Dave Lefkowitz interviews friends Fred Cleaver & Wendy Highby
Topics include: birthdays, film.
Segment aired Jan. 23, 2016 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program (birthday special) 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
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 22nd, 2015.
Problems in the Middle East got you down? Sick of the fighting over healthcare and immigration between the left and the right? Constipated by last night’s meal? (I know I am.) We’re still in the ass-end of winter, the Super Bowl has come and gone, and Purim is mainly for kids, so hurray for the Academy Awards, here to give grownups a shpritz of glitz and a glimpse of glamour, if only for a night. It’s a chance to forget our woes and wallow in Hollywood worship. Three-and-a-half hours of people who make more money in a week than you will in a lifetime, patting each other on the back over just how hard their jobs are.
I’m being sarcastic but, you know, you can take 80 million dollars and make a piece of drek, or you can take that same amount of money and create something memorable and touching and fun. Or best of all, you can take 80 million dollars, give me two million, and I don’t give a crap what you do with the rest.
Anyhoo, this year’s Oscar roster is an eclectic bunch. It seems they always are now that they allow something like 37 movies up for Best Picture. There’s been controversy this season over how white all the acting nominees are. Not one best or featured actor is a person of color – unless you count Robert Duvall, who’s grey, or Benedict Cumberbatch, who, if he were a paint, would be eggshell.
This could be pushback from last year, when “12 Years a Slave” won for best picture, and you had African actors up for other prizes. Considering what John Travolta did to that nice Jewish girl Idina Menzel, maybe the Academy is just terrified of what he’d do to “Selma” actors like David Oyelowo and Carmen Ejogo.
Up for Best Picture is “Selma” – so I feel bad for her sister, Patti – as is “American Sniper,” which is also controversial because in one scene, Bradley Cooper is holding a baby, but it’s obviously a plastic doll. The screenwriter later tweeted that the first infant got sick and the second didn’t show up, so they had to go with a fake. Still, viewers are crying foul, saying how dare Clint Eastwood ask us to use our imaginations and suspend disbelief. That’s what Fox News is for.
Vying with “Selma” and “American Sniper” for Oscar honors are “Birdman,” “Whiplash,” “Boyhood,” The Grand Budapest Hotel,” The Imitation Game,” and “The Theory of Everything.” “Birdman” is about a washed-up actor who keeps trying to make a comeback on Broadway. Or, as I like to call it, the Tony Danza Story. “Whiplash” stars J.K. Simmons as a music teacher so obnoxious and abusive, he missed his calling and should have become a New York City cop.
Then you’ve got “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” a Wes Anderson confection about an old man who can’t give up the one thing that keeps him young. Or, as I call it, The Bill Cosby Story.
We also have “The Imitation Game,” which tells the tale of Alan Turing, a genius who cracked the Nazi code in World War II, only to be hounded to suicide because he was a faigeleh. The tragedy of Alan Turing is that he voluntarily underwent chemical castration, when all he had to do was find the right woman, marry her, and she’d castrate him every day of his life.
Also up for the big prize is “Boyhood,” a story of adolescence that has the critics kvelling because Richard Linklater shot it over the course of 12 years. That’s not inspiration, that’s laziness. Instead of using makeup and padding to make Patricia Arquette look old and fat, he let God do it.
And finally we come to “The Theory of Everything,” a bio-pic about astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. You know, the guy who wrote “A Brief History of Time,” which everyone bought but no one could understand. Kind of like Reaganomics. The point of the movie is that Hawking didn’t let Lou Gehrig’s disease cramp his mojo, especially since it didn’t affect his brain. Well, not until 2013, when that homely hobbit chose to boycott Israel over its supposed mistreatment of the Palestinians. The only black holes Stephen Hawking should be concerned with are the ones in Muslims’ hearts.
So there you have it: the nominees for the 87th annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles. I would be remiss, however, not to mention one of the nominees for best Foreign Film: “Ida,” about a Polish woman who’s about to become a Catholic nun when she learns that her parents, murdered during the Holocaust, were actually Jewish. You can tell that the movie is Polish because it’s set in 1872. Just kidding. You might also check out the Animated Feature Film nominee called “The Boxtrolls,” just because that’s what they really should rename the remaining women on “The View.”
So everyone get your popcorn, your ballot sheets, your No-Doz for Sunday night, February 22nd, when the Oscars arrive and all’s right with America. I’ll miss Joan Rivers on the Red Carpet. Though she was more fun on the kitchen table. Again, just kidding. In closing, I’d like to thank the Academy, my parents and the Lord. And I’m not even schvartz.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
The 24th Wretched Pun of Destiny segment aired Feb. 7, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
*
24. A big Hollywood producer invites all his colleagues to his house. The occasion is a pre-release party for his latest film, a remake of the sci-fi classic, “Soylent Green.” As the opening credits begin, the screenwriter notices that the title had been changed to “People.”
He jumps out of his chair and yells at the producer, “How could you change the name without my permission?”
The producer says, “Sorry, the studio thought `Soylent Green’ was too obscure, so they made me change it.”
“And you obeyed? You coward!” the writer screams, leaping on the producer and pummeling him with his fists. Terrified, the producer runs up the stairs and dashes into the guest room, but the writer is right behind him. They tussle and eventually fall on the bed, which is piled high with the coats of all the party guests.
Meanwhile, the police are called, and they hurry to the guest room, where they see the producer now has the upper hand. He’s throttling the screenwriter within an inch of his life, and both of them are twisted up in all the coats and jackets on the bed.
“Okay, knock it off!” says the head policeman.
“Where am I?” says the screenwriter.
“You’re in fantasyland if you think you control my movie!”, says the producer.
“Enough!” shouts the policeman, pointing at one and then the other. “You’re Under a Vest. and You Have the Right to Rename Soylent.”
Here is the 494th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Jan. 24, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with screenwriter Philip Halprin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Crime Time, The Wretched Pun of Destiny (broccoli), Dylan – Sooner & Later (stay with me), Saturday Segue (Warren Zevon).
Guests: screenwriter Philip Halprin, Dave’s wife Joyce Weil
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce Weil (birthday meal, ramekin, radio training day, staying out of touch) 00:25:00 CRIME TIME 01:03:30 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN w/ Joyce Weil (women’s basketball) 01:55:30 Sponsors 02:02:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:24:30 GUEST: Philip Halprin 03:44:30 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #23 (broccoli) 03:48:00 Friends 03:56:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (stay with me) 04:26:00 Weather 04:27:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Jan. 24, 2015 Playlist: “Trouble Waiting to Happen” (01:37:00), “Numb as a Statue” (01:41:00), “Tule’s Blues” (01:45:00) & “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead” (01:48:30; Warren Zevon). “Midnight Radio” (02:21:00; Hedwig and the Angry Inch 2007 Australian cast w/ Blazey Best). “Stay with Me” (04:24:30 & 04:31:00) & “What was it You Wanted” (04:10:30; Bob Dylan). “Stay with Me” (04:07:00; Frank Sinatra). “Wanted Man” ({live}; 04:15:30; Johnny Cash).
The 21st Wretched Pun of Destiny aired Jan. 17, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full interview with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast.
All content (c)2015 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
* 21. A young female screenwriter lucks out and scores a meeting with the biggest producer in Hollywood. Her jealous colleagues don’t warn her, however, that he’s incredibly impatient and quite old-school sexist, and that she shouldn’t be surprised if he shows little interest in plot, character or dialogue but is mainly concerned with the tone and overall milieu of the story’s locations.
So the writer begins the pitch meeting by complimenting the producer on his many awards, but he cuts her off and says, “Skip all that, honey. Just get to the script.”
She starts reading the first page and the character list. “Skip that crap,” says the producer. “What’s it about?”
Flustered, the actress begins explaining the movie’s synopsis. But 20 seconds in, the producer is at her again. “Skip the plot, sweetheart. They’re all the same; you know that.”
“Well, what about the dialogue? The love story? The action sequences?”
“Boring,” says the producer. “Just tell me about the sense of place.”
“Really?” says the actress. “You want me to ignore everything but the mise-en-scene?”
“Exactly!” says the producer. Or, as he sings: “Skip, Skip, Skip to Milieu, My Darling.”
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas
Aired June 15, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNbhdtkQgw
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 16th, 2013.
How much do we really need to know about the private lives of celebrities? Everything – these days, it seems. We know what Gwyneth Paltrow eats for breakfast, what Kirstie Alley eats for dinner, and now, what Michael Douglas eats in bed.
No one forced him. No one put a gun to his head – I don’t mean the eating part, I mean telling the world about it. Three weeks ago, Douglas told the Guardian magazine of London that his throat cancer probably did not come from his smoking or his drinking. He said, hint hint, you can also get the Big C from doing the little C: cunnilingus. Until last month, I had no idea what the hell that was. Cunnilingus. I thought it a was low-cost Irish airline.
But it is not. Cunnilingus is when a man, or a woman, or, on certain internet sites, a German shepherd, performs oral sex on a lady. Please don’t get me wrong; muff munching is a normal, enjoyable, intimate part of the sexual experience, providing the woman doesn’t smell like a trench, and the man has muscles in his jaw that don’t lock up after three minutes, or five minutes, or, well, honestly, after ten minutes, the woman should either fake it or lie back and think of Jerusalem.
Even though high-school health teachers, aka gym teachers, taught us that you can certainly contract VD from oral sex, I don’t think people take that as seriously as the other kinds of nookie. A girl on a date figures, “Ehhh, I don’t wanna go all the way with this guy, and Biff doesn’t like to deal with condoms. But if I give him a little mouth love, maybe he won’t dump me for Darlene with the bangs, the boobs and the booty.”
When we think of venereal disease in this country, we think of . . . the Kardashians. But we also think of regular penetrative sex or, perhaps, tushie sex. The more intolerant among us would point to the gays during the AIDS crisis and say, “If you can’t stop doing that, at least wear a condom. And stop writing bad Broadway musicals.” As a culture, we all modified our behavior as a way to stem the plague of HIV, as well as gonorrhea, herpes, and Sunday afternoon phone conversations that started with, “Yes, we did have fun last night. But I noticed this rash…”
In his own paradoxically embarrassing and self-aggrandizing way, Michael Douglas has reminded us that HPV isn’t just a high-definition sister channel of HBO. It’s a disease you can get from licking someone in the place that they pee. Such as the Penn Station men’s room.
Much the way Angelina Jolie made breast-cancer prevention a national conversation when she bid tah tah to her tah-tahs, Michael Douglas may be doing us the same service by telling us where he put his tongue, and where his tongue has put him. How does Catherine Zeta Jones fit into all this? That’s a private conversation for the Douglas home. I certainly don’t see her putting her name on a line of douches anytime soon. Unless they start making them with penicillin. Or industrial-strength Raid.
But I do wish Mrs. Douglas good mental health; we know she’s been struggling with mood disorders. Well, who hasn’t? And I hope Mr. Douglas has licked his cancer. God knows, he’s licked everything else. And I advise all my listeners to be sensible and careful in all your carnal endeavors. If you meet a girl who smells like a petri dish, find another way to stuff her knish. Carry condoms, use dental dams – or, as I like to call them, dental goddamns. In other words, if you can’t eat `em, groin `em.
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 #62 (4/7/2013): Roger Ebert
Aired April 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAn_bgyfJ7s
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 7th, 2013.
Hail and farewell to the respected, prolific and popular film critic, Roger Ebert. On Thursday April 4th, two days after saying he wanted to take things a little slower, he instead came to a complete halt, with cancer doing him in at age 70.
Anyone who loves movies is going to miss Roger Ebert, not just because he warned you what was a stinker before you laid down your six dollars. And then $10. And now $19, or 25 if you throw in popcorn. And not just because Roger could talk intelligently without being patronizing – something I haven’t mastered in 53 years. And not just because Roger’s love for good movies came through even when he pooped on bad ones. The biggest legacy of Roger Ebert – and Gene Siskel – was in remaking the idea of “what is a critic?” Admit it. Before those two, you probably thought of a movie or theater critic as this dreary, sepulchral, Ichabod Crane type, with a Bostonian accent, his nose in the air and his pen in someone’s back. He was better than you, and he sure let you know it. Or he talked so far over your head, sparrows would crash into his verbs on their way to Capistrano.
But not Roger and Gene. Of course they were smart, but they were next-door-neighbor smart, not nuclear physicist smart. And when they explained why Blake Edwards was a genius and dead teenager films are a scourge – even if you didn’t agree, you appreciated their conviction and knew they were treating you like a grownup. Roger may have won a Pulitzer, but he never came off like a pudknocker.
Oh sure, Ebert’s weight made him an easy target for many years. At one point, he was so out of shape, it seemed a miracle he could even lift his thumb. And then, he had to give up TV because of the Big C. The first time I saw a picture of him after all those operations, my jaw dropped. Well, not as low as his, but it was still a shock. And yet, he continued to write. A man who came of age in a time of typewriters and telexes kept himself relevant in our age of tweets and tablets. In fact, he posted more movie reviews last year than he did any year before that. If I had to give that many sermons in a year, my brain would turn to gefilte fish.
And if my cranium did become an amalgam of whitefish, pike, sawdust and carp, would I have the guts Roger Ebert had in being so visible? Of going on Oprah with his new voice or on the internet with his fake chin? If I get a pimple on my nose, I hide for three days.
Among the many quotable quotes of Roger Ebert, he once said that “your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.” Well, I may not be able to follow another Charlie Kaufman movie, but I’m sad that we lost Roger Ebert. I think of Gene Siskel in heaven, waiting all these years for the day he could go, “Awright. No cameras. No censors. Rog, let’s really talk about `Cop and a Half’” Go at it guys; no one did it better.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with author and Hollywood expert Stephen Schochet.
Topics include: Hollywood stories, film, movie stars.
Segment originally aired Sept. 22, 2012 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Interview 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)2012 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Dave Lefkowitz interviews film producer and Bitter End club owner Fred Weintraub
Topics include: Bruce Lee, The Bitter End, film.
Segment originally aired March 31, 2012 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Fred Weintraub passed March 5, 2017.
Note: Interview 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)2012 TotalTheater Productions. More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Dave Lefkowitz interviews stunt and special-effects coordinator Steve Wolf
Topics include: stunts, special effects, filmmaking.
Segment originally aired Jan. 28, 2012 on the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
Note: Interview 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)2012 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
The 21st Wretched Pun of Destiny aired Jan. 17, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
