Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews musicologist Velvel Pasternak. Plus: Inside Broadway, Greeley Crimes, Slimes, & Old Times, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (cafe), Saturday Segues (Richie Havens, In the News).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (klezmer, indiegogo, rimshots, executions) 00:32:00 GREELEY CRIMES, SLIMES, & OLD TIMES 00:56:00 Weather 00:59:00 MORE GREELEY CRIMES, SLIMES, & OLD TIMES 01:27:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Richie Havens 01:47:30 Sponsors 01:50:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:15:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Velvel Pasternak 03:00:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (cafe) 03:19:30 Friends 03:27:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 03:54:30 Weather & Thanks 03:58:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Jan. 21, 2017 Playlist: “Fire Meet Gasoline” (00:39:00; Sia). “Ma Durga” (01:17:00; Krishna Das). “Morning, Morning” (01:32:00), “Dog in the Quicksand” (01:39:30) & “There’s a Hole in the Future” (01:43:30; Richie Havens). “The Long Road” (01:34:30; Cliff Eberhardt w/ Richie Havens). “Top Hat, White Tie, and Tails” (02:08:30; Fred Astaire).”Nigun Rikud” (02:13:00), & “Ki V Simcho” (02:56:30; Chabad Nigunim). “Sign Language” (03:02:30; Eric Clapton w/ Bob Dylan). “One More Cup of Coffee” (03:05:30; Iridescence). “Up to Me” (03:09:30; Bob Dylan). “Ireland” (03:28:00; Greg Trooper). “Je veux vivre dans” (03:32:00; Romeo et Juliette w/ Roberta Peters). “The Circus is in Town” (03:36:00; Patton Oswalt). “Hotter than That” (03:40:00; Louis Armstrong). “San Miguel” (03:43:00; Lonnie Donegan). “Happy Birthday” (04:01:00; Weird Al Yankovic).
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews comedian & life coach Jen Coken
Topics include: life coaching, Judaism.
Segment aired Nov. 5, 2016 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)2016 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 571st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Aug. 20, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guest: entertainer Mark Nadler
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with entertainer Mark Nadler; Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Robert Plant, Fyvush Finkel); Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Slow Train); Dave Goes Off (Whatever Happened to Normal News?).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN (school’s in from summer, fyvush) 00:26:30 Sponsors 00:29:30 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (first fatality, school zones) 00:43:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Robert Plant 01:17:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:38:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Mark Nadler 02:32:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Slow Train) 02:57:00 Friends 03:06:00 DAVE GOES OFF – Whatever Happened to Normal News? 03:26:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Fyvush Finkel 03:43:30 Coming Soon 03:46:00 Weather 03:52:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Aug. 20, 2016 Playlist: “The Rain Song” (00:50:00) & “Kashmir” (01:03:30; Led Zeppelin). “Please Read the Letter” (00:58:00; Robert Plant & Alison Krauss). “Live by the Hook” (Finding Neverland 2014 Broadway cast w/ Matthew Morrison & Kelsey Grammer). “I Got Rhythm” (01:39:00) & “I Love a Piano” (02:26:30; Mark Nadler). “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” (Bob Dylan). “I Believe in You” (02:44:00; Cat Power). “Gotta Serve Somebody” (02:48:00; Mavis Staples). “I am the Swag” (02:59:30; Art Paul Schlosser). “It’s Never Too Late” (03:31:00), “The Finkel Salsa” (03:53:30) & “Abi Tsu Sein (As Long as I’m with You)”(03:38:30; Fyvush Finkel). “The School Boy” (03:55:00; Allen Ginsberg).
(pictured: Mark Nadler, Robert Plant, Fyvush Finkel, Dylan’s Slow Train Coming)
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 558th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, May 21, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: humorist Dylan Brody, Dave’s wife Joyce.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews humorist Dylan Brody. Plus: Inside Broadway, Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Saturday Segue (In the News), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (fallen angels).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (shiva TV, wasp nest, new Dylan, 120, fish vs. meat, Carvel) 00:45:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:17:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN w/ Joyce (Smelterites) 01:23:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 01:50:00 Sponsors 01:52:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:14:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Dylan Brody 03:20:30 Sponsors 03:23:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (fallen angels) 03:41:30 Friends 03:52:00 Weather 03:53:30 DAVE GOES OUT
May 21, 2016 Playlist: “4th and Vine” (01:24:30; Sinead O’Connor). “Airport Security” (01:28:00; Lewis Black). “Sue Egypt” (01:33:30; Captain Beefheart). “Mr. Ed Theme” (01:36:30; Jay Livingston). “Elegance” (02:10:00; Hello, Dolly! 1964 Broadway cast). “Heisenberg” (02:13:00), “Revolution 1” (03:14:00) & “Waiting Here” (03:15:00; Dylan Brody). “Polka Dots and Moonbeams” (03:25:00), “All the Way” (03:29:30) & “It Had to Be You” (03:33:00; Bob Dylan). “We’re Gonna Get Married” (03:56:00; Randy Newman).
Click above to listen to the interview (audio only).
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews humorist Dylan Brody
Topics include: comedy, Paul Provenza, depression, Judaism, religion, Steve Allen, George Carlin, Garry Shandling, Robin Williams.
Segment aired May 21, 2016 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)2016 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 24, 2016.
Among the great inventions of mankind are the wheel, the lever, the polio vaccine, and the computer microchip. But let’s not leave out one of my favorite all-time creations. Something so simple yet so perfectly imperfect. Something both great and crummy — pun intended.
You take flour and water, mix them together, roll it flat flat flat—flatter than a ten-year-old’s training bra—poke the dough with tiny holes, and push it into a super-hot, dry oven. After a couple of agonizing minutes, shazam! Matzoh! Somehow, this flour-and-water combo doesn’t turn into pita bread, it doesn’t become olive loaf, it doesn’t blossom into a Pepperidge Farm cookie. It just stays matzoh, and that’s good enough for me. Almost.
See, you can get Streit’s or Horowitz-Margareten or Manischewitz and other commercial brands of matzoh, and they’ll get you through the Passover holiday just fine. You make matzoh brei, where you dip it in egg; you can crumble it and make matzoh-meal pancakes, which iHop would not be remiss in adding to their international breakfasts. Dear God, they make chocolate-covered matzoh, which sounds gross, but hey, if they can do it with crickets and bumble bees, why not the bread of affliction? (Chocolate-covered matzoh is not to be confused, by the way, with chocolate matzoh, which is just a giant chocolate bar made into the shape of a matzoh. In other words, a thousand times better. Chocolate-covered matzoh is to chocolate matzoh as a gold-plated watch is to a Rolex. If you promise your grandchildren chocolate matzoh, but you give them the chocolate covered, don’t expect them to visit you in the nursing home years later.)
But I digress. Matzoh is a tasty, non-nutritional but sustaining food meant to remind us of the bread our ancestors ate when they high-tailed it out of Egypt. `Cuz when you’re leavin’ hasty, you ain’t got time for pastry.
However, my reflection today is not just about matzoh; it’s about a special version of matzoh. The platinum standard, if you will. And I will. When I’m conducting a seder, or kicking back watchin’ baseball during chol hamoed, I want me some shmura matzoh! That’s the stuff! That’s the bread of affection! It’s the same flour and water, the same procedures. But with shmura matzoh, the harvested grain is guarded from the very first second it’s plucked to the moment the Rabbi slides it and its compadres out of the oven.
Shmura matzoh is the ultimate homemade bread. No machines, no slicer cutting the edges into right angles. No opening a box where every piece looks like a ceiling tile in a suburban office. Shmuras are individually mixed, rolled, and baked. And they don’t look beautiful or symmetrical. They’re lumpy, they’re brittle, often overcooked, and the burnt parts are all over the place. In fact, shmura matzohs are so ugly, they could replace Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill.
But oy my God, are they delicious! There’s something so real and so pure about them. Everything else you get in the store is machine-pressed, dye-cut, flushed with preservatives, and so far away from actual food, you’re not even sure what the hell you’re eating. With shmura matzoh you taste three things: flour, water, and Rabbi sweat.
Now there’s all sorts of hoo-ha/doo-dah rules about using shmura matzohs. You’re supposed to eat them only at the seder and no other time — not even the rest of the holiday. I’m sorry, but at $17 a box with six pieces of bread in it, I’ll eat it on Christmas if I want to. Also, since the matzoh is utilized during the seder ceremony — including breaking it for the afikomen, the bread has to be complete, unbroken. You think it was tough for the Jews to cross the Nile out of Egypt? Try getting a one-millimeter cracker from a Brooklyn factory to a Staten Island dinner table without having a few oopsies.
Still, it’s worth it because shmura matzohs are the bomb. Yes, they’re impossible to butter, and they don’t actually break in half; they splinter — leaving shards of crumbs everywhere you look. But I don’t care; their deliciousness trumps all. I mean, on Passover, we have to eat raw horseradish, and then we have to take yummy charoset and ruin it by mixing it with horseradish, and then for eight days: no pizza, no pretzels, no ravioli, no danish, no muffins, no waffles, no wafers, no hoagies, no heroes, no oatmeal, no beer. So if I want a piece of homecooked unleavened bread that looks like a manhole cover but tastes like Judaism, I will seek no further than shmura matzohs. Mmm mmm flavorless — and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. A zissen Pesach to ya.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 6th, 2016.
Lost in all the hoopla of the primaries and the caucuses and the polls and the insults—and Donald Trump having his pole insulted—is another news story: a happy one, one that should make America proud. No, I’m not talking about Cam Newton getting spanked in the Super Bowl. I’m referring to Scott Kelly, brave American astronaut, who returned to planet earth last week after spending 11 months in outer space.
Think about that. 340 days floating high up in the universe. I can’t spend an hour in TJ Maxx without wanting to bite my own face off, and this guy willingly survives a whole year living in what is essentially a schmekel-shaped motor home.
Why did he do it? Not for personal gain, not to make a million bucks, not to pick up chicks—although I’ve heard the women on Neptune are kinda slutty. No, he did it for science, for the sheer joy of exploration and education. After all, it’s not like Kelly was setting a record. The longest time orbiting away from earth was 438 days by Valeri Polyakov in 1994. And back then, spending a year and a half away from Russia was a plus! Why come home? To see Boris Yeltsin vomit on his shoes? To rejoice when the supermarket has two kinds of toilet paper?
Of course, it’s easy to make fun of the old Soviet Union. “What a country!” See? I just did Yakov Smirnov’s whole act. But we must ask similar questions about astronaut Scott Kelly. He’s been gone since March 27th of last year. What did he miss? Let’s see: The Mayweather/Pacquiao fight. An Amtrak derailment. Cops killing black people. A redneck killing a church full of black people. An Academy Awards full of token black people. San Bernadino. Planned Parenthood. Isis on the warpath, Jon Stewart and David Letterman off the TV, Mets lose the Series, Bowie goes bye-bye, Chipotle gives you diarrhea, mosquitoes give you babies with tiny heads, and Michigan water kills you. Welcome back to earth, Scott Kelly!
Remember that old song, “Eve of Destruction?” Fifty years ago, P.F. Sloan nailed it with his lyrics: “You may leave here for four days in space / But when you return, it’s the same old place.” (Although gas is a little cheaper.) The point is: after all that time in the stratosphere, Scott Kelly comes back to the same crumbling bridges, the same reality shows, the same divided country, the same big blue marble getting knocked away from the center of the universe.
And if you’re wondering just how prescient “Eve of Destruction” was, look at the other lyrics: “Hate your next-door neighbor” – No need to hate; just build a wall to keep them from becoming our dishwashers and fruitpickers. And “don’t forget to say grace”—because Evangelicals have done so much with their prayers to help and unite this country.
As for Scott Kelly, he still has to re-integrate into what we laughingly call “society.” In fact, before he goes home, NASA will study him to suss out the long-term effects of space travel on mental and physical health. The goal is to figure out what shape astronauts might have to be in to go all the way to Mars. Which again goes back to the good side of space travel. Yes, it costs bazillions of dollars that could go to boosting minimum wage. Yes, it sometimes seems the only thing NASA ever gave us was moon rocks and Tang . . . and that psycho-astrogirl who wore a diaper. But learning more about the universe is always good, even if it’s just to discover that Pluto’s been screwing with us and had no intention of being a planet in the first place. And don’t get me started on Uranus. At least not in public.
So baruch hashav, Scott Kelly! Your home state of New Jersey is giving you a ticker tape parade. No, wait, that’s Governor Christie shredding his career.
In his first interview since touching down on terra firma, Kelly said that without question, he would go back into space again. Who knows? He might stay a year, two years up there. And we still won’t have a new Supreme Court justice.
You know what, Scott? If you do go back, take me with you. I can’t cook, I don’t clean, I can’t fix equipment, and I know nothing about the galaxy. But I can count backwards from 10, I can dress as a banana—so if you’ve still got that gorilla suit, there’s tons of levity right there, and I keep shabbos, so you’d have a day of rest after all that scientific record-keeping stuff. And hey, maybe I can help you colonize Mars. After all, President Trump is gonna need somewhere to put all the refugees.
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 new year! January 1st, 2016.
It has been an interesting year, this 2015. Not terrible. Not miserable. Not even a dull headache like most years. 2015 had its ups, it had its downs—kind of like Liza Minnelli’s medicine chest.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way. This was the year when terrorism said, “I’m baaack.” Not that it ever went away. Not that jihadists haven’t been wreaking mayhem all over the world since 9/11. Since before 9/11. But this was the year it hit home again: the year animals shot up a Paris cafe because they didn’t like Charlie Hebdo magazine’s cartoons. I mean, Gasoline Alley, I understand. Marmaduke, Rhymes with Orange—never funny. Even Hagar the Horrible is looking a little long in the tooth, but you’re gonna go psycho over French cartoons? Put down the Koran and eat a brioche.
But poor France; one attack wasn’t enough. The religion of peace struck again in November, when 130 people were killed in coordinated attacks and bombings. The murderers, of course, had ties to Isis. But whether it was chocolate isis or lemon ices, I don’t know. The good news is that Paris pushed back and killed the ringleader of the carnage, just weeks after three American friends on vacation in Amsterdam jumped on a knife-wielding turbanista and foiled his plot on a train. I guess he didn’t learn from New York that the best way to terrorize people on a train is to start breakdancing, yelling jokes, and then asking for money.
Wait, what? You’re not satisfied? You want more terrorism? Okay, let’s go to San Bernadino. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to kill everyone at a bad office party? But you had this couple – Sayed Farook and his charming wife, Tashfeen, being helped by a Hispanic neighbor to slaughter a group of white, Asian and African co-workers. Who said America can’t be multicultural?
And of course, not all murder is Mohammedan. Yes, you’ve got a civil war in Syria, where the Arabs are killing each other—so who cares? But this autumn also saw Robert Dear enter a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and kill three people in the name of Jesus. “I’m a warrior for the babies,” he said. No, asshole, you’re a warrior for little blobs with heartbeats that no one wants to take care of. I just think the guy’s pissed because he looks like Nick Nolte on a bad hair day. Well, even-worse hair day.
Moving away from religious nuts with guns, this was also the year of authorities with guns—specifically policemen shooting first and suppressing evidence later. I’m not saying all the black men shot in the back by men in blue were choirboys, but if you’re not armed, and you’re running away or chained to the back seat of a car, you should be able to live long enough for an arraignment.
And speaking of dead black people, you’d think schvartzes would be safe in church, but no. Back in June, white supremacist Dylann Roof pops into a church in Charleston and kills nine in the congregation. And you thought my sermons were boring.
Well, there’s certainly nothing boring about politics this year. Though the presidential election isn’t for another ten months, we’ve already had 12 months of mind-boggling insanity, almost all of it on the Republican side. The front-runner is a businessman who’s gone bankrupt four times, a public speaker who makes fun of cripples, and a bully who thinks he can keep all Muslims from entering the USA. In other words, Donald Trump is a man after my own heart. And his competition? Right-wing Conservative Christian crazies, a brilliant heart surgeon who doesn’t believe in evolution, a Cuban novice who wants to give everybody a gun and nobody an abortion, Rand Paul . . . `nuff said, a fat guy from New Jersey who commandeers his own highway, and Jeb Bush, a man whose whole family should have a thousand-yard restraining order from coming anywhere near the White House. They shouldn’t even be allowed near regular houses that are painted white.
On the other side, you’ve got Hilary Clinton, who will do and say anything to stay in power. Any philosopher who says there’s no such thing as objective truth had to be studying Mr. and Mrs. Clinton. But hey, half of politics is knowing what to say—and what not to say—at any given moment. Or what to say when you’re actually doing the opposite. Or what to say when you’re doing nothing at all, which qualifies you for Congress. Hilary thought she’d cakewalk through the Democratic nomination, but then comes this angry brazen Jew, a cross between Jackie Mason and the math professor who terrified you in 12th grade. No, I don’t mean me, I mean Bernie Sanders. Can you imagine Americans electing a Jewish, socialist President named Bernie? It’d be wonderful but my God, the fireside chats? The man has two styles of rhetoric: yelling and louder yelling. He takes the oath of office, half the pigeons are gonna fly in a panic out of Washington DC.
Oh, and in the lighter side of politics, the biggest Broadway musical of the century so far is not about cats, it’s not about Mormons, and it’s not even about homosexuals. How the hell did it find a theater? But it did, and “Hamilton” is doing for our first Secretary of the Treasury what A Streetcar Named Desire did for streetcars. And desires. Meanwhile, “Star Wars” is back. No, I don’t mean Taylor Swift versus Katie Perry, I mean “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which is already the eighth-highest-grossing movie of all time. Somehow it beat out “Human Centipede III,” but that’s just because most people watched it on GAF viewmaster. Seriously, though, Mark Kermode, film critic for the UK Guardian wrote, and I quote, “this satire of grotesque American culture is as appealing as being force-fed warm diarrhea.” Unquote. Which begs the question, is that better or worse than being force-fed ice-cold diarrhea?
It’s a question they’re asking at Chipotle, where the food looks the same going out as it does coming in. And speaking of sickening, eight people were killed in Philadelphia when an Amtrak train going 100 miles an hour jumped a curve and turned over. On the positive side for Amtrak, it was their first on-time arrival all year.
The shock of the unexpected also hit sports, where the New York Mets made it to the World Series, the New York Jets lost a quarterback to a broken jaw from a fist fight, and Caitlyn Jenner killed a guy. Well, two guys, if you count Bruce. But it was a great year for gays, as the Supreme Court voted to make same-sex marriage as legal and binding as regular marriage. And no doubt as dreary and boring and sexless. Welcome to equality, guys.
And welcome 2016, you couldn’t come soon enough. There’ll be more tragedy, absurdity, beauty, stupidity, hilarity, vulgarity, disparity and, if the economy stays good, a bissel charity. Three weeks ago, nice Jewish boy Mark Zuckerberg, announced that he is donating 99 percent of his Facebook shares to worthy causes. What a mensch! What an example for the world! Oh, did I mention that I’m starting a non-profit organization to help Rabbis with rage issues? I’m kind of a test case, and I need a lot of start-up funding so Markele, if you’re listening, make the check out to Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Shana Tovah, everybody! See you in the New Year.
Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).
Here is the 537th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired Dec. 19, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (Word of the Year); Saturday Segue (Phil Ochs, Frank Zappa); Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (in the News); Inside Broadway; Greeley Crimes & Old Times.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Berli’os, underground newspapers) 00:24:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 00:56:30 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (piglette, snowstorm) 01:06:30 Sponsors 01:10:00 DAVE GOES EVEN FURTHER IN (Marriott, The Producers) 01:28:00 SATURDAY SEGUE (Phil Ochs) 01:51:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:10:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (in the news) 02:36:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #133 (Word of the Year) 02:47:00 Friends 02:54:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (Frank Zappa) 03:14:30 Weather & Thanks 03:20:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Dec. 20, 2015 Playlist: “Chanukah Fever” (00:50:30; Mama Doni). “Ballad of William Worthy” (01:36:30), “How Long” (01:39:00), “Half a Century High” (01:42:00) & “Jim Dean of Indiana” (01:45:00; Phil Ochs). “Wedding Dance” (02:08:00; Fiddler on the Roof 1964 Broadway cast). “You’re a Big Girl Now” ({acoustic} 02:12:30) & “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight” (02:21:30; Bob Dylan). “Man in the Long Black Coat” (02:17:00; Joan Osborne). “Love of My Life” (02:57:00), “Charlie’s Enormous Mouth” (03:01:00), “Inca Roads” (03:05:00) & “Any Way the Wind Blows” (03:08:30; Frank Zappa). “What Will Rumi Do?” (02:59:00; Ensemble Modern). “Holiday” (03:21:00; American Idiot 2010 Broadway cast).
Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 23, 2015.
Two weeks ago, 90-year-old former president Jimmy Carter announced that he was battling an advanced stage of cancer—or, as Jewish people call it (whispers) cancer. Snipped from his liver was a tumor, but they also found badness elsewhere, which is not surprising since both of Carter’s parents, his two sisters, and his brother all died of pancreatic you-know-what.
Jimmy still has his 87-year-old wife, Rosalynn, who says she will be “right there with him” throughout his treatment. So will the town of Plains, Georgia, and a lot of Americans who remember Carter as one of the smartest, most honest, and most decent of men to occupy the oval office.
My feelings are a mite more mixed, however. Just because Carter was a mensch doesn’t mean he was a good President. In fact, up until George W. Bush, he was the worst Commander in Chief in a hundred years. And considering that crop included Richard Nixon and Warren G. Harding, that’s saying something.
In case you weren’t around from 1977 to 1981, what you missed was the recession, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis, the Cold War, and the confidence crisis. You know your President is a bona fide schlemiel when he has to go on television to tell everyone, “It’s not me, it’s you. Have a little faith.” Faith is hard to come by when you’re idling at the gas station for two hours on odd and even days, or when you can’t find a job to pay what gasoline costs, or you’re turning your thermostat to 50 because the Mullahs at OPEC want you to.
And speaking of the Arabs, the Carter years were also, of course, the years of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Fifty-two American hostages were taken prisoner as part of the Iranian Revolution. I suppose we should be grateful all the hostages survived. If they were captured now, Isis would cut their limbs off and rape the stumps. Still, these Americans remained in captivity for a year and a half, until Ronald Reagan made backroom deals to have them released on the first day of his presidency.
Until then, Jimmy Carter had three responses to the Iranian hostage crisis: He barricaded himself in his office for a hundred days, because as any eight-year-old knows, if you hide in the closet, nobody knows you’re there, and all the bad stuff goes away. His second tactic was to wear sweaters, because that’ll show those big bad oil sheiks we can live without heat. And finally, he sent helicopters to try a rescue mission—and they all crashed in the desert.
It was right about then America stopped laughing at Billy Carter and turned her woeful eyes on his older brother. If Watergate was a cancer on the Presidency, Jimmy Carter was a herpes all over it.
Still, lousy as Carter’s term was, I would still want to respect the man. After all, he brokered an impossible deal between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to create a small piece of peace in the Middle East. It truly was and remains an unbelievable, wonderful, and, alas, one-of-a-kind event in that region. And yet, can peanut boy leave well enough alone?
No, he spends the last few years bleeding through his sleeve for the poor, poor Palestinians. He writes a damn book with the inflammatory title, “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid,” equating Israel with racist South Africa—even though the Palestinians are demanding land that belongs to Israel, land Israel annexed after being attacked, land that should be for Jews and Israeli citizens because the Arabs have a zillion other places to live.
Carter tries to play both sides of the fence. He sometimes makes nice-nice to Israel, saying he doesn’t support a boycott of the country over its policies. But then he turns around and chastises Eretz Yisroel for the way she conducts a war against an enemy that’s lobbing rockets in her backyard.
Like so many liberals and misinformed do-gooders, Jimmy Carter loves to invent a moral equivalency when there isn’t one. “Both Israel and Hamas are equally wrong and share equal blame,” which is not true; and let’s harp on Israel but be really gentle with the Arabs because we don’t want to make them mad. After all, Islam, the religion of peace, blows a ton of shit up, peacefully.
My main point is: considering his failure at almost every aspect of domestic and foreign leadership, and how he was humiliated by the Ayatollah—a guy who looked like Sean Connery wearing a microwavable heat wrap on his head—Jimmy Carter has as much business telling Israel what to do about the Muslims, as Michelle Duggar has telling the Pritzkers how to raise children. Of all people, Jimmy Carter should be the last one to believe you can reason with radicals, bargain with bullies, and mollify murderers.
After all, as we speak, Jimmy Carter’s body is being invaded by cancer cells that mean him only harm. Should the president’s doctor say, “Well, it’s not right to kill these invaders; it’s your fault for having a desirable host they want to live in. But tell you what. Why don’t you sacrifice so you can live in harmony with your cancer. Let them take your pancreas, your liver, your balls and your bones, and you can live side by side. And they promise never ever ever to move into your blood. Or least not for a week or two. Whaddya say?”
I say, “Jimmy Carter, you’ve done some good in this world, so I don’t wish you prolonged suffering. Still, if you had to get the big C, couldn’t you have gotten it in your mouth?”
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews comedian & life coach Jen Coken
(pictured: Mark Nadler, Robert Plant, Fyvush Finkel, Dylan’s Slow Train Coming)
