Segment aired Feb. 22, 2025 as part of the 978th 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)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
click above to watch episode #978click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 978th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Feb. 22, 2025.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with author Joel Samberg; Greeley Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Brick Center); StoryTime: Floridius Bloom; Bunion Watch; Dave’s Big Dictionary (enema).
Guests: novelist Joel Samberg; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:26:00 DAVE GOES OFF: Yankee beards 00:36:30 GREELEY TIMES 01:00:00 GUEST: Joel Samberg & Rabbi Sol Solomon 01:45:00 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY: enema 02:00:00 BUNION WATCH 02:04:30 STORYTIME: Floridius Bloom and the Planet of Gloom 02:20:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:35:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Brick Center, CO 02:38:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Segment aired Feb. 15, 2025 as part of the 977th 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)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
click above to watch episode #977click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 977th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Feb. 15, 2025.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with attorney Tad Nelson; Greeley Times; StoryTime (Let’s Count NYC); Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Breen); Dave’s Big Dictionary (livid).
Guests: lawyer Tad Nelson; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN: snowdays 00:41:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:00:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Tad Nelson 01:54:00 STORYTIME (“Let’s Count NYC”) 02:13:00 DAVE’S BIG DICTIONARY: livid 02:34:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:42:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Breen 02:46:00 DAVE GOES OUT: Carvel
click above to watch the interviewclick above to listen (audio only)
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedy writer BILLY VAN ZANDT
Topics include: Jane Milmore, Richard Lewis, theater, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Newhart
Segment aired Feb. 8, 2025 as part of the 976th 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)2025 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
click above to watch episode #976click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 976th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Feb. 8, 2025.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with comedy writer Billy Van Zandt and offers his Rabbinical Reflection on Gazaland; Greeley Times; Inside Broadway (Eureka Day, 300 Paintings), Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Box Prairie).
Guests: playwright Billy Van Zandt; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: Amtrak, icy, Barney Greengrass, bagels, censorship 01:13:00 BUNION WATCH 01:23:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Box Prairie, CO 01:29:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Billy Van Zandt 02:23:30 GREELEY TIMES 02:42:00 INSIDE BROADWAY (reviews: Eureka Day, 300 Paintings) 03:06:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #191: Gazaland? 03:15:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:22:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #191 (2/8/2025): GAZALAND?
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired Feb. 8, 2025 the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT:
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #191 (2/8/2025): GAZALAND?
airs Feb. 8, 2025 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-February 2025.
I hate to say “I told you so.”
No, I love to say “I told you so.” I TOLD YOU SO! For 25 years I’ve been ranting about what to do with unfriendly Arabs living in Israel. Time and again you’ve heard me holler that if the Palestinians can’t accept Israel as a Jewish state, and if they can’t live in peace with their Semitic cousins, get them gone. Let their neighbors—in 22 Arab countries and 54 African countries—take them, assimilate them, give them 40 acres and a camel. Leave tiny Israel for the Jews because unlike Jews, Muslims can live almost anywhere else. But no, Palestinians wanted right of return and demanded their chunk of Israel’s sliver. That is, when they weren’t calling for the destruction of Yisroel altogether.
After years of terrorist attacks around the world, not to mention 9/11—which I just mentioned—the Mohammedans still rejected brotherhood. Instead, they gave mass murder one more go. On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked an Israeli music festival and slaughtered 1200 innocent people. Hamas thought the world would go “tsk tsk” for a few days, and then be on their side.
Which is exactly what happened. Left-wing politicians clutched their pearls over over Israel’s so-called “occupation” of its own land. Every major city saw “Free Gaza” and “Stop the Genocide!” spray painted on sidewalks by morons who I’ll bet couldn’t spell “sidewalk.” And speaking of imbeciles, college students obstructed traffic and made their tuition-paying parents cringe to see tent cities, wanton vandalism, and anti-Semitism masquerading as altruism. The media ate it all up.
But then a funny thing happened. America’s wobbly, slightly demented president couldn’t stumble through the election-day finish line, and his middling replacement lost both the popular and electoral vote. Unlikely as it was, on January 20th, America’s previous, very demented president came back into office and began setting off policy time bombs from day one.
Some of Trump’s ideas are crazy, some unworkable, some brilliant, and one is my dream come true. After 15 months of Israel rightfully turning Gaza into Hiroshigaza, the place is unlivable. But just like Japan in 1945, New Orleans after Katrina, and Pacific Palisades as we speak, you can always rebuild. So President Trump says, “Hey, instead of 80 years of conflict, let’s have nobody occupy that shithole for a while. America steps in, contractors get to work, and instead of tenements, bombs, and sand, we’ll have hotels, high-end shopping, casinos, Starbucks, and TD Banks.” American ingenuity and dollars could turn Gaza into a `Middle-Eastern Riviera’—that is the President’s own phrase.
Of course the Democrats pilloried him; of course the terrorist apologists saw it as manifest destiny and nation building all over again. But I don’t hear Netanyahu complaining. And for all the two-state-solutionists who wanted an “international city” that the two countries wouldn’t fight over…isn’t this it?
What if Trump convinces Disney to put a Disneyworld there? Well, it would suck, because it’s Disneyworld, but it’s a start. What if the mafiosos from Vegas built another Luxor in a place where the pyramid theme would actually make sense? What if Chik-fil-A’s built fifty Chickpea Felafels, just to be culturally sensitive?
Mock our president’s bombast all you wish, but nothing else has worked in the region. We’ve tried diplomacy, we’ve tried self-rule, God knows we’ve tried war; why not try balls-out, last-one-to-the-money-trough-is-a-rotten-egg capitalism? Envision a day a decade from now, when Israelis, bored by the Wailing Wall, Egyptians, weary of the Sphinx, Saudi Arabians wanting a Mecca break, Emirati, who are just so done with Dubai—all of them think, “Hey, honey. Let’s take a long weekend in Gazawood. You book the spa, I’ll hit the links, and then we’ll catch Willie Nelson at Madison Square Gazarden!” Israel would be protected, Palestinians would have homes and jobs, and Paramount would have a cheap place to shoot new episodes of Yellowstone. Except, of course, that Gaza wouldn’t look like Yellowstone anymore; it’d be closer to the Yellow Brick Road. I say, Follow!
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
click above to watch episode #973click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 973rd episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Tuesday night, Dec. 31, 2024.
Featuring: Our annual New Year’s Eve celebration featuring Zoom-ins, Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection, a festive bunion watch, the Best of Greeley Times, and an orb dropping at midnight.
Guests: singer Natalie Douglas; writers Iris Dorbian and James B. Flaherty; milliner Mindy Fradkin; musicians Moshe Denburg, Brian Gari, Yaron Gershovsky, Steve Herbst (“The Whistler”) and Sylvie Simmons; songwriter Sue Horowitz (“Dr. Sue”); Dave’s cousin Adam Glass; Dave’s old friend Stephen Fisch; Dave’s mom Brenda Lefkowitz; Dave’s mom-in-law Rosemary Weil; theatrical producer Al Parinello; theater critics Charles Gross, Eva Heinemann and David Sheward; humorist Mark Miller; actors Jason Graae, Annie Korzen, Brandon Maggart and Vicki Quade; spiritual leader Rabbi Sol Solomon
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 00:09:30 GUEST: Mark Miller 00:17:00 GUEST: Annie Korzen 00:26:30 GUEST: Stephen Fisch 00:34:00 BEST OF GREELEY TIMES 00:45:00 GUEST: David Sheward 00:55:00 GUEST: Susan Horowitz 01:03:30 GUEST: Eva Heinemann 01:13:00 GUEST: Adam Glass 01:21:30 GUEST: Yaron Gershovsky 01:27:00 GUEST: James B. Flaherty 01:34:00 GUEST: Brian Gari 01:40:30 GUEST: Iris Dorbian 01:50:00 GUEST: Mindy Fradkin 02:00:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #190: 2024 Farewell 02:10:00 EXTRA-FESTIVE BUNION WATCH! 02:14:30 PASSINGS OF 2024 02:20:00 GUEST: Natalie Douglas 02:29:00 GUEST: Brenda Lefkowitz 02:31:30 GUEST: Rosemary Weil 02:34:30 GUEST: Vicki Quade 02:42:00 GUEST: Al Parinello 02:51:00 GUEST: Moshe Denburg 02:57:00 GUEST: Charles Gross 02:59:00 LOWERING OF THE ORB! 03:14:30 GUEST: Steve Herbst 03:25:30 GUEST: Brandon Maggart 03:34:30 GUEST: Jason Graae 03:41:30 DAVE GOES OUT
This Rabbinical Reflection first aired Dec. 31, 2024 on the New Year’s Eve special edition of the Dave’s Gone By video podcast.
Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections are heard on the long-running Dave’s Gone By radio/video podcast program (davesgoneby.com) and then archived as text and audio on the Rebbe’s blog, Shalomdammit.com, where a transcript of this Reflection may be read.
Rabbi Sol is also the creator of the stage show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Rabbi Sol Solomon,” which played in NYC in Nov. 2011 and Aug. 2012.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More on Rabbi Sol: shalomdammit.com
TRANSCRIPT: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #190 (12/31/2024): 2024 FAREWELL
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year, 2024.
You’d think from the punims of everybody walking around or jabbering on TV that this was the worst year ever. That 1861 and 1929 and 1939 and 2020 were nothing compared to the hellscape that was 2-oh-2-4. But really, unless you were personally touched (God forbid) by some horrible tragedy, or you’re the CEO of a health conglomerate and your bodyguard just quit, this past year was… just another year.
The rich got richer, and we allkvetched about inflation, but unemployment was low, Wall Street robust, the economy booming. Complain about illegal immigrants all you want, but are you gonna pick fruit? And, whatever you think of Luigi, American healthcare remains astronomical, inhuman, and indefensible. But if you made it through the year without dropping dead—the system worked.
If you think I’m joking, remember that just four years ago a million people died of COVID. Now we’re all sighing, “just how many boosters do I need?” Especially since the CEO of Pfizer made 33 million dollars in 2022 but ten million less the year after. If his salary goes below 20 mil, look for the polio booster to acquire a sudden urgency.
But again, it’s nice that COVID was no longer a nightmare, just a lingering annoyance. Like Ukraine. We want Zelenskyy to outlast Putin, but at this point, it’s not even Russians versus Russians; it’s Grumman versus Lockheed Martin for which mass murderer gets the bigger Christmas bonus.
Before you despair, however, note that 2024 was also the year that Jew-haters on university campuses slithered out of their green tents to discover nobody was listening anymore. Those left-wing peaceniks, many of them Jewish, spent months defaming Israel for just trying to survive. Meanwhile, these delusional dimbulbs ignored every African, Arab, Latin, Asian country that wouldn’t know a human right from a traffic light.
Protestors made so noise early on: breaking into buildings, stalling traffic, spraying graffiti. Celebrities wore their “Free Gaza” pins while the “Squad” wept for terrorists. But as Bibi Netanyahu cautioned the world on October 7th the year before: Israel will keep fighting until complete victory. That means getting all the hostages back and racking up more Hamas leaders on kebab sticks.
Happily, most Americans get this.They remember 9/11 and decades of hijackings, bombings, and beheadings perpetrated by the radical Muslim world. Some Americans even realize that thanks to Israel kicking butt, Syria ditched its dictator and the Iranian Ayatollah is watching his assahola. But try explaining that to a 19-year-old Communications major whose knowledge of history begins with Avatar and ends with The Matrix.
And yet, despite all the static, voters reelected the president. The previous president: Donald Trump. Vilified by the Democrats, mystifying to everyone else, the Donald will somehow return as the 47th leader of the free world. And why not? He was shot in the head, and his brain was still in better shape than Joe Biden’s!
Look, Biden’s been a decent president; it’s his party that was the pooper. No one cares about DEI when the national debt is an IOU. Liberals weep over Palestinian refugees and then shrug when illegal aliens set fire to women on the F train. And while trans people deserve the same rights as everyone else, they don’t deserve double the rights, just because they’ve got two sexes inside `em. So enough with the special bathrooms; build affordable housing, and then let the trannies decide which room they wanna take a dump in.
But again, let’s not dump on 2024, a year that gave us a cool solar eclipse, an adorable pygmy hippo, respect for women’s basketball (mostly played by real women), and artificial intelligence answering every question we could possibly ask, up to and including, “Does this look infected?” The real downside of the year, as with every year, is losing great people. Actors, musicians, writers—their work lives forever. They don’t. So here’s a poetic tribute to the passings of paragons:
We lost Kris Kristofferson, and all his fine rhymes
Farewell to John Amos, yes, for the Good Times
We’ll miss Quincy Jones and his tuneful panache
So long, Donald Sutherland, whose M*A*S*H was a smash
There’s Dame Maggie Smith, for whom we are pining
and Shelley Duvall, up in heaven, now shining
The laughs have left Fernwood; so long, Martin Mull
At least O.J. Simpson is now just a skull
Bon soir Richard Simmons! To the oldies he’s sweatin’
Pete Rose was called home; bet he’s up there now, bettin’
Ta-ta Teri Garr, you were Fronkensteen’s girl
and we lost two Joneses: Quincy and James Earl
Steve Lawrence has now joined Edyie Gorme
Alas, Willie Mays will no longer say “hey”
No more shall Richard Lewis comedically fret
And adieu, Olivia Hussey, jolie Juliet
Both West Side and East Side miss Chita Rivera<
And Bob Newhart’s gone: the end of an era
Charles Osgood filled us with homespun truth
And we learned about nookie from old Dr. Ruth
So sad that Phil Donahue has asked his last question
We mourn Morgan Spurlock’s supersized indigestion
We pine for Paul Auster and all his fine fictions
Is Kreskin in heaven, telling God his predictions?
Peter Marshall, Chuck Woolery — those affable hosts
have joined Roger Corman; all three are now ghosts
And so, adios, to our friends who are gone
The rest of us: what can we do but go on?
But try to find joy in being alive
Shalom `24! Shalom `25!
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Happy Jew Year.
click above to watch episode #972click above to listen (audio only)
Here is the 972nd episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, Dec. 21, 2024.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews actor and singer John Schneider; StoryTime (Who was H.J. Heinz?, part 4); Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Bovina); Greeley Times; Dave’s Big Dictionary.
Guest: actor John Schneider
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce: Chipotle, allergies, pajamas 00:47:00 GREELEY TIMES 01:30:30 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews John Schneider 02:16:30 STORYTIME: Who was H.J. Heinz, pt. 4 (by Michael Burgan) 02:35:00 Friends of the Daverhood 02:42:00 DAVE GOES FURTHER IN: packages 02:52:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED: Bovina, CO 02:55:30 DAVE GOES OUT
