Charlie Sheen – Dave's Gone By

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Here is the 344th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Feb. 26, 2011. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guest: Stan Ransom

Featuring: Dave chats with folk musician and musicologist Stan Ransom. Also: Inside Broadway (Driving Miss Daisy, Molly Sweeney), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on Charlie Sheen; sponsors, friends & letters. Plus: Saturday Segue birthday tributes to Fats Domino and Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan – “Sooner & Later.”

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN
00:09:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Johnny Cash & Fats Domino
00:40:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (Molly Sweeney (00:41:00) & Driving Miss Daisy (00:50:00)).
00:58:30 GUEST: Stan Ransom
01:47:30 DAVE – Sponsors
01:56:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later
02:27:30 Weather
02:31:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (Charlie Sheen)
02:43:00 Friends & Letters
02:55:00 DAVE GOES OUT

Feb. 26, 2011 Playlist: “I’m Ready” (00:09:30), “The Fat Man” (00:13:30), “Valley of Tears” (00:20:30), “I’m in Love Again” (00:30:00), “Whole Lotta Lovin'” (00:34:00) (Fats Domino); “Hey Porter” (00:11:30), “I Hung My Head” (00:16:30), “Ring of Fire” (00:22:00), “Daddy Sang Bass” (00:32:00) & “Hurt” (00:35:30) (Johnny Cash), “My Long Island Home” (00:55:30), “Wainscott Dumpling” (01:03:30), “Where are the Stones” (01:05:30), “Carolan’s Concerto” (01:43:30), “I Love Long Island” (00:01:00) & “The Coast of Peru” (02:59:00) (Stan Ransom), “Pretty Peggy-O” (01:58:00), “Little Maggie” (02:01:00), “Abandoned Love” (02:04:30), “Tell Me That it Isn’t True” (02:08:30), “Born in Time” (02:11:00), “It Hurts Me Too” (02:14:30) & “Blind Willie McTell” (02:18:00; Bob Dylan), “Desperado” (02:36:00) (Johnny Cash), “I Want to Walk You Home” (02:39:00) (Fats Domino), “Scott Walker Loves You” (02:46:00) (Art Paul Schlosser).

Vanessa Redgrave & James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy

Molly Sweeney at Irish Repertory Theater

(pictured: Stan Ransom as “The Connecticut Peddler,” Stan Ransom, Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones in Driving Miss Daisy on Broadway, Jonathan Hogan, Geraldine Hughes & Ciaran O’Reilly in Molly Sweeney at Irish Rep, Fats Domino, Johnny Cash, Charlie Sheen.)

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #6 (2/26/2011): CHARLIE SHEEN

click above to listen (audio file only)

aired February 26, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=32940 Youtube: Rabbinical Reflection #006 – Charlie Sheen

Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 27th, 2011.

Chaos, turmoil, madness, uncontrolled rebellion – no, I’m not talking about Libya, I’m talking about Charlie Sheen. The handsome but unprincipled actor who makes Lindsey Lohan look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Shtetl.

After yet another stay in rehab – ooh, that must have been a tough three days – Sheen pronounced himself fit as a fiddle and ready for work.

Just what CBS wanted to hear about their hit show, “Two and a Half Men.” Only Charlie Sheen’s idea of being ready for work is vilifying his boss – the show’s creator – on syndicated radio.

He called producer Chuck Lorre an earthworm, a maggot, and a charlatan – which is pretty strong stuff to call anyone who isn’t a lawyer.

But okay, who among us hasn’t said terrible things about their boss? I once called the chief of the Southeast New England Board of Rabbis a douchebag. Because he was. But I didn’t do it in public. I did it quietly, behind his back, the way you’re supposed to insult people.

More upsetting in the latest Charlie Sheen incident is his migration into Mel Gibson mode. In Sheen’s rant, and apropos of nothing, the actor repeatedly calls Chuck Lorre by his birth name, “Chaim Levine.” Sheen claims he did it as a way of calling out the real man, instead of the guy’s phony Hollywood persona. Too bad it sounded like Sheen saying, “Here’s another Jew using his money and power to abuse poor, underpaid actors.”

Yes, Chuck Lorre did change his name from Chaim Levine. Just like Archie Leach switched his name to Cary Grant, and Arthur Rosenberg magically became Tony Randall.

But in this day and age, what kind of pathetic loser would change his name to make it less ethnic and more saleable in Hollywood? Gee, Carlos Estevez – d’ya think there’s a possibility changing your name to Charlie Sheen got you playing boyfriends and lotharios instead of Mexican drug dealers and auto mechanics? Just ask your brother Emilio how much work his name got him.

Now I’m not in agreement with concealing your heritage, but sometimes you do what you have to do, to get a job. For example, when I first started looking for a job as a rabbi, I had to change my real name. What synagogue would hire Fergus O’Malley?

No, I’m kidding, but seriously; it is not surprising to hear anti-Jewish slurs tumble from the mouth of a Sheen. Charlie’s father, Martin, has been a longtime Palestinian sympathizer. He even appeared at a right-of-return rally alongside Ralph Nader and Susan Sarandon back in 2000. Yeah, let’s give Palestinians right of return – as soon as Americans have right of return to the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center.

Anyway, CBS-TV has finally said, “goodbye Charlie” and halted production on “Two and a Half Men,” which should really be called “A-Man-and-a-Half and a Moron.”

Meanwhile, the moron believes that he has successfully completed rehab – no problem with alcohol, no problem with drugs, no problem with beating the crap out of prostitutes. Come to think of it, no wonder Martin Sheen is pro-Arab: his son would make a great Libyan dictator!

Perhaps I’m being cruel. From watching “Celebrity Rehab,” I know addiction is terrible, and the nasty things Charlie Sheen says are just his disease talking. Then again, if diseases could talk, my hernia would have its own blog.

I do not wish ill on Charlie Sheen. I do not wish well on him, either. We can pretty much stop hoping he’ll ever be a “Two-and-a-Half Mensch,” but at least he could grow up and get some real help. Why, he could even go to the Chabad people – a telethon his own father has pitched for.

And if Charlie feels like calling the Chabadnicks by their Jewish names, I’m sure they won’t mind.

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

Tag: Charlie Sheen

Dave’s Gone By #344 (2/26/2011): RANSOM NOTES

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #6 (2/26/2011): Charlie Sheen