Topics include: “Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley,” movies, Busby Berkeley, choreography, Flo Ziegfeld, alcoholism.
Segment aired Nov. 9, 2013 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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Here is the 444th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Nov. 9, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave interviews author Jeffrey Spivak (“Buzz: The Life and Art of Busby Berkeley”). Plus: Saturday Segues (Chris Smither, Veterans Day), Dylan (veterans), Inside Broadway and Rabbi Sol Solomon offers his Rabbinical Reflection on chocolate-covered potato chips.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Starbucks doctor, chocolate & guns, tallest building) 00:46:00 Friends 00:58:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN w/ Joyce Weil (football) 01:06:30 Sponsors 01:12:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Chris Smithers 01:33:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & review (01:42:00; Big Fish)) 01:58:00 GUEST: Jeffrey Spivak 02:49:00 More Sponsors 02:56:00 Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #81 – Chocolate-covered Potato Chips 03:03:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (veterans) 03:29:00 Thanks & Upcoming 03:32:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Veteran’s Day 03:53:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Nov. 9, 2013 Playlist: “Get a Better One” (01:14:00), “I am a Child” (01:17:00), “No Expectations” (01:21:00), “Bittersweet” (01:24:00) & “Thanks to You” (01:27:30) & “Leave the Light On” (03:56:00; Chris Smither). “Right Through You” (01:53:30; Alanis Morissette). “Busby Berkeley movie medley” (01:56:30). “Take a Little One-Step” / “Finale (I Want to be Happy)” (02:19:30; No, No, Nanette 1971 Broadway cast). “Busby Berkeley Dreams” (02:43:00; Magnetic Fields). “John Brown” ({live gaslight 1963 version; 03:03:00), “Two Soldiers” (03:09:00), “Arthur McBride” (03:14:30) & “Thunder on the Mountain” (03:21:00; Bob Dylan). “Veteran’s Day” (03:34:30; Judy Collins). “Soldier’s Things” (03:38:30; Tom Waits). “Soldier, Soldier” (03:41:30; The Clancy Brothers & Friends). “Soldier” (03:43:30; Neil Young). “The Soldiering Life” (03:46:30; The Decemberists).
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 3rd, 2013.
In 1932, the Boston Braves football team changed their name to another Indian-related moniker: the Redskins. A few years later, they moved to Washington D.C., but they kept their name and have ever since. No one really paid attention to whether the name “Redskins” was offensive – not until 1992, when a group of Native Americans filed a trademark lawsuit against the team. The details are too complicated for me to explain here – because I have no idea what the hell they are. But I do know that arguing went back and forth in the courts for nearly two decades, and still, nobody really gave a crap.
But recent times and sensitivities have changed, and there’s a legitimate movement afoot to get the Washington Redskins to change their name to something that doesn’t bring to mind tomahawks, smoke signals and sunburned skin color.
Team owners remain adamant that the Redskins have an 80-year history that would be needlessly negated by a name change. Not to mention the cost of changing the signage on everything from souvenir jackets to Rex Grossman bobblehead dolls. And let’s not forget having to change all the signs at Washington’s Jack Kent Cooke Stadium – wait, that was changed to FedEx Field in 2000. How terribly sad for the undying legacy of Jack Kent Cooke. I guess.
Anyhoo, people who are against keeping the Redskins ruby tinted always use this example: What if you had the same situation with a different ethnicity? The Florida Yids? The Pittsburgh Polacks? What if there was a basketball team in the NBA called the Darkies? Well, they all are, but you know what I’m saying.
For 80 years, the University of North Dakota nicknamed its team The Fighting Sioux – which sounds pro-Indian until you realize that “Sioux” was a blanket name given by the whites to cover several different Indian tribes. No doubt, the blanket had smallpox on it, too. But hey, if North Dakotans can adapt, why can’t Washingtonians? I realize that asking someone in Washington DC to be flexible is like asking Stephen Hawking to catch a fly ball, but still.
America’s history with its indigenous peoples is one of lies, bullying and bloodshed – which is America’s history with everything. It was only two generations ago that Cowboys and Indians was a game in which the macho anglo, chaps-wearin’, chaw-chewing Cowboys were the good guys trying to tame the savage, sneaky, tomahawk chopping, paint-wearing, ugga-wugga, smoke-signaling red man. Howevermuch scriptwriters tried to make him noble and clever, Tonto was the Lone Ranger’s bitch. Even his name, “tonto,” means stupid in Spanish. I know this because I looked it up – when my junior high school teacher nicknamed me that in Spanish class. I told my parents, and they made her change it. From then on, she called me “hijo de puta,” which she said means “wise one.” I should probably look that one up, too, but I trust her.
Getting back to the Redskins: as someone who comes from an oppressed people – New Yorkers – I empathize with the desire to undo a little piece of ugly history. There’s no good reason not to change the team name if enough people find it derogatory. When teams move, they change – look at the L.A. Dodgers and the Brooklyn Nets. Even the Beatles went through name-revisions. Do you think John, Paul, George and Ringo sat around saying, “No, we can’t change; we have such an important legacy as `The Quarrymen’”?
Of course, the fun part is finding a new name for the Redskins. One blogger suggested “The Washington Monuments,” which is brilliant, especially if it’s a defensive team; you try toppling a monument to get to the end zone. Others have suggested The Washington Warriors, or the Renegades. Then you had the punsters with their government jokes: The Washington Shutdown, The Washington Impasse, The DC Douchebags. And, for those of you getting old enough to eat your steaks in liquid form, how about The Watergates? Or the Reaganomics?
Polls have shown that most people – even Native Americans – are fine with the name “Redskins.” They’re used to it; they’ve even coopted it, the way black people have made the “n” word their own. And by the “n” word, I mean Nikes. Still, why are Americans still eating Aunt Jemima syrup and Uncle Ben’s rice? How many decades have the movies given us fast-talking Hispanic sidekicks, Asian dragon ladies, Italian guidos and Jewish mothers? There’s truth in stereotypes, and even some good things implicit in stereotypes, but there’s also a time to break the mold. So come, Washington Redskins, let’s smoke-um peace pipe and move forward. How? And how.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews press agent Susan L. Schulman
Topics include: Backstage Pass to Broadway, theater, David Merrick, George C. Scott, Robert Redford, Dream, Lesley Ann Warren, John Dexter, Zero Mostel.
Segment aired Nov. 2, 2013 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Sad Note: Our friend of the Daverhood, Susan Schulman, passed Oct. 19, 2022.
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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Here is the 443rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Nov. 2, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews press agent Susan L. Schulman. Plus: Inside Broadway, Rabbi Sol Solomon offers his Rabbinical Reflection on the Washington Redskins, and a Saturday Segue remembering Lou Reed.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: press agent Susan L. Schulman, Dave’s wife, Joyce
00:00:01 Pre-Show 00:08:30 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 01:17:30 Sponsors 01:21:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & reviews: A Time to Kill (01:28:30) & Shut Up, Sit Down & Eat (01:40:30)) 01:48:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Susan L. Schulman 03:08:30 More Sponsors 03:13:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #81 – Redskins 03:20:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later: Lou Reed 03:30:30 Friends & Weather 03:35:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Nov. 2, 2013 Playlist: “No Money Down” (05:00:00), “Legendary Hearts” (00:57:30), “NYC Man” (01:00:30), “Caroline Says II” (01:05:30), “Heavenly Arms” (01:10:00), “Foot of Pride” (03:20:00) & “Goodnight Ladies” (03:38:00; Lou Reed). “Pale Blue Eyes” ({live 1993}, 00:44:30), “There is No Reason (Demo)” (00:50:30) & “I’m Waiting for the Man” (00:53:00; The Velvet Underground). “Shut Up, Sit Down and Eat” (excerpt, 01:46:00). “Aloft Above France (Sky Symphony)” (02:01:00; Victor Young’s “Around the World in 80 Days” film soundtrack). “Opening (Our State Fair)” (02:48:00) & “Overture – State Fair” (03:06:00; State Fair 1996 Broadway cast w/ John Davidson). “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” ({live 30th Anniversary version}; 03:26:00; Bob Dylan).
Dave Lefkowitz and Rabbi Sol Solomon interview rock journalist Sylvie Simmons
Topics include: Simmons’s Leonard Cohen biography, “I’m Your Man”; rock journalism, Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Lou Reed, Johnny Cash.
Segment aired Oct. 26, 2013 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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Here is the 442nd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Oct. 26, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave & Rabbi Sol Solomon interview rock journalist Sylvie Simmons, author of “I’m Your Man.” Also: Inside Broadway. Rabbi Sol offers his Rabbinical Reflection on the NYC biker melee, and a Saturday Segue for Tom Paxton’s birthday.
Guests: rock journalist Sylvie Simmons, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 Pre-Show 00:01:30 DAVE GOES IN 00:32:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Tom Paxton 00:57:00 Sponsors 01:00:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & reviews: The Glass Menagerie (01:13:00) & The Complete Performer (01:21:00)) 01:32:30 GUEST: Sylvie Simmons with Dave & Rabbi Sol Solomon 03:09:00 Friends 03:17:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #79: biker melee 03:23:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (world gone wrong) 03:36:30 Weather 03:37:30 DAVE SAYS BYE – Marcia Wallace & Francine Trevens 03:40:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Oct. 26, 2013 Playlist: “Life in the Key of C” (00:32:30), “Dance in the Shadows” (00:36:30), “When Annie Took Me Home” (00:40:00), “About the Children” ({live}, 00:43:30), “The Natural Girl for Me” (00:46:30), “The First Song is for You” (00:49:00) & “Wearing the Time” (03:43:00; Tom Paxton). “One Day More” (Les Miserables 1987 Broadway cast; 01:26:30). “I’m Your Man” (01:30:00), “Chelsea Hotel #2” (01:43:00), “So Long, Marianne” (01:48:00), “Take this Longing” (01:53:00), “The Future” (02:04:00), “In My Secret Life” (02:13:00) & “Traveling Lady” (03:03:00; Leonard Cohen). “Midnight Cowboy” (02:19:00; Sylvie Simmons). “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” (02:28:30; Nico). “The Wanderer” (02:28:30; Johnny Cash & U2). “Kommienezuspadt” (Tom Waits). “You are Not Alone” (02:54:30; Michael Jackson). “World Gone Wrong” (03:23:30), “Ragged & Dirty” (03:27:00) & “Broke Down Engine” (03:31:00).
(Pictured From top: Sylvie Simmons, “I’m Your Man,” Sylvie Simmons & Leonard Cohen, Tom Paxton, Bob Dylan’s “World Gone Wrong,” bums on bikes.)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 27th, 2013.
Remember New York in the 1970s? Graffiti everywhere, druggies in the alleys, hookers on the corner, people getting shot, stabbed, punched – or worse: forced to hear disco music. Since those days, Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have transformed the Wild West into the Mild East. Manhattan is a giant strip mall of Disney stores, Starbucks, Chili’s, $2500-a-month studio apartments and miles of lovely construction scaffolding. The closest we get to cowboys n’ Indians is the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, and even he wears tidy whities and a guitar over his pizzle.
But Manhattan got a taste of the old days last month when a gang of bikers terrorized a driver on the West Side Highway. You’ve all seen this story on viral video: the motorcyclists were in a group slowing down traffic. Alexian Lien was with his wife and two-year-old son in their van when he saw all these bikers around him, driving erratically and brake checking. A brake check is where you hit the brakes suddenly so anyone driving close to you has to slam their brakes if they don’t want to bump into your tuchas. Miley Cyrus was brake-checking Robin Thicke on the MTV awards; and let me tell you, she made me honk my horn.
But dancing on television and terrorizing on the highways are two different things. When Mr. Lien got brake checked, he didn’t stop fast enough and clipped one of the bikers. This made the other Hell’s Devils mad. They swarmed around the van in a menacing fashion.
Now the guy’s afraid for his life, so he floors it, trying to escape. In so doing, he runs over a couple of cyclists, paralyzing one for the rest of his life. Well, bikers are like bedbugs, if you only squash a couple, the others will come back in force. The other cyclists – now with legitimate reason to be pissed – go chasing after Lien’s van, get him down a side street and stop him. It’s like Orange County Choppers Meets Cujo.
That’s when a biker, a 37-year-old thug who goes by the name of Chance – this Chance character goes up to the SUV, takes his helmet and smashes in the driver-side window of the van. Someone else bashes in the back window, and they’re all trying to yank the door open and pull Alexian Lien out of the SUV. Which they do. And they beat the scheiss out of him. All you need is the Rolling Stones playing “Under My Thumb” in the background, and it’s the late 60s all over again. It’s Altamont with schvartzes.
Because there was such a melee, it took days for the police to wade through the evidence and start looking for people to arrest. When they did, they found that some of the bikers were undercover police. These cops couldn’t step out of character and help for fear of blowing their cover. God forbid they should try and save someone’s life; it’s more important they gather evidence for a drug bust. It’s comforting to know that if I have a gang of thugs punching and kicking me while my wife and toddler are watching, at least, 30 pounds of hemp won’t get into the wrong hands.
As of this writing, everything is in the hands of the grand jury, with four of the bikers racking up serious charges of gang assault, rioting and criminal mischief. Good. Although I’m a little thrown by that word: mischief. It’s too cute. “Ooh, the criminal’s making mischief – he put silly string all over that yield sign, how mischievous.” It makes them sounds like scamps. “Ooh, Allen Edwards is pulling a little Asian guy out of his car and punching him. How impish!”
Seriously, this kind of hooliganism cannot be tolerated, and I hope all the bikers are punished for turning a highway into their own personal skee-ball alley. What’s funny is to read people’s online comments to stories about the incident, most of them against the bikers – good; however most of them by right-wing libertarian types using the incident as a reason to defeat gun control. They’re all arnchair cowboys, going, “Well, if it were me in that van with my wife and brat, I’d pull my .38 out of my holster and start wasting these vermin one by one. They’d all die slowly, gasping “I’m sorry!” with their last breaths.
Yeah. Let’s examine the flaws of that non-Talmudic logic, shall we? First of all, guns are legal; Mr. Lien just didn’t have one. But let’s say he did. So he opens fire on 30 bicyclists who may be armed themselves. Now you’ve got a shootout instead of a beatdown. Do you think Mr. Lien’s wife and brat, not to mention nearby drivers and pedestrians, would have fared better with bullets flying everywhere?
This Harley Hellride is a terrible story, but to use it as some kind of object lesson in gun ownership is like saying if John F. Kennedy were packing heat, he could have taken down Oswald and all his CIA helpers. It’s fun to fantasize about empowerment; we all want to be Clint Eastwood riding through Lahood or the Israeli Defense Force raiding Entebbe. But the truth is it’s usually better to stay quiet, mind your business, and hope that the asshole on the moped flipping you the finger (because you didn’t see him in your blind spot) isn’t a cop on his day off looking to take out his homicidal frustrations on your kidneys. Even John Wayne would pish himself when faced with that.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews radio host Kelly Carlin
Topics include: her father – George Carlin, comedy, podcasting, self-help, life coach.
Segment aired Oct. 12, 2013 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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Here is the 441st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Oct. 12, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with writer Kelly Carlin; Inside Broadway; the News Gone By; Dylan – Sooner & Later (ornaments & apps); Saturday Segues (Simon & Siberry; Bob Mould).
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: George Carlin’s daughter, Kelly Carlin
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:16:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Simon & Siberry 00:54:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:27 :30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Kelly Carlin 02:10:00 Sponsors 02:18:00 NEWS GONE BY 02:28:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (ornaments & apps) 02:47:30 Friends & Weather 02:55:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Bob Mould 03:21:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Oct. 12, 2013 Playlist: “We Should Be There By Morning” (00:17:00), “Lena is a White Table” (00:24:30), “You Never Know” (00:33:30) & “The Life is the Red Wagon” (00:41:00; Jane Siberry). “Have a Good Time” (00:21:00) & “Congratulations” (00:37:00; Paul Simon). “Red Rubber Ball” ({live} 00:31:00; Simon & Garfunkel). “Oseh Shalom” (01:23:00; Shlomo Carlebach). “Occupation: Foole” (01:25:00), “Yeast Infection” (01:49:00) & “Farting in Public” (02:07:00; George Carlin). “Tattle O’Day” (02:30:30), “The Christmas Blues” (02:34:00), “If Not for You” (02:37:00), “Christmas Island” (02:39:30) & “Railroad Bill” (02:42:00; Bob Dylan). “Visionary” (02:57:30) & “Makes No Sense at All” (03:07:30; Husker Du). “Bad Blood Better” (03:00:00), “The Last Night” (03:03:30), “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” (03:10:00) & “Whichever Way the Wind Blows” (03:26:00). (Pictured from top: Kelly Carlin, George Carlin & Kelly Carlin, Jane Siberry, Paul Simon, Bob Mould, the Dylan app.)
