Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with veteran actor Andre De Shields
Topics include: Impressionism, Prymate, The Wiz, Mankind.
Segment airs Jan. 6, 2018 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)2018 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com DOWNLOAD VIDEO
Segment originally aired Dec. 23, 2017, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2018 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with playwright Richard Nelson
Topics include: playwriting, The Gabriels, Illyria, Public Theater, Rhinebeck, politics, Judaism.
Segment airs Dec. 2, 2017 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)2017 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com VIDEO
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Dave found this beautiful, spiritual hymn sung by presidential candidate Ben Carson. Or at least about him.
Segment originally aired Nov. 14, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast: Full Episode
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
OH DAT BEN
When I be nine years old, I hit my momma with a hammer.
When I be ten years old, I bashed my brother with a brick.
When I be eleven years old, I went apeshit with a baseball bat.
Oh lawd, I remember.
Vote for me in November.
When I be twelve years old, I hit my momma with another hammer.
When I be thirteen years old, I stabbed a classmate in the hip.
When I be fourteen years old, somehow I got hold of yet another hammer.
Oh lawd, I remember.
Vote for me in November.
But now I’s a different man, and I gots no anger
I’s got a Yale degree, and I done surgery
So listen, America, from Maine to Alabama
Vote Ben Carson.
And hide yo’ motherfucking hammers.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 2nd, 2014.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but I am not a Belieber. Oh yes, I am a believer in God, in the Torah, in chicken soup when you’re sick – but I am not a Justin Bieber belieber. I don’t listen to his music, since I’m more of a Moishe Koussevitzky fan, and his exploits do not interest me.
If Justin Bieber gets a tattoo, or shtups a model, or posts a selfie from the hood of his Lambo, more power to him for living the high life. When I was 19 years old, I was in Yeshiva studying Talmud, I was suffering through clarinet lessons, I was in bed sleeping by 10pm…because I didn’t have a girlfriend.
If I had $20 million at that age, would I have done things differently? You’re damn right I would have! My God, I would have bought the Streits Matzoh factory and had chocolate-covered matzoh every day of the year. I’d have tricked out my Volvo with curtains and a practice bimah. I’d have bribed ushers for backstage passes to every Yaffa Yarkoni concert in the tri-State area. Would I have gotten tattoos? No, that’s a religious no-no. Plus, how would I really feel about a tramp stamp of Marvin Hamlisch when I’m 50?
But with that kind of money, sure, I might get a little meshiggeh. And having young girls clawing at me and screaming – and not screaming `rape!’ – of course that would go to my head, and I would sample the pleasures of the flesh and the fleshures of the plesh. I do not begrudge Justin Bieber any of these sybaritic activities that he has earned by making music that pushes teenage girls right past puberty into menopause.
However, this past week, little Justin crossed the line. He was arrested in Miami Beach for DUI, drag racing, driving without a license and mouthing off to cops. When he was yanked, bleary-eyed from his yellow Lamborghini, he said, “Why do you have to search me? What is this about?” And two seconds later he told the police, “Oh, by the way, I’m high, I’ve been drinking, and I’m on a couple of prescription medications.” Somewhere a prosecuting attorney is on his knees in shul saying, “Thank you, God. Sometimes you send them to us gift-wrapped.”
Now, much as I hate giving anyone who sings songs with titles like “Beauty and a Beat,” “Baby” and “Eenie Meenie” the benefit of the doubt, if Justin Bieber wasn’t impaired that night, then this is just another case of the media looking to crash the monster it created. Yes, Bieber was a putz for mouthing off at the cops. If he’d been poor and black, he’d still be searching for his teeth on the sidewalk. But if he wasn’t drunk or high and was just driving a little too fast, give the guy a ticket, get his autograph for your kids, and be done with it.
However, if Justin Bieber was driving under even a mild, chemically induced goofiness, then throw the book at him – not because he’s famous, but because he’s a danger to others. In one of my early Rabbinical Reflections, I took some heat for kicking Ryan Dunn’s corpse before it was even cold. Who was Ryan Dunn? He was one of the “Jackass” crew on TV – men who would do crazy, stupid, dangerous things to each other for poops and giggles. These were consenting friends under controlled circumstances; who am I to say, “what the hell is wrong with you?” Especially when they’re funny. But nobody was laughing when Ryan Dunn poured himself into his Porsche and zoomed into a tree. Not only he died, but the guy in the passenger seat died, too. As Roger Ebert tweeted at the time, “Friends don’t let jackasses drive drunk.”
I have no sympathy for Dunn, or Paul Walker, or Justin Bieber if he put himself in the same situation. When I’m tootling down the highway in my 1996 Ford Fiesta, I wanna know that every other person on the road is being as neurotically careful as I am. At 50 miles per hour, a car is just a gun with wheels; point it in the wrong direction, and you’ve committed suicide and/or murder and/or skyrocketing insurance premiums.
Figuratively speaking, many have said that Justin Bieber is on a crash course, speeding out of control towards a Lohanesque junk-heap. I wish him no harm so long as he does no harm to others. Remember, this is the boy who said that if Anne Frank were still alive, she would be a Belieber – meaning, in his obnoxious, self-absorbed way – that she’d be a typical teenage girl with posters on the wall, bubblegum music on her iPod, and, presumably, 200 stuffed animals on her bed. Of course, this is a ridiculous statement. First of all, if Anne Frank were truly alive today…she’d be kicking and pounding at the lid of her coffin. Also, she’d be 85 years old, which means her musical tastes would have settled somewhere between Glenn Miller and Chubby Checker. The only posters on her wall would be a reminder for her medications and a calendar from the nearest Jewish funeral home. As far as liking Justin Bieber’s music, for gosh sakes, this woman lost her mother and her sister in the Holocaust and coughed herself to death in a concentration camp at age 15. Didn’t she suffer enough?
People who hate Justin Bieber just for being Justin Bieber, are saying he should be deported. We should send him back to Canada. Why? So he can spend all his millions across the border and let Canadian strippers, casinos and car dealers reap the benefits? I say, give the teeny-botcher the benefit of a doubt; let him stay – unless they prove he was drunk or stoned in that car. If he was, handcuff him and put him in the first trolley heading to Quebec. Oh, and just for fun, make David Cassidy drive.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 8th, 2013.
“Do you want fries with that? No problem, give me 15 dollars.”
That is the call of the disenfranchised franchise worker. The people employed at Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Shloimy’s, Moishy’s – all the fast-food restaurants. They are weary of working for $7.40 per hour, which, if you can believe it, is 15 cents above the Federal minimum wage. In other words, someone laboring at a fast-food joint, full time, all week long, makes $15,000 a year, before taxes, no benefits, no 401K, but presumably all the unserved McNuggets they can eat. And so, around the country, the flippers and the grillers and the moppers and the servers are now strikers.
Who works harder than chain-food employees? They sweep the floors, clean the fryers, shpritz the special sauce, and deal with irate customers who throw tantrums when you forget the pickles. Room for advancement, to move up the grease-mottled ladder of success? Sure, for an extra dollar an hour, you get to manage all the other hostile, hopeless kids stuck in the same nowhere job. Not only do you have the honor of hearing customers bitch about everything, your fellow employees hate you for being management. All this for a salary that buys you two caramel macchiatos at Starbucks, where at least they give their workers health benefits.
I don’t care if the boss flumps a girl in a chair, hands her a magazine and says, “Just take a message if the phone rings.” Even that is taking an hour of time out of her life and deserves more than seven measly bucks an hour. Or eight. Or – oh my goodness – New York State voted to bring it up to nine – by the end of 2015! Thank you politicians! Should we bend over and bite the pillow or just sink to our knees in supplication?
As someone who lives and works on Long Island, where property taxes on a small house are 10 grand a year, the very idea that humans are still paid less than $10 an hour to do ANYTHING absolutely staggers me. That some politicians and businessmen fight against increases in the basic minimum wage staggers me double! “Oh,” they say, “if I raise the minimum wage, I won’t be able to hire as many people.” You know who faced that same problem? Pharoah! And his solution worked for a few decades until his employees rose up and marched out. And they knew about fast food, too. They hadda leave so quick, they ditched the sesame-seed buns and made matzoh instead. If you can’t afford to pay people something that keeps them in shoes, you should probably give them the shop and go work in Burger King, cause at least it’s steady.
Some folks defend low wages because these are quote-unquote “entry-level” jobs. It’s just high school students earning mall money or old people who are bored sitting at home, so they go to KFC where the action is. Leaving aside the fact that since the recession, thousands of workers have swallowed their pride to take any job, including stuffing a substance that looks vaguely like meat into Taco Bell tortillas. Leaving aside that some people take a minimum-wage second job only because they can’t pay their bills from their insufficient first job. Let’s even say for argument’s sake that your typical fast-food drudge is 15 years old, living rent-free with his parents, and not financially responsible for anything but his deodorant and iTunes downloads. Suppose this fine young man wants to take his girlfriend to the movies on a Saturday night. That’s gas in the car, parking, two movie tickets, two giant sodas, one big popcorn (and a penknife to make a schmeckel-sized hole in the bottom of it), a condom and/or a packet of handiwipes. He is looking at sixty bucks just to feel a girl’s boobs, and she may not even have boobs yet.
It is my considered opinion that any business owner netting upwards of, say, $60,000 a year who doesn’t believe that his workers are worth more than minimum wage should be shot in the face. Just as a wakeup call.
Most fast-food restaurants are publicly traded companies, so we know how much the CEO takes home, the VPs, the Vice-VPs, the shareholders, and the fry cooks and janitors. In 2010, out of $24 billion in revenue, McDonald’s netted $4.9 billion in profit. Because of this, the CEO took home almost $9 million in salary. Sorry for throwing all these numbers at you, but catch this one: that salary is almost 600 times more than that of a full-time slave at minimum wage.
Now that the economy has improved from quicksand to mud, the rank-and-file worker wakes up to remember he has needs, he has dignity, he has rights. He knows he has to work for a living, but that’s the key word: a living. Living means paying the rent, feeding the kids, getting your teeth cleaned and your blood pressure checked, going to sleep without worrying how you’ll pay for school supplies, or heat, and maybe even taking a week and staying at a Howard Johnson’s in Pensacola, Florida. If that means Horace Vanderbastard the III can’t customize his mistress’ yacht, so be it.
Good luck, fast food fighters. March on Mickey D’s. Boycott Burger King. Choke the Kentucky Fried Chicken. No, wait, that came out wrong, but you know what I mean. This isn’t about socialism. It’s not about destroying the free-market economy; that’s what cable companies are for. No, this is about fairness, about reasonable compromise, about people feeling pride in what they do and value in what they get. Yes, I’ll certainly take fries with that.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from the woefully underpaid Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
At last, Joey Eugene Gallegos, the Greeley Underwear Bandit, has been apprehended, and here is his song.
For the backstory on this song: http://www.denverpost.com/2013/08/21/greeley-police-arrest-suspected-underwear-thief/
Song aired Aug. 24, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast: Full Episode.
All content (c)2013 TotalTheater Productions. (Music: “Dandy,” by Ray Davies)
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
UNDIES
by David Lefkowitz
(sung to the music of “Dandy” by The Kinks)
Undies Undies Sittin’ in the laundry Puts me in a quand’ry
The women in this town Will bring their laundry down They’ll leave their clothes on spin Then I’ll sneak in for
Undies Undies Beautiful selection Just for my collection
It’s wrong to be a thief But I need some relief I know I’m breaking laws To steal the bras and
Panties Panties When nobody watches I sniff the crotches
I’ve got 300 pair Of ladies’ underwear It’s wrong, but I don’t care Because I long for
Undies Undies Undies.
Panties It’s just a bit of naughty fun Panties And now they keep me on the run Panties Well, I’m not hurting anyone
`Cause when I get them home I take them from my gunny sack And once I’ve shot my load in `em, they’re welcome to them back
Oh, Undies Undies Beautiful selection Gives me an erection
And when I’m put away No longer will I play I’ll sit and dream all day Of undies all my life All my life All my life All my life . . .
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #17 (6/12/2011): 2011 Tony Awards
(aired June 11, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo3k7A1FHCQ)
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 12, 2011.
Despite my ceaseless grouchiness, there are some things in this world that I love. A good pastrami sandwich, for example. Watching reruns of Columbo. Getting a check in the mail from someplace I wasn’t expecting. Getting a check in the mail from someplace I was expecting. All these things give me joy. Well, unless the pastrami is too fatty. Or there’s too many commercials in the rerun. Or the check in the mail isn’t really a check, it just looks like a check but it’s actually a coupon where they fool you into thinking you’re getting money but actually, it’s just a fake discount where you’re giving them money – bastards!
But be that as it may, some things do make me happy. And I admit, I have a soft spot in my heart and in my brain for the theater. Plays, musicals, erotic circus performances – anything in which talented people are doing their best to entertain the rest of us.
I remember the first show I ever saw. It was Oh, Calcutta! I was 8 years old when I went in – and 27 when I came out. I recall being deeply moved by seeing a Death of a Salesman. Unfortunately, the salesman was my uncle Morty, and he died when he was hit by a bus on 23rd Street. And in 1975, my high school teacher asked if I wanted to see The Wiz. Then he took me to a urinal, and I don’t wanna talk about what happened next.
But still – the theater! Broadway! The Tony Awards, which are happening Sunday night, at New York’s Beacon Theater. Oh, I wish I were there! Look at the shows that are up for Tony Awards this year. For best play, there’s Jerusalem. It has nothing to do with Jews, or Israel, or, from what I’ve heard, anything relevant to anybody, but hey, the title!
Then there’s the revival of The Merchant of Venice, with Al Pacino playing Shylock the Jewish moneylender. This is a very difficult play to pull off, because it’s supposed to be a comedy. Meanwhile, the Jewish character, who just wants his money back, is mocked, humiliated, and forced to convert. Some hilarity. Too bad Shakespeare didn’t write Schindler’s List or we’d have had some real giggles. And really, Al Pacino as an observant Jew? They couldn’t get Steve Guttenberg? (sigh)
In the category of Best Actress in a Musical, we have Donna Murphy nominated for The People in the Picture. This is the story of the Yiddish theater in Poland, both before and during the Holocaust. I’ve heard Donna Murphy is wonderful, but really – “Murphy?” They couldn’t get a Yid for this part? A hundred zillion Jewish people on Broadway and they get someone who couldn’t tell corned beef and cabbage from kasha varnishkes and kneidlach?
And then there’s a play called “The Motherflinger with the Hat.” What kind of name is that for a play? Of course, I’m bowdlerizing it for radio, but who can put this on a poster? “The Motherflinger with the Hat.” They can’t even advertise it. People are saying, “The Mother with the Hat,” “The Mother F-er with the Hat,” “The Hat Play,” “A Buncha Schvartzes Sitting Around Talking.” What, they couldn’t name the play something you could put in a newspaper?
I don’t mind dirty stuff in the play. Half the shows out there, every other word is “f” this, and you’re full of “s,” and why don’t you “s” my “c” in the YMCA? One time I saw a censored version of American Buffalo. It was twelve minutes long! I’m not against foul language; I use it myself sometimes. Most of the time. Nearly all the time, but still, how do you put a play on tour that you can’t promote? They’d have to run a brown paper bag over the marquee.
What I do like about this year’s Tony nominations is their multi-faith nature. You got Shylock and the Holocaust and the AIDS play – The Normal Heart – lotta angry Jewish people. You got pissed-off Muslims in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. There’s goofy nuns in Sister Act and sad Baptists in The Scottsboro Boys. Someone tries to kill the Pope in The House of Blue Leaves, and of course, there’s The Book of Mormon, which has people shtupping frogs, raping babies, getting colonoscopies – my kind of show!
It is said that if you make fun of one culture, you’re a bigot, but if you poop on all of them, you’re an enlightened liberal. Hypocritical as that may sound, it works for me. And if we’re all going to the theater laughing at each other’s stupidity, crying for each other’s losses, and hurrying to be first in the bathroom at intermission – that is the true spirit of globalism, of empathy, and of sharing the human condition.
I offer my best wishes to all the Tony Award nominees – you are all winners, even the losers. Except Billy Crudup, because he was terrible, and Arcadia’s boring, but the rest of you: take a bow.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. On with the show.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #9 (3/19/2011): Purim Jokes
aired March 19, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. youtube: https://youtu.be/zt-rjdt7ANE
Shalom Dammit, this is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 20th, 2011.
(grogger noise) Happy Purim, everybody! Arguably the most joyful day on the Jewish calendar because we were saved from the evil Haman by the clever Mordechai and the sexy Esther. In fact, we’re allowed to get so drunk, we can’t tell the difference between Haman and Mordechai. Or, if you’re Eddie Murphy, the difference between Mordechai and Esther.
So in honor of Purim, this Rabbinical Reflection is just for fun. I will begin with the story of an old man in Miami who calls his son in New York. He says, “Son, I hate to tell you, but your mother and I are divorcing. It’s been 45 years, and I can’t stand it anymore. We’re separating next week.”
The son starts screaming and panicking, but the father says, “Look, go call your sister in Texas and tell her, because your mother’s crying, and I’m sick of talking about this.”
The old man hangs up.
The son frantically calls his sister. Two minutes later, she’s calling the old man saying, “You can’t get divorced! This is horrible! Don’t do a thing until I call my brother back, because we are both flying down, and we will be there tomorrow night!”
She hangs up. The old man hangs up. Then he turns to his wife in the bed and says, “Okay. They’re coming for Passover, and they’re paying their own airfare.”
Now, what do we learn from this joke? Perhaps we learn that the end justifies the means. The parents lie to the children because they feel it is the only way the kids will visit them on the holidays. But is this justified?
You’re damn right it is! Children are lazy, ungrateful little bastards who don’t deserve a tenth of what we give them. Forget my birthday, will they? Ptooi!
But where was I? Oh yes. A priest and a vicar were walking along, when the priest says, “You know, I’ve been told by several parishioners that I am the spitting image of Jesus Christ.”
The vicar is a little shocked and says, “Wait, I’ve got the beard, the hair. Everybody tells me I look like Jesus Christ.”
Soon, they’re arguing, and they almost come to blows when they see a Rabbi approaching. “Rabbi,” they say. “Please help us. Which of us is the image of Jesus Christ?”
The Rebbe starts laughing and says, “You? You two? Neither. I’m the image of Jesus Christ – and I can prove it! Follow me.”
So they walk with the Rabbi a mile or two, downtown, through side streets, through alleys, until they come to a dingy little building with a red curtain over the window. They go three floors up some rickety stairs to a hallway with a red lightbulb hanging over one of the doors.
The Rabbi knocks, and after a moment, a frazzled buxom blonde in a negligee opens the door. She looks at the Rabbi and sighs, “Jesus Christ, you again??”
Now this joke turns the tables on us by setting up the idea of a Jew — a Rabbi yet, as a creature of sexual desires and habits. This is not behavior we expect, even though we all know Rabbis, unlike priests, can get married, have relationships, and get a little boom-chicka-boom-chick when our fringes get frisky. The fact that this particular Rabbi gets his hoopdi-doo from a whooer, only makes him more human, and sympathetic, and prone to perfectly normal urges. Or at least, that’s what I tell my wife.
Last joke. Irving takes his wife to a fancy French restaurant. The waiter comes over and says, “The specials tonight are beef Burgundy, moo-shoo chicken, shrimp-fried rice, happy-family vegetable, and spicy wonton.”
Irving looks at the waiter and says, “Hold on. I thought this was a French restaurant.”
The waiter says, “Yes, but it’s a Jewish neighborhood.”
Now I’ve discovered something very important from that joke: I’m starving! Where the hell’s that menu? A couple of hamentaschen only go so far.
Anyway, Purim sameach everybody! And many more.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, NY.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 253rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on NY’s WGBB-AM radio, Dec. 31, 2007.
host: Dave Lefkowitz guest co-host: Jeff Goodman Call-in Guest: #1 Fan Pam
Featuring: Dave goes over the best and worst of 2007; a call from #1 Fan Pam; Inside Broadway; Jeff Goodman’s visit to Thailand.
00:00:01 Pre-show excerpts w/ Number 2 Fan, Pam 00:14:00 DAVE GOES IN 00:24:00 Jeff in Thailand 00:30:00 INSIDE BROADWAY – Cymbeline, Best and Worst Theater of 2007 00:55:00 DAVE REMEMBERS 2007 01:10:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Dec. 30, 2007 Playlist: “Auld Lang Zion” (Rabbi Sol Solomon).
John Cullum in Cymbeline#1 Fan PamJeff GoodmanRabbi Sol Solomon
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with veteran actor Andre De Shields
