Here is the 466th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 19, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Peter Fitzgerald chats with novelist & playwright Daniel Curzon. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Plagues, pt. 2), Saturday Segues (Iggy Pop, Fender benders), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (Utz. vs. Butler).
Guests: playwright Daniel Curzon, Joyce Weil
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce Weil (marmots, publicity conference, My Unknown Son, dementia, Subways are for Sleeping, See or Skip, Visa Black Card, Muppet Christ Superstar) 01:18:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Iggy Pop 01:45:30 Sponsors 01:48:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (01:49:00); review (A Raisin in the Sun; 02:19:00)) 02:34:00 GUEST: Peter Fitzgerald interviews Daniel Curzon 03:25:00 Sponsors 03:28:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Plagues, pt. 2) 04:02:00 Friends 04:12:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #99 – Utz vs. Butler 04:18:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Fender Benders 04:37:30 Weather 04:39:00 Upcoming 04:42:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 19, 2014 Playlist: “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” (01:08:00) & “Superstar” (01:09:00; Christo Graham’s Muppet Christ Superstar). “Green Eggs and Ham” (01:13:00; Kevin Ryan). “Run Like a Villain” (01:23:30), “Some Weird Sin” (01:26:30), “Sell Your Love” (01:30:00; w/ James Williamson) & “Dum Dum Boys” (01:37:00; Iggy Pop). “I Wanna Be Your Dog” (01:34:00; The Stooges). “Let it Sing” (02:30:30; Violet 1997 off-Broadway cast w/ Michael McElroy). “Tiny Montgomery” (03:31:30), “Idiot Wind” ({live Hard Rain version} 03:34:30), “Chimes of Freedom” (03:44:30) & “Father of Night” (03:51:30; Bob Dylan). “Highway 61 Revisited” (3:53:00; Karen O & The Million Dollar Bash). “Steady Rollin’ Man” (04:18:00; Eric Clapton). “Little Wing” (04:24:00; Jimi Hendrix). “Peggy Sue” (04:26:30; Buddy Holly). “Barabajagal” (04:29:00; Donovan). “Southbound Again” (04:32:30; Dire Straits). “Rice Pudding” (04:44:00; Jeff Beck Group).
click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 465th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio April 12, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with theater journalist Joel Markowitz. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Plagues, pt. 1), Saturday Segues (Tiny Tim, John Pinette).
Guest: theater journalist Joel Markowitz, Dave’s wife Joyce.
Note: Joel Markowitz passed in November 2017 at age 60.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (theater season, bum knee, Holocaust Week, drug-sniffing bunny, Joyce’s center book, fire and ice, El Touchy) 01:05:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Tiny Tim 01:21:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Jesse Winchester 01:38:00 Sponsors 01:43:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (01:43:30); review (Don’t Wake Me; 01:59:00) 02:08:30 DAVE SAYS BYE – Mickey Rooney 02:21:30 GUEST: Joel Markowitz 03:19:00 Sponsors 03:22:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Plagues, pt. 1) 03:52:00 Friends 03:57:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – John Pinette 04:17:30 Thanks 04:22:00 Weather 04:23:30 Upcoming 04:25:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 12, 2014 Playlist: “Touch of the Pharaohs” (01:01:00; Luie Luie). “The Name Song” (01:09:00), “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” (01:10:30), “Fill Your Heart” (01:12:30), “Just a Gigolo” (01:15:30) & “Aren’t You Glad You’re You” (01:18:00; Tiny Tim). “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” (01:25:00), “I Wave Bye Bye” (01:28:00) & “Snow” (04:26:00). “Biloxi” (01:31:30; Ted Hawkins). “Judy” (02:17:30) & “Nothing Can Stop Me Now ” (02:19:30). “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking” ({live} 03:24:30), “On the Road Again” (03:30:00), “Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum” (03:32:30), “The Ballad of Hollis Brown” ({live}, 03:37:30) & “Day of the Locusts” (03:43:00; Bob Dylan). “Musical Theater” (03:59:30), “Extreme Sports” (04:03:00), “The Toaster” (04:09:00), “A Gas Problem” (04:12:00) & “Toilet Paper” (04:14:30; John Pinette).
Dave chats with D.C.-area theater critic Joel Markowitz
Topics include: theater, If/Then, Rocky, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Bullets Over Broadway.
Segment aired April 12, 2014 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)2014 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 30th, 2014.
The most hated man in America – well, besides me – is dead. Fred Phelps, the founding pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, passed away of natural causes on March 19th. Somehow, he made it to 84 years old without enemies taking a bat to his head or sprinkling anthrax in his undershorts.
Now, we can’t expect right-wing Christians to be forward-thinking or even moderate about such issues as abortion, gay rights and Lady Gaga. Bible thumpers aren’t wired like that, and if they wanna tie a straitjacket around the Old Testament and interpret it the way Muslim extremists bungle the Koran, that’s their business. The reason Freddy Phelps was so loathed is that he went out of his way to spread hatred, and he targeted people who were guilty of nothing more than living their lives differently from what he thought the bible recommended. Fred Phelps was not a live-and-let-live kinda guy. He was more a “hurt and disrupt” sort of person.
He didn’t start out that way. In 1954, on the day Brown beat the Board of Education, Phelps, who had a law degree, took it upon himself to fight civil-rights cases. I mean, on the black side – really! Really! Of course, a few years later, he was disbarred for corruption, but there was something righteous in the guy before he turned self-righteous. Back in the early `90s, he ran for governor, senator and mayor – on the democratic ticket. He lost and lost and lost, and maybe that’s what set him off on the path of bitterness and bile.
Whatever goodie points Phelps racked up defending schvartzes in Kansas have long been pissed away in his tirades and protests against homosexuals. To preach in a sermon against the sin of being a buttmuncher is one thing. To send your followers out in public on streetcorners with signs that read “God Hates Fags” is another thing. But to bus your parishioners to funerals… that takes balls the size of planets. These Westboro wackos would send – or threaten to send – protesters to everything from the Boston Marathon bombing funerals to school-shooting victim burials, warning everyone that God Hates America, which is why He kills people so randomly.
On the web, these Baptist boneheads post gleeful messages anytime an American soldier gets killed overseas. “You see?” they say. “That’s God showing how much he hates gays and lesbians.” This has about as much logic as a guy tripping over a curb and thinking, “Hmm, I know why this happened. Somewhere in the south of France, a farmer is raising too many geese.”
Here’s the truth, Fred Phelps, wherever you are down there. God does not hate fags. Well, maybe Perez Hilton, but otherwise, no. If he’s mean to them, it’s because he’s mean to everyone because he’s the Old Testament fire-and-brimstone rageaholic we all know and love. And as far as God hating lesbians, well, if man is made God’s image, that means God is a lot like man. And let me tell you: men love lesbians. Case closed.
Do I have a personal vendetta against the WBC? Well, it’s not enough they hate gays; they hate Jews, too, saying we stole Israel and killed their favorite Jew – the one on the cross with the big mouth and the death wish. Westboro put up videos calling us filthy Jews and Christ killers and fag enablers. All the way back in 1996, Phelps led a protest against the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC – possibly the only decent institution in Washington DC – writing, and I quote, “American taxpayers are financing this unholy monument to Jewish mendacity and greed and to filthy fag lust. Jews, thus perverted, out of all proportion to their numbers energize the militant sodomite agenda… Jews are the real Nazis.” And that was just his warm-up joke.
But seriously, now that Fred Phelps is becoming fertilizer instead of spewing it, the question is, how do we react? I ask this because Passover is coming in a couple of weeks, and during the Seder, we spill ten drops of wine when talking about the Egyptians, because we’re not supposed to be a hundred percent happy when our enemy is vanquished. Even though the Egyptians enslaved us, treated us like cattle, turned us into fifth-class citizens in a country where we’d been welcomed just a few Pharaohs earlier. Even though we were overjoyed to escape and watch the slave owners get what was coming to them…still, death of the first born is a heavy price, and they are God’s creatures, too, so…hold off on the noisemakers a bissel. Fireworks and disco dancing – no problem, but in moderation.
That can be a hard principle to accept, however, in modern times. On May 8th, 1945, don’t tell me every surviving Jew in the world didn’t want to drown every last German in the Danube. When bin Laden bought it, I danced a hora in the living room and flushed a Koran down the toilet. I admit it: I was flooded with emotion, and then just flooded – it’s a thick book in a very old toilet. But the point is, I understand the desire to rejoice at the finish of Phelps. He’s not having a funeral, but if he were, what release and elation to show up where they’re shoving him in the ground and jeer at his inbred followers. Curse at them, mock them, drown them out with glam rock, have gays and lesbians kiss and roll around – especially the lesbians…yeah – find the triggers for these ludicrous people and pull those triggers till they go off.
A bigger man than I would say we must take the high road, lead by example, and don’t sink to the Westboro level by stooping to their tactics. But that would be a bigger man than I. I’m a small, angry Jew, and I hate these fucking people. If you find where they’re burying Phelps, or holding one of their protests, go with a rainbow banner in one hand and a spray can of piss in the other. But most of all – and I wish I had written this so I could take credit, but blessed be the man or woman who wrote: “Live your life in such a way that the Wetsboro Baptist Church will want to picket your funeral.” Isn’t that great? And then, during shiva, bend them all over and show them exactly what you can do with a yahrtzeit candle.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 464th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, March 29, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with Tony-winner Ben Vereen. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (The 80s), Saturday Segues (Tracy Chapman, knees)
Guest: actor-singer Ben Vereen
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:18:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (Tracy Chapman) 00:50:30 Sponsors 00:54:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:18:00 GUEST: Ben Vereen 02:02:00 Friends 02:15:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner and Later: The 80s 02:46:00 Sponsors 02:51:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #98: Fred Phelps 03:02:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (knees) 03:34:00 Weather & Thanks 03:39:30 DGB in the News! 03:48:00 DAVE GOES OUT
March 29, 2014 Playlist: “Hard Wired” (00:21:00) , “Dreaming on a World (00:24:30), “Be and Not Be Afraid” (00:29:30), “Say Hallelujah” (00:34:00), “Devotion” (00:36:30) & “Open Arms” (00:39:00; Tracy Chapman). “Watch What Happens” (Newsies 2012 Broadway cast; 01:13:00). “Magic to Do” (Pippin 1972 Broadway cast w/ Ben Vereen; 01:15:00). “Greatest Love of All” (01:38:00; Ben Vereen). “Superstar” (01:55:30; Jesus Christ Superstar 1971 Broadway cast w/ Ben Vereen). “Shalom Santa” (02:04:00; Carole J. Bufford). “Unbelievable” (02:20:00), “Sweetheart Like You” (02:24:00), “Pressing On” (02:28:00) & “Dark Eyes” (02:36:30; Bob Dylan) . “Congratulations” (02:33:00; Traveling Wilburys). “Dancer with Bruised Knees” (03:05:30; Kate & Anna McGarrigle). “Hangman’s Knee” (03:09:00; Jeff Beck). “Stand on My Own Two Knees” (03:14:00; George Jones). “Einstein on the Beach – Knee Play 3” (03:16:30; Philip Glass). “Oh Susannah” (03:22:00; Neil Young & Crazy Horse). “Knee Drops” (03:27:00; Louis Armstrong). “One April Day” (03:50:30; Stephin Merritt).
Topics include: theater, Pippin, Jesus Christ Superstar, Roots, diabetes, accidents, Bob Fosse.
Segment aired March 29, 2014 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)2014 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #097 (3/23/2014): Hearing Voices
aired March 23, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/KkjlBJyVOJc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 23rd, 2014.
When it’s raining outside, and I have to go driving somewhere, I hate it. Because the roads are slippery, it’s hard to see, I’m stepping into puddles getting in and out of the car, and, at night, you can hardly see where the yellow lines are on the road, so you’re all over the place. Rain makes everybody drive like people from Massachusetts. Worst of all, when there’s a downpour, you have these great honking rivers in the street, and you try your best to steer clear of them so you don’t flood your brakes.
This is a normal response to automobiles and water. And yet, there are women – crazy women – who feel compelled to drive their vehicles into the ocean, usually with other family members in the car. Where is this coming from? It happened again just two weeks ago. A pregnant mother of three from Florida was having trouble with her husband, so she packs the kids in the minivan, and on the way to her sister’s house, she says, “Oy, I forgot to pack lunch. Let’s go get some fish . . . from the source.”
She drives to Daytona Beach, and even the kids realize something’s wrong, especially when she stops at a traffic light to put on scuba gear. Her oldest son tries to wrestle the steering wheel from her, but she still manages to dunk the car in the ocean. Lucky for the children, witnesses were there; they swam over and pried the kids out of the back seat. Meanwhile, mama starts walking down the beach in a daze, which is where police pick her up and arrest her for attempted murder, child abuse and blinding a school of trout with her headlights.
Now, this nutjob, Ebony Wilkerson, had already been under psychiatric evaluation. In fact, the cops stopped her just a few minutes earlier when her sister called them and said, “Stop her, lock her up, she’s crazy.” The police realized Ebony was a few tentacles short of an octopus but couldn’t hold her on anything because she was calm and seemingly in control. Which is good because you need to be in control when you’re getting your Dodge Caravan to do the backstroke.
What puzzles me about all of this is that she was hearing voices, and that she talked to both Jesus and demons. What is it about voices in people’s heads? Why do they always tell crazy people to do bad things? How come you never get a psychotic who says, “I was home alone in my bedroom, and my cat told me to donate clothing to UNICEF.” Where are the strange voices that convince a schizophrenic to pay a meal forward at the local TGI Fridays? Why is it always, “Go shoot some woman in a car?” Or “You. Rifle. Rooftop – 20 minutes”? Or “pack your kiddies in the van and visit Seaworld – with permanent free admission.”
We need to round up all these disembodied voices and give them a good talking to. Show them that there’s more to life than causing death. Maybe these voices are frustrated by being invisible, or illogical. I mean, how would you like to be coming out of the mouth of a dog that lives with an owner like Son of Sam? I feel bad for Jodie Foster’s voice. Not only is it raspy and with a speech impediment on those esses, but she loaned it out to some wacko who tried to kill President Reagan.
As of this writing, Ebony Wilkerson is being held on more than a million dollars bail, and already the pundits are discussing whether to deal with her as a criminal or a crazy person. Legally, alas, it’s kind of hard to do both. Of course she wasn’t in her right mind, but you could say that about anybody who tries to take a life. Or listens to smooth jazz. I just hope some scientist somewhere comes up with a pill that a lunatic could take and it scrambles the voice in their head, the way cable TV used to scramble the porn channels. (Not that I would know about such things…) But the pill would function as a prophylactic buffer. A few words and phrases would be allowed – so the lunatic would still have someone to talk to – but they’d be words like rainbow, unicorns, herbal-essence shampoo. However, words like murder, devil, car keys, Second Amendment – these would be so garbled, by comparison they’d make Ozzy Osbourne sound like Charles Osgood.
It is my hope that one day we’ll have a better understanding of the true workings of the human brain – especially how a switch gets flipped, and suddenly, a normal person goes stark-raving Wilkerson. Until then, maybe Pfizer can work on that pill idea, GM can build cars with water wings, and maybe God can make some women a little less meshuggeh. I know, tall order – but He’s God; it’s what He does. Unless there are voices telling him not to… Oy.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 463rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, March 22, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews singer-songwriter John Gorka. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (boxing), Saturday Segues (David Brenner, Stephen Sondheim), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (hearing voices).
Guests: musician John Gorka, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:18:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews John Gorka 01:26:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:58:30 Ticket Giveaway 02:05:30 Dave n’ Joyce (RSVP, Michael Vick, Koonsman) 02:23:30 Friends 02:32:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Stephen Sondheim 03:06:00 Sponsors 03:13:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #97 – Hearing Voices 03:19:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (boxing) 03:48:00 Weather 03:49:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – David Brenner 04:18:30 DAVE GOES OUT
March 22, 2014 Playlist: “Mind to Think” (00:16:30), “Winter Cows” (00:25:00), “Promnight in Pigtown” (00:37:00), “I Think of You” (00:45:00), “I Saw a Stranger with Your Hair” (00:57:00), “Heart Upon Demand” (01:02:00), “If These Walls Could Talk” (01:12:00), “Bright Side of Down” (01:20:00) & “Always Going Home” (04:22:00). “Jackson 21 Advertisement” (01:38:30; Mitch Leigh). “The Quest (The Impossible Dream”) (01:45:30; Man of La Mancha 1965 Broadway cast w/ Richard Kiley). “Someone in a Tree” (02:44:30; Pacific Overtures 2005 Bway cast w/ B.D. Wong). “My Friends” (02:51:00; Sweeney Todd 2005 Bway cast w/ Michael Cerveris). “Free” (02:54:00; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum 1996 Bway cast w/ Nathan Lane & Jim Stanek). “Rose’s Turn” (02:57:30; Gypsy 2003 Bway cast w/ Bernadette Peters). “Hurricane” (03:24:30), “The Boxer” (03:33:00), “Who Killed Davey Moore?” (03:36:00) & “Clean-Cut Kid” (03:39:00; Bob Dylan). “Silence & Marriage” (03:57:30), “Mothers & Fathers” (03:58:30), “Observational Comedy” (04:03:30), “Favorite Joke” (04:09:00), “Obit” (04:09:30) & “The Radio Contest” (04:10:30; David Brenner).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews singer-songwriter John Gorka
Topics include: music, Bright Side of Down, Dave Van Ronk, Godfrey Daniels.
Segment aired March 22, 2014 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)2014 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 #096 (3/16/2014): Purim Jokes
Aired March 15, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS7bF_9K-p8&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 16th, 2014.
So many of my recent sermons have been about serious matters – dead people, racism, World War II, chocolate-covered potato chips – that I thought it would be fun to lighten the load a bissel and tell a couple of jokes. Of course, I will analyze the jokes for their deeper meaning and moral content because, as you know, Jews can’t leave anything alone.
Our first joke takes place in Alabama, where a good looking young farmer drops his SUV off at the gas station for a tune-up. The mechanic offers to drive him home, but the guy says, “Nahh, it’s not far. I’ll walk.” So he does, but on the way, he passes a hardware store. He stops in and buys a bucket and a can of paint. A block later, he passes a feed store. In he goes, and he comes out with two live chickens and a goose.
Now he’s outside the store and struggling to manage the paint, the bucket, the animals while walking. That’s when Mrs. Greenbaum sees him and comes over. “Excuse me, young man,” she says, “but I’m a widow and scared to walk home by myself. I’m on Camden Street six blocks away; would you mind?” The farmer says, “I’d be happy to, but you gotta help me with these things.”
Mrs. Greenbaum says, “Why don’t you put the can of paint in the bucket? Then carry the bucket in one hand, the goose in the other, and put a chicken under each arm?” “Great idea!” says the farmer. “Let’s go.”
So they walk a block, and the farmer points between two buildings. “I know a shortcut,” he says. “We go through the alley, and you’ll be home in no time.” “Oh, no,” says the old woman. “A dark alley? How do I know you won’t pin me against the wall and have your way with me?”
“Are you kidding?” says the farmer. “I’m carrying a bucket, a gallon of paint, two chickens and a goose. How could I possibly molest you?” “Simple,” says Mrs. Greenbaum. “Put the goose down, cover the bucket, put the paint on the bucket, and I’ll hold the chickens.”
Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, we learn how to hold two chickens, a goose and a can of paint, but we also learn that just because someone’s an old maid doesn’t mean she can’t be made. Some women age like a vintage Bordeaux. Others smell like a vintage bordello. Some ladies get better with age. Some get bitter with age. Some take such pride in their appearance, they’re very close to vain. Some have varicose veins. Anyhoo, everyone ages at different stages, and you’re only as old as you feel. I have it on good authority that when Methuselah was 912 years old…he didn’t look a day over 840.
Anyway, Mr. Pincus is in the hospital, on his deathbed, with his family gathered around him and the nurse hovering nearby. Pincus calls his wife and four grown children over. “Myrtle,” he says, “I want you to take the house on Third Avenue.” To his oldest son he says, “Richard, you get the house on Braden Lane, and your brother takes the co-op across the street.” To his two daughters, Pincus says, “The luxury apartment building on 28th Street? That gets shared between the two of you.”
Exhausted, Pincus closes his eyes slips into his final rest. That’s when the nurse motions his wife over and whispers: “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing. Your family is so lucky. Your husband must have been some kind of mogul to leave you all that property!” “Mogul?” says the wife. “The schmuck delivered newspapers!”
Now, what do we learn from this joke? Well, although the punchline belies it, there’s something to be said for a man who takes pride in his work, even if that job doesn’t have the cachet of architect or stockbroker or, of course, Rabbi. Mr. Pincus may die on Friday, but that doesn’t mean the Hendersons should miss their Sunday funnies. It behooves all of us to ask, “How much pride do we take in our labors?” It behooves us to wonder whether a job well done is its own reward. It behooves a horse when you cut his legs off.
But seriously, our last joke is about the Weinblatts, who join a new temple, get involved, and go to the monthly luncheon. At lunch there’s a raffle, $20 a ticket. Third place goes to the Shpielmans, who win a big-screen color TV. For second place, the Weinblatts hear their number called. They run up excitedly only to be handed a box of muffins. They try to be gracious, but on the way back to their seats, Shpielman says to his wife, “Muffins? Third place, they got a TV; second place is a lousy box of muffins?”
“Shh,” the wife says. “The muffins were baked by the Rabbi’s wife.”
“Shtup the Rabbi’s wife!” says Weinblatt.
His wife says, “No, that’s first prize.”
There is some ambiguity to this joke because the punchline intimates two different funny things: first, that the Rebbetzin is a slut who will put out for the sake of the temple. The second, which pulls our focus from the first, is that the Rabbi’s wife is such a meeskeit, or such a lousy lay, that her cookies are worth more than her cootchie. But again, it comes back to age. When you’re my age, a nice, moist, chocolate-chip muffin beats two-and-a-half minutes of sweating and grunting. Of course, if it’s a bran muffin, I wind up sweating and grunting anyway, so it’s kind of a push.
Anyhoo, it’s time for me to push off, but not before I wish you all a very merry and playful Purim. Wear a costume so ridiculous, Miley Cyrus would be jealous. Drink so much you can’t tell the difference between Kim Jong-un and…everybody else in Korea. Enjoy the holiday, and remember: hamantashen only looks like a vagina. For the smell you have to boil a trout.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
