Dave’s Gone By Skit: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #144 (3/5/2017): PLAYBOY

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #144 (3/5/2017): Playboy

Aired March 4, 2017 on Dave’s Gone By.  Youtube: https://youtu.be/HhgXViF07kA

click above to listen (audio only)

Shalom Dammit!  This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 5, 2017.

Remember New Coke? It was Coca Cola’s attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken. Take a formula that merrily rotted people’s teeth for years, change it for no particular reason, market the hell out of it, and watch customers start drinking Pepsi. The Coke folks realized their error, they reinstituted the classic recipe, and everything went back to normal levels of thirst quenching and obesity.

So who was the latest company to overthink its brand and screw the pooch? None other than Playboy magazine. In a stroke of madness—well, stroke may not be the best word—Playboy changed its whole ethos. Like so many magazines today, Playboy has felt the terrible pinch of the digital era. Circulation is down—and I don’t mean sales, I mean Playboy readers are so old, their bodies have no circulation. Meanwhile, along comes Maxim, also targeting the men’s-lifestyle market, and they eat away at Playboy’s potential younger audience. And unlike Playboy, Penthouse, Juggz, and my favorite, Barely Legal Anal Nurses, Maxim’s photo shoots are scanty but still clothed. The honchos at Playboy must have been scratching their heads, along with their crab lice, and wondering, “For years, men lied about reading us for the articles.  Now there’s this other magazine with articles, and they’re proud to read it for the bikinis. What the what?”

So Playboy made the decision a year ago to eschew nudity. Think of it: Playboy without nudity.  That’s like Auschwitz without Jews in it. This was the magazine that put a naked Marilyn Monroe in its first issue, the magazine that made stars of Dorothy Stratten, Anna Nicole Smith, and many others who died of natural causes; this was the magazine that served as ground zero for the sexual revolution, mainstream pornography, and the worldwide Kleenex shortage of 1967.

But times change, and for three decades now, Playboy has had to compete with digital magazines, cable TV and home video, changing popular tastes, and shifting cultural landscapes. It hasn’t helped that the visionary founder of Playboy, Hugh Hefner, is still alive. If he’d dropped dead years ago, he’d be extolled as an iconic, nostalgic reminder of America throwing off the shackles of the 1950s and embracing a world of new freedoms. But as a 90-year-old coot, Hef just makes people think of airbrushing, exploitation, and Bill Cosby honing his groping skills in the grotto. And what’s with those twins Hef was dating? How sexy is it to have two curvaceous, nymphomaniacal hotties give grampa a reacharound…just to change his ostomy bag.

But back to the nudity, or the removal thereof. When Ringling Brothers, responding to pressure from animal-rights groups, got rid of its elephants two years ago, what did that lead to? That’s right: the end of Ringling Brothers. When Playboy bid bye-bye to boobs and bushes…what happened? Actually, to be honest and surprising, sales went up a bit, especially for a younger demographic. And the magazine was able to be displayed more prominently on more newsstands. But it still wasn’t enough. Readers would look at Playboy, glance at the photos — instead of staring intently at them for several minutes — and then ask themselves, “Why am I still reading this?”

Cooper Hefner, the son of Hef and company COO since his sister stepped down in 2009, admitted putting ponchos over pussies was a mistake. In fact, “Nudity is Normal” is the motto on the cover of the March/April issue—an issue with mega-hot model Elizabeth Elam topless on the cover. Why, Playboy is even bringing back its party jokes, so all is right with the world. Who knows, maybe they’ll even bring back those cartoons with the wrinkly old, sex-crazed granny. I mean, she’s only 80 years older than Hef’s next girlfriend.

So welcome back old-fashioned Playboy. You’re still a dinosaur on the way to the amber yard, but at least along the way, you’ll help a few more teenage boys explore the wonders of gynecology. In a time when our government seems intent on yanking America back to the days of “Father Knows Best,” it’s heartening that once more, Playboy will leave it to beaver.

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

(c) 2017 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #95 (3/9/2014): Upskirt

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #95 (3/9/2014): Upskirt

aired March 8, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: http://youtu.be/YmZDoGW6M40

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of March 9, 2014.

Say you’re sitting on a train, or, if you’re on my budget, a bus. You’re standing, holding onto a Pole – or an Armenian – and people are seated in front of you. Among them, a nubile young lady dressed in loose-fitting spring attire. I don’t care if you’re Charlie Sheen or Pope John XXIII, you’re gonna cast your eyes down that blouse in the hopes of seeing cleavage or boobage. If you’re a little pervier and you happen to be sitting in the row of seats parallel to the little chickie, you might even cast a glance when she crosses her legs, just to see if what she’s hiding down there is a peach or a porcupine. It’s sexist and disgusting, but it’s human nature. And human males being what they are, with technology being what it is, some guys get their jollies by surreptitiously whipping out a cell phone – thank God, that’s all they’re whipping out – and snapping photos of visible snappers.

Does this violate the privacy of women who are being unknowingly immortalized by T-Mobile? Of course, it does. And lawmakers in Massachusetts have put their feet down over what women can expect when they put their feet up. Any candid cameraman taking an upskirt or a down-blouse now faces two years in prison and a hefty fine – even heftier if the girl, God forbid, is underage. These rules were rushed into law following the state Supreme Court’s decision on a case that went the other way. A guy who was set up in a sting operation was caught taking snapshots – or snatchshots, but since this was in a public place, the Supreme Court couldn’t brand him as a Peeping Tom. He was more of a Clicking Harry or a Snapping Dick.

But now, with iPhones so prevalent and women wearing outfits that show enough to make men rise higher than a havdala candle, new rules are needed every day to secure privacy and safety for females. If that sounds a bissel nanny-state for conservatives, put the shoe on the other foot – or the panties on the other gonads, to be precise. Imagine you’re on the train in the summer, wearing shorts, and try as you might, your nutsack will just not stay in the crease. You push it in, it pops out; you cover it up, it slides over. Something about shorts in the summer; it turns your balls into a lava lamp. How would you like it if some creepy woman came up to you with her smartphone and went, “Say cheese!”? Horrible, even if, in summertime, you actually do smell like cheese down there.

These days, we all tolerate a certain level of big brothering to stop terrorism and help insurance companies figure out who caused the fender-bender. But we also should have a reasonable expectation that a public place won’t become a pubic Facebook. That someone won’t put our hooters on computers or turn our meats into tweets. I think Massachusetts lawmakers made the right decision, and when it comes to upskirt photography, we have to view the picture as a whole, and not beat around the bush.

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.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27788

Dave’s Gone By Skit (8/3/2013): WEINER FOR MAYOR

click above to listen (audio only)

Anthony Weiner’s weiner runs for mayor against the very man who made him.

Segment originally aired July 20, 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 show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast. Complete Original Broadcast: http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/5471

All content (c)2013 TotalTheater Productions.

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #70 (6/16/2013): Michael Douglas

Aired June 15, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNNbhdtkQgw

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 16th, 2013.

How much do we really need to know about the private lives of celebrities? Everything – these days, it seems. We know what Gwyneth Paltrow eats for breakfast, what Kirstie Alley eats for dinner, and now, what Michael Douglas eats in bed.

No one forced him. No one put a gun to his head – I don’t mean the eating part, I mean telling the world about it. Three weeks ago, Douglas told the Guardian magazine of London that his throat cancer probably did not come from his smoking or his drinking. He said, hint hint, you can also get the Big C from doing the little C: cunnilingus. Until last month, I had no idea what the hell that was. Cunnilingus. I thought it a was low-cost Irish airline.

But it is not. Cunnilingus is when a man, or a woman, or, on certain internet sites, a German shepherd, performs oral sex on a lady. Please don’t get me wrong; muff munching is a normal, enjoyable, intimate part of the sexual experience, providing the woman doesn’t smell like a trench, and the man has muscles in his jaw that don’t lock up after three minutes, or five minutes, or, well, honestly, after ten minutes, the woman should either fake it or lie back and think of Jerusalem.

Even though high-school health teachers, aka gym teachers, taught us that you can certainly contract VD from oral sex, I don’t think people take that as seriously as the other kinds of nookie. A girl on a date figures, “Ehhh, I don’t wanna go all the way with this guy, and Biff doesn’t like to deal with condoms. But if I give him a little mouth love, maybe he won’t dump me for Darlene with the bangs, the boobs and the booty.”

When we think of venereal disease in this country, we think of . . . the Kardashians. But we also think of regular penetrative sex or, perhaps, tushie sex. The more intolerant among us would point to the gays during the AIDS crisis and say, “If you can’t stop doing that, at least wear a condom. And stop writing bad Broadway musicals.” As a culture, we all modified our behavior as a way to stem the plague of HIV, as well as gonorrhea, herpes, and Sunday afternoon phone conversations that started with, “Yes, we did have fun last night. But I noticed this rash…”

In his own paradoxically embarrassing and self-aggrandizing way, Michael Douglas has reminded us that HPV isn’t just a high-definition sister channel of HBO. It’s a disease you can get from licking someone in the place that they pee. Such as the Penn Station men’s room.

Much the way Angelina Jolie made breast-cancer prevention a national conversation when she bid tah tah to her tah-tahs, Michael Douglas may be doing us the same service by telling us where he put his tongue, and where his tongue has put him. How does Catherine Zeta Jones fit into all this? That’s a private conversation for the Douglas home. I certainly don’t see her putting her name on a line of douches anytime soon. Unless they start making them with penicillin. Or industrial-strength Raid.

But I do wish Mrs. Douglas good mental health; we know she’s been struggling with mood disorders. Well, who hasn’t? And I hope Mr. Douglas has licked his cancer. God knows, he’s licked everything else. And I advise all my listeners to be sensible and careful in all your carnal endeavors. If you meet a girl who smells like a petri dish, find another way to stuff her knish. Carry condoms, use dental dams – or, as I like to call them, dental goddamns. In other words, if you can’t eat `em, groin `em.

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=28952

–>

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #41 (5/13/2012): Arresting the Molesting

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #41 (5/13/2012): Arresting the Molesting

Aired May 12, on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: Arresting the Molesting

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 13th, 2012.

Did you see the New York Times article on Thursday about Jewish men and children in the ultra-Orthodox community? Very touching story. Very touching – the men were touching the boys, the men were touching themselves. Years of molestation and abuse – just as it’s been in the Catholic Church, just as it’s been in every community, religious or otherwise.

And what the newspaper article points out, alas, is that not only do fear and shame keep victims from coming forward – not to mention coming – but intimidation from neighbors and even rabbis has protected the guilty and rendered the innocent helpless.  Some kid will get molested, he tells his parents – if he has the guts – and do they go to the police? No. They go to the school, to the rabbinate.  And for the sake of keeping the community isolated, everything is hushed up.  Maybe the perpetrator is reprimanded, maybe not.  In some cases the parents are offered literal hush money, so the child can pay for therapy but otherwise keep his mouth shut.  Well, unless it’s around the schlong of his Rebbe.

These Jewish leaders are so afraid of the outside world, so loathe to put one of their own in the hands of a goyische tribunal, they will beg families not to press charges, not to do anything that might reflect badly on their little shtetl.  Even worse, threats are used.  Jews who speak up are ostracized by their neighbors, harassed by phone calls, evicted by their landlords, warned that if they continue to prosecute, their children will be expelled from school and forced to wear their payes in the shape of a vagina.

As I said, this is no different from the Catholic priests, who close ranks around a pervert, move him to another parish, and spend their afternoons draining splooge out of the holy water.  It is no different from black ghettoes, with the crack and the meth and shootings and the stabbings and the grape soda. Do they work with the cops?  No, police are “the man,” or, to be more grammatically correct, “the men.”  To be fair, police brutality, racism and corruption have not exactly earned the trust of the schvartz community.  So approaching them is like a chicken saying, “Hey, Mr. Fox.  We have a fire in the hen house; come fix!” But what happens is – by refusing to cooperate with a former enemy, black neighborhoods crumble from the enemy within.

Jewish Lubavitch and Satmer communities may not be falling apart on the outside – in fact they’re booming – but if they refuse to address hurtful criminal activity, they will shrivel morally into something so ugly, Carrot Top will look normal by comparison.

Quoted in the Times article is Rabbi Tzvi Gluck, one of the good guys, who urges teenagers to report their abuse to the police. Says Rabbi Gluck, quote, “If a guy in our community gets diagnosed with cancer, the whole community will come running to help him.  But if someone says they were a victim of abuse, the community looks at them and says, `Go jump in the lake.’”  And swimming in that lake would be a naked rabbi.

Okay, I added that last part, but this is disgusting and disgraceful behavior on the part of my Jewish brethren.  Sexual molestation of children is not just a crime, it is an act of evil.  And if the tribe is too uptight about sex and the human body to punish the offenders, you put down the Torah and you pick up the goddamn phone.  Because the little girl who comes home with blood in her Underoos, or the little boy who starts pissing himself in synagogue because he was fingered in the Mikvah – they are not to blame.   Middle-aged men with shmeckels are to blame. And if they happen to be deeply religious, respected members of a religious Orthodox enclave – shame on them double-double.  All the more reason to investigate, substantiate and incarcerate so he won’t make a child of eight masturbate on a seder plate.

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

(c) 2012 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

Dave’s Gone By #207 (2/11/2007): SEX AND THE MARRIED RABBI

Click above to listen to the episode (audio only).

Here is the 207th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, on NY’s WGBB-AM radio, Feb. 11, 2007. Info: davesgoneby.com.

host: Dave Lefkowitz
guests: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews sex educator Karinna Kittles-Karsten

Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon cozies up to sex and love expert Karinna Kittles-Karsten. Plus: Inside Broadway & GrimSpa with Anna Nicole.

00:00:00  DAVE GOES IN
00:11:00  SEX AND THE MARRIED RABBI: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews “love educator” Karinna Kittles-Karsten
00:44:00  INSIDE BROADWAY
00:57:00  SKIT: GrimSpa, with Anna Nicole
01:05:00 DAVE GOES OUT

February 11, 2007 Playlist: “(Get Up) I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine” (James Brown), “Symphony in Blue” (Kate Bush), “Big Time Sensuality” (Bjork).

Karinna Kittles-Karsten
Anna Nicole Smith
Rabbi Sol Solomon