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Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with news reporter JEN MAXFIELD
Topics include: journalism, More After the Break, Columbia University.
Segment aired July 9, 2022 as part of the 857th episode of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio/video podcast 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)2022 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com.
Click above to watch in-studio footage of the entire episode.Click above to listen to the show (audio only).
Here is the 693rd episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday, April 20, 2019. More info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chauncey Howell, StoryTime with Rabbi Sol (Passover rules), Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hooper).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Seder time) 00:31:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 00:45:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Chauncey Howell 01:36:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:18:30 STORYTIME: The Laws of Pesach 02:44:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED – Hooper 02:46:30 Friends of the Daverhood 02:54:30 DAVE GOES OUT
April 20, 2019 Playlist: “Love is Always Lovely in the End” (02:16:00; The Drowsy Chaperone 2006 Broadway cast w/ Georgia Engel). “Song of the Seder Paraders” (02:59:00; Gladys Gewirtz).
Note: Chauncey Howell passed away Sept. 20, 2020 at age 86.
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)
aired Dec 29, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/kCb-wFiJvIQ
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 29th, 2013.
Boy, this year really bit the big one, didn’t it? You had the bombing at the Boston Marathon, flooding in Colorado, civil war in Egypt and Syria, the spying nonsense with Edward Snowdon… And let’s not forget the whole government shutting down because Republicans are Machiavellian and miserable, and Democrats are stubborn and stupid.
2013 wasn’t a terrible year. It wasn’t 1941 or 2001 or the year I had my gallstones out.
Still, everyone I know had a lousy time of it. Deaths in the family, illnesses, accidents, bad luck and bad news. The good part is: it’s over, and we’re still here. No matter how crappy and ignominious your year was, you still came out better than Peter O’Toole, Lou Reed and Nelson Mandela.
And, of course, there’s always the hope that next year will be better. At Passover, we all say, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Or, more realistically, Boca Raton. “L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim” doesn’t just mean we’d rather be in the Holy Land than Weehawken, New Jersey. It means we hope that a year from now, we’ll find ourselves in a better place where we’ll be happier. Yes, that’s as likely as the Jets winning another Super Bowl, but we hope anyway.
For the Jewish New Year, we dip an apple in honey to represent sweeter times ahead, and we blow the ram’s horn because in ancient times, they didn’t have saxophones. All these things are meant to signal a new beginning, a clearing out of the dust and schmutz of the previous year, and starting the next annum with fresh breath and a snazzy hat. Or snazzy breath and a fresh hat; your choice.
For this Western New Year, crazy people will stand for hours in Times Square to usher in 2014. This, I don’t understand. If I want to see a ball drop, I’ll look in the mirror when I take off my underpants. But there’s something to be said for a communal, brotherhoody way to exit one train and hop another. And if standing around, drinking Coors Light from a sack, huddling for warmth and peeing into your Depends works for some folks, who am I to say no?
Me? I’ll be home with my dear wife, Miriam Libby, our 21 ½ beautiful children, my TV fixed on the “Honeymooners” channel, and my wine glass full of schnapps and Metamucil. I look forward to greeting you all next year, same time, same place, different grievances. L’Shana Haba’ah B’Radio, B’Youtube, B’Twitter and B’Wildered.
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 #66 (5/12/2013): Jodi on HLN
Aired May 11, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/igCxYCb4zLo
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 11th, 2013.
After four months of testimony and two days of deliberation, an Arizona jury found Jodi Arias guilty of first-degree murder. The next step is deciding whether she’ll get the death penalty for whacking her boyfriend, Travis Alexander.
Demure, bespectacled, cute and goofy, Arias tried to prove she killed in self-defense. But considering that her significant other was stabbed multiple times, shot, and then almost decapitated, the defense of “he hit me one time too often” seems just a little suspect.
My heart goes out – no, not to the victim, but to the HLN cable network. What will they do now that their only form of programming for the past half a year has been snatched from them? If it wasn’t for Jodi Arias, HLN would be showing disputes in traffic court. I can just hear Nancy Grace now, “Twelve minutes past the meter! Why didn’t they boot his car? Someone in law enforcement dropped the ball; where’s the justice?”
HLN was so addicted to Jodi Arias that when those Russian kids bombed the Boston Marathon, and then a giant fertilizer factory exploded in Texas, and every other channel in America was, like, “We should cover this,” HLN said, “Ooh…Jodi is dabbing her eyes and showing emotion – we can’t cut away now!”
And what the hell does HLN stand for, anyway? It used to be CNN Headline News; CNN – Cable News Network. There was a logic to the acronym. Just like an IUD is an intra-uterine device, and my BVD’s were first produced by Bradley, Voorhees and Day, and IBM stands for when I go to the bathroom and make number two, HLN should signify something intelligent. HN would stand for Headline News. So what the hell is up with the “L”? I think HLN stands for, “Hey, Listen, we have Nothing to offer except five months of Jodi Goddamn Arias.”
Now, there probably will not be a trial of that Tsarnaev animal, or of that Aurora shooting lunatic. If they take a plea, HLN ratings take a dive. But somebody’s bound to kill somebody soon. And maybe they’ll look like a hot librarian. And maybe they’ll hire enough lawyers to push the trial into sweeps week. And maybe there’ll be a confession video and experts in forensics, and lawyers who rhyme. So that when we start bombing North Korea, and Syria sends chemical-tipped missiles over Tel Aviv, while a 9.3 earthquake caused by global warming pushes Los Angeles into the Pacific Ocean, by God we’ll have something interesting to watch on television. HLN – Here Lies News or How Low? Neverending.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, NY.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #52 (1/13/2013): Al Gorezeera
Aired January 12, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKNhqPjnANY. https://davesgoneby.net/?p=29258
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 13th, 2013.
I never liked Al Gore. Something about him – the smugness, the silver spoon, the hypocrisy – (we’ll get to that). And for all his left-wing democratic ideals, he married a woman whose claim to fame was begging Congress to put warning labels on record albums. Because in 1985, the greatest threat to our country was not Russia or the Middle East or poverty or famine but the Ramones. So there was always something shifty about Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. Lord knows, his jet-setting lifestyle seems a little out of sync with his altruism about sustainable energy, but okay, it’s not as if we expect him to live in a hut. Neil Young can build electric cars, but he’s still tooling around in a `56 Crown Victoria.
Anyway, most of what skeeved me about Al Gore I couldn’t put my finger on. I think a lot of liberals felt that way when George Bush stole the presidency out from under him. After eight good years under Bill Clinton – we didn’t know how good we had it – people still couldn’t bring themselves to pull the lever for Mr. Internets. True, the former vice president scored brownie points by making a movie about global warming. It left most people global sleeping but still, it was the right message that should have been listened to then and now. And with a whole TV network at his disposal, Gore had the chance to make a real difference in the content and dissemination of news around the world.
That his network, Current TV, failed financially is no shame. But his response was mind boggling – he sold it to Al Jazeera. That’s right, ground zero for Arab propaganda, Al Jazeera, now gets a bigger hoofhold in America. Al J paid Al G 500 million dollars for the privilege of reaching Comcast, Dish Network, Verizon and your local Etch-a-Sketch.
Now, let’s be fair. Most of the time, Al Jazeera functions as an objective journalistic outlet that covers the Arab world more directly than Rupert Murdoch or Reuters ever could. But make no mistake: Al Jazeera was founded and financed by people very close to the ruling family of Qatar. Yes, the network is privately owned – by the cousin of the Emir. And American journalists who have worked for Al Jazeera have complained that everything on it has an anti-American or anti-Israel slant. Remember – this was the place Osama bin Laden would mail his Mp3s to.
“Oh Rabbi,” I hear you say, “if the Zodiac killer sends his messages to the San Francisco Chronicle instead of to the cops, do you blame the paper?” No, and you can’t fault Al Jazeera for running with the story, even if their superstar was a mass-murdering lunatic that they could have helped bring to justice. As such, you can be wary of a network that lives to pish on the Western world. And if I want to watch Israel bashing in the guise of news, I don’t need Al Jazeera; I’ll just put on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.”
Al Gore did not have to do business with these people. If there can be entire networks devoted to game shows or old soap operas, surely Gore could have found a buyer with a 24-hour skateboarding channel, or a new MTV that actually plays music videos. And hey, Tipper’s now history, so you can even leave the obscenities in.
The biggest obscenity is that Mr. Gore, who has spent 30 years warning the world about oil being so scarce, how drilling depletes our natural resources and changes the weather, how pollution is melting the arctic, how there are so many cleaner and more efficient ways to make energy – this Al Gore just pocketed half a billion dollars from a company founded on the profits of oil drilling, consumption, fake shortages and price fixing. Not to mention a country governed under family dictatorship and Sharia law.
For years, I felt bad that I didn’t vote for Al Gore in the 2000 election. I went with Ralph Nader, because I believed his rap about Democrats being just as lousy as the Republicans – that both parties are owned by the same mega-corporations and drug companies. Nader was right, but eight years of Dubya also proved him wrong. I used to wonder how different America would have been had Al Gore been president instead of Bush. Now I know. He would have sold New Mexico to Saudi Arabia and made Mahmoud Ahmedinejad chairman of the B’nai Brith.
I am not one to advocate censorship. I’m not saying, “Hey everyone, call your cable provider and threaten to go back to rabbit ears if Al Jazeera gets a channel.” But the price of freedom is vigilance. If Current TV now morphs into wall-to-wall Intifadeh, with the most popular show being “Two and a Half Men Blowing Up Three and a Half Synagogues,” you know what to do. After all, the Arabs have spilled rivers of American blood. Must they now have blood and Gore?
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Dave Lefkowitz interviews radio personality Joe Salzone
Segment originally aired March 1, 2004 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: Full Episode.
All content (c)2004 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Dave Lefkowitz appears as a guest on “Joe Salzone Live!”
Topics include: politics, Dick Cheney.
Segment originally aired Nov. 30, 2002 as part of WGBB radio’s “Joe Salzone Live!” and then rebroadcast June 15, 2003 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: Full Episode.
All content (c)2003 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
Segment aired Dec. 15, 2002, 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)2002 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
(pictured: Mark Nadler, Robert Plant, Fyvush Finkel, Dylan’s Slow Train Coming)
