click above to watch the interview.click above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician WILLIE NILE
Topics include: Bruce Springsteen, New York, Bob Dylan, coronavirus, Catholicism, rock and roll.
Segment aired July 4, 2020 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast 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.
Click above to watch the episode. (Owing to technical difficulties, the first few minutes of the video were lost to history, and the first few recorded minutes have sync issues, but the rest plays fine.)click above to listen to the episode
Here is the 756th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, July 25, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: musician Willie Nile, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with singer-songwriter Willie Nile; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Grover); Today/Yesterday (July 25); Wretched Pun of Destiny (Zoo).
00:01:00 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Oofty’s ashes, new restaurant) 00:54:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:19:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY (July 25) 01:46:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Willie Nile 02:41:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:57:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #77 (zoo) 03:02:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:07:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Grover) 03:09:30 DAVE GOES OUT
click above to watch in-studio footage of the zoom interview.click above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chicago actress and playwright Vicki Quade, co-creator of Late Nite Catechism and author/star of Christmas Bingo.
Topics include: Late Nite Catechism, Christmas Bingo, Maripat Donovan, coronavirus, Chicago theater, audience participation.
Segment aired July 4, 2020 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/podcast 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.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #57 (2/17/2013): Pope Benedict Retires
aired February 16th, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/H3KYHpwGAFs
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 17th, 2013.
Big news for goyim this week when Joseph Ratzinger – aka Pope Benedict the 16th – announced that he would be stepping down from his Popery at the end of the month. It’s an unusual step, since most Popes either die in office or quit to take on consulting work in the fashion industry. But Pope Benedict felt that both his mind and body were starting to go, so rather than decline into a senile figurehead, he’s gracefully bowing out so the cardinals can groom someone else for the most important job in all Christendom. Well, apart from being CEO of Hobby Lobby.
In his eight years of Popeing, Benedict has racked up a decidedly mixed record. To be fair, he had a hard act to follow. In 2005, he succeeded Pope John Paul II, who not only traveled extensively but won the Miss Congeniality pageant four out of the seven years he entered. Following Pope JPII is like coming after Jimi Hendrix at Monterey; you can either burn two guitars and play a third with your shmeckel, or you go the other way, hang back, do your thing, and try to make your own little contribution while half the crowd is stumbling to the concession stands.
Let us also not forget that Pope Benedict did not exactly have the saintliest early life. He was a German. In the `30s. So when he was 14 years old, he was forced to join the Hitler Youth. He wasn’t crazy about it, but he didn’t exactly take a martyr’s stand against it, either. Two years later, he was a soldier in the German air force and then the infantry. Again, he wasn’t thrilled to be there, but tell that to any western allies he flew over or shot at. Then, when the war was all but over, he deserts and runs home. Interesting qualifications for being the holiest man in the world and spiritual guide to millions: be part of the most racist, homicidal regime in history, fight and be ready to kill for that country, and when the going gets rough, escape and be a traitor. In the same shoes, would I have had the moral fiber to be any different? Probably not, but I’m not Pope.
Nor am I likely to be. My application for the open position has already been rejected, they say because I don’t have Quark Express, but ehhh… I think it’s anti-Semitism.
Anyhoo, once he became Pope, no question, Benedict had the courage of his convictions. He was a conservative who believed in sticking with time-honored traditions and pulling Catholicism back from what he perceived to be a hastening secularized decay. When a religion is 2000 years old, there’s a comfort in that – hearing the Latin, upholding the old guard, knowing that the geezer charge has more in common with a monk from the 1200s than with a slacker from 2012. I compare it to the ultra-Orthodox Jews you see at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem every day. They’re incredibly insular and right wing, and they believe the bible word for word, and anything new you throw at them is so terrifying, they shrink into their black coats like potato bugs curling up into a ball. But they’re also a link to the past that would be really sad to lose. They’re out there being perfect so the rest of us don’t have to.
Except, nobody’s perfect. And Pope Benedict’s back-to-the-dark-ages position on certain issues isn’t even close. Women priests? No way. Abortion? No, but no surprise there. Same-sex marriage? He likened it to anarchy and called it “contrary to human love.” Because a celibate ex-Nazi is certainly my go-to expert on love and matrimony.
He did better, much better, on Jewish matters, making sure to renounce the whole “Jews killed Jesus” thing and visiting Auschwitz in 2012 – and not just to reminisce with old classmates and relatives. He did restore to the liturgy a Latin prayer that had a part in it about making sure to convert the Jews. But they cut that line years ago. I think they replaced it with some lyrics from Led Zeppelin IV. And when it’s come to Israel and the Arabs, Benedict has tried to be even-handed and a champion of peace, which is exactly what you’d want and expect from the Pope. He also pissed off the Arabs when he audaciously mentioned that Islam doesn’t exactly have a peaceful reputation. That’s about as self-evident as saying Paulie Shore movies don’t reach the level of high art – but when the Pope says it, it’s news.
Did Benedict do too little, too laity about all those pedophile priests? Of course! Heck, as a Cardinal, he was as guilty as anyone of hushing things up and making sure all the horrors stayed inside the church. Heaven forbid they should get in the clutches of such pesky outsiders as police and courts and the public’s right to know. But ultimately, the biggest disappointment about Pope Benedict is the hypocrisy that I’m sure he doesn’t even see. He’s willing to leap into the modern era with a Facebook page and Twitter tweets, and he’s the first Pope in 600 years to step down instead of drop dead. So why is he willing to break those traditions, yet making the church evolve in its stance on women and gays and embryos – that would be heresy.
When all is said and done, the real story of Pope Benedict is that he’s a smart guy whose career was spent either saving his skin or salvaging the status quo. If the Nazis come, salute; if they put you in a uniform, fight; if they lose, run; if your colleagues are shtupping little boys, juggle; if you say something risky, backpedal; but if the world turns forward, stand still.
The Vatican has an opportunity now to turn the corner. They can get a Pope from Africa, or Latin America, or Passaic. They can elect a guy who’ll separate important moral principles from stuff that’s been done just because it’s always been done. I’m not expecting to see Catholicism suddenly embrace pro-choice rallies, lady priests and gay honeymoons – but why not? If a black man can become president, and a Hitler Youth can be Pope, and Honey BooBoo can be a TV star, anything can happen.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Dominus vobiscum, zie gezundt.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #7 (3/6/2011): The Pope
click above to listen (audio only)
aired March 5, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rCkMKFLV5M
Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 6th, 2011.
We’re innocent! Innocent, I tell you! We didn’t do it!
And it’s taken only one thousand, nine hundred and 78 years for the goyim to believe us.
Pope Benedict the 16th’s new book, “Jesus of Nazareth” – not to be confused with his previous book, “An Old-Fashioned Girl” – the Pope’s new book officially exonerates the Jews of killing Jesus. His holiness writes that there is no biblical or theological basis to the claim that Jews are responsible for murdering Christ.
Now, Benedict is not the first Pope to say this. Fifty years ago, Pope John the 23rd drafted – and Pope Paul the 6th signed – a decree that says Catholics should respect all other religions, and that Jews are off the finally hook for the J.C. rap. It was a generous but generic gesture, like saying, “Deep down, we still think you did it, but we can’t prove it so…bygones.”
The difference here is that Benny goes into great legal and logical detail on how the Jews couldn’t possibly be guilty on this, then or now.
Personally, I’ve always been shocked and offended by the accusation that I killed Jesus. I’ve never killed anyone in my life. I would like to. I have a wish list. Like this guy who cut me off on the parkway yesterday. Doesn’t look, doesn’t signal, he’s on a cell phone –this guy: hand me the nails! But Jesus? A little before my time.
Now, according to the great big book of myths, or as other people like to call it, “The New Testament,” Jews were angry at Jesus and asking the Romans to get rid of him.
He was annoying, he was making trouble with the authorities, he was healing people, but then they’d die of secondary infections. So assuming the Jesus story did happen, let us grant that Jews may have fomented an atmosphere unconducive to the son of Mary. But they didn’t kill him any more than the Spice Girls killed John Lennon.
As a matter of fact, it says very clearly in the Gospels that Jesus was tried by the Jewish courts and then handed over to the Romans. The Romans mocked him, tortured him, dragged him through the streets and crucified him. Not the Jews – the Romans.
Well, that solves the mystery! Who lives in Rome? Italians. So why haven’t we spent 2000 years blaming Italians for the crucifixion?
Ten’ll get you twenty, it was the Mafia. Think about it. The Romans were always asking for tax payoffs and tributes from anyone in their territory. The Romans were known for eating and drinking freely, and then orgies, like the guidos on “The Jersey Shore.” And when it came to Jesus – first he was subject to a conspiracy, then they made him an offer, but he refused; then he was betrayed with a kiss – just like Michael and Fredo in “Godfather II.”
Since 33 AD, blame for the crucifixion has been diverted away from the Guineas, to the Sheenies, and, until very recently, the Vatican has been complicit in the cover-up.
Now, I don’t believe in Jesus, so if the Italians did murder him, it’s no fringe off my tallis. But to think of the crusades, the Holocaust, the Mel Gibson tirades – all of this could have been ameliorated by some pope, somewhere, going, “I know it’s fun to blame the Jews, and they do make lousy tennis partners, but the Jesus thing: it wasn’t them. Get over it.”
And to think, the Pope who breaks the silence spent his early years in the Hitler Youth. That’s like Ted Nugent becoming a spokesman for PETA. It’s like Osama bin Laden joining the B’nai Brith. It’s like Fred Phelps changing from a civil-rights activist into a homophobic madman. Oh wait, that one actually happened.
Anyhoo, I give due credit to Pope Benedict for doing his part to refute an old lie. Will it make any difference to anti-Semitism? Will it stop hate crimes and skinheads and venomous postings on the web? Please, we have a better chance of Messiah coming next week wearing a girdle, a football jersey and a strap-on.
But kudos to Papa Benny, because to help instead of hurt is always a good thing, especially since the jury will forever be out on who really killed Jesus. I dunno, but am I the only one who saw O.J. Simpson’s white limo leaving the scene?
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection by Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Dominus nabisco.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 122nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on NY’s WGBB-AM radio, April 7, 2005. Info: davesgoneby.com.
host: Dave Lefkowitz guest: actor Armin Shimerman
Featuring: Dave chats with actor Armin Shimerman. Plus: Dave Goes Off on Terri Schiavo and sings Dead Popies and Pull Out the Tube.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:15:00 DAVE GOES OFF – “Terri Schiavo” 00:25:00 DAVE’S GOT GUESTS – actor Armin Shimerman 00:49:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 7, 2005 Playlist: “Dead Popies” & “Pull Out the Tube” (Dave, unreleased); “Losing My Religion” (R.E.M., excerpt).
Armin Shimermana sign of the timesDead Popiesyour host
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 117th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on NY’s WGBB-AM radio, March 3, 2005. Info: davesgoneby.com.
host: Dave Lefkowitz guests: theater critic Charles Gross and Rabbi Sol Solomon, spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, Great Neck, NY.
Featuring: Dave chats with theater critic Charles Gross. Plus: the satirical News Gone By and the skit, Is it Good for the Jews, with Rabbi Sol Solomon.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:04:00 DAVE’S GONE CULTURAL – w/ theater critic Charles Gross 00:24:00 NEWS GONE BY 00:46:00 SKIT – “Is It Good for the Jews” w/ Rabbi Sol Solomon on the ailing Pope 00:52:00 DAVE GOES OUT
