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Here is the 553rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 16, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with musician Graham Parker. Plus: Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Laterns), Saturday Segue (in the news), Inside Broadway.
Guests: Singer-songwriter Graham Parker, Dave’s wife Joyce.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN (Dave’s cold, Dave in New York, homophobia) 00:46:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:25:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 01:45:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:10:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Graham Parker 03:30:00 Sponsors 03:35:00 Friends 03:40:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later 03:56:30 Thanks & Sponsors 04:00:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 16, 2016 Playlist: “My Buddy” (01:25:30; DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince). “Be My Guest” (01:29:00; Fats Domino). “Great Balls of Fire” (01:31:30; Tiny Tim). “Listen the Snow is Falling” (01:33:30; Yoko Ono). “When I Grow Up/Naughty” (02:08:00; Matilda 2013 Broadway cast). “Going There” (02:10:30), “Transit of Venus” (02:22:30), “Protection” (02:40:00), “Big Man on Paper” (02:56:00), “Local Girls” (03:09:00), “Long Stem Rose” (03:19:00), “My Life in Movieland” (03:26:30) & “Release Me” (04:01:00; Graham Parker). “Melancholy Mood” (03:42:30), “Worried Blues” (03:45:30) & “Isis” ({live Biograph version; 03:48:00).
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.
Here is the 464th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, March 29, 2014. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with Tony-winner Ben Vereen. Plus: Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (The 80s), Saturday Segues (Tracy Chapman, knees)
Guest: actor-singer Ben Vereen
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:18:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (Tracy Chapman) 00:50:30 Sponsors 00:54:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:18:00 GUEST: Ben Vereen 02:02:00 Friends 02:15:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (the 80s) 02:46:00 Sponsors 02:51:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION – Fred Phelps 03:02:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (knees) 03:34:00 Weather & Thanks 03:39:30 DGB in the News! 03:48:00 DAVE GOES OUT
March 29, 2014 Playlist: “Hard Wired” (00:21:00) , “Dreaming on a World (00:24:30), “Be and Not Be Afraid” (00:29:30), “Say Hallelujah” (00:34:00), “Devotion” (00:36:30) & “Open Arms” (00:39:00; Tracy Chapman). “Watch What Happens” (Newsies 2012 Broadway cast; 01:13:00). “Magic to Do” (Pippin 1972 Broadway cast w/ Ben Vereen; 01:15:00). “Greatest Love of All” (01:38:00; Ben Vereen). “Superstar” (01:55:30; Jesus Christ Superstar 1971 Broadway cast w/ Ben Vereen). “Shalom Santa” (02:04:00; Carole J. Bufford). “Unbelievable” (02:20:00), “Sweetheart Like You” (02:24:00), “Pressing On” (02:28:00) & “Dark Eyes” (02:36:30; Bob Dylan) . “Congratulations” (02:33:00; Traveling Wilburys). “Dancer with Bruised Knees” (03:05:30; Kate & Anna McGarrigle). “Hangman’s Knee” (03:09:00; Jeff Beck). “Stand on My Own Two Knees” (03:14:00; George Jones). “Einstein on the Beach – Knee Play 3” (03:16:30; Philip Glass). “Oh Susannah” (03:22:00; Neil Young & Crazy Horse). “Knee Drops” (03:27:00; Louis Armstrong). “One April Day” (03:50:30; Stephin Merritt).
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #22 (8/28/2011): REB LEVIN
Aired Aug. 27, 2011 on Dave’s Gone By. watch on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItywotfPBcg
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 28th, 2011.
My friends, there are so many wonderful Jews who have contributed so much to the world: Jonas Salk, Albert Einstein, Irving Berlin, me… And yet, every once in awhile, we’re confronted with a yiddle, who doesn’t know his tush from his middle. Jews who are evil or ignorant or who merely seem to deny the existence of soap and deodorant.
And so, for every hundred Baruch Spinozas, we get a Bernie Madoff. For every thousand Bob Dylans, we get a Kenny G. So now it pains me to say there’s a Jewish leader going viral on the internet with a homophobic rant. Rabbi Yehuda Levin – and I use the word “Rabbi” loosely, like the way I use the phrase, “I’ll pay you next week,” Rabbi Levin took to the web a few days ago, specifically the day an earthquake struck northern Virginia, and shockwaves were felt all the way up to Manhattan. Loony Levin took this as a sign that HaShem was punishing New York for legalizing gay marriage.
Don’t take my word for it – here’s the Flatbush flake himself:
(transcript of audio) “There’s a direct connection between earthquakes and homosexuality.”
Really? So the Japanese are all gay? The Chinese in 1976? San Francisco in 1906? All right, San Francisco I get, but Peru? India? Portugal – well, it happened in Lisbon, so maybe God got confused and thought they said “Lesbian.”
Rabbi Levin goes on to say:
(transcript of audio) “In New York City and State, where they opened especially on Sunday early after they passed the homosexual marriage law. They couldn’t wait until the regular Monday, but all the county clerks had to open early to service the homosexual couples who wanted to get married.”
Hey, you should be happy. At least they didn’t open Saturday. And that is an interesting choice of words. The clerks had to “service” these homosexual couples. That’s not marriage, that’s a threesome.
The Rabbi goes on to draw a spurious comparison between the new marriage laws and the story of Sodom, where strangers threatened to rape Lot’s family. To Reb Levin, the intruders weren’t wicked because they terrorized the family with sex and violence. No, the wicked part was that their targets were buttholes instead of mouths and twats.
We then get that old saw about natural disasters being God’s response to sinners. Usually, this claptrap comes out of the mouths of born-again goyim on Sunday morning TV. Shameful! Not so much for being delusional, but for pre-empting Matlock.
Still, Rabbi Levin saves his best line about homosexuality till near the end – no pun intended.
(transcript of audio) “You have your shaken your male member in a place where it does not belong.”
Learn this phrase now, because you will no doubt be hearing it on Jimmy Kimmel, Tosh O., The Soup, and, strangely enough, “Bob the Builder.”
(transcript of audio) “You have your shaken your male member in a place where it does not belong.”
Let me tell you something. If you ever had to take a pee in the Port Authority men’s room, you have shaken your male member in a place where it does not belong.
Look, I am not gay, but some of my best friends have acquaintances who know people who are gay. So why can’t people live and let live? The only good thing this Jewish jughead says in the whole video is, “We do not hate homosexuals.” He feels bad for them. Well, so do I. Now that they can get married, they’ll be as miserable as the rest of us.
As for Rabbi Levin, his greatest worry is that legalized homosexuality is just another rung on society’s downward spiral. Or, as he puts it:
(transcript of audio) “We want everyone to understand that if these kinds of activities, and continuing to legislate it, until the moral fiber of this country is forced down the throats of the religious people…”
Leaving aside that that sentence has the grammatical clarity of a Thomas Pynchon novel, what an interesting choice of words the Rabbi uses: “Moral fiber forced down the throats of religious people.” By any chance, Rabbi, would that moral fiber be pink, swollen, blue-veined and have hairy balls underneath it? And if it does, would that be your lucky day?
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. (transcript of audio) “You have your shaken your male member in a place where it does not belong.” Never gets old.
