Topics include: SIngle Divorced Married wine, Israel, Georgia, bullying
Segment aired Feb. 18, 2023 as part of the 881st 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)2023 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com
More about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com.
Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with public-speaking coach REESA WOOLF
Topics include: Mr. Bear Speaks without Fear, public speaking, stage fright, Jewishness, Russia.
Segment aired Jan. 7, 2023 as part of the 876th 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)2023 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 876th episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, Jan. 7, 2023. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews public-speaking coach Reesa Woolf; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (New Castle); Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (Jan. 7 w/ Vicki Quade, Reesa Woolf, Leslie (Hoban) Blake); Joyce Goes Off on squirrels.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN (public speaking, squirrels) 00:28:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interview Reesa Woolf 01:02:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY Trivia Quiz (Jan. 7 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Vicki Quade, Reesa Woolf) 02:01:00 JOYCE GOES OFF (squirrels) 02:14:00 DAVE GOES OFF (Gain Flings, HP chat, job ads) 02:32:30 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 03:13:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:20:30 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (New Castle, CO) 03:23:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Here’s the 843rd episode of the long-running radio show/video podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook Saturday morning, March 26, 2022. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guest: musician Peter Noone; actress Vicki Quade; theater critics Leslie (Hoban) Blake & David Sheward.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Herman’s Hermits musician Peter Noone; Greeley Crimes & Old Times; Rabbi Sol Reads the Papers; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Cheyenne Wells, CO); Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (March 26 w/ Leslie (Hoban) Blake, Vicki Quade, David Sheward.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce (Russia) 00:34:00 GREELEY CRIMES & OLD TIMES 00:54:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Peter Noone 01:40:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY TRIVIA QUIZ (March 26 w/ David Sheward, Vicki Quade, Leslie (Hoban) Blake) 03:03:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:13:00 RABBI SOL READS THE PAPERS 03:40:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Cheyenne Wells, CO) 03:41:30 DAVE GOES OUT
Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews comedian Vicky Kuperman
Topics include: comedy, Russia.
Segment aired Oct. 11, 2014 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)2014 TotalTheater Productions.
More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com More information about Rabbi Sol Solomon: http://www.shalomdammit.com
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #94 (3/2/2014): Kiev
aired March 1, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87QQA37F1oY&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 2, 2014.
You say you want a revolution? Well, you know, we all want to change the world. But we’re too fearful and set in our ways to do anything. I’m too lazy to change my cable company let alone start a political movement. At my age, I’m lucky if I can start a bowel movement.
But revolutions do still happen. Bloodless ones, like Czechoslovakia. Political ones, like South Africa. Unstable ones, like Egpyt. Musical ones, like Prince and.
It seems every month, some country in the middle east is having a coup, or a march or a toppling or a something. And now, Ukraine is getting in on the action. Its own country since breaking off from Russia in 1991, Ukraine was under the thumb of corrupt Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, who was a yanuka-bitch to the opposition. What really frosted the Ukranians’ blinis was Yanukovych moving toward closer ties with Mother Russia, whereas the people wanted to throw in with the European Union. Because that’s done so well for Greece and Iceland.
But seriously, how can one not be encouraged when the people of a repressed country want to be more like us – and they get up the courage and organization and bottle rockets to do it. After days of rioting and cease fires – where everyone fired and no one ceased – the instability pulled Yanukovych from power and popped his opposition from prison. It wasn’t a bloodless coup – a couple dozen protestors paid the ultimate price. Well, no, the ultimate price would be having to spend a Siberian winter locked in a room with the hosts of “The View,” but still, blood was shed for the sake of the people’s will.
Meanwhile Vladimir Putin, who pulled off a bloodless Olympics, isn’t taking any chances with his grip on power. He’s having the military run drills along the border with Crimea, because people in the Southern Ukraine, many of whom were ethnic Rooskies, are split between liking Sister Europe or loving Mother Russia. The west is afraid Putin will climb into Crimea, which could lead to a civil war or a re-annexation.
This would be a great loss for the region because Crimea is a noted vacation spot – the Ukrainian Aruba, as it were. Because it’s got mountains and the Black Sea, grassland and caves, there’s something for everybody. It’s like an all-natural Epcot. In fact, back during the Soviet era, this is where workers used to come for R&R, where they could enjoy the salt-sea air and the therapeutic mud. I’m not kidding. You’ve heard of people bathing in hot springs? Crimea is where people go to slather themselves in volcanic mud. If you think that’s a crazy way to attract tourists, just remember, we have Dollywood.
President Obama is taking a wait-and-see approach with Kiev, which could go all sweet and democratic, or turn into a war zone. Kind of like what’s happening with Detroit. Since the Cold War is over, we don’t really have a beef with Russia, and one of the three opposition parties that brought down Yanukovych is anti-Semitic, so who knows if we’ve jumped out of the samovar and into insanity?
All I know is, the way Jews were treated in that part of the world for most of the 20th century makes me wary and somewhat unsympathetic to the plight of the Ukranians. If they become a shining example of freedom? Great. If they have to suffer a bit along the way? Well, Crimea river.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from: me Rabbi, U-kraine, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #92 (2/16/2014): Sochi
aired Feb. 15, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/gkJUPHw8uGY
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of February 16th, 2014.
Is there anything less interesting in the world than the Winter Olympics? I’m sorry, but everyone in this half of the hemisphere is sitting at home, running the oil burner, looking at the grim skies and just waiting for the first signs of spring. The last thing we wanna do is turn on the TV and see more snow. If I’m on the couch in my footy-pjs, sipping a cocoa and skimming the Talmud, and I wanna take a break, I’m gonna put on “Baywatch,” maybe the Golf Channel, the 80th re-run of “Point Break.” What I don’t want to see is athletes bundled up from head to tuchas, zhoozhing down mountains of snow, and then talking to reporters where you can see their breath coming out of their mouths and congealing in the air. If breath could spell, it would spell out, “Help! Hypothermia! Why didn’t I take up parasailing?”
Still, winter or otherwise, the Olympic idea is ideal: have countries from all over the world, even ones with political differences, put their very best amateur athletes on an international stage, and let’s all enjoy playing and watching. How can you beat it? Of course, the distance between the Olympics’ idealization and its ideation is like the distance between Democracy and Congress. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
The Olympics were supposed to be an oasis from the world’s evils. But half the time it’s become a petri dish where the bad guys hog the microscope. In 1936, Hitler hosted the Olympics in Munich as a way of proving the superiority of the master race. Yes, it was wonderful that the American schvartze Jesse Owens ruined his day, but the fact that they held the Olympics at all was a decision so questionable, even the guys who designed the Titanic had to be shaking their heads going, “What the fick were they thinking?”
And then in 1972, it was back to Germany – because what better place to espouse peace and racial equality, right? And what a perfect worldwide stage for Arab terrorists to go kill all the Israeli athletes. Olympic officials were confronted with a decision: stop the games, do a big funereal tribute, and hunt down the animals responsible – or wear black for a day and keep the games going. Guess which one they chose?
And so, ever since then, the Olympics have proved a lightning rod for political disputes and threats from groups that put religion before human rights – which is pretty much the entire Muslim world. As of this writing (and speaking), the winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, have been on high-terrorism alert. The Islamists were kind enough to give us an early heads-up on the violence – by bombing a train station and a trolley in Volgograd back in December. So thoughtful of them. They murdered only 34 people – which for them is an appetizer – and a week later, the Russian police killed the guy responsible. But no question, this was a yellow stickie posted on the calendar of the Olympics reading, “Hello. We’re Jihad. We drank your orange juice and broke a lamp. We’ll be back soon with the destruction of the entire Western World. Your pal, Mohammed.”
So we want to commend the Russians and Vladimir Putin for taking a no-tolerance, “we will bury you” approach to security at the Sochi games. Unfortunately, the pat on Putin’s back has to stay above the waist, because he is also responsible for a recent Russian law that bans the promotion of non-traditional lifestyles. In other words, you can’t teach kids under 18 that it’s okay to be gay, or lesbian, or transsexual, or a furry. Russia’s deputy prime minister defended the law saying it’s a way to protect children. But then why not simply make a law that says, “Don’t touch children?” If you have trouble with the wording, ring up Dylan Farrow. But Putin’s law is more insidious, it’s branding the lifestyle of 10-to-15 percent of the population as abnormal, unhealthy and dangerous to you – unlike such healthy activities Russian teens are exposed to at a young age, like vodka shots, smoking and poverty.
After the glory years of Gorbachev, sadly, Russia has moved backwards towards its old police-state days, but so did we under Dubya Bush. The church’s last Pope was in the Hitler youth, but the new guy is preaching love and tolerance. Kind of like the four – er, five Olympic circles, the world turns and turns, so maybe the next dictator after Putin will keep his shirt on and his hands off.
Until that time, it is with mixed feelings that I wish the 2014 Winter Olympics well, with good sportsmanship, fair judging, no terrorism and lots and lots of curling – oh, I love curling. As far as homosexuality, well, the opening ceremonies featured thousands of toned athletes in tight costumes with bright rainbow colors, waving flags and parading around to loud thumpy music and confetti. What could be more gay than that?
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 #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word
Aired April 20, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPaOUN4N1Io
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 21st, 2013.
What a sad and tragic week it has been. As we all know, the guy who played Lumpy on Leave it to Beaver has died. But beyond that, welcome to the new world order of bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right of us.
Following the events of the Boston Marracre, everyone’s wringing their hands and their tallises, going “what a sick world this is,” “violence is taking over.” I’m not disagreeing that there are meshuggenah murderers in society, but ask anyone in Europe from the 60s and 70s, what it was like with the Basque Separatists and the IRA and the SLA and the NRBQ – you couldn’t walk by a mailbox for fear of the thing exploding. And, of course, Israel has lived for decades with bombs going off in restaurants and missiles flying in, special delivery, from their neighbors. I dare say, it is almost surprising we haven’t had more terrorist acts in recent times, which is a credit both to vigilant police work and the high price of pressure cookers as Walmart.
It is true that in this age of free information, you can find terrorist cookbooks all over the internet. Take a stick of dynamite, unsalted, add four tablespoons of rusty nails, sprinkle with fertilizer, set timer to 3 minutes, walk away. Serves 180. Caution: served very hot.
Should this kind of information be widely available? Hard to say. You can go on the web, look up how to build and wire a desk lamp, then take the lamp and bash your husband over the head. You can’t necessarily blame the messenger. Then again, all too often, the messenger is Al Qaeda, and unlike a lamp, you can’t use a pipe bomb to read by.
Watching the events in Boston, how careful we all were, all week long, not to use the M word. Not to blame the religion of peace. When the New York Post all but hanged two Saudi nationals who turned out to be 100% innocent, the paper was pilloried, and rightly so. Days later, we find out that the real perpetrators were originally from Russia. Okay, not Iran. Not Pakistan. Reserve the judgment. And they’d been in this country since they were-pre-teens. Bodybuilding, boxing, partying, lying to their relatives – typical American college doofuses.
But over the past two years, the brothers had a religious experience, and discovered what? Judaism, no. Sufism, no. Zoroastrianism? I don’t even know what the hell that is. No, they chose Islam. Surprise!
We tried, didn’t we folks? We made our best efforts not to blame the Arabs, not to pin the tail on the Muslims. We should’ve known better. Mohammedian madness strikes again. What is it about that fakakteh religion? What do these people put in their goat stew that turns young men into homicidal maniacs? Maybe we’ll find out soon from this wounded younger brother; maybe we won’t find out until some fellow prisoner at Sing Sing rapes it out of him.
Really, the best news about both of these animals being caught is that they had not taken credit for the marathon bombs. Usually, the Talibastards are jumping up and down and can’t wait to say, “We did it Western pigs. God is Great; carnage is greater.” But these Chechen chuckleheads merely strolled away. That is undoubtedly because they planned more damage to do; a couple o’ dead joggers was just a trial run. The FBI and the Boston police had to get these guys, and they did, for which America owes them tremendous thanks.
But it’s just a matter of time before the next brainwashed kids, or terror cell, or sand-covered douchebag on a prayer mat tries again. Come to think of it, there’s nothing all that dangerous about a bomb-making cookbook written by some half-brained chemistry student. The hazardous book was written 1400 years ago by a bunch of quarter-brained Caliphates in Persia. It’s brutal, it’s destructive, and it fits all too easily in a knapsack.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 419th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 13, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with Margaret Whiting’s daughter, Debbi Whiting. Plus: Rabbi Sol on the Berlin Jewish Museum’s “Jew-in-a-Box” exhibit, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (Russia), Inside Broadway and Saturday Segues (Farewells, Jonathan Winters)
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: Debbi Whiting, Dave’s wife Joyce
00:00:01 Pre-show Intro 00:04:00 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 00:15:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Farewells (Margaret Thatcher, Andy Johns, Annette Funicello). 00:57:00 Sponsors 01:01:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:21:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Debbi Whiting 02:19:30 Friends 02:29:00 NEWS GONE BY 02:36:30 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #63: Jew-in-a-Box 02:43:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (Russia) 03:08:00 DAVE SAYS BYE – Jonathan Winters 03:15:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 13, 2013 Playlist: “Torn and Frayed” (00:17:00; The Rolling Stones). “Tramp the Dirt Down” (00:21:30; Elvis Costello).”Elevation” (00:27:00; Television). “Bring Back Those 50s” (00:32:00; Robert Klein). “The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines” (00:35:00; Joni Mitchell). “Jamaica Ska” (00:39:00; Annette Funicello & Fishbone). “One Rainy Wish” (00:43:00; Jimi Hendrix). “Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher” (00:46:30; Billy Elliot 2005 original cast). “Friends” (00:50:00; Led Zeppelin). “Once Upon a Dream” (01:16:00; Jekyll & Hyde, 1997 Bway cast w/ Teal Wicks). “My Cup Runneth Over” (01:19:30), “Here to Stay” (01:29:00), “Until it’s Time for You to Go” (01:45:00), “Till We Meet Again” (01:54:30), “Wheel of Hurt” (02:04:00) & “Nothing Lasts Forever” (02:15:30; Margaret Whiting). “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” (01:35:30; Allan Sherman). “Ye Shall Be Changed” (02:47:00), “Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues” (02:50:00) & “When Ya Gonna Wake Up” (02:57:30; Bob Dylan). “With God on Our Side” (02:53:30; Barb Jungr). “Leave Your Name & Number #2” (03:02:30), “The Zoo (Elephant)” (03:03:00), “Grandpa Beloncort (Calling About Dying)” (03:03:30), “Allen Bresler (Forest Lawn”) (03:06:30) & “Old Folks” (03:19:00; Jonathan Winters).
Dave Lefkowitz chats with art expert Scott Rodolitz
Topics include: Nikolai Girenko.
Segment originally aired June 17, 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.