Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #150 (8/20/2017): ON BOTH SIDES

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #150 (8/20/17): On Both Sides

Aired Aug. 20, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By.  Youtube: https://youtu.be/0mWZXgYwFmM

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Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 20, 2017.

Nazis are bad. I just thought I’d get that out of the way in case you didn’t know. Nazis are bad. And just so we’re clear, within the realm of Nazis, I also mean the KKK and White Supremacists. Bad, naughty, bad.

See? Wasn’t that easy?

Not for the president. At a time when the United States needed a leader who could spout soothing platitudes about standing up to the bad guys, President Trump painted everyone as bad guys. And then he started saying that some of the bad guys were good guys. In doing so, he’s made himself a pariah even among Republicans who forgave him for seven previous months of crazy.

And what kills me is that much of what Donald Trump said after the Charlottesville slugfest was both defensible and sensible. In his first statement after the event, the President said there’s no place for bigotry and hatred in America, and that we should all unite as one people. I dare anyone besides David Duke and Mel Gibson to disagree with that. And Chuck Schumer, just because disagreeing with Republicans is how he gets his oxygen.

But Trump also wanted to make a point about law and order. Remember: the guy went to a military academy and grabs his ankles every time a general walks by, so for him, a peaceable kingdom has more value than a righteous one. So he said, Look, you had one side showing up for a rally with torches and sticks, and another side meeting them with bats and pepper spray. When they got too close to each other, it was like a Jerry Springer picnic. And Trump was saying, very clearly, that both sides came to rumble. Instead of the Sharks and the Jets, you had the rights and the lefts. If Antifa hadn’t shown up, the alt-right would have had a non-eventful event. But the militant anti-fascists did come, saw a bunch of racists and Jew haters two feet away, and went to town. If you wave a red flag in front of a bull, you better hide your china. Which mixes two metaphors but still makes more sense than Donald Trump’s next speech.

That’s where the orange one doubled down on the douchebags. Two days after reading a prepared statement saying Nazis are bad—took him two days, but he managed it—he tried to re-re-clarify his pronouncements on the mutual violence in Charlottesville. How did he do that? By saying—and I kid you not—that there were good people on both sides. Which means that white supremacists holding confederate and Nazi flags, shouting “Jews will not replace us”—some of them were okay dudes.  And he wonders why even Fox News anchors are having a crisis of conscience. Well, the ones who haven’t been fired for sending dick pics.

Turns out it doesn’t matter who is trying to corral the President—Sean Spicer, John Kelly, the Mooch, that sexy siren Sarah Huckabee—they’re all dealing with a man who says the first thing that comes into his head, which is so filled with orange peroxide, there’s no brain left. If there were, he’d realize that what he was trying to say was simple. In Charlottesville, you could divide the situation into two elements: ideology and behavior. One side had an evil ideology; both sides engaged in inappropriate behavior.

I’ll put it another way. Let’s say Trump pushes through his budget next year and cuts meals on wheels for the aged and handicapped. So a million old people march on Washington. Along with  some cripples who roll on Washington. And they protest the cruelty of denying support to those who need it most. And the protestors are so mad, they start bashing young people with their canes and hurling their diapers into the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. Worst of all, they destroy the ratings of the Hallmark Channel by missing a whole day of “Diagnosis Murder” reruns.

Now, ideologically, these geezers are on the side of the angels—with whom they will be consorting soon enough. They have right on their side. Not alt-right, virtue-right. But behaviorally, they’re wicked, and should be arrested as soon as the first colostomy bag hits the Potomac.

So you see that moral evil can be separated from physical misconduct. A well-spoken Nazi in a suit and tie is still a Nazi. A heart surgeon who speeds through a red light still deserves a ticket. And a President who usually means well can keep doing things that make us want to impeach him.

We’re in for a long national conversation about pulling down statues, taking down blogs, and everyone being fed up. But take heart, America. It’s only 41 more months to the next presidential election. And if we can just manage to stay out of a nuclear war, that’s more than enough time to bounce back from a civil war. Isn’t it?

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2017 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #150 (8/20/17): On Both Sides

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #136 (2/28/2016): Hitler’s Junk

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click above to listen (audio only)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #136 (2/28/16): Hitler’s Junk

Aired Feb. 27, 2016 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC-ixw96kNI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 28th, 2016.

Tyrant. Psychotic. Sociopath. Hypospadius sufferer. Yes, all these adjectives describe the single greatest villain of the previous century: Adolf Hitler. “What is hypospadius?”, I hear you say. Micropenis!

That’s right. The Austrian-born, German chancellor who wanted to rule the world had a teeny, tiny, itsby-bitsy, nearly microscopic shmeckel. Awwww. According to the new book, “Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute”—which should be called “Inch by Inch!”—Der Fuhrer’s frankfurter was so small – “how small was it?” – it was so small, he had to pee sitting down because basically, there was no dick; there was just a hole near the base of his wang.

They call that Penile Hypospadius. Sounds like the name of a Greek lawyer but no, it’s a rare condition where the urethra—that little tube that sucks urine and spooge out of the bladder—the urethra opens on the underside of the winkie. In other words, if Adolf were to pish standing up, he’d just be making lemonade in his lederhosen.

And by the way, that longtime rumor has also been proven true: Hitler did have just one testicle. Well, one visible, working testicle. The other just never came down. It was up there, floating behind his belly button, kinda like a yo-yo caught in a tree.

So what does this all mean in terms of who Hitler was and the calamities he caused? I dunno, but if I got out of the shower every day, looked down and saw a knuckle on the end of my balls, I’d hate the universe, too. It is known that Hitler had strange relationships with women and took all kinds of drugs and treatments to boost his virility. They say he’d even get injections of bull semen. Go figure; with Nazis, the blood has to be pure, but the jizz? Anything goes.

What I don’t understand is: If Hitler had a chip on his shoulder – because he had no whip on his boulders – shouldn’t he have been mad at the schvartzes instead of the Jews? He’d be jealous of Italians and black men with Howitzers in their Hanes. Why pick on Jewish guys, who aren’t exactly known for hiding salamis in their pajamis? Yes, we do have the outliers like Milton Berle and David Duchovny . . . and myself . . . but for the most part, if a Jewish guy with a boner walks into a wall, he’s still gonna break his nose.

If Adolf Hitler, The Great Dicklesstator, had embraced the Jewish nation and commiserated with them on their puny putzes, what a different world this would have been! Instead of making Jews into lampshades, he would have rolled up lampshades to make prosthetic peckers. Instead of hard labor, he’d put in the labor to get hard. Instead of herding people into gas chambers, he’d join them in therapy sessions. They’d all hug and confess to stuffing kielbasas down their pants to impress waitresses at Oktoberfest. No World War II, no Holocaust, no Berlin Wall . . . we’d still have the accordion, but you take the victories you can.

Perhaps it’s too Freudian to suggest that Hitler compensated for his wee willie winkle by building phallic missiles and having the whole country salute him by holding their arms stiff and erect. But then again, maybe there’s something to it. Look who else attacked us in the Second World War: the Japanese. We all know they’ve got nothing between their legs but broken chopsticks.

Now, causality/shmausality; we’re not giving Hitler a pass for his actions because of his inadequacy. We can, however, tell some really tasteless jokes at his expense. For example:

What did they call Adolf Hitler’s last orgasm? The final so-lotion.

What did Hitler have in common with the Jews? They both looked awful coming out of the shower.

Why was Hitler so afraid of acne? One time he got a hard-on, and a dermatologist tried to pop it.

Why was Hitler better at basketball than Jesse Owens? Jesse could run, but Hitler dribbled.

Why was Hitler a bad shortstop? Because he always started with two foul balls, one of which was out of play.

What’s the difference between Poland and Eva Braun? Hitler could get into Poland.

Why was Hitler always borrowing Eva’s tweezers? To masturbate.

Why was Hitler banned from Eva Braun’s kitchen? He got his dick caught in the spaghetti strainer.

Did Hitler suffer from polio? No, he had smallcox.

Was Hitler brutal to his mistresses? No, he was a softie.

Why did Hitler use an IBM computer? Because he didn’t have a Wang.

Why was Hitler so stubborn? `Cause he couldn’t budge an inch.

Why did Hitler buy a goldfish? So he could finally get a decent blowjob. Think about it.

Why was Robin Williams better than Hitler? At least he was hung.

Well, I did warn you that they were tasteless. But, what? You’re gonna get offended because I made fun of Hitler? Remind me not to bust out my Son of Sam jokes; they’re quite disrespectful to the poor guy.

Seriously, though, the thought of Adolf Hitler, architect of the Third Reich, feeling freakish and ashamed, sexually useless, and driven to desperate and painful measures . . . kinda gives me a stiffy. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go surprise my dear wife, Miriam Libby, and give her my three magnificent inches of Hebrew National salami. I know it ain’t much, but when I use it right, she kicks up a fuhrer.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Heil me!

(c) 2016 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #101 (5/25/2014): Gabriel Diaz

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #101 (5/25/2014): Gabriel Diaz

aired May 24, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/YJud7dG3Qs0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 25th, 2014.

Is there such a thing as a person so stupid and retarded, you can’t get angry at them, no matter what they do? Either they don’t have the brain capacity to distinguish right from wrong, or they’re just so hilariously deluded, you can’t help but laugh at them?

No, I’m not talking about me. And I’m not even talking about Marco Rubio; I’m talking about a cabdriver in New York. There’s a hack in Manhattan who doesn’t believe in keeping his political opinions to himself. As he Travis Bickles his way across the avenues, he wears his affiliation on his sleeve – literally. Tourists hailing a cab photographed him wearing a Nazi swastika patch on his arm.

Turns out the guy’s a National Socialist and believes in the cause – although not so much that he’ll wear the patch where passengers can see it. I guess he doesn’t want to get garroted at a red light. But pedestrians outside the car can see it and have taken numerous photos of this idiot’s arm. They’ve also spat on his windshield, kicked his bumper, flipped him the bird and basically made clear that they don’t like taking a ride with Joseph Goebbels.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission agreed, and they’ve suspended this fascist fuckwad for 30 days, citing a TLC rule that prohibits drivers from acting against the best interests of the public. The fact that most cabbies smell like farts and sandalwood, and they go from Astor Place to the East River via the West Side Highway, somehow isn’t against the public interest. But yes, the swastika thing is a deal breaker. I’m glad this Nutzy is off the road, if only for a month. He does have the right to express his opinions in a free society, but getting stuck in a vehicle with a crazy person who embraces evil is just as bad as being on a subway with wild teenagers, or on an airplane with one of those pilots who thinks he’s a stand-up comedian. And he’s not gonna land the plane until you’ve heard his best joke – which is usually so bad, you hope you crash before the punchline.

I’m not saying we should emulate Germany and legally ban any display of Nazi regalia. Shooting on sight is probably a better idea. But if the National Basketball Association can expel John Sterling for telling his half-black girlfriend, in private, that he doesn’t like her all-black friends, certainly the TLC can do more to Hitler Junior than send him on a month’s unpaid vacation.

I do give props to the fella – much as I despise and wish death upon him – for sticking to his guns and not offering some half-hearted, lawyer-penned apology to get him off the hook. Interviewed by the press, this Holocaust denier said, quote, “We’ve been told lies about Hitler. We believe in racial separation and racial differences.” He’s like the late Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church; if you’re gonna play delusional poker, double down every time. This cab guy has agreed to take off the armband when he drives, but only to keep his job and appease, quote, “liberal crybabies,” rather than undergoing some Dickensian change of heart. He says he doesn’t hate Jews; he’s just critical of them and that just because he’s a Nazi doesn’t make him anti-Semitic. Okay. Hey, just because I’m breathing doesn’t make me alive. No, wait… it does.

The guy also equates his plight with that of homosexuals. If they can wave a rainbow banner in a parade devoted to equality and freedom, he has a right to wear the symbol of a nation that murdered 12,000,000 innocent people on the grounds of racial purity. It’s the same thing!

But I confess, I’ve been a naughty Rabbi. I’ve been holding back one piece of information. One climactic fact that launches this story from some run-of-the-mill reminder that prejudice is still potent, to the realm of the incandescently insane. It’s time to reveal the name of this cab driver. Are you ready? Gabriel Diaz. Gabriel Diaz. You would be right in assuming this guy’s ancestors did not come over on the Mayflower. And no, he doesn’t have a Spanish last name because his grampa escaped from Berlin to hide in Argentina. No, Gabriel Diaz has an ethnic name because he’s ethnic, Dominican and…wait for it…black. Let me repeat that for those of you choking on your watermelons at home. Gabriel Diaz is a National Socialist, yet his skin is pretty much the same shade as Urkel. I don’t know if he’s the world’s only schvartze Nazi. If he’s not, I imagine they’re real easy to spot in a Klan rally.

Diaz’s parents say he’s naïve and disturbed, and he only became enamored of the swastika from watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” A movie, by the way, made by a Jew, starring a half-Jew, and released by Paramount Pictures – a studio founded by three immigrant Yids in 1912. I guess the irony is that nowadays, times being what they are, immigrants wouldn’t get the opportunity to run film studios. They’d be lucky to get jobs as…cab drivers. Which is no profession to be ashamed of… until now.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2014 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 (6/23/2013): Michael Karkoc

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 (6/23/2013): Michael Karkoc

Aired June 22, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY5RnQxvRcc

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 23rd, 2013.

The Holocaust. We couldn’t live with it, and 70 years later, we can’t live without it. When it comes to Germany, I believe we can do business with them, we can visit, we can share their arts and culture, and we can even appreciate that the grandchildren of Nazis and the third Reich are blameless for the events of World War II. Nevertheless, it is premature to forgive and forget and make like the Holocaust was ancient history.

We don’t have to wallow, but we also don’t just shake hands and say, “ehhh, the gas chambers were before color TV, so no hard feelings. Your grampa’s a good egg, no matter what paraphernalia he keeps in a trunk in the attic.” We are still reminded of the legacy of that era, most recently by the former Pope, who was a Hitler youth. Yes, every kid was forced to be Hitler youth back then, so it didn’t make the Pope evil, but it sure didn’t make the sonofabitch holy.

And now, in Minnesota, we learn that a Nazi has been living in plain sight for nearly 60 years. Michael Karkoc, 94 years old, lied to American authorities in 1949 when he told them he never did military service for the krauts. Turns out, he was commander of a legion that massacred civilians in the Ukraine and helped stamp out the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto. Proving that he, directly, killed or tortured anybody will be virtually impossible, but they’ve got strong evidence that Michael Karkoc was yet another pimple on the ass of inhumanity.

What was the smoking gun? His own memoir! This moron published his autobiography, in the Ukrainian language, back in 1995. It’s in the Library of Congress for chrissakes. Shelved right between the book of Job and Milan Kundera. Of course, in his American years, Michael Karkoc has been a model citizen, active in his church, a member of the carpenters’ union and cute like a teddy bear. If he was my next-door neighbor, I probably wouldn’t have suspected a thing – well, unless the lampshade in his window looked suspiciously like my father’s cousin.

But seriously, people are questioning how this demon was allowed into the United States. How did he avoid Nuremberg and get to Minnesota? Granted, living in Minneapolis is its own torture, but still. It is common knowledge that dozens of semi-innocent Germans were given a free pass by the American government for their scientific knowledge and skilled labor. Other war criminals forged documents, paid bribes or lied their way into the good old USA. Ancestry.com and Google did not exist in 1946. Back then, if you didn’t find the birth certificate or the Hollerith card that said, “This guy experimented on gypsies” or “that guy built a scaffold for carrot stealers,” how would you know? In Michael Karkoc’s case, they blew it.

And now you’ll have ignoramuses compounding the travesty by saying, “He’s 94 years old, he’s been a good American, he didn’t pull the trigger – why waste time and money prosecuting a harmless old fart? How many villages is he gonna burn down when he can’t even stir his own Metamucil?” By that logic, every senior citizen behind bars should get a free pass. Charles Manson, Son of Sam – hey, Mark David Chapman isn’t going to kill John Lennon again. Let’s give him fifty bucks, a shoeshine and a rent-controlled apartment in the Dakota.”

Insanity. Some crimes against the world mandate that whoever committed them be removed from society and punished. There is no statute of limitations on the Holocaust. When the last German, or Austrian, or complicit Frenchman or Italian collaborator – when the last person who was alive in 1945 drops dead, then we can truly talk about the Holocaust being history. Until then, I don’t care if you’re 94 or 114, you should be shot like a wild dog and your body dumped in a compost pile for pigs to feast on. Of course, I also feel that way about Kenny G, but this is different. Living a long time does not make you innocent. It makes you lucky to escape the retribution you should have endured way back when. And if Michael Karkoc was just following orders, well, so are the Polish prison doctors who’ll strap him to a table and jam that last needle in his arm. Cruel? It’s an easier way to go than his victims.

So congratulations to the justice department for finding this insect, better late than never. And even if Michael Karkoc joins the choir of eternal hell before standing trial, may he never sleep another peaceful night, may he watch his wife – yes, he has a wife – may he watch her die of heartbreak and shame. And cancer. And may Karkoc’s son – who, of course, denies that his father was a Nazi – like he would know – may his son become like a beacon unto the world. By pouring gasoline on himself and lighting a match.

In this case, the sins of the fathers do get visited onto the children because the father was allowed to live and procreate – a blessing denied the dozens of Jews shot to death or burned alive by his military unit. Yes, I may sound extraordinarily punitive, but nothing about the Holocaust was, or should ever be, ordinary. For the past seven decades, Michael Karkoc passed himself off as an ordinary man. And soon, he will be an ordinary corpse in an ordinary grave. In fact, the only thing out of the ordinary will be the stench of my urine on his weeds.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

(c) 2013 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28948

Dave’s Gone By #428 (6/22/2013): HONORABLE MENKEN

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Here is the 428th episode of the long-running radio show, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, June 22, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with award-winning composer Alan Menken. Plus: Rabbi Sol on Michael Karkoc, Inside Broadway, Saturday Segues (Folk Years, Slim Whitman), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (folk years).

Host: Dave Lefkowitz

Guests: composer Alan Menken, Dave’s wife Joyce

00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce
00:31:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – The Folk Years
00:58:30 Sponsors
01:06:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Alan Menken
02:05:00 INSIDE BROADWAY
02:33:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later – folk years
03:00:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #71 – Michael Karkoc
03:20:30 Friends & Thanks
03:23:30 DAVE GOES OUT

June 22, 2013 Playlist: “Walk Right In (00:31:30; The Rooftop Singers). “Where Have All the Flowers Gone? (00:34:00; The Kingston Trio). “Green Green” (00:37:00; The New Christy Minstrels). “Sit Down, I Think I Love You” (00:39:00; Mojo Men). “My Old Man (live)” (00:41:30; The Smothers Brothers). “The Whistling Gypsy” (00:44:30; The Clancy Brothers). “Red Rubber Ball” (00:48:30; The Cyrkle). “For Lovin’ Me” (00:50:30; Gordon Lightfoot). “There’s a Meetin’ Here Tonight” (00:53:30; The Limeliters). “I Can Show You a Thing or Two” (Weird Romance 1992 off-Bway cast). “The Broadway Alien Song” (01:13:00; 2013 “Neighbors” TV show episode). “Dentist!” (01:17:00; Little Shop of Horrors 1982 off-Broadway cast w/Franc Luz). “Under the Sea” (01:26:00; The Little Mermaid 2007 Broadway cast w/Tituss Burgess). “The World Will Know” (01:42:30; Newsies 2012 Broadway cast w/ Jeremy Jordan). “Beauty and the Beast” (02:00:00; “Beauty and the Beast” 1991 film soundtrack w/ Angela Lansbury). “Little Girls” (02:29:30; Annie 1977 Broadway cast w/ Dorothy Loudon). “All I Really Want to Do” (02:35:00; Cher). “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” (02:38:30; Johnny Cash). “Love is Just a Four-Letter Word” (02:41:00; Joan Baez). “Boots of Spanish Leather” (02:45:00) & “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (02:51:30; Bob Dylan). “Mr. Tambourine Man” (02:49:30; The Byrds). “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” (03:06:30), “Rose Marie” (03:15:00), “Rhinestone Cowboy” (03:17:00) & “It’s All in the Game” (03:25:00; Slim Whitman).

Alan Menken
Slim Whitman
Michael Karkoc
The Folk Years
Rabbi Sol Solomon

Dave’s Gone By #131 (6/16/2005): CRIMINAL MIND

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Here is the 131st episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired June 16, 2005. Info: davesgoneby.com. 

host: Dave Lefkowitz
guests: Rabbi Sol Solomon, spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, Great Neck, NY and actor-singer Mandy Patinkin

Featuring: Dave goes Inside Broadway and Goes Off on Nazi dolls. Plus the World Weird Web and Rabbi Sol Solomon’s famously brief interview with Mandy Patinkin.

00:00:01  DAVE GOES IN
00:07:00  INSIDE BROADWAY – “Constant Clash”
00:18:00  GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Mandy Patinkin
00:28:00  DAVE GOES OFF – “Nazi Dolls”
00:44:00  WORLD WEIRD WEB – “Ni9e.com”
00:51:00  DAVE GOES OUT

June 16, 2005 Playlist: “If I Only Had a Brain,” “Raisins & Almonds” & “Ten Kopeks” (Mandy Patinkin). 

Mandy Patinkin
Nazi Dolls
Evan Roth
Rabbi Sol Solomon