jew with a moral sense of right and wrong and the linguistic skill to share your beliefs with those willing to listen. And if you’re sometimes reticent to tackle certain subjects and put your tuchas on the line for free expression, I am generally not. I promise, oh Captain, that as long as you keep allowing me to be part of your podosphere, whether doing interviews, Reflections, or baking shmura matzohs for you and your lovely missus, I will remain me. I will say what I feel needs saying, seriously or joking, and if ABC or Disney or Paramount-Skydance doesn’t like it, shtup `em. It’s not like they’re signing my checks. (Of course, if they do want to hire me, please forget everything I’ve said the last two minutes and God bless our stable-genius President.)

No matter what, though, I congratulate you, Dave, on giving the world 1000 examples of your humorosity. As you know, without comedy, irony, silliness, self-reflection, and a healthy b.s. meter—plus a little showbiz b.s.—this world would be a poorer place. Or just Newsmax.

I will close, Duvid, with a poem I have composed in your honor:

Hear, O Israel, about a Jewish guy

Who created a show called “Dave’s Gone By”

He tells of his bunions, his harelip, and phlegm

That turns off some people, but guess what? Fuck them!

He talks about theater, sometimes to excess

He jokes about life and how it’s a mess.

He lets me do interviews, though I’m controversial

He goes for three hours—with not one commercial!

From terrible puns to trivia quizzes

To bantering with his unseen mizzus,

To crafting a loathsome limerick rhyme

Dave makes shabbos a happier time.

So, mazel tov, Dave, on your 1000th show

May good fortune follow wherever you go.

Amen.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/2025/09/19/rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-198-9-20-2025-1000-daves/

Dave’s Gone By Skit: DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #002 (7/11/2020): Quick Draw McGraw

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DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #002 – QUICK DRAW McGRAW

Ladies and gentlemen, last week, we inaugurated this new segment of the Dave’s Gone By program, Dave’s Gone Canceling. We here in the Daverhood feel it is important to call out cultural icons who represent the worst kinds of racism, sexism, genderism, and jingoism. It isn’t enough to put questionable content into context, we must erase it! Cancel it! Begin a clean slate so that America can cease its unrest and . . . rest.

A week ago, we eviscerated musician and painter Joni Mitchell for her appropriation of black-American culture. Sure, she’s one of the great pop songwriters of the 20th century, but she dressed in blackface on an album cover; therefore, she must be banishe’d from the cultural landscape. There’s no room for shades of grey in our black-versus-white society. You either make politically correct art all the time, or you get called out and canceled.

Which brings us to this week’s offender. Someone white, someone who prides himself for upholding law and order—just like the police, and we all know how wrong they are these days. Someone who not only oppresses a Mexican who serves him, but appropriates Latinx stereotypes whenever it suits him. All of this, by the way, in the name of “fun.”

I am, of course, talking about that Cancel Criminal, Quick Draw McGraw. Hanna-Barbera’s white cartoon horse who serves as a sheriff in the Old West. His deputy? A little Mexican donkey with a ridiculous accent, a sombrero, and the embarrassing name, Baba Looey—a bastardization of the Cuban song “Babalu.” Granted, Baba Looey is often shown to be smarter than his boss and warning Quick Draw of impending danger, but he is still the lackey, the second banana, the comical sidekick donkey to the great white horse.

To make matters worse Quick Draw isn’t satisfied with having a best-friend Mexican stereotype; he, himself, takes on a farcical hispanic persona when becoming El Kabong. A masked vigilante, El Kabong conquers his enemies by shouting “Ole’!” and then bashing their heads in with a Spanish guitar. If you don’t think that’s offensive, just imagine El Kabong as a hegemonic Anglo-Saxon. He’d be named Elliot Kabson, he’d shout “Fore!”, and whack his enemies with a golf club. Or a bottle of chilled white wine.

To those of you who say, “Yes, there’s something unseemly about how Mexicans were treated in that animated series. But these things were drawn 60 years ago. Why take offense now?” Because cartoons are evergreen entertainment, and they’re loved best by children—the most susceptible to systemic racist ideology seeping into their post-cradle crania. Do we want our five year olds watching Quick Draw McGraw and then growing up to say, “Hey, where’s my servile donkey with the funny accent? And why is it, when I hit my little brother over the head with an electric guitar, he didn’t go `Kabong!, he just bled a lot and had to be rushed to the hospital?”

We must protect our youth, ladies and gentlemen, and we must also be offended on behalf of our brothers who are Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Columbian and all those other countries with diarrhea food. It is therefore with a corazon muy triste that we cancel you, Quick Draw McGraw. Baba-Boo to you! Your 45 cartoons shall be blotted out and erased like Daffy in “Duck Amuck.” Long live political correctness. El Ka-bye.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27784

Dave’s Gone By #752 (6/27/2020): CANCEL THIS!

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Here is the 752nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday, June 27, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce

Featuring: Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Prowers), Wretched Pun of Destiny (tornado), Dave’s Gone Canceling (Joni Mitchell), Inside Broadway, Today/Yesterday (June 27).

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (cancel culture, racist cops, Covid continues, thermometer, new toothbrush!)
01:25:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES
01:50:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:17:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (June 27)
02:53:00 DAVE’S GONE CANCELING (Joni Mitchell)
03:03:00 Friends of the Daverhood
03:09:30 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #74 (tornado)
03:13:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Prowers)
03:16:00 DAVE GOES OUT

June 27, 2020 Playlist: “You’ve Been Canceled” (03:00:00; Dan Bull).

Dave’s Gone By Skit (6/20/2020): DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #1: Joni Mitchell

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DAVE’S GONE CANCELING #1 – Joni Mitchell

Ladies and gentlemen, these are difficult times as we grapple for the very soul of our nation. America is a great country, but it has been built on the backs of the poor, and along the way it has mocked, abused, and sometimes murdered those who don’t fit into the hegemonic Norman Rockwell/“Leave it to Beaver” family album.

It’s taken 250 years, but we’re finally doing something about it. No, we’re not fixing immigration laws or rethinking the criminal justice system or leveling the economic playing field for everyone of all races. That would be silly. Instead, we’re showing that we care by taking things that were created in a whole different time and mindset and culturally erasing them. Why bother with substantive change when you can tear down a statue? Why make a serious effort when you can simply signal your wokeness? And you do that by taking offense at an artwork that never made you mad before but now leaves you furious.

Right-wingers are sneering at this trend by calling it “Cancel Culture.” It’s making believe the movie or book or song or pancake syrup never existed because it represents something racist or worse. You don’t hear a lot of Bill Cosby routines on Sirius/XM’s comedy channel. Mel Gibson movies aren’t all the rage at the B’nai Brith. And The Collected Love Sonnets of Jeffrey Epstein still hasn’t found a publisher.

But why stop there? Don’t be namby-pamby like HBO-Max and put “Gone with the Wind” in historical context; just cancel it! Burn the prints! Delete the MP4s! Don’t play Richard Wagner at the Israeli Philharmonic and think you can justify it with an essay in the Stagebill. Kick that Gotterdamerung opera out the door!

And so, in that spirit, we inaugurate this new special segment of Dave’s Gone By: Dave’s Gone Canceling. You, my viewers, have had a hard week—a hard year, so it’s no fair to ask you to think for yourselves. Let me think for you. So much racism, sexism, anti-semitism, homophobia, and sheer tastelessness goes unchecked out there, I feel it’s my duty—and yes, I said doody—to call for the removal of artworks that either of themselves or through the actions of their creators—call to mind the injustices of this terrible society. I call it “Dave Goes Canceling.”

Today’s cancel criminal is . . . not Mel Gibson. Too easy. Not Tina Fey—she canceled herself by pulling back those 30 Rock episodes with blackface in them. No, our inaugural Cancel Criminal is . . . that terrible racist: Joni Mitchell.

Lest we forget: the cover of her mostly crappy album, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, features a picture of her in a colorful dress—not a colored dress, so that’s okay—but also another picture of her dressed up as a pimpy black guy. Complete with fuzzy hat, big sunglasses (shop stylish glasses at ICU Eyewear) , and bling. She said at the time this was her jazzy alter ego, a black hipster she called “Art Nouveau.” That’s not a tribute, that’s appropriation!

And does she dress as Martin Luther King? Or Rodney King? No, it’s a black dude you’d see sashaying in front of the Port Authority looking for teenage runaways.

As if to compound the crime, one of the songs on the album is “Dreamland,” where she dreams about a weird tropical place “a long, long way from Canada.” One lyric dreams about, “Black babies covered in baking flour.” Ooh, delicious! Is that what Joni thinks about? The opposite of blackface—where little black babies try to turn white. In front of a cook, by the way, who might be eyeing them as tender morsels. And if that’s not enough, later in the song she brings up “tar baby and the Great White Wonder.” Well, tar baby was a story cooked up by none other than Uncle Remus, that Song of the South darkie. The actual story of the tar baby can be seen as a metaphor for slaves, the bunnies, outwitting the foxes, their masters. But the actual baby made of tar is a racist visual cue, and that plantation owners would cover their walls with tar to keep hungry slaves from stealing their fruit. If a slave stole an orange, the master would see the tar stuck to his body and whip it right off him. Tar baby and the great white wonder, indeed.

And if you’re thinking, well, that album was from the seventies; it was a different time, don’t forget that Mitchell’s last original album, from 2007, was titled “Shine.” Sunshine, you say? Inner beauty shine, you say? I say: slur for a black shoeshine boy.

Joni Mitchell, you hereby stand accused and convicted of racism. We hereby cancel you! Instead of Both Sides Now, you are No Sides Now. We will not turn you on even if you are a radio. And you may be the color blue, but that doesn’t excuse what you’ve done to black!

Long live political correctness . . . until we’re canceled.

—> https://wp.me/pzvIo-26D