RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #188 (6/22/2024): The New Aristocrats Joke
airs June 22, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By.
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for late June 2024.
Just like new plots for movies, there’s really no such thing as a “new” joke, just old jokes packaged in a different way. For example: Why did the fireman wear red suspenders? Because he was shopping at Kohl’s, and it was all they had — plus it was on clearance. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he heard all these people telling jokes about him and he got curious.
Old Manischewitz: new bottles. So here’s a naughty little joke called “The Aristocrats” that’s been around for decades. Gilbert Gottfried made it famous, and they even did a documentary about it. But I doubt you’ve heard my version.
A guy goes into a talent agent’s office, and he says, “Buddy, have I got an act for you!”
And the agent says, “Don’t waste your time. Novelty is dead. Nobody watches “Got Talent” anymore. I’m sorry, but — ”
“No, no, no,” says the guy. “This is huge. My family, my friends, strangers — it’s spectacular!”
“You’re wasting your time,” says the agent. “I’m not interested.”
“You will be!” says the guy. “Just gimme a chance. Please!”
The agent sighs and says, “All right, fine. Show me what you got.”
“Thank you!” says the guy. “It’s incredible, I promise!”
So the guy claps his hands, and shouts, “Allahu Akbar.” Suddenly thousands of Arabs appear. He blows a whistle, and the Arabs start attacking Israel. They’re firing rockets, they’re launching missiles, they’re hurling bombs and grenades.
Meanwhile, one group of Arabs go to an Israeli kibbutz where they’re having a music festival. And the Arabs start mowing down Jews with machine guns and rifles. They’re killing women, they’re hacking up children, dogs, pets, birds. And they’re shooting the men and then defiling the corpses and cutting off heads and pissing down the necks. Another group is taking hostages. And they’re torturing them, punching and kicking and stabbing and dragging and frogmarching them into tunnels.
And the women hostages are getting raped. Oh, they’re fucking these women with gun barrels and fists and korans. And they’re fucking the child hostages, too. They’re using dead kids as dildos to ass-fuck the live ones. So there’s blood and cum and baby teeth spraying every which way.
Meanwhile, the living hostages are dragged into daycares and hospitals and elementary schools, where the hidden Arabs are firing rockets and explosives to kill more Jews. This while thousands of other Arabs are butchering and killing and shitting on synagogues and smearing themselves with IDF soldier blood.
“But wait, there’s more!” says the guy to the talent agent. “That’s when all these college students come out and they run on campus with tents and banners and costumes. And they’re all screaming, `Death to Israel’ and `Free Gaza’ and `Stop the Palestinian Genocide’ while dancing around and crying and fucking each other even though they haven’t bathed in a month. And some of them break into hundred-year-old buildings and smash windows, trash furniture, crap on books. And then campus presidents come over, and they just watch. They don’t do anything; they just stand there like a 19th century French tableaux.”
But meanwhile the hostages are still dying in the tunnels, the Arabs are slaughtering every Jew in sight, the students are blocking highways, vandalizing Jewish homes, and jumping on subways to threaten anyone who looks like a kike. That’s when all these other countries around the world come in and start sanctioning Israel and banning Israelis from having passports. And the left-wing media applauds this and weeps for the refugees whose vote for a terrorist government started all this shit in the first place.
And meanwhile the terrorists murder and torture and rape and kill and kill and kill and kill in a ritual orgy of sadism, savagery, and Islamic frenzy.
With that, the guy in the office blows his whistle and says, “Well, what do you think?”
The talent agent sits for a minute and finally says, “Wow, that’s quite an act. By the way, what do you call yourselves?”
The college students all start cheering as the guy straightens himself up, Jewish blood still dripping from his sleeves, and says, “Hamas!”
Funny joke, ha? This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #186 (6/8/2024): Maldives n’ Mexico
airs June 8, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube video:
I am mmmmarveling at the news this week involving two countries with mmmmarkedly different responses to the mmmmadness in the Mmmmiddle East. I am talking about the Maldives and Mexico. One of them is meretricious, the other marvelous.
So as the patient says to the doctor: “Bad news first.” The Maldives. It even has “mal,” a prefix meaning “bad,” in its own name. What are the Maldives? They’re a teeny Republic in South Asia, about 115 square miles of land with the rest in the Indian Ocean. And considering all the things Indians do in the ocean, it’s best not to drink the water. Or visit the Maldives.
Not that you could visit the Maldives right now if you were an Israeli. President Mohamed Muizzu — who belongs in a zoo — has banned anyone with an Israeli passport from entering the country, this in response to the war in Gaza. Why any Jew would visit this place in the first place is a puzzlement. Maldives is a country so Muslim that the practice of any other religion is forbidden by law. This is also a land that not only prohibits homosexuality but reprimands anybody kissing or even holding hands in public. So, basically, if you wonder what the Bahamas or Aruba would be like if they took away the fun and relaxation and replaced it with totalitarian jihad, you’ve got the Maldives.
In 2023 about 5,000 Jews visited the various Maldive islands. Maybe they were Orthodox and appreciated the modest-clothing rules and pork-free eating. Maybe they just wanted to watch other Semites inflict suffering on themselves for once instead of being tormented by others. Even prior to this ban, only 500 Yids Maldived themselves this year, and one hopes that goyim, in solidarity with Israel, will put Maldives on their “fuck-it” list. But hey, there’s sand and palm trees and, thanks to climate change, more and more and more water. It’s an Arcadia—and a perfect spot to relocate a few thousand displaced Palestinians! What? Dr. Muizzu? Not returning their calls? Well, at least you support them in theory.
But what gives me joy in reality is the result of a Presidential election held this week in Mexico. Replacing current honcho Andrés Manuel López Obrador is someone with a shorter name, thank God, but also a highly promising name. Winning a landslide victory is Mexico’s first female leader and first Jewish leader: Claudia Sheinbaum! I’m not kidding — Claudia Sheinbaum! Her heritage is a mix of Ashkenazic Lithuanian and Sephardic Bulgarian, and she’s a scientist with a PhD—a Jewish doctor will be running Mexico!
They should get her to deal with climate change in the Maldives because she’s an expert—she was part of a Nobel Prize-winning UN think tank on the topic—and she’s pro-choice, pro LGBT, big on mass transit and bicycle paths—yeah, she’s kind of a lefty. And a landsman.
The cheeriest aspect of this political event is that despite Jews being despised seemingly everywhere in the world, Mexicans looked beyond that and picked a Shein-a maidel! She was the outgoing president’s choice, and because the peso has been in decent shape, and because the drug cartels have been killing only every third tourist, voters are giving Sheiny the sheeny a shot.
Please let us support her by purchasing all things Mexican: jumping beans, refried beans, bootleg t-shirts of Mr. Bean. Also, spend your vacation dollars South of the Border. And I don’t mean getting a pubic wax, I mean Guadalajara, Cancun, Oaxaca, Acapulco, and lest we forget, charming Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl.
Oh, my friends, we are forever asking: Is it good for the Jews? If Judaism has taught us anything, it’s that things can change in a blink. But right now: viva México! And Maldives? ¡Vete a la mierda!
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. ¡Arriba!
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #185 (5/4/2024): Three Cheers for the NYPD
airs May 4, 2024 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube video:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for early May 2024.
Credit where credit is due. And I don’t mean the credit cards where I owe 30 percent interest on a sofa I bought in 2014. No, I’m talking about: let’s applaud a job well done in a tremendously difficult situation.
Ever since George Floyd — you know, the drug addict, thief, armed robber, and counterfeiter who was horribly murdered by overzealous law enforcement — ever since that subject for statues became a symbol for systemic racism, cops have been betwixt and between. On the one hand, they face loathing from communities where, admittedly, they behaved badly for decades. On the other, they’re expected to be models of self-control while putting their lives on the line. Picture trying to do your job when the very people you are tasked to protect are shouting to defund you. Imagine that you take pride in serving the Big Apple, yet you’re automatically lumped in with the bad apples.
And now imagine that you’ve been called to a college campus where hundreds of deluded 20-somethings — whose age alone would mark them as enemies of authority — imagine that these liberal loonies and BIPOC buttheads have overtaken a major American university. As part of their tantrum, they’ve camped out on the lawn, blocked access to thoroughfares, and even vandalized a building. The school President has hithered and dithered, not wanting to spark violence or squelch free speech, but terrified to lose benefactors who might balk at endowing a university whose main export has become anti-Semitism.
By the time Columbia’s leader, Minouche Shafik, realized things had gotten out of control, things had gotten out of control. What to do? What to do? Let the monkeys run amok? Surrender Hamilton Hall, Lewisohn Hall, Kravis Hall, the ironically named “Harmony Hall” — all to a bunch of tent-pitching yahoos who couldn’t find Gaza on a map, a map in a bookstore, a bookstore in a city, and a city on their non-stop TikTok feeds?
At a certain point, order must be restored. It doesn’t matter that the disrupters were non-violent, and it wouldn’t matter if they were there supportingIsrael against the demons of Hamas. They were asked to leave and refused. They were commanded to leave, and instead, smashed windows and home-invaded the administration building.
That’s when you send in the cops. With riot gear.
And that, finally, is what President Shafik did. After a week of letting the hyenas run the zoo, she called in the NYPD who, with exceptional restraint and by-the-book behavior, broke up Hamas on the Hudson. Crying sophomores, shrieking professors, double-talking outside agitators — rounded up, plunked on paddy wagons, and slapped on the wrists, alas, but at least temporarily out of commission.
This, my friends, is how it’s done. Because, God knows, the cops showed more self-control than I would have to these Morningside morons. The first one to shout “Free Gaza” would have to do it through a mouth full of broken teeth. The first holding a “Divest” sign would have to hoist it with cracked knuckles. And the first Jew tweeting “Cease Fire Now!” would have so much mace sprayed in her face, her eyes would turn all four colors of the Palestinian flag.
This is why I am not a cop. This is also why the New York Police Department — and every Blue brigade that’s been summoned to these conflagrations — deserves oodles of kudos for the job they did and the way they did it. I’m sure many of these officers agreed with the protesters — we’re not talking Einsteins here, on either side of the grass — but they followed reasonable directions in a professional manner, and they deserve our gratitude and admiration.
And when the green-tent vermin swarm back onto the lawns of Columbia, NYU, Yale, UCLA, or any other ivy-choked nest of minacious radicalism, let the liars on the left be met head on by what’s right.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #183 (4/20/24): PASSOVER 2024
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired April 20, 2024 on the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol Solomon offers reflections, and a timely poem, to celebrate this year’s particularly potent Passover holiday.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the 2024 Passover holiday.
Yes, my friends, it’s matzoh time again! Time to change the silverware, cover your tables, sell your leavened food and then buy it back when it’s stale — time to welcome a holiday that throws your life into chaos, just for a big meal that’s supposed to be about order. That’s the seder.Seder means order, structure, in Hebrew. So at the seder, we do one activity after another after another, in order, for two hours before we finally get to eat. Then we dine on wonderful things like horse radish and boiled eggs and flat bread that uses cardboard as its flavor profile. Mmm mmm, constipated!
But we do this, of course, to commemorate a miracle. Our Jewish ancestors, who spent decades as slaves to the Pharaohs, high-tailed it out of Egypt, thanks to Moses, his brother Aaron, and a God that actually talked to people back then. Or at least to Moses. They had that kind of relationship.
And so, 3500 years ago, the Jews left Eretz Mitzrayim, crossed the Red Sea — which slowly parted for them like the legs of an arthritic hooker—and wandered the desert for 40 years till all of them were dead. But their children made it to Israel. And that’s where the Jews have stayed until this very day. And, current events notwithstanding, they ain’t goin’ anywhere.
For decades now, I’ve ranted and raved and driven home one idea that even a pinhead like Susan Sarandon should understand: Israel is for Jews. Arabs can live anywhere else. Why don’t they? If all these Muslim countries refuse to make a home for their Palestinian brothers, well, that’s just too bad. There’s no reason the Palis can’t have a couple dozen square miles of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Algeria, Mali, Pakistan,Turkmenistan, or Dearborn, Michigan. Palestinians want a country so bad? Give them one…far away. Suck them out of Gaza and the West Bank so Israelis can be free and safe…surrounded by a dozen countries that despise them.
Yet for all the horrible news and the burgeoning anti-Semitism, we can muster a smile or two this Pesach holiday. On Thursday, the president of Columbia University—an Arab no less—looked at the swarm of hippie hooligans disobeying orders to vacate the college’s lawns and said, finally, “If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops.” They stayed, in came the riot squad, and more than a hundred imbeciles were arrested and suspended—not for being anti-Israel (that’s a given for these smelly hermaphrodites) but for trespassing on private property and assuming their bleeding-heart wokeness would be an impermeable escutcheon. Understand that they were non-violent, and so were the cops. Everybody got what they came for: President Shafik got her lawn back (for a day), the cops made their quota without a single speeding ticket, and the brats got on TV crying and laughing and showing every employer in America who not to hire at the next job fair.
On top of this heartening development of cracking down on crackpots—there’s more amazing news. A week ago, Iran sent hundreds of missiles streaming into Israel. I think one of them hit. All the rest were intercepted and bombed out of the sky by the vaunted “iron dome.” Where that dome was on October 7th is another story, but at least this time, it worked like gangbusters. Or bomb-busters. And after that, Israel hit back with a bunch of mini-drones that were mini enough to do minimal damage but scary enough to make the Tehran tyrants think twice about escalation.
So in these anxious and ugly times, when Jews face hatred from stupid goyim, and Israel faces hatred from stupid Jews, we can be thankful for some godly interventions that are at least trying to restore order. Seder.
And for those who still equate Zionism with oppressive colonialism as opposed to…”my house, my rules,” here’s some poetic justice:
“From the river to the sea, Hamas had better flee.
`Cuz way back in `48, the world made Israel a Jewish state.
The Arabs are welcome to work and play, but if you hurt us, we will slay.
We’ll bomb the tunnels Hamas built and turn their houses into silt.
If you prick us, we will bleed, but then we’ll get you, guaranteed.
If you’re a young and left-wing loony spewing your shit at the Ivies and SUNY
Not realizing Al Qaeda, Al Aqsa, Hamas
Are all the same evil, with all the same boss?
Please know that the monsters who caused 9/11
are back as the same butchers of October 7.
Yet millions of Arabs select them as leaders
and pledge their allegiance to these bottom feeders
who’ve vowed to push Israel straight off the map
Which is why we must blot them, like wiping up crap.
If they think they’ll win and cause Israel to vanish
“Joder a sus madres.” Look it up — it’s Spanish.
Israel will fight to the very last Jew — and make no mistake, they’re fighting for you.
`Cause if Muslims win, new maps they will draw that put the whole world under Sharia law.
So Israel will struggle, as lies leave her friendless
And Israel will fight, though the fighting is endless.
And Israel will win because Israel must and grind our foes into cockroach dust.
From Haifa to Tiberius, IDF is dead serious
From Kiryat Shmona all the way to Eilat, the Arabs can lick Golda Meir’s hairy grey twat.
From the sea to the river, we’ll make Hamas quiver.
And for year after year, Israel stays here.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Happy Pesach seder to you — from border to border, we will restore order.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #180 (12/31/2023): 2023 Farewell
airs Dec. 31, 2023 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year, 2023.
What a joyful and encouraging year it’s been, hah? A terrific celebration of peace and love and reason and decency. And if you believe that, you must not have the internet. Or any access to the outside world, which has been steeped in anxiety and hatred — mostly, with good reason!
COVID is still here. Remember COVID? The virus that killed a zillion old people and is now a common cold? Only it’s so common, everyone’s still getting it! Almost four years after the disease erupted, many of us are still wearing masks everywhere. Granted, some people are such meeskeits a mask is an improvement—a public service even—but still! How many variants can one illness have? Someday, they’re gonna be able to trace all the way back, and they’ll learn that COVID is just another strain of Caveman Breathing Disorder.
And speaking of cavemen, Donald Trump is running for President again. Look, he wasn’t a bad POTUS; he was great for Israel and the economy. But he’s also old. And nuts. That’s a combination you put in Assisted Living, not the Oval Office. Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent is Joe Biden, who’s so old, when he got his driver’s license, he just had to learn two words: “giddyup” and “whoa.” I did not make that joke up, but I also couldn’t make up that the combined age of the two presumed 2024 candidates is 158. I know age brings wisdom and experience, but it also brings senility and special underpants. Ronald Reagan was a powerhouse in his first four years, but the last two he fumbled more than the New York Jets o-line.
Meanwhile, Trump might not even be allowed to run because State Supreme Courts, like the one in Colorado, are holding him accountable for the Capitol insurrection. He hasn’t been convicted of that, by the way. Oh, sure, he’ll get convicted of fraud and sexual harassment, but by gosh, the treason thing is still a mere accusation. As such, I think the Denver judges got ahead of themselves and hijacked an election decision that should be made by the voters, not the courts. Remember: the last time judges got involved in politics, they installed George W. Bush as commander in chief, which was like putting Rose from The Golden Girls in charge of NASA.
So if Trump doesn’t run or can’t run, we might get Ron DeSantis, who’s slightly to the right of Mussolini and thinks gay people should be, you know, ungay. Or there’s Nikki Haley, who, like DeSantis, is pro-Israel but also believes fetuses are viable at the sperm stage. So… as ever, our choice for the highest office in the land will come down to least worst. I’d rather have knoblewurst.
Meanwhile in 2023, the Dow Jones set new highs, but so did global temperatures, housing prices, gas prices, and groceries. By the end of the year, inflation improved, which is just a euphemism for prices still rising, only less quickly. And the national debt is now $33 trillion. I mean, can’t we just ask Taylor Swift, as a favor, to pay it off?
Nearing its second year is the Ukraine War, a fierce battle between Russia and…more Russians. Ukraine’s president keeps thanking us for all our money and weapons, but no: thank you, Vlodymyr Zelenskyy for keeping our military industrial complex chugging along. Maybe you can also beg for a bunch of Chevys and Toyotas and help us bring Detroit back. As for Russia-Russia, we all thought Vladimir Putin would be dead by now. Instead, he’s just deathly: pale and shaky with purple streaks on the tops of his hands. The CIA speculates those are either intravenous marks or he’s been fisting the California raisins.
Speaking of good taste, the Hollywood studios finally came to their senses and settled with the Writers Guild. They realized that having Artificial Intelligence write boring screenplays with lame dialogue, cliched plots, and obvious themes was no substitute for having real writers churn out scripts with lame dialogue, incoherent plots, and woke propaganda. The only movies that weren’t bombs were Oppenheimer, about a bomb, and Barbie, about a bombshell.
But, hey, where’s the A-bomb when you need it? On October 7th, Hamas fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza into mainland Israel. Arab gunmen also stormed an Israeli music festival where they massacred 300 attendees, tortured others, and took hostages. They also raped a bunch women, many of whom were later found dead. It’s unclear whether the women were violated before or after they were killed because, let’s face it, Muslim terrorists aren’t the pickiest bunch when it comes to pussy. They see a woman with an uncovered thumb, they’re like, “What a whore!”
When the first wave of horror was over, 1400 Israelis lay dead. I have no jokes for that: 1400 slaughtered in a day by the same batch of people who have poisoned the world for 70 years with their fundamentalism, despotism, and terrorism.
And so, a day later, Bibi Netanyahu says to the Palestinians in Gaza, “Pack your shit. Your have 24 hours. Get the fuck out.” And the world, which had spent 10 whole seconds commiserating with Israel in grief and mourning, said, “You can’t do that. You’ll cause a humanitarian crisis!” And Israel said, “Just maybe-perhaps-possibly Hamas should have thought of that before their ambush.”
Israel commenced revenge immediately, although Netanyahu did allow Palestinians more than a week to take their camel caravans and find another country to despoil. But was that enough for the UN? Was that sufficient for world opinion? Of course not! When an errant Arab bomb fell on a Gaza hospital, who got blamed? Who’dya think? Meanwhile, Hamas fighters are using hospitals and schools as their command posts. They know that if Israel attacks, liberals weep; and if Israel doesn’t attack, Jews die.Win-win. Well, you know what, OXFAM, and World Health, and Red Cross, and Doctors Without Brains? Sometimes Jews have to kill the people who make them die.
But do college kids understand that? These Ivy League-bush-league, moss-covered troglodytes who glom onto any cause as long as it makes them feel like they’re saving the world from their parents’ mistakes? While they live in their parents’ basements? Like toadstools blossoming out of excrement, pro-Palestinian protests are everywhere, stopping traffic, blocking libraries, frustrating commuters, and doing nothing except proving just how many anti-Semites there really are. “Oh, but we don’t hate Jews,” say Ilhan, and Rashida, and Alexandria, and Susan, and Roger, and, oh—in for a penny—Ice Cube and Kanye. “We just hate colonialist Israel”—forgetting that Hebrews have lived in Israel since forever, and that Jews ask for no other safe place in the universe apart from this tiny country.
In my stage show, Shalom, Dammit!, I made a joke about Jews for Jesus, saying that the term is an oxymoron, like Vegetarians for Brisket. Believe it or not, something even more incomprehensible has emerged: Queers For Palestine. I am not kidding: Queers For Palestine. These are a passel of LGB-D-Bags promoting the very people who would cut their schvantzes off for being who they are. You know, earlier this year, Out Traveler magazine picked the 15 best cities in the world for gay people. Coming in 8th, two slots ahead of Miami: Tel Aviv. You know how many other places in the Middle East made the list? (makes a zero with his fingers) If the list was the best 200, you know how many Middle Eastern cities would be on it? A handful—and they’d be in Israel, too.
And yet, Queers for Palestine. How can these foolish freaks have their heads so far up their own tucheses? Well, they’ve likely been trying that as a sex technique. But seriously, what’s next for them? Faggots for AIDS? In their case, I’d donate. And I wish AIDS, leprosy, and spina bifida on anyone who chants “From the River to the Sea: Palestine Will Be Free.” No way! “From the Sea to the River, IDF Will Make Hamas Quiver.” “From the Sand to Mud, Gaza Will Run with Terrorist Blood.” “From Jerusalem to Miami, We Will Slice our Enemies Like Pastrami.”
Okay. Enough rage. Now it’s time for sadness. As I often do with these annum-end reflections, I’d like to honor, poetically, some of the notables who did not make it out of 2023 alive.
We start with Norman Lear, of All in the Family and Maude.
And Richard Roundtree, who’s now giving the Shaft to God.
To Tina Turner we said goodbye
Her talent was river deep and mountain high
Farewell Tony Bennett, who left his heart in San Fran
and cartoonist Al Jaffee, who was a true Mad man
Ted Kaczynski died, and he was the bomb
Henry Kissinger gave us the director’s cut of Vietnam
As First Ladies go, Roz Carter seemed nice
And, sadly, Bob Barker has barked his last price
We lost Tim McCarver, so pleasant and plucky
and David McCallum, from UNCLE, our Ducky.
We lost Michael Gambon—Glenda Jackson, too
And Rolf Harris tied down his last kangaroo
Farewell Alan Arkin, of movies and theater
Bye Raquel Welch and Suzanne Somers — both jiggling for St. Peter
We toast Shane MacGowan with joy and affection
And director Bill Friedkin, who made a Connection
Jimmy Buffet’s margaritas became a huge trend
while booze and drugs took Matthew Perry, our Friend
We lost Pat Robertson, who thought he was holy
and Dame Edna tossed her last gladioli
Andre Braugher and Lance Reddick were marvelous cops
Richard Belzer was dean of the microphone drops
Farewell to Jeff Beck. Bye bye Tom Verlaine
No more will Burt Bacharach write about rain
The princely Treat Williams is now in an urn
Farewell Cindy Williams, who’s up with Laverne
Sandra Day O’Connor has judged her last case
While Sinead O’Connor has reached a better place
We lost Adam Rich of “Eight is Enough”
and Marty Krofft, panjandrum of “H.R. Puffnstuff”
Gordon Lightfoot made his way down with the sun
and farewell to Tom Jones — no, the off-Broadway one
Bon voyage Belafonte, a King among men
And ciao, David Crosby, the C of SN.
Robbie Robertson’s up with the Hawks in a Band
And let’s all give Pee Wee Herman a hand
We mourn Jerry Springer who sent chairs flying
And all the good people who are sick, dead, or dying.
But enough lamentation! I don’t want to bore
Let’s pray for survival in 2024.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Happy Jew Year.
click above to watch episode #918click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 918th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, Nov. 18, 2023.
Featuring: Bunion Watch, Greeley Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Columbine).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (fun photos, Inflammation magazine, turkey turd, Japanese robots, Big Worm) 01:02:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:32:00 BUNION WATCH 01:41:00 DAVE GOES OFF (rage against the rage) 01:54:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:01:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Columbine, CO) 02:04:00 DAVE GOES OUT
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza
aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.
If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.
It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.
Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”
In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.
Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.
And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time.
However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.
It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.
Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 474th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Aug. 2, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor-singer George Ball. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Joseph Spence, Tony Bennett), Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection (Going Great Guns in Gaza) and the Wretched Pun of Destiny (Football).
Guests: songwriter George Ball, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 00:30:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Joseph Spence 00:44:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 00:53:00 WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY – Football 00:55:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews George Ball 02:03:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (Going Great Guns in Gaza) 02:10:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later: Another Side Knocked Out Again 02:34:00 Friends 02:41:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Tony Bennett 03:01:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Aug. 2, 2014 Playlist: “Good Morning Mr. Walker” (00:30:30), “Yellow Bird” (00:33:00), “Rock Daniel” (00:35:30), “Goodnight Irene” (00:37:30; Joseph Spence). “A New Sun in the Sky” (“The Band Wagon” 1959 film soundtrack; 00:51:30). “Some Enchanted Evening” (00:55:00), “If I Were You” (01:05:00), “The Moon is Still Over her Shoulder” (01:14:00), “Fanette” (01:27:30), “Highway Patrolman” (01:44:30) & “Save the Last Dance for Me” (01:58:00; George Ball). “Ballad in Plain D” (02:40:30) & “Brownsville Girl” (02:23:00; Bob Dylan). “Until I Met You” (02:44:30) “Shakin’ the Blues Away” (02:47:30), “Lost in the Stars” (02:49:00), “For Once in My Life” (02:53:30) & “The Best is Yet to Come” (02:57:00; Tony Bennett). “August Winds” (03:03:00; Sting).
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #105 (8/31/14): Eventful August
aired Aug. 30, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJUCZgwGJnI
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 31st, 2014.
Well, it’s been an eventful month in World Woebegone. What should have been a nice, relaxing laze through the end of summertime – or for those of you in New Zealand, your last good shot at a snowball fight – instead has been an August fraught with war, tumult and misfortune.
Closest to my own heart, of course, is the battle raging between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza. When last we checked in together, Israel was mourning the loss of three innocent hitchhikers who took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. That was followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel – actually it was preceded by and followed by Palestinians firing rockets at Israel. Which led to Israel saying “enough’s enough.”
Which led to massive bombings, more rockets, a couple of psychotic Israelis killing Arab children, a few cease fires that lasted long enough for the Arabs to import more rockets, lots of dead Arab terrorists, Hamas militants and semi-innocent-semi-civilians, too many dead IDF soldiers, and a battle that President Obama has been kind enough to let Israel wage without much interference beyond the occasional “naughty-naughty.”
My feelings about the Gaza situation have been spoken so many times, I feel like a “Murder She Wrote” rerun on the Hallmark Channel. Still, I’ll say it again: tiny little Israel shaved off a sliver of itself to give the Arabs in exchange for peace. What do the Palestinians give us in return? Thousands of attempted murders by rocket attacks, punctuated by the occasional real murder, just to break the monotony. How does Hamas expect to give the Palestinians a permanent home if they’re such horrible tenants when they rent?
And to all the left-wing ignoramuses – ignorami? Ignoramians? – okay, morons, who march in Times Square and the garment district with their Arab flags and their Zionism-is-Nazism banners and their screaming about Israeli war crimes, I will say once again: when the Arabs stop terrorizing Jews – and every other culture in the Western World, we’ll stop killing Arabs back. And if they don’t like living in or near Israel, there’s plenty of Arab land in the Middle East where they can worship Islam, stone their women and cut off each other’s hands for picking their noses.
Oh, and for all those “Democracy Now” types bashing Israel for killing Arabs, guess how many Arabs were killed by Arabs in Syria? 191,000, give or take. Meanwhile, Iraq is falling apart, so we have to go back there because of militant Mohammedans, and in response, a Syrian terrorist cut off the head of an American journalist and put it on youtube to see how many likes he could get. Some say the video is a fake, but even if it is, somebody got his head handed to him.
And speaking of violence: it just wouldn’t be a summer in the American south without racial tension, would it? So a black guy shoplifts from a convenience store, roughs up the owner a little bit when he tries to resist, gets stopped by a cop for reasons that have nothing to do with the crime, starts charging at the officer – or surrendering – depending on whose story you believe, and gets a half a dozen bullets in his head for his troubles.
Are the blacks upset? You bet. The guy had no knife, no gun, no nothing. Instead of his deadliest weapon, the cop coulda reached for a taser, or his nightstick. Then again, Michael Brown coulda reached for his wallet instead of stealing those cigars. He’s lucky the store owner didn’t blow his head off before the po-po did.
Obviously, police have a trigger-finger problem, especially when it comes to foreigners or people whose skin is darker than your average manila file folder. So if this whole Ferguson, Missouri calamity leads to better policing, I’m all for it. But when I see protestors willing to believe everything bad about American cops and everything angelic and wonderful about Michael Brown, my eyebrow rises. And when I see other protestors somehow equating Israel’s retaliation against Hamas with the death of this teenager, my gorge rises. And when I see actress Penelope Cruz denouncing Israel for committing genocide, my dick rises. I can’t help it, it’s Penelope Cruz. But the bitch really needs to show more tits and less mouth. I hope she chokes on her Nescafe.
Speaking of choking, a fond farewell to Robin Williams, actor, comedian and apparently all-around good guy. He really wasn’t that funny, but he made such a constant effort to be funny that you had to give him props and marvel at his gusto. I liked him in “Mork and Mindy,” I loved him in “Awakenings,” and I’ll miss his risk-taking performances as much as his more patented standup. Yes, he suffered from depression, but if you made “Patch Adams,” you’d be depressed, too.
We also had a suicide by Nascar, with Kevin Ward, Jr., stepping out of his vehicle to confront driver Tony Stewart for sending him into a spin. Okay, here’s a math problem everyone: If you stand in front of a car going 250 miles an hour, what are the odds of getting hit by a car going 250 miles an hour? I’d say 100 percent, Alex. Maybe Kevin Ward was too angry to think straight, but he was certainly too dumb to live.
Then again, the state of our government could make anyone suicidal. The Republicans keep vowing to impeach the president for being Karl Marx, while 2016 GOP front runner Rick Perry gets indicted for being Machiavelli.
We lost a nice Jewish girl named Betty Jane Persky who grew up to be Lauren Bacall, and the month of August also gave us a 6.0 earthquake in Northern California, causing millions of dollars of damage to vineyards in Sonoma and Napa Valley. Great, just when we need to get rip-roaring drunk to forget all the crap that’s happening, God smashes the bottles.
So where will we be a month from now? Will Russia invade the Ukraine? Will September 11th come and go without ISIS offering us an anniversary gift? Will Malaysia start making airplanes out of rubber, just in case they have to bounce? Hang on, my friends, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 401st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Nov. 24, 2012. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Rick Lenz (“Cactus Flower,” “Green Acres”), News Gone By, Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (turkey, Down Came the Sun), Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (Gaza Gaza Hey!), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Israel).
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: actor Rick Lenz, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:09:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Turkey 00:27:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Movies 00:35:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Rick Lenz 01:30:00 Sponsors 01:35:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:44:00 SATURDAY SEGUE: Down Came the Sun 02:04:00 NEWS GONE BY 02:17:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #47: Gaza Gaza Hey! 02:24:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Israel) 02:50:00 Weather & Friends – w/ Joyce 03:10:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Nov. 24, 2012 Playlist: “Cold Turkey” (00:09:30; Robyn Hitchcock & the Soft Boys). “Lonesome Electric Turkey” (00:13:30; Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention). “Turkey Lurkey Time” (00:16:00; Promises, Promises; 1968 Broadway cast). “The Thanksgiving Song” (00:19:00; Adam Sandler). “Ho! Ho! Ho! (Who’d Be a Turkey at Christmas?)” (00:22:30; Elton John). “Act Naturally” (00:27:30; Buck Owens). “Cracked Actor” ({live}; 00:29:30; David Bowie). “Western Movies” (00:33:00; The Olympics). “Hollywood Boulevard” (01:25:30), “Waterloo Sunset” (01:59:00) & “Death of a Clown” (02:10:30; The Kinks). “Sundown” 01:44:30; Gordon Lightfoot). “Hurry Sundown” (01:48:00; Peter, Paul & Mary). “Kahuna Sunset” (01:51:00; Buffalo Springfield). “Canadian Sunset” (01:53:30; Andy Williams). “California Sunset” (01:56:00; Neil Young). “Unbelievable” (02:25:00), “Angelina” (02:33:30) & “Blind Willie McTell” (02:40:30; Bob Dylan). “Neighborhood Bully” (02:29:00; Dan Israel & Blood on the Tracks). “Super Duperman” (03:02:30; Dickie Goodman). “Santa Quits” (03:05:30; Dave Lefkowitz).
Rick LenzBob Dylan in IsraelGoldie HawnRabbi Sol SolomonDown Came the Sun
