Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedy writer BRUCE VILANCH
Topics include: The Oscars, Bette Midler, Johnny Carson, Dolly Parton, Judaism.
Segment aired May 4, 2024 as part of the 942nd 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)2024 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com.
Here is the 844th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, April 2, 2022. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: cabaret performer Tamar/Tammy Faye Starlite; theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews musical performer Tamar (aka Tammy Faye Starlite); Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (April 2 w/ Tamar, David Sheward, Leslie (Hoban) Blake); Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Mountain Village, CO); My Sick Mind (Will Smith); Inside Broadway (Plaza Suite).
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (the slap) 00:48:00 MY SICK MIND (Will Smith) 00:59:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Tamar 01:33:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY TRIVIA QUIZ (April 2 w/ Tammy Faye Starlite, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, David Sheward) 02:50:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (soursop, Mister Softee) 03:02:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news & Plaza Suite review (03:09:00)) 03:22:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 03:43:30 Friends of the Daverhood 03:53:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Mountain Village, CO) 03:56:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Here is the 548th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio March 5, 2016. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection (astronaut Scott Kelly), Inside Broadway, Greeley Crimes & Old Times, Saturday Segues (In the News, John Cale), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Tulsa archives).
Host: Dave Lefkowitz Guest: Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (the sniffles, pep talks, kale, gravity, the Oscars, Big Sky blahs) 00:23:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 01:00:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN w/ Joyce (GPS, good karma) 01:06:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – In the News 01:31:00 Sponsors 01:38:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:02:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Tulsa archive) 02:31:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #137 (astronaut Scott Kelly) 02:38:00 Friends 02:50:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – John Cale 03:14:00 Weather 03:18:00 DAVE GOES OUT (ghostopus!)
March 5, 2016 Playlist: “She was Naked” (01:07:00; Supersister). “Ben” ({live}, 01:11:00; Michael Jackson). “Knife” (01:14:00; Robyn Hitchcock). “The Space Race is Over” (01:17:00; Billy Bragg). “Buds Won’t Bud” (01:58:30; Barbara Cook). “Hard Times in New York Town” (02:07:30), “All Along the Watchtower” ({live w/ Tom Petty}, 02:09:30) & “Dignity” ({live} 02:14:00; Bob Dylan). “The Ballad of Cable Hogue” (02:52:00), “Days of Steam” (03:01:30), “Indistinct Notion of Cool” (03:03:00). “Hey Ray” (03:06:00; John Cale). “Empty Frames” (02:57:00; John Cale & Brian Eno). “Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish” (03:22:00; Captain Beefheart). “Octopus’s Garden” (03:25:30; The Beatles).
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.
Here is the 498th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Feb. 21, 2015. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Dave chats with theatrical designer Lloyd Burlingame. Plus: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection on the Oscars, Saturday Segue (Lesley Gore), The Wretched Pun of Destiny (autopsy), Greeley Crime Beat, Dylan – Sooner & Later (fathers)
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (UNC Radio, promoting #500) 00:20:30 Sponsors 00:29:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN (truth in journalism) 41:00:00 GREELEY CRIME BEAT 01:18:30 SATURDAY SEGUE (Lesley Gore) 01:41:30 More Sponsors 01:45:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #117 (Oscars 2015) 01:51:00 INSIDE BROADWAY 02:19:00 GUEST: Lloyd Burlingame 03:20:30 The Archives 03:26:30 THE WRETCHED PUN OF DESTINY #26 (autopsy) 03:28:30 Weather 03:32:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (fathers) 03:54:00 Friends 04:04:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Feb. 21, 2015 Playlist: “Just Let Me Cry” (01:26:30), “Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” (01:28:30), “My Body” (01:30:00), “It’s My Party” (01:33:30), “The Old Crowd” (01:36:00) & “Off and Running” (04:13:00; Lesley Gore). “Where Do I Begin? (Love Story)” (02:16:00; Andy Williams). “If You Can’t See My Mirrors” (03:16:30; The New Pornographers). “Precious Memories” (03:38:00), “Please, Mrs. Henry” (03:44:30) & “Bye and Bye” (03:47:00; Bob Dylan). “Silver Dagger” (03:41:00; Joan Baez & Bob Dylan). “R.I.P. Jon Stewart” (03:57:30; Sean Altman).
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)2013 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information on Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
Here is the 413th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, Feb. 23, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
A pre-Oscar show featuring Rabbi Sol Solomon chatting with Hollywood expert Stephen Schochet and with Dave’s dad, Philip Lefkowitz. Plus: Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflection (Purim jokes), Inside Broadway, the News Gone By, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later and a Saturday Segue dedicated to recent passings in music.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guests: author Stephen Schochet, Dave’s dad, Philip Lefkowitz
00:00:01 PRE-SHOW 00:07:00 DAVE GOES IN 00:17:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Passings 01:00:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (news (01:00:00) & “Madea Gets a Job” review (01:22:30)) 01:33:00 Sponsors 01:41:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Stephen Schochet 02:19:00 NEWS GONE BY 02:26:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #58: More Purim Jokes 02:33:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (movies) 02:57:00 Friends 03:02:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Philip Lefkowitz 03:25:30 Weather 03:27:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Feb. 23, 2013 Playlist: “The Birthday Present” (00:05:00; Loudon Wainwright III). “The Saints” (00:20:00), “My Bonnie” (00:29:30), “Why” (00:36:00) & “Nobody’s Child” (00:48:00; Tony Sheridan & the Beatles). “Leader of the Pack” (00:22:00) & “Remember” (Walking in the Sand)” (00:34:00; The Shangri-Las). “Midnight Blues” (00:25:00) & “The Sky is Crying” (00:39:00; Magic Slim). “A Girl’s Gotta Do What a Girl’s Gotta Do” (00:31:30) & “You’ll Never Know” (00:44:30; Mindy McCready). “A Beautiful Morning” (01:10:30; The Rascals). “The Color Purple (Reprise)” (01:18:30; The Color Purple Broadway cast). “Life Can Be Like the Movies” (01:39:30; Chaplin, 2012 Broadway cast). “If You were in My Movie” (02:16:00; Suzanne Vega). “Things Have Changed” (02:34:00), “Hero Blues” (02:39:00), “Clean Cut Kid” (02:40:30) & “Brownsville Girl” (Bob Dylan). “Prisoners of Love” (03:22:30; “The Producers” (1969 film soundtrack).