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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with cabaret icon Sidney Myer
Topics include: cabaret, Judy Garland, Panache, Don’t Tell Mama, Bing Crosby. Segment airs May 5, 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
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Gay icon Peter Fitzgerald chats with playwright Robert Patrick
Topics include: Judas, Kennedy’s Children, Café Cino, gay, California, The Haunted Host, Harvey Fierstein, La MaMa.
Segment airs April 14, 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 Download video file of audio content
Song airs March 17, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Leslie Jordan
Topics include: Robert Downey Jr., addiction, Sordid Lives, Gary Busey, Truman Capote, the South. Segment aired July 8, 2017 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Sad Note: Our Friend of the Daverhood, Leslie Jordan, passed Oct. 24, 2022 at age 67.
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
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Here is the 576th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Oct. 1, 2016. Info: Davesgoneby.com
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guests: musician Seth Rudetsky, Dave’s wife Joyce Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with theatrical musician Seth Rudetsky. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (eponymous), Saturday Segue (In the News).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (a lousy week that ends well, “Lassie” returns) 00:41:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 01:11:30 Sponsors 01:13:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:34:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Seth Rudetsky 02:10:30 Friends 02:16:30 Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (eponymous) 02:33:00 Weather & Sponsors 02:35:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Oct. 1, 2016 Playlist: “The Back Nine” (00:42:00; Loudon Wainwright III). “Fat” (00:46:00; The Violent Femmes). “Candidate” (00:48:00; Joy Division). “Song of Peace” (00:51:00; Benny Bell). “Train Round the Bend” (00:53:30; Velvet Underground). “Be Careful, It’s My Heart” (01:31:30; Bing Crosby). “Five Worst Audition Mistakes” (02:05:30; Seth Rudetsky). “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (02:18:30), “You’re Gonna Quit Me” (02:23:00) & “My Back Pages” (02:26:00; Bob Dylan). “Darling Be Home Soon” (02:38:00; Lovin’ Spoonful).
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Here is the 560th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, June 4, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: singer Sam Harris, Dave’s wife Joyce
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Broadway’s Sam Harris. Plus: Inside Broadway, Greeley Crimes & Old Times, My Sick Mind (Muhammad Ali), Saturday Segue (In the News, Richard Butler), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Portrait of an Empire).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (technical difficulties, the Tony show, Lansbury!, Joyce’s book, my dinner with Larry, Iowa Rap) 00:35:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:09:45 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:44:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Richard Butler 02:10:30 Sponsors 02:13:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Sam Harris 03:10:30 Friends 03:20:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Portrait of an Empire) 03:36:00 MY SICK MIND – Muhammad Ali 03:40:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 04:08:00 Weather 04:09:30 DAVE GOES OUT
June 4, 2016 Playlist: “Waschmachine” (01:17:00; Das Balaton Combo). “Not a Common Man” (01:39:00; American Psycho 2016 Broadway cast). “The Ghost in You” (01:50:00), “I Don’t Want to Be Your Shadow” (01:58:30) & “Alive (For Once in My Lifetime)” (02:02:30). “Satellites” (01:55:30; Richard Butler). “Use What You Got” (02:13:30; The Life Broadway cast w/ Sam Harris). “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (02:35:00; Sam Harris). “Those Magic Changes” (03:02:00; Grease Broadway cast w/ Sam Harris). “Copper Kettle” (03:24:30), “Never Gonna Be the Same” (03:28:00) & “Belle Isle” (03:31:00; Bob Dylan). “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” (03:41:30; Warren Zevon). “Muhammad Ali” (03:44:30; George Carlin). “Mama Said Knock You Out” (03:47:00; LL Cool J). “Crazy Man Michael” (03:51:30; Fairport Convention). “You’ll Be Back” (Hamilton 2016 Broadway cast w/ Jonathan Groff).
Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actor-singer Sam Harris.
Topics include: cabaret, Broadway
Segment aired June 4, 2016 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.
click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 500th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, March 7, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave’s 500th episode: 500 minutes plus 1 hour to grown on! Dave plays classic bits, novelty numbers, interview clips and more from years gone by. Plus: chats with return guests, Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on Dave’s 500th, musician Christine Lavin, actress Carole Demas, radio legend Dr. Demento, Greeley Crime Beat, visits from UNC Radio general manager Thomas Hoffman, UNC Radio programming director Matthew Davis, UNC Mirror journalist Will Costello, UNC Radio host Alex Kirschner and friends Fred Cleaver and Wendy Highby. Also: Calls from former programming director Sam Wood, singer Carole Demas, Dave’s mom & dad Philip and Brenda Lefkowitz, Dave’s friend Ozer Teitelbaum, and former guest co-host Jeff Goodman
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: radio host Dr. Demento, musician Christine Lavin, actress Carole Demas, UNC Mirror journalist Will Costello, UNC Radio general manager Thomas Hoffman, UNC Radio programming director Matthew Davis,, UNC Radio former general manager Sam Wood, radio personality Joe Salzone, friends Wendy Highby, Fred Cleaver, Ozer Teitelbaum and Jeff Goodman, Dave’s mom & dad (Philip & Brenda Lefkowitz), Dave’s wife Joyce.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (#500!, Purim narwhal) 00:24:30 GREELEY CRIME BEAT, pt. 1 00:27:00 GUESTS: Fred Cleaver & Wendy Highby (new!) 00:52:00 GREELEY CRIME BEAT, pt. 2 w/ Will Costello 00:58:00 GUESTS: Will Costello 01:04:00 GREELEY CRIME BEAT, pt 3 01:14:30 GUESTS: Will Costello, Alex Kirshner, Thomas Hoffman (new!) 01:36:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN 01:51:00 GUEST: Bonnie Franklin (aired 10/1/11) 02:00:30 SKIT: The Giving Chimp (aired 11/3/02) 02:07:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #3: Taco Bell (aired 1/29/11) 02:21:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #26: Autopsy (aired 2/21/15) 02:23:00 SONG: Take Your Underoos Down (aired 7/19/14) 02:32:30 GUEST: Karinna Kittles-Karsten (aired 2/11/07) 02:50:30 SONG: Jeopardy Ken (aired 10/14/04) 02:53:30 Sponsors 03:01:30 GUEST: Joe Franklin (aired 4/1/07) 03:06:30 SKIT: Pre-Tampered Yummies (aired 10/27/02) 03:12:00 GUEST: Tom Paxton (aired 9/2/04) 03:20:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’s RABBINICAL REFLECTION #11: Circumcisions (aired 4/2/11) 03:31:30 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #23: Screenwriter (aired 2/7/15) 03:37:30 More Sponsors 03:40:30 GUEST: Jill Sobule (aired 9/22/05) 03:52:00 SKIT: Blarney O’Bunions (aired 3/12/06) 03:57:30 GUEST: Christine Lavin (new!) 04:39:00 GUEST: Al Aronowitz (aired 1/20/05) 04:46:00 GUEST: Dr. Demento (new!) 05:14:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #20: Beatles (aired 1/10/15) 05:11:00 Emails & Epistles 05:21:00 SKIT: Handyman Yoni (aired 7/29/04) 05:26:30 GUESTS: Brenda & Philip Lefkowitz (new!) 05:44:30 GUEST: Joe Salzone (new!) 05:56:30 GUEST: Carole Demas (new!) 06:15:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION: Jewish GPS (aired 1/27/12) 06:20:30 GUEST: Sam Wood (new!) 06:48:30 GUEST: Gilbert Gottfried (aired 12/17/11) 06:59:00 SONG: A Dingo Ate My Baby (aired 1/26/03) 07:00:00 GUEST: Matthew Davis (new!) 07:16:00 More Emails & Epistles 07:22:00 Excerpt: First Show – opening (aired 10/6/02) 07:32:30 GUEST: Ozer Teitelbaum (new!) 07:34:30 SONG: Undies (aired 8/24/13) 07:59:00 SKIT: Buttboink Mountain w/ Peter Fitzgerald (aired 1/22/06) 08:06:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #119: Dave’s 500th (new!) 08:15:30 Thanks 08:18:30 GUEST: Jeff Goodman, pt. 1 08:42:30 A Call from Joyce 08:46:00 Sponsors 08:47:30 SKIT: Bob Dylan for WaxVac 08:49:00 Excerpt: First Show – closing (aired 10/6/02) 08:54:00 GUEST: Jeff Goodman, pt. 2 09:19:00 DAVE GOES OUT
March 7, 2015 Playlist: “Buckets of Rain” (01:44:00; Bob Dylan). “Take Your Underoos Down” (02:23:00), “Jeopardy Ken” (02:50:30) & “A Dingo Ate My Baby” (06:59:00; Dave). “I Hold Your Hand in Mine” (02:26:00; Tom Lehrer). “Don’t You Let Nobody Turn You `Round” (03:17:30; Tom Paxton). “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (03:33:30; The Rolling Stones). (03:49:00; Jill Sobule). “Never Go Back” (04:28:00; Christine Lavin). “Shaving Cream” (05:11:00; Benny Bell). “Have a Peanut Butter Sandwich” (06:43:00; Art Paul Schlosser). “Across the Universe” (08:50:00; The Beatles). “`Heroes'” (09:22:00; David Bowie).
Fred Cleaver
Wendy Highby
Christine Lavin
Dr. DementoDave & Philip LefkowitzJoe SalzoneCarole DemasSam WoodOzer TeitelbaumJeff GoodmanMatthew Davis
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 12th, 2014.
Where does free speech cross into hate speech? This is an issue I deal with all the time, or at least other people tell me I do. At what point does expressing an unpopular opinion become something you have to censor and censure?
The question has been bedeviling the whimsically named Arts & Entertainment Network owing to their smash-hit program, “Duck Dynasty.” It’s all about this Louisiana backwoods family that has spent the past 25 years hand-making products for duck hunters. They apparently created the world’s most effective bird call, the so-called “duck commander” – and from this, they got rich. But they didn’t let money go their heads; they still live like Swamp Thing. But thanks to the reality show, these hirsute hillbillies are squatting on an $80 million empire.
Everywhere you go, there’s “Duck Dynasty” t-shirts, Halloween masks, posters, body spray – and more power to them. If you can just be your crazy self and get the whole world to watch, that’s the secret to fame in the 21st Century. If you’re lucky and have huge tits, you’re Kim Kardashian; if you not so lucky and have a penis, you’re Jon Gosselin. If you have huge tits AND a penis, you’re Big Ang.
Essentially, the Robertson family is a hick version of “Jersey Shore.” Instead of Italian goombas who do Gym/Tan/Laundry, you got smelly Bayou bozos who do Guns/Tattoos/Lard. And all of this was adorable in a post-Civil War, “let’s-make-fun-of-the-South” kind of way, until the patriarch of the clan, Phil Robertson, turned his private prejudice into public pronouncements. In an interview with GQ Magazine – because, of course, the Robertson clan are everyone’s idea of GQ material – grampa Phil Robertson shared his religious thoughts on sin. Without much prompting, foolish Phil said, quote, “Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” etcetera.
Phil Robertson parroted the same drivel spouted by every religious homophobe with just enough literacy to read the King James Bible. Leviticus says, “It’s an abomination when two men shtup each other.” Oddly enough, the bible says nothing about two women shtupping each other. This proves God is merciful because it spares us from having to edit out the fourth scene in every good porno movie.
But I digress. Phil Robertson views queerness as a disgusting sin – something even more loathsome to him than bathing or shaving. In his defense, grumpy grampy says he doesn’t advocate hatred or hate crimes against gays. Just being repulsed by them is enough. As Jesus says, turn the other cheek, just don’t spread those cheeks for a hunky apostle.
Faced with these comments in GQ and mounting pressure from gay groups – and if you’ve ever felt mounting pressure from gays, you know how painful that can be – A&E, which broadcasts Douche Dinosaurs, had to make a decision: Cancel the show? Keep the show but jettison its most popular star? Do nothing and just hold out until the next Miley Cyrus controversy takes everyone’s mind off things?
In the end, Arts & Entertainment Network – which in recent years has become as artful and entertaining as a children’s party clown performing knee surgery – A&E did a little of everything. They suspended Robertson, then they immediately reinstated him. They apologized for grampa’s stupidity, but then said, “Hey, he’s family. What can you do?” You can be richer than Croesus and still be a cretin.
And A&E has a point. We’re talking about “Duck Dynasty” not “Malcolm Gladwell Presents.” Just like the Jersey Shore kids and the Honey Boo-Boo brood, we’re watching a clan who, combined, don’t have sufficient I.Q. to spell “I.Q.” We expect the Phil Robertsons of this world to say off-the-wall things, and we’d get bored if he didn’t. We expect his thoughts to be either dead wrong or right but expressed in a goofy way.
All these reality shows are sort of the opposite of Fox News. Fox is dangerous because the hosts express themselves beautifully and are thus able to spin partisan factoids into a credible semblance of reality. “Duck Dynasty” is about folks who could star in the sequel to “Deliverance.” That the Robertsons can form sentences at all marks astonishing progress up the evolutionary ladder.
The point is, you can’t make a silk purse out of a duck’s ass. If we put someone on TV for being a laughable putz, we shouldn’t be shocked when he goes medieval on our ears. And if we penalize grandpa Phil for expressing his honest feelings about fags, what do we do when Jay Leno makes an Asian joke about North Korea? What do we do when a celebrity who’s had lipo makes fat people feel bad? As with so many things, there’s a slippery slope. And a fat person on a slippery slope is quite hilarious to watch.
Double standard? Perhaps. Do we go easy on Phil Robertson because he merely picked on gays – as opposed to saying that Jews killed Jesus or Negroes were more fun when they were slaves? But even then…we’re talking about a man who spent his life figuring out how to make noises that sexually arouse ducks. Let’s all be clear about that. And let’s keep Phil Robertson on “Duck Dynasty” until we either get bored with him – which should should come in another two minutes out of his allotted 15 – or viewers simply realize, “Hey, television doesn’t always have to be this shitty.” In the meantime, all A&E has to do is put up a disclaimer: “The views expressed in the following program do not represent the opinions of this network, this station, or this century. If Phil Robertson uses the bible to say something offensive and ignorant, well, just look at him. What the duck did you expect?”
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 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.
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Leslie Jordan
