Segment aired April 18, 2015 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 interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast. All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 33. A guy calls his best friend after overdoing it the night before. He says, “Hey bro, I need one of your patented hangover cures.”
“Sure,” says the friend. “Tell me what you drank, and I’ll tell you what to take.”
So the guy tells him, and the friend says, “No problem. You just need the Fairy Tale Cure.”
“The Fairy Tale Cure? What’s that?”
“You take a thick slice of gouda cheese, and around it you wrap a thin slice of smoked salmon. You eat that, and then you take three aspirin. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” says the guy. “Cheese, salmon, aspirin—great! But why is it called the `Fairy Tale Cure’?”
“Because,” says the friend, “haven’t you ever heard of Gouda, Lox and the Three Bayers?”
The 32nd Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 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 interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 32. When Uber was in its planning stages, the two founders were still college kids, and they had an even bigger idea than just creating a livery car service. First of all, they wanted all the dispatches coming from one central station, and that station would be located on a blimp hovering over the city like a roaming GPS. Also, the Uber guys wanted the cars to be able to warn drivers if they were approaching a dangerous place. For example, a car in New York would make a deep growl whenever you drove towards a high-crime zone. In the midwest, you’d be warned of an impending dust storm by the car making a loud hissing noise.
“I think we have amazing ideas,” says one Uber dude to the other, “but will anyone listen to us?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re just a couple of frat boys. How do we get the world to take our ideas seriously?”
“It’s all in the marketing,” says the other. “We tell the truth, but we do it with a catchy slogan.”
“A catchy slogan?” says the friend. “We’re two college kids talking about putting a homing station in a blimp to track limousines that hiss at you in a dust storm. What slogan could we possibly use?”
“Let me think,” says the friend. “Aha! I’ve got it! Uber: One Station, Undergrad, in Dirigible, with Livery and Dust Hiss for All.”
click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 505th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 11, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with author Elliot Tiber. Plus: Inside Broadway, The Wretched Pun of Destiny (Uber), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (spare cash), Saturday Segues (Julie Wilson, Stan Freberg), Greeley Crimes & Old Times
Note: Apologies for the mixed sound quality of the first segment!
Note: Elliot Tiber passed away 8/3/16.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: author Elliot Tiber (“After Woodstock”), Dave’s wife Joyce and their friend, Edie
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (whine, Tiber’s life) 00:30:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Julie Wilson (includes excerpt of 2007 interview (00:43:30) 01:01:00 Sponsors 01:11:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Elliot Tiber 02:07:00 More Sponsors 02:10:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:42:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Spare Cash) 03:04:30 Weather w/ Joyce 03:13:00 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #32 (Uber) 03:16:00 GUEST: Edie D. 03:30:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES w/ Joyce & Edie 04:02:00 Friends 04:12:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Stan Freberg 04:37:00 Thanks & Upcoming 04:39:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 11, 2015 Playlist: “Of Thee I Sing/`Swonderful” (00:37:00), “The Party’s Over” (00:46:30), “I am Loved” (00:49:30) & “I Wish You Love” (04:40:30; Julie Wilson). “The Music Went Out of My Life” (00:39:00; Legs Diamond Broadway cast w/ Julie Wilson). “Old, Old Woodstock” (02:01:00; Van Morrison). “Gigi” (02:39:30; Bing Crosby). “Girl from the North Country” (02:48:00; Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash). “Wanted Man” (02:52:00). “Big River” (02:55:00; Bob Dylan). “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” (02:58:30; Johnny Cash). “John and Marsha” (04:17:30), “Little Blue Riding Hood” (04:20:00), “Side Effects” (04:23:30), “The Sale of Manhattan” (04:27:00), “The Ceiling of My Mind” (04:31:00) & “Finale – So Long, Friend” (04:33:30; Stan Freberg).
Topics include: After Woodstock, Andre Ernotte, Belgium, Rue Haute
Segment aired April 11, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Elliot Tiber passed away 8/3/16.
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.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #121 (4/5/2015): Passover
(aired April 5, 2015 on Dave’s Gone By. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27305. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/P5iBQJD75tg)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 5, 2015.
Friends, are you constipated? I certainly hope so, because that would mean you are eating your matzah, the traditional food of the Passover holiday, which we are in the midst of celebrating as we speak. Well, as I speak; you’re just listening.
But yes, Passover is one of the most important Jewish holidays—certainly the most labor intensive. Other holidays, you cook a meal, you make a blessing, maybe you don’t eat for a day—boom, you’re done. Okay, Sukkos, you have to build a little house, which is a pain in the ass, but you get to use it for a week, and you can make believe it’s a gazebo or a cozy shed. And if you’re too lazy to build, you can always go to the local shul and stay in theirs. Just make sure to use the guest towels.
But Pesach? Oy, what a production. You have to clean the whole house, top to bottom, of every crumb, every last bit of leavened bread. You have to sell everything in your fridge and cupboards to your local Rabbi–because what Rabbi doesn’t want to be responsible for two-week-old meatloaf? You gotta change all your dishes and cutlery, because a fork that touched pizza is somehow satanic for a week. And then, throughout Passover, you can eat only foods that are approved for holiday use. Wheat and beans and whole-grain products are verboten, and everything you reach for has to be certified Kosher L’Pesach. Which means a bottle of ketchup that’s $2 the rest of the year now costs $7.50. Why? Because some mashgiach was there to make sure that no tomato came into contact with a pretzel. HaShem forbid.
It’s a lot of nonsense, of course, but like all religious rituals, the doing of them forces us to remember who we are and the legacy to which we are tied. God doesn’t give a rat’s tushie if we hide the Afikomen or not; but my great, great, great grandfather hid the Afikomen—probably from the Cossacks—and my 21 ½ children will hide the Afikomen from my (god willing) 150 grandchildren. It’s not the activity; it’s the legacy.
Or, on Passover, it’s leprosy. And blood and frogs and boils and murrain and darkness and death of the first born and all the things usually caused by Comcast/Xfinity. We remember the 10 Plagues God visited upon the Egyptians as payback for subjugating the Hebrews. And when Moses visited Pharaoh and told him, “Look, we’re leaving. Can we get a severance check and a few weeks of interim health insurance?”, Pharaoh said no, so God made him suffer. Actually, Pharaoh didn’t say no. I mean, at first he did, when Moses was turning water into blood and making frogs jump out of underwear drawers. Pharaoh saw a bunch of magic tricks and said, “Copperfield does them better.”
But as the plagues turned nastier, Pharaoh was ready to be done with the Jews and let our people go. Until HaShem hardened his heart–I guess with some kind of aortic Viagra–and forced Pharoah to make ruinous choices, essentially robbing the king of Egypt of his free will.
I admit, I’ve always found something unsettling in that story. It’s one thing if Pharaoh is so evil, or so moronic, that he invites torture upon his empire through his own pig-headedness. But the Torah makes it clear that God is pulling the strings. He’s like the schoolyard bully that grabs your fists and makes you sock yourself in the face, all the while saying, “Stop hitting yourself. Why are you hitting yourself?” In the Pesach story, God puts Pharaoh through ten rounds with Mike Tyson, and then a bonus round with Muhammad Ali. The Jews finally hit the road, Pharaoh sends soldiers after them—presumably all second-born sons–and what happens? They all drown. God is nothing if not thorough.
So what do we learn from that gruesome fable? First, that if you mess with the Jews long enough, you get payback of biblical proportions (pun intended). After all, the Hebrews served as Egyptian slaves for generations before the big rescue. Stopping the punishment at flies or even flaming hail just wouldn’t send the same message as mass murder.
The second thing we learn is a rational reason why we spill drops of wine during the Passover seder. The Haggadah explains that even though Pesach is a happy holiday, and we’re delighted to recall the deliverance of Israel from Egypt, we’re not supposed to celebrate a hundred percent. We diminish our wine glass literally and our joy metaphorically, because even though our enemy treated us worse than the worst Jennifer Lopez movie, they are still human beings. They are still God’s children being destroyed.
Personally, I don’t spill a whole lotta wine on Passover—and not just because we have to use the same tablecloth for two nights. I rejoice freely when my enemy falls. When the Navy Seals took out bin Laden, I tore off my clothes and started dancing naked around the house. Which caused some problems because I was outside. But oh boy, did I shake my tailfeather! Miley Cyrus could have studied my tuchas for twerking lessons. And if I’d been alive in 1945 to witness V-E Day, I would have kissed a girl for every German that got a bullet through his eye or a bayonet through his heart. (You could probably call it VD Day…) I still would do this, so if any young girls want to stand in the street and let me kiss them, drop me an email, and I’ll get my sailor suit out of the cleaners.
Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea of being a good sport when my adversary is vanquished, but in reality, the misery and death of my enemies gives me less pause than a skip on my CD player. (For those of you under 30 who don’t know what that is, a CD player is like Spotify on a pancake.)
Anyhoo, my point in all this is however you celebrate Passover—if you follow all the rules, some of the rules, or if you serve bacon croissants during the Seder—and however you feel about Passover—whether you’re there just for family or you’re looking for a greater spiritual purpose in choking to death on horse radish—enjoy the holiday, appreciate the history, and take comfort that you don’t have to fast and no one gets circumcised.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Dai-Dai-enu.
The 31st Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired April 4, 2015 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 interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 31. During the Washington DC try-out for the original West Side Story, whenever Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein faced writers’ block, they’d play chess backstage. Actors, stagehands, and sometimes famous visitors were allowed to kibbitz or even sit in.
One night, playwright Edward Albee is in town, and during intermission, he agrees to a speed-chess game with Sondheim. Meanwhile, Bernstein sits nearby at a piano, trying desperately to come up with a love ballad for act one.
The chess match is even at first, but soon Sondheim gets the upper hand, with Albee swearing under his breath every time he loses a piece. At one point, while protecting his queen, the playwright loses a knight. “Damn,” he says. “Stupid horse.” Two plays later, Sondheim makes a bold move with his rook and takes the other knight. “Damn!” yells Albee. “I can’t believe I lost both of them.”
“That’s it!” shouts Leonard Bernstein at the piano. “Two Knights, Two Knights. Ed Albee Damned Two Knights.”
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 504th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio April 4, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with life coach Dr. Greg Marcus. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection on Passover’s Plagues, Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Muddy Waters, in the news), Dylan – Sooner & Later (Nashville Skyline), Wretched Pun of Destiny (chess match), Greeley Crimes & Old Times.
Guest: author Greg Marcus, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (supervisor, critics in NOLA, broken rimshot, psychotic break) 00:27:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:02:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN 01:10:00 Sponsors 01:16:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Muddy Waters 01:39:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:08:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Greg Marcus 02:51:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Nashville Skyline) 03:08:30 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #31 (Chess Match) 03:10:30 Friends 03:25:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINicAL REFLECTION #121 – Passover’s Plagues 03:37:00 Weather 03:38:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 03:56:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 4, 2015 Playlist: “Rollin’ Stone” (01:21:00), “Mannish Boy” (01:24:30), “Walkin’ Thru the Park” (01:27:00) & “The Blues had a Baby and they Named it Rock and Roll” (01:30:30; Muddy Waters). “You Made the Wait Worthwhile” (Honeymoon in Vegas w/ Tony Danza & Brynn O’Malley). “Don’t Talk to Me About Work” (02:48:00; Lou Reed). “Lay Lady Lay” (02:55:00), “Tell Me that it isn’t True” (02:58:00), “I Threw it All Away” ({Alternate Version} 03:00:30) & “One More Night” (03:03:00; Bob Dylan). “Indiana” (03:39:00; Kate Jacobs). “Nuclear” (03:42:30; Ryan Adams). “A Case of You” (03:46:00; Joni Mitchell). “Not Fade Away” (03:50:00; The Rolling Stones). “Seder Dance” (04:09:30; Don Byron).
Segment aired April 4, 2015 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 interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 29, 2015.
Much to many people’s surprise, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected for a third term as the Prime Minister of Israel. Everyone assumed Labor would win. Everybody thought Netanyahu’s hard-line, status-quo policies were on the way out, and peaceniks were on the way in. Well, pre-April fool! Or technically, Adar fool, since it’s the Jewish calendar we’re dealing with.
But let’s be clear: for all Israel’s weariness of war, and for all the country’s gratitude to the United States for support, for money, for defense, for money, for money, for money . . . Israeli voters nevertheless sent a strong message and a mandate. The safety and security of Eretz Yisroel comes before everything else. It comes before friendship, before negotiations, before swallowing the latest Palestinian PR. They said to Netanyahu: “Give us strong borders and a promise that you won’t sell our country down the river—Jordan or Nile—and we’ll vote for you again.” He did, and they did.
Therefore, much to the chagrin of President Barak Oblivia, Bibi is back. And the shocking part is: he did it, not by kowtowing to the left, not by lying about the potential for peace with our sworn enemies, but by facing facts. The Arabs hate us, they won’t even recognize Israel on their maps or GPS systems, and any chance they get, they’d gladly send the Jews on a blind date with Robert Durst.
In his campaigning, Bibi went so far as to say that on his watch, there would never be a Palestinian state, which is harsh to hear even for a die-hard Zionist like yours truly. I’ve always said, I have no objection to a Palestinian state . . . in Algeria, in Curacao, maybe somewhere north of Omsk. The two-state solution, however, just seems like a disaster on the drawing board: unsafe, untenable, and you know it would just turn Jerusalem into a ping-pong ball. Filled with explosives.
Still, you’re not allowed to say that. If you’re a diplomat or a head of state, you’re supposed to make believe there’s always room for negotiation, that the Arabs really will lay down their arms and be all neighborly-like. Because, hey, they’ve been such good citizens in Yemen, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, Libya – fill in the name of a country; the Muslims have probably terrorized it.
Our President won’t admit that, of course. It’s like he’s living in the movie “Candyman.” If you say the name “Moslem” five times to a camera lens, the bad guys’ evil will be unleashed. But here’s news, Mr. Pres, the bad genies are already out of the bottle, and if there’s one country on earth that knows not to trust the Bedouins, it’s their Semitic brethren.
Now, for the sake of diplomacy, Benjy Netanyahu has already gone back on his pre-election speechifying. He says he didn’t really mean there was no solution, that he’s always willing to schmooze with Abbas, and we should take his posturing with a grain of hummus. He’s a politician. He says what he has to to get what he wants. Once he’s got it, then he can be more truthful. Not completely truthful, but a percentage.
Meanwhile, the President, who has been going through an otherwise impressive stretch of lame-duck vigor, is pitching a hissy fit over Bibi’s bonanza. Obama wants to be the next Jimmy Carter, brokering the all-but-impossible peace deal that will cement his legacy for the ages. But lemme tell you, Barack, if you’re listening, which I know you are: with Israel and Egypt, Jimmy Carter did an amazing, impossible, fantastic thing. No one can take that away from him. But if you ask anybody about the legacy of James Earl Carter, 39th President, the response will be: hostages, oil shortage, inflation, Cold War, losing the Panama Canal, and a general American bad mood. In other word, that peanut-brained peanut farmer had as much business ruling the free world as Bill Cosby would have running a rape crisis center. So if Obama thinks he’s got anything to gain by twisting Israel’s arm into a phony truce with terrorists, he’s in for a rude awakening.
And yes, it was rude of Netanyahu to visit America and gab with Republicans when the White House all but begged him not to. But I repeat: maybe, just maybe, Bibi knows whereof he speaks when he cautions that trusting Iran to scrap its nuclear program is like trusting Bill Cosby to run a rape crisis center. I know, I already used that joke, but I’m hungry, and I want to finish this stupid essay and get to my brisket.
Folks in Washington are saying that relations between Israel and the United States are nearly at an all-time low. But I think—or at least, I hope—that’s overstating the case. Deep down, both American parties are very committed to Israel and realize how strategically important it is to the West, as well as its moral right to exist in a post-Holocaustal world. If Obama wants to rattle his saber—and you know, those people are blessed with long sabers—it could be the same kind of bluff and bluster Netanyahu was using to win his election. What actually goes on behind the scenes . . . that’s for statesmen to know and Aaron Sorkin to fabricate.
So I hope this is all just smoke and mishegoss, and that the Democrats—especially their presumptive 2016 candidat-ess—remember that what’s good for Auntie Israel is what’s most prudent for Uncle Sam. Or, put another way, don’t throw the Bibi out with the bathwater.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Dave Lefkowitz and his wife Joyce chat with UNC Radio programming director Matthew Davis
Topics include: Greeley, Garden City, archiving
Segment aired March 28, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio show/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.
Segment aired April 18, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
