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Here is the 745th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday, May 9, 2020. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: podcaster Greg Alprin, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews podcaster Greg Alprin (The Mangina Dialogues); Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hasty), Potato News, StoryTime (Spuddy Buddy Coloring Book), Wretched Pun of Destiny (co-op), Inside Broadway.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (shave & a haircut, Dr. Seuss & Dre, Roy Horn, COVID, Chinese food, murder hornets, Greeley) 01:01:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:13:00 TODAY YESTERDAY (May 9) 01:33:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Greg Alprin 02:16:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (obits) 02:33:30 POTATO NEWS 02:44:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #68 (co-op) 02:47:30 Friends of the Daverhood 02:53:00 STORYTIME (Spuddy Buddy Coloring Book) 03:10:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Hasty) 03:13:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Greg AlprinZev BuffmanSpuddy Buddy!Rabbi Sol Solomon
The 68th Wretched Pun of Destiny airs May 9, 2020 on Dave’s Gone By. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Musician Dean Wareham, of Galaxie 500 and Luna fame, finds himself spending most of his time writing film scores. Tired of commuting to the coast, he looks for apartments in L.A. A friend tells him that actress Elizabeth Hurley owns a gorgeous co-op with a perfect one-bedroom available.
“It’s a great deal,” says the friend, “but be careful. The co-op board is crazy.”
Still, Wareham makes an appointment to meet with them. They tell him to show up at 4:30 in the morning and wear a plastic raincoat. The singer does, and he’s met there by the actress and a half-dozen tenants.
Before Wareham can even sit down, all the board members take bottles of Heinz ketchup and start spraying him, covering him head to foot. Finally, Elizabeth Hurley stops them, holds out her hand, and says, “Welcome, neighbor!”
This may sound like a strange method of apartment hunting, but you know what they say: The Hurley Board Ketchups the Wareham.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #40 (4/8/2012): Mezuzah Meshuggah
Aired April 7, 2012 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mov2WBjah6k&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 8th, 2012.
“The mezuzah stays up!”
No, that’s not what my wife says when I take Viagra. It’s what a lawyer told the public after both sides settled a brouhaha over a Jewhaha.
A week ago, a woman living in a ritzy-titzy condominium in Stratford, Connecticut, was ordered – ordered! – by her co-op board to take down her mezuzah. A mezuzah, of course, is the tiny scroll of parchment that Jewish people put on their houses to ward off Jehovah’s Witnesses. We place a mezuzah on the frame of every doorway, so whenever we walk into a room, we know there’s a shriveled little piece of paper watching over us. Well, it beats a rabbit’s foot.
Jews have been doing this for thousands of years based on a mandate in the Torah that we should affix certain phrases to our doors. And not just phrases like, “please, no more menus.”
So out in Connecticut, Barbara Cadrenel, a plucky middle-aged Jewess, did what the Torah asked her to do: she put a mezuzah on her door frame. “No!” said the co-op board. “You are structurally changing the design of your home, which goes against our bylaws.”
How did the co-op board explain the presence of crosses on many other doors in the complex? Simple. The crosses were nailed to the doors – not the door frames. Ohhh. Must be nice to have a lawyer in the Klan.
But seriously, to me, the most infuriating part of this double standard was that the lady didn’t even nail her mezuzah to the frame. She velcroed it. Velcro! The best thing to happen to a pair of shoes since taking them off.
And still, the co-op board threatened to fine Cadrenel fifty dollars a day if she didn’t take the scroll down. One week, one lawsuit and a media firestorm later – I am happy to say, everything has worked out for the best. The co-op board apologized to the woman and said, in no uncertain terms, “we were stupid, we were ignorant, the only Jews we’ve ever seen are on `Seinfeld,’ please put your mezuzah wherever you want, so long as it doesn’t put some voodoo hex on our crèche.”
By the way, if you think I’m exaggerating the board’s dumbness, this is what their attorney said in settling the case. Quote: “I didn’t realize, and the board members didn’t realize what a mezuzah was. I didn’t realize the significance.” Unquote. The board members didn’t know what a mezuzah was? Is this a co-op or a yurt? And while I appreciate their apology, don’t tell me the second they started threatening this woman with fines and legal fees, and she came back to them saying, “this is a religious symbol. My people have been doing this for thousands of years. Walk through a Jewish neighborhood – okay, maybe not in Connecticut but in New Jersey. Open a goddamn Wiki page!” Why does it take a week of closing in and lawyering up to come out and say what you must have been told the first hour this mishegoss went down?
Now, I’m not pointing fingers or shouting “anti-Semitism” or calling for a Million-Jew March down Milford. I’m just saying that even in this day and age, when we know something about everyone, and we’re a mouse click away from knowing too much about everybody, it’s amazing how people can have no clue. Next time I see someone sitting on a subway holding a rosary, I think I’ll say, “Hey! Nice beads. Do they all go in your vagina or do – what? You mean that t-shaped thing in the middle isn’t a battery-operated control stick?” Well, whaddya know.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
