NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #180 (12/31/2023): 2023 FAREWELL

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #180 (12/31/2023): 2023 Farewell

airs Dec. 31, 2023 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7dRO8KOMew

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year, 2023. 

What a joyful and encouraging year it’s been, hah? A terrific celebration of peace and love and reason and decency. And if you believe that, you must not have the internet. Or any access to the outside world, which has been steeped in anxiety and hatred — mostly, with good reason!

COVID is still here. Remember COVID? The virus that killed a zillion old people and is now a common cold? Only it’s so common, everyone’s still getting it! Almost four years after the disease erupted, many of us are still wearing masks everywhere. Granted, some people are such meeskeits a mask is an improvement—a public service even—but still! How many variants can one illness have? Someday, they’re gonna be able to trace all the way back, and they’ll learn that COVID is just another strain of Caveman Breathing Disorder. 

And speaking of cavemen, Donald Trump is running for President again. Look, he wasn’t a bad POTUS; he was great for Israel and the economy. But he’s also old. And nuts. That’s a combination you put in Assisted Living, not the Oval Office. Meanwhile, Trump’s opponent is Joe Biden, who’s so old, when he got his driver’s license, he just had to learn two words: “giddyup” and “whoa.” I did not make that joke up, but I also couldn’t make up that the combined age of the two presumed 2024 candidates is 158. I know age brings wisdom and experience, but it also brings senility and special underpants. Ronald Reagan was a powerhouse in his first four years, but the last two he fumbled more than the New York Jets o-line. 

Meanwhile, Trump might not even be allowed to run because State Supreme Courts, like the one in Colorado, are holding him accountable for the Capitol insurrection. He hasn’t been convicted of that, by the way. Oh, sure, he’ll get convicted of fraud and sexual harassment, but by gosh, the treason thing is still a mere accusation. As such, I think the Denver judges got ahead of themselves and hijacked an election decision that should be made by the voters, not the courts. Remember: the last time judges got involved in politics, they installed George W. Bush as commander in chief, which was like putting Rose from The Golden Girls in charge of NASA. 

So if Trump doesn’t run or can’t run, we might get Ron DeSantis, who’s slightly to the right of Mussolini and thinks gay people should be, you know, ungay. Or there’s Nikki Haley, who, like DeSantis, is pro-Israel but also believes fetuses are viable at the sperm stage. So… as ever, our choice for the highest office in the land will come down to least worst. I’d rather have knoblewurst. 

Meanwhile in 2023, the Dow Jones set new highs, but so did global temperatures, housing prices, gas prices, and groceries. By the end of the year,  inflation improved, which is just a euphemism for prices still rising, only less quickly. And the national debt is now $33 trillion. I mean, can’t we just ask Taylor Swift, as a favor, to pay it off?

Nearing its second year is the Ukraine War, a fierce battle between Russia and…more Russians. Ukraine’s president keeps thanking us for all our money and weapons, but no: thank you, Vlodymyr Zelenskyy for keeping our military industrial complex chugging along. Maybe you can also beg for a bunch of Chevys and Toyotas and help us bring Detroit back. As for Russia-Russia, we all thought Vladimir Putin would be dead by now. Instead, he’s just deathly: pale and shaky with purple streaks on the tops of his hands. The CIA speculates those are either intravenous marks or he’s been fisting the California raisins.

Speaking of good taste, the Hollywood studios finally came to their senses and settled with the Writers Guild. They realized that having Artificial Intelligence write boring screenplays with lame dialogue, cliched plots, and obvious themes was no substitute for having real writers churn out scripts with lame dialogue, incoherent plots, and woke propaganda. The only movies that weren’t bombs were Oppenheimer, about a bomb, and Barbie, about a bombshell. 

But, hey, where’s the A-bomb when you need it? On October 7th, Hamas fired hundreds of rockets from Gaza into mainland Israel. Arab gunmen also stormed an Israeli music festival where they massacred 300 attendees, tortured others, and took hostages. They also raped a bunch women, many of whom were later found dead. It’s unclear whether the women were violated before or after they were killed because, let’s face it, Muslim terrorists aren’t the pickiest bunch when it comes to pussy. They see a woman with an uncovered thumb, they’re like, “What a whore!”

When the first wave of horror was over, 1400 Israelis lay dead. I have no jokes for that: 1400 slaughtered in a day by the same batch of people who have poisoned the world for 70 years with their fundamentalism, despotism, and terrorism. 

And so, a day later, Bibi Netanyahu says to the Palestinians in Gaza, “Pack your shit. Your have 24 hours. Get the fuck out.” And the world, which had spent 10 whole seconds commiserating with Israel in grief and mourning, said, “You can’t do that. You’ll cause a humanitarian crisis!” And Israel said, “Just maybe-perhaps-possibly Hamas should have thought of that before their ambush.”

Israel commenced revenge immediately, although Netanyahu did allow Palestinians more than a week to take their camel caravans and find another country to despoil. But was that enough for the UN? Was that sufficient for world opinion? Of course not! When an errant Arab bomb fell on a Gaza hospital, who got blamed? Who’dya think? Meanwhile, Hamas fighters are using hospitals and schools as their command posts. They know that if Israel attacks, liberals weep; and if Israel doesn’t attack, Jews die.Win-win. Well, you know what, OXFAM, and World Health, and Red Cross, and Doctors Without Brains? Sometimes Jews have to kill the people who make them die.

But do college kids understand that? These Ivy League-bush-league, moss-covered troglodytes who glom onto any cause as long as it makes them feel like they’re saving the world from their parents’ mistakes? While they live in their parents’ basements? Like toadstools blossoming out of excrement, pro-Palestinian protests are everywhere, stopping traffic, blocking libraries, frustrating commuters, and doing nothing except proving just how many anti-Semites there really are. “Oh, but we don’t hate Jews,” say Ilhan, and Rashida, and Alexandria, and Susan, and Roger, and, oh—in for a penny—Ice Cube and Kanye. “We just hate colonialist Israel”—forgetting that Hebrews have lived in Israel since forever, and that Jews ask for no other safe place in the universe apart from this tiny country. 

In my stage show, Shalom, Dammit!, I made a joke about Jews for Jesus, saying that the term is an oxymoron, like Vegetarians for Brisket. Believe it or not, something even more incomprehensible has emerged: Queers For Palestine. I am not kidding: Queers For Palestine. These are a passel of LGB-D-Bags promoting the very people who would cut their schvantzes off for being who they are. You know, earlier this year, Out Traveler magazine picked the 15 best cities in the world for gay people. Coming in 8th, two slots ahead of Miami: Tel Aviv. You know how many other places in the Middle East made the list? (makes a zero with his fingers) If the list was the best 200, you know how many Middle Eastern cities would be on it? A handful—and they’d be in Israel, too. 

And yet, Queers for Palestine. How can these foolish freaks have their heads so far up their own tucheses? Well, they’ve likely been trying that as a sex technique. But seriously, what’s next for them? Faggots for AIDS? In their case, I’d donate. And I wish AIDS, leprosy, and spina bifida on anyone who chants “From the River to the Sea: Palestine Will Be Free.” No way! “From the Sea to the River, IDF Will Make Hamas Quiver.” “From the Sand to Mud, Gaza Will Run with Terrorist Blood.” “From Jerusalem to Miami, We Will Slice our Enemies Like Pastrami.” 

Okay. Enough rage. Now it’s time for sadness. As I often do with these annum-end reflections, I’d like to honor, poetically, some of the notables who did not make it out of 2023 alive. 

We start with Norman Lear, of All in the Family and Maude.

And Richard Roundtree, who’s now giving the Shaft to God.

To Tina Turner we said goodbye

Her talent was river deep and mountain high

Farewell Tony Bennett, who left his heart in San Fran

and cartoonist Al Jaffee, who was a true Mad man

Ted Kaczynski died, and he was the bomb

Henry Kissinger gave us the director’s cut of Vietnam

As First Ladies go, Roz Carter seemed nice

And, sadly, Bob Barker has barked his last price

We lost Tim McCarver, so pleasant and plucky

and David McCallum, from UNCLE, our Ducky. 

We lost Michael Gambon—Glenda Jackson, too

And Rolf Harris tied down his last kangaroo 

Farewell Alan Arkin, of movies and theater  

Bye Raquel Welch and Suzanne Somers — both jiggling for St. Peter

We toast Shane MacGowan with joy and affection

And director Bill Friedkin, who made a Connection

Jimmy Buffet’s margaritas became a huge trend

while booze and drugs took Matthew Perry, our Friend

We lost Pat Robertson, who thought he was holy

and Dame Edna tossed her last gladioli

Andre Braugher and Lance Reddick were marvelous cops

Richard Belzer was dean of the microphone drops

Farewell to Jeff Beck. Bye bye Tom Verlaine

No more will Burt Bacharach write about rain

The princely Treat Williams is now in an urn

Farewell Cindy Williams, who’s up with Laverne

Sandra Day O’Connor has judged her last case

While Sinead O’Connor has reached a better place

We lost Adam Rich of “Eight is Enough”

and Marty Krofft, panjandrum of “H.R. Puffnstuff”

Gordon Lightfoot made his way down with the sun

and farewell to Tom Jones — no, the off-Broadway one

Bon voyage Belafonte, a King among men

And ciao, David Crosby, the C of SN.

Robbie Robertson’s up with the Hawks in a Band

And let’s all give Pee Wee Herman a hand

We mourn Jerry Springer who sent chairs flying

And all the good people who are sick, dead, or dying.

But enough lamentation! I don’t want to bore

Let’s pray for survival in 2024. 

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

(c)2024 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #173 (12/25/2021): 2021 FAREWELL

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #173 (12/25/2021): 2021 Farewell

aired Dec. 25, 2021 on Dave’s Gone By. Watch on youtube: https://youtu.be/FnMeyeZ9K3Q

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, founder and spiritual leader of Temple Sons of Bitches, with a Rabbinical Reflection for the end of the year 2021 AD — After Delta. 

Well, we’re not really “after delta,” of course. We’re just discussing it less because another variant of the coronavirus came along to goose up the news cycle. Honestly, I think the whole Omicron thing was started by Hilaria Baldwin just to get her husband’s name off the front page. 

But my friends, it’s certainly been a year. Again. You know, there’s something to be said for pessimism; at least you’re not disappointed when everything goes to shit. So in 2020, we made it through the first wave of the pandemic: the triage tents, the refrigerator trucks, the zoom fatigue, the hidden charges for InstaCart deliveries. And with 2020 hindsight, the vaccines came — hallelujah! The government went to Big Pharma with a blank check and said, “Do something.” And they did! By new year’s, all these old people who were dying of Covid in nursing homes could get vaxxed and go back to dying of the flu. 

We all breathed a sigh of relief when, only months after the explosion of COVID, Pfizer, Moderna, and one-shot/blood-clot Johnson & Johnson proved that modern medicine could change the game. Unfortunately, viruses are like robocallers. If you block your number in the morning, they just find another sequence of digits to call you again at dinner. So Covid morphed into Delta, which spun into the more contagious but milder Omicron. By the time we get to Upsilon, everyone will have it, but it’ll just be constipation and hangnail.

Still, we must be careful — no matter how careful we are! Double-masked, tripled-vaxxed, quadruple-sanitized — the CDC messaging is still: go on with your normal life, but don’t do anything normal. As we end the annum, Broadway shows are closing, sports are canceling, hospitals are filling… The Rockettes even postponed their Christmas show till after Christmas. Now it’ll be the Lent Spectacular. 

So 2021 was really the year to get our hopes down. In New York we looked to the Cuomo Brothers for inspirational pep talks, which was like asking the New York Jets for tips on scoring touchdowns. We looked to reunions of Friends and Sex and the City for nostalgia, only to realize that women who are no longer cute are immediately irritating, and that “just like that,” Chris Noth is a rapist. 

We heard right-wing Republicans decrying vaccine mandates because the government has no right to tell them what medicine to put in their bodies. Sounds reasonable…until you remember these same people want to tell women what to do with their bodies. And now with the homemaker harpy, the college rapist, and the pubic-hair schvartze leading the Supreme Court, they may get their chance.

Not that America needs even more polarization. On January 6th, we realized half the country still believes Donald Trump won the election, that COVID is just the flu, and that country music is listenable. As scary as it was to see white people rioting, it was even creepier to see a guy painted blue and wearing a viking helmet storming the halls of Congress. Doesn’t he know the clowns in Congress don’t need makeup? 

So we distracted ourselves from the yecch of the year by watching unbelievably rich entrepreneurs…and William Shatner…go into space. They didn’t visit the moon or anything, they just went up in the air. Big whoop. That’s like going to a multiplex and telling the ticket guy, “No, thanks. I’m just here to enjoy the lobby.” 

At least people started going to the movies again — well, superhero movies; the rest they’re watching on TV because that’s the only pastime people can afford.  Between health insurance and home prices, you either have to sell an organ to buy a house or sell a house to buy an organ. And then you have to rent the organ out just to buy groceries.

But at least 2021 was instructional; we learned something. We learned that just because you get rid of a bad president doesn’t mean the next president will be good. Joe Biden, who always looks one step away from competence and two steps away from assisted living, has a knack for finding the failure in success. He pulls us out of Afghanistan — and we look like the Keystone Kops in the process. Biden signs a trillion-dollar bill to revamp America’s infrastructure, but his two-trillion-dollar domestic bill gets torpedoed by one centrist Democrat. Biden tries to reverse Trump’s anti-immigration policies, and so — big shock — thousands of illegals we can’t handle swarm to the border. 

President Biden did keep the economy going during COVID with numbers for both Wall Street and unemployment remarkably good. But that’s because people are working to shell out four dollars for gas and ten dollars for bread. And that’s if the bread makes it to the supermarket in the first place. Turns out a supply chain is only as good as its weakest link, and this year that link was the Suez Canal, where the good ship Ever Given got stuck like an impacted bowel movement. 

The whole year 2021 felt like the Ever Given; each time we’d pivot with hope to a different direction, we’d hit another sandbar. Tokyo held an Olympics…that nobody went to, apart from a couple of US athletes who got the twisties and tanked. Radical Democrats called for defunding the police — and then backtracked when rampant crime made their cities more dangerous than a Travis Scott concert. R. Kelly went to prison, presumably filling the space just vacated by Bill Cosby. Britney Spears finally became a legal adult — just in time to join AARP. 

And then race. You had black people getting angry because the jury found Kyle Rittenhouse not guilty — for killing two white guys. And when policeman Derek Chauvin was found guilty for suffocating George Floyd, all America heaved a sigh of relief. They even put up a statue of Floyd in a Manhattan Park, and it was quickly defaced by an unemployed actor. Sorry, that was redundant; an actor. But how dare he? After all, if we’re pulling down monuments of Civil War Generals and Founding-Father slaveholders, why not replace them with a counterfeiting drug addict whose biggest life accomplishment was holding a pistol to a woman’s stomach during a home invasion? Then again, when you come right down to it: whether the statue in the park is of Abraham Lincoln or Robert E. Lee, it’s still just a pigeon toilet.

But before we flush this year down the crapper, we should take a moment to remember some of the people we wish were still afloat in 2022:

Farewell Willard Scott — whose hundredth won’t be sponsored by Smuckers

And bell hooks and Anne Rice, you fine literary motherfuckers

We’ll miss Charlie Watts and his incredible drumming

Mort Sahl and Norm Macdonald, who kept the comedy coming

Goodbye Cicely Tyson, God finally took her

And old Cloris Leachman — you know: Frau Blucher.

We lost Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind

And also Don Everly, who never left his brother’s behind

Melvin Van Peebles made films that were funky

Mike Nesmith brought street cred to being a Monkee

Leon Spinks and Marvin Hagler, who never took a dive

And broadcaster Larry King — Not Live 

Farewell Roger Mudd, and thanks for the news

And Shalom, Ed Asner — you were good for the Jews

We lost Mod Squad’s Link, and that’s a stone bummer

And God roto-rooted old Christopher Plummer

Farewell Nanci Griffith who sang with her soul

And two decent statesmen, Mondale and Dole

Shalom, Jackie Mason, and thanks for the funny

Bye bye Bernie Madoff: shtup you and your money

Phil Spector’s bad deeds are interred with his bones

And Tawny Kitaen — I wish she had clones

We lost Ned Beatty, who, like a pig, did squeal

And how about a Mister Mic-drop for Ron Popeil?

And last but not least, Stephen Sondheim made his mark

with Gypsy and Sweeney and Sunday in the Park  

But just when these deaths make it seem dark as night

Remember with joy: there’s still Betty White!

And so my friends, my enemies, as we shuffle off the mortal coil of Covicious 2021 into Omicrazy 2022, I can only wish you all healthier, happier times; hope when things seem hopeless, and hot pastrami because…well, it’s hot pastrami.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches, in Great Neck, New York. Shana Tovah, be glad this one’s ovah.

(c)2021 David Lefkowitz & Rabbi Sol Solomon

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #168 (4/10/2021): NORMALCY

Rabbinical Reflection #168: Normalcy

(Rabbi Sol’s Rabbinical Reflections air on the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By. http://davesgoneby.net/?p=26057)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for April 10, 2021. 

What do we want? Normalcy! When do we want it? Soon. Please!

In case you didn’t know, since March 2020, America has been in various modes of lockdown, quarantine, and stasis, owing to the coronavirus pandemic. This was a sensibly safe response to a disease that swept through the world killing hundreds of thousands of people and putting millions of others in grave danger — and in danger of the grave. Each time we thought we’d seen the worst of it, another wave would come along and submerge us in fear. It’s like listening to an Oasis album. Every time a six-minute anthem finally ends, you’re like, “Ooh, silence. Beautiful quiet.” And then another fucking Oasis song starts.

Life has been like that for the past 13 months. We get our hopes up that the CDC and the NIH and CIA have a handle on the virus equivalent of the Gallagher brothers, and then, Boom!, there’s a holiday, families gather, people travel, and the numbers shoot back up. You could understand Dr. Fauci warning, “hold out a little bit longer. You don’t want to see your mother-in-law anyway, so stay home!” And you could sympathize with vulnerable people or those too young to qualify for the shot, saying, “Sorry, but wearing a mask is not fascism. Put it on, wash your hands, and have fun storming the capitol.” 

But what a magnificent century we’re in! We can encounter a brand-new disease, get our drug companies working on it, and half a year later already have a remedy ready for launch. Thanks to President Trump, the medicine rolled out at warp speed, and thanks to President Biden, it’s being distributed as systematically as dollar bills at a farbrengen. 

As of this ranting, 100 million Americans have received at least one dose of the Pfizer, Moderna, or J&J vaccine. Nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population, including myself and my dear wife, Miriam Libby, and eleven of our 21 ½ children, is fully vaxxed! So why am I vexed?

The answer stems back to the most basic human idea of fairness: Patience followed by reward. Endurance rewarded with triumph. Eat your broccoli, then you can have ice cream. Unless you had steak with the broccoli, in which case you’d be mixing milchig with fleishig, so you have to eat the broccoli AND wait six hours for the ice cream, but don’t complain because some people go to bed hungry and you got to eat steak, so shut up, you kvetch.

But back to my point. We are taught that if we deny ourselves for the greater good, we’ll get some of that great good. Save your pennies for a rainy day, and you’ll have money to buy an umbrella. Since 2020, we have been denying, and forgoing, and masking, and isolating, and socially shrinking because we understood the bargain: when the vaccine comes, and the herd immunity kicks in, life will be life again. We got mad at mayors and governors who appeared to jump the gun on reopening because they valued commerce over public health. We dreaded restoring schools until we realized that juveniles may spread a ton of disease, but not to each other. We cringed at watching another press conference from Governor Cuomo because…he’s Governor Cuomo. And we waited. 

So, nu? We’re getting our shots, we’re doing our best…where’s the reward? Two weeks after the second shot, we’re 90-something-percent protected against the Wuhanian flu. We’re more likely to get hepatitis from a hobo than Covid from a co-worker. And yet, the Center for Disease Control says, “Keep wearing your mask. Don’t get on a plane unless you have to. Stay six feet away from your neighbor. Don’t lick a postage stamp unless you know where it’s been.” Basically the same rules we’ve been tolerating since Alex Trebek was still hosting Jeopardy. So what was the point of the shots? Why put ourselves — or, more importantly, myself — through the inconvenience, the uncertainty, the soreness of receiving a subcutaneous Fauci ouchy, if the result is merely more of the same? 

Imagine a guy going on a date with a hot girl at her place. “Now Reuven,” she says, “did you remember to bring a condom?” “I sure did!” “Did you put it on?” “Oh, yes.” “Great, now stay in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.” What the hell? 

Why am I shooting some profit-driven pharmaceutical company’s untested RNA into my bloodstream if I still must approach the world through solitary confinement? Why do I have to walk in a bank still looking like a bank robber? Why is it after boosting all my antibodies, all I hear about is Covid variants that can kick sand in my antibodies’ face?

You know, the Haredi community has taken a hatload of heat for their response to the pandemic. They obey their own rules, they’re careless with protocols, they hold massive weddings barely six inches apart let alone six feet. And the media has taken significant pleasure in reporting that the spread of Covid has been rampant among the Orthodox. Makes sense. Funny, but they haven’t been reporting — among all the black-hatters testing positive — how many dropped dead? Apart from a couple of decrepit rabbis, how many have kikt di emer? How many on ventilators or in hospitals? Versus…how many had two days of a bad headache and a sleepy streak? Heck, I get that just taking a poop. I’m not saying the haredi should be proud of their insular arrogance, but maybe the rest of us have over-reacted more than they under-reacted.

HaShem, if you’re listening: how about a break? Howzabout acknowledging those of us who’ve done everything right and rewarding us? it’s time to give us the ice cream — non-dairy! We don’t want to be too greedy.

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

(c)2021 TotalTheater. All Rights Reserved.

https://shalomdammit.wordpress.com/2021/04/09/rabbi-sol-solomons-rabbinical-reflection-166-4-10-2021-normalcy/

NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #168 (4/10/2021): NORMALCY

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #165 (1/17/21): FREE SPEECH

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 165th Rabbinical Reflection aired Jan. 16, 2021 as part of the Dave’s Gone By show. watch video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Y0DFpad8eto) / http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25394

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 17th, 2021.

Can we speak freely? No, I mean, can we speak, freely? I don’t like the “Stop the Steal” mishegoss any more than you do, and I think the nudniks who stormed the Capitol building deserve the strongest punishment. Like fines, imprisonment, or being trapped in an elevator with Jeanine Pirro in your left ear and Nancy Grace in your right. And they’re both using megaphones. And guess what? They’re angry.

But back to the point: we’ve got a paranoid President who is circling the drain because he’s terrified of being called the one thing he is–at least in terms of the 2020 election–a Loser. Not with Israel and the Middle East; he’s a winner there. Not with Wall Street and big business; he’s a Superman there. And, up till March of last year, not with the economy, which had low unemployment, tons of job growth, and a gung-ho attitude. 

But COVID knocked him down, as it did 350,000 of his countrymen. Trump’s rash pronouncements and veiled racial signaling appealed to America’s baser instincts, so although 75 million people voted for him, 80 million didn’t. He lost. Deal with it. I wish he would. I wish his Confederate flag-waving acolytes would. I wish the folks on QAnon would get a Clue-Anon.

However, just before the riots, the President gave a speech where he dubbed the elections fraudulent, the news fake, and the elections rigged by Big Tech. He called on Congress to recount everything, and he said, and I quote, “I know that everyone will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” unquote. He also praised the size of the crowd–he does love a big crowd–and urged them to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue. As a protest. As a way for those who legitimately felt the election was stolen to make their voices heard.

For this, Donald Trump was again impeached. For spinning a false narrative, yes, about the election, but moreover for inciting the crowd to riot. “Something is wrong here, really wrong,” he said, “and we fight. We fight like hell, because if you don’t, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” You know what that’s called? Rhetoric. Not insurrection, not incitement to anarchy. It’s a politician telling his believers not to give up hope and to channel their rage into action. If some followers in buffalo skins and football-fan camouflage took that to mean storm the government, break stuff and take stuff, that’s on them. At the very least it’s trespassing; at most it’s sedition. 

The Democrats are accusing the President of having a signed First Sedition. True, he wound the bozos up, but he didn’t set them loose, any more than the makers of Cabbage Patch dolls doing TV commercials telling parents “buy these horrible things for your even-more-horrible children,” caused riots in Kmart. 

But pushing past impeachment and trying to remove Donald Trump from office–which will happen two weeks after he’s already been removed from office–my problem is with the censoring of free speech. President Trump has been banned, permanently, from Twitter.     Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram have deleted him for however long they choose, and YouTube has pulled his channel down. Far more worrisome, they’re doing the same for all his nutty followers who now have no place to share their cries of “fraud!” and “conspiracy!” Google, Apple, and Amazon have all removed the social-media site Parler, because too many kooks were spoiling the broth.

Now, these are private companies–sort of–so their CEOs have the right to monitor everything that goes on them. If you own a restaurant, you can’t discriminate against your customers based on race or gender, but you can still demand, “No shirt, no shoes, no service.” I’ve thrown people out of my synagogue for wearing dirty tallises. Well, they weren’t wearing anything underneath them, but that’s neither here nor there.

The point is we are on a very slippery slope when our biggest purveyors of public palaver start telling us, “Well, you’re allowed to post hopeful things about Joe Biden’s inauguration, but you can’t write anything questioning the legitimacy of his victory.” “You’re allowed to condemn the violent idiots rioting in Nancy Pelosi’s office, but don’t you dare encourage the peaceful idiots to keep marching two blocks away.”

When I was a little Rabbi, a Rabbette, I was taught three things you couldn’t do: yell fire in a crowded shul, slander someone, or be so obscene that a reasonable person would go, “dude, I’m as kinky as the next fetishist, that’s messed up.” But no law says you can’t lie. That’s not even one of the Ten Commandments. Wait, let me make sure (thinks and counts), nope. False witness is different. And there’s certainly nothing in there about not sharing things that you actually believe are true–even if there’s overwhelming evidence they’re false. 

So what happens when you censor folks on the fringe? You make them angrier, you drive them deeper underground, and now it gets harder to track them to make sure they don’t escalate from angry TikTok videos to kidnapping Ilhan Omar. You also cause everyone else to self-censor. “Hmm, maybe I better not post this because they’ll just take it down anyway. Maybe I better not think this, because then I’ll waste time posting it, because they’re just gonna take it down anyway.” 

I am of the mind that you say what you have to say, and if I hate it, I get to say what I have to say back at you, louder. The problem in 1925 was not that Hitler published Mein Kampf; it’s that not enough people read it and went, “ooh, this guy’s bonkers and maybe dangerous.” The problem is not that right-wing Republicans are posting that the elections were a fraud; it’s that they believe it and won’t be de-convinced no matter the proof. Still, prohibiting them from non-violent, non-slanderous, non-obscene communication is non-okay.

Big Brother is already watching us from every stop light, website, Smart TV, closed-circuit camera, and GPS system. You can’t sneeze without someone in the CIA muttering gezundheit. Must we have social-media platforms that restrict content based on alternative narratives? Do we really want to side with Cardinal Maculani over Galileo? With Anthony Comstock over James Joyce? With Ayatollah Khomeini over Salman Rushdie? 

In my version of reality, Donald Trump was an okay president who made just enough poor decisions to lose the election. In your version of reality (points), Donald Trump was a terrible president who should have been impeached before he was elected. Or in your version of reality (points elsewhere), Donald Trump was a great president who got cheated out of a second term. Can’t we all just not get along? Tolerating stupidity is one of the great virtues of our nation. That and cream soda. What, you disagree? That’s your right.

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

(c)2021 TotalTheater. All rights reserved.

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SONG : Hello Covid (A Letter from Cramps) (parody)

© 2020 David Lefkowitz. Sung to the melody of Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” and Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh (A Letter from Camp).” The song debuted on the Aug. 29, 2020 episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By.

To hear Dave perform the song:  http://davesgoneby.net/?p=24510

HELLO COVID (A Letter from Cramps)

Hello Muddah
Hello Fadduh
Things are weird at
Camp Grenada

It is quite a
strange community
As we try to give each other herd immunity

Different cultures
different races
spitting into
each other’s faces

Every time that
someone sneezes
We get close so we can catch all their diseases

In the mess hall
they serve taters
which are kept near
ventilators

Sharing napkins
and toothbrushes
and the paper that we use to wipe our tushes

Now the kitchen
was inspected
To make sure the
food’s infected

You remember
Andy Cyrus
He went home and killed his grandma with the virus

Make me sick
Oh muddah fadduh
Do it quick
So notanotha day goes by
where I am in this place
of kids all coughing in my face

Say you will
Oh muddah fadduh
Make me ill
At Camp Grenada
Life’s so cruel cuz if my head stays cool
That means I’ll have to go to school.

Now my bunkmate
thinks he’s wiser
He’s been drinking
sanitizer

“Safe than sorry!”
is his credo
So we drool into the cheese in his burrito

Now he’s leaning
on a railing
cause his organs
are all failing

If we lose him
to infection
Maybe I can take his baseball card collection.

All the girls are weaving baskets
to hold onto
In their caskets

They’re such pretty
basket weavers
When their little cheeks turn red from spiking fevers

Wait a minute
no one’s crying
No one’s coughing
No one’s dying

Muddah Fadduh
Soon I’ll see ya
By the way, I got the herp and gonorrhea.

(c)2020 David Lefkowitz

NOTES & BACKSTORY:

[Aug. 2020] Arguably the most known and loved song parody of all time, Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh” has been a staple of the Dr. Demento radio show since I was in my pre-teens. In fact, I’m pretty sure I once called in on Dr. D’s request line to have it played. Forty-five-plus years later, I penned these lyrics, put them to a karaoke version of the Sherman classic, and sent it off to Dr. Demento (fingers crossed). Here’s the audio: http://davesgoneby.net/?p=24510

If the story makes no sense taken out of context 20 years from now (fingers again crossed), my song was written during the coronavirus pandemic. News stories, probably apocryphal, had parents intentionally bringing their kids together in parties and camps so that they’d transmit a mild version of the disease to each other and thus develop immunity—kind of like what parents did with chicken pox two generations earlier. Since I hated going to camp as a child and camping as an adult, it was hard to resist updating this ode to Camp Grenada. 

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/20): BROADWAY 2020

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #163 (6/7/20): BROADWAY 2020

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 163rd Rabbinical Reflection airs Saturday, June 6, 2020 as part of the 16th annual Dave’s Gone By Broadway special. Watch on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mpB45YQoI&feature=youtu.be) / http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25426

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of June 6, 2020.

Year after year, I’ve been coming on this program to help celebrate the Tony Awards—the glittering prizes Broadway people give themselves to compensate for not getting movie work. The awards are meaningless; how do you compare one actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a comedy, to another actor playing a frustrated gay writer in a drama? It’s apples and oranges. Well, still two fruits, but you know what I mean.

The Tony Awards are important because they serve as an excuse to remember how lucky we are to be in New York. It’s where the most talented performers, designers, writers, orchestrators, wigmakers, and intimacy directors ply their craft.

Going to the theater is a social activity, an emotional experience, an intellectual pursuit, and a cultural lifestyle. Or at least it was, until some Chinaman cut up a bat, and now no one can go ten feet from their bedroom.

As you know, playhouses in America closed in mid-March because theater is not just about art. It’s about a thousand people squeezing through a lobby at intermission to get to four toilets built in 1908. It’s about smelling the Chanel number two on the woman behind you, hearing the crunch of potato chips from the jerk next to you, picking up gonorrhea from the last person who used your arm-rest, and catching flying spittle from actors over-emoting downstage. I wasn’t there at the time, but I’ll bet you bubonic plague started during an ancient production of Sugar Babies.

So Broadway, the Fabulous Invalid, is once again crippled. Theater owners must figure out how to make their buildings tourists traps instead of death traps. Producers are scared they’ll have to lower prices, cut capacity, and submerge all the balcony seats in Purell. And members of Actors Equity are learning how fun it is to be unemployed 100% of the time instead of 90% of the time.

But my friends, I take the long view. It is my opinion, based on absolutely nothing but my kishkes, that a year from now, everything will be back as it was. When New York gets hit with blackouts and snowstorms, Broadway stops for a day. When Kennedy was shot, Broadway went dark two days. Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, Broadway closed . . . and reopened on Thursday.

People want normalcy even in a new normal. And with the COVID curve collapsing, it’s just a matter of weeks before Mrs. Cohen turns to Mr. Cohen and says, “Ooh, Denzel is playing Mama Rose! Tickets are only $470. Let’s go!” And Mr. Cohen will say, “Are you crazy? You just got outta the hospital with pneumonia!” And Mrs. Cohen will say one word: “Denzel.” And that will be it.

And if it’s not Denzel, it’s Meryl. Or Bette. Or Audra. Or Rabbi Sol Solomon doing his magnificent show, “Shalom Dammit! An Evening with Me.” Whatever the impetus, people will take the risk to reap the reward. After the market crash of 1929, who would invest again? People did. After 9/11, who’d get on an airplane? People did. After Tom Six directed Human Centipede 2, would anyone go to a movie again? They did. To Human Centipede 3.

Scientists predict that the autumn will bring us a spike in coronavirus cases and force all the stores and restaurants that just ramped up to re-hibernate. That could happen. We might also see a lot of marquees go blank and theater companies give up the ghost. That’s likely. But eventually people will sit together, watching a stage, laughing, crying, clapping, and burrowing into the seat cushion when they have to hide a fart.

And so I have been asked, by nobody in particular, to give a blessing, a benediction, for the future of the American theater.

Blessed art thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe. Or possibly Queen. Or Gender-questioning deity. O father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And by that I mean F. Murray Abraham, Oscar Isaac, and Jacob Adler. It’s been a rough couple o’ months. A hundred thousand dead, massive unemployment, race riots, disappointing episodes of Nailed It!. We need a beacon in these dark times. We need the most talented, charismatic people on the planet; live and in-person, creating art, and making us feel something beautiful.

As the wolf dwells with the lamb and the leopard lies down with the sheep—hey, consenting animals—let the unions dwell with the producers and the landlords be fruitful and multiplex. May God say, “Let there be theater!” Well, maybe not Frank Wildhorn musicals. And Glass Menagerie revivals. And three-hour plays about British politics. And rock musicals about teenagers with problems. BUT LET THERE BE OTHER THEATER! And may we dwell in the houselights of the Lord forever. Amen.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches. The show will go on.

(c)2020 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/2/20): SOCIAL DISTANCING

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #162 (5/3/20): SOCIAL DISTANCING

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 162nd Rabbinical Reflection airs Saturday, May 2, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZP5bCPfLKY&feature=youtu.be)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 2nd, 2020. 

You know, I usually take great pride in being Jewish. Despite my neurosis and fear-based logic and my alarmingly small penis, other aspects of my heritage give me significant nachas. We’re survivors, we’re creative and cultural, and we’re smart. Even anti-Semites warn the world that we’re crafty, we use our big brains. What a lovely stereotype! French people are snooty, Italians are hotblooded, the Polish are . . . Polish, but Jews were always the smart ones.  Granted, in recent years we’ve gotten complacent. Look in a library at night, you know the Asians have usurped us. But at least we’re still second-smartest.

Or so I thought until this-past week. On Wednesday, Rabbi Chaim Mertz—no relation to Fred or Ethel—he dropped dead of COVID-19. A tragedy; my condolences to his family. How did the Orthodox community respond? With a funeral—a public funeral. 2,500 Orthodox Jews of the Haredi sect gathered on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Did they stand six feet apart? No. Did they all wear masks? No. Although some of those beards could have doubled as a hairnet. Did they pay any attention to scientists and state officials who said, “Excuse me, we’re in a pandemic. Stay indoors and practice social distancing. And Hulu-watching.”

These people did none of this. No doubt their thinking was, “this is our community, we self-govern, and if we choose to put ourselves at risk, that’s our business. Also, we share antibodies because we’re all inbred anyway.”

Mayor de Blasio looks at this de Blatant violation of community standards—and possibly the law—and says, “What’s wrong with you people?” Or, to be precise, he tweeted, quote, “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the New York Police Department to summon or even arrest those in large groups. This is about stopping the disease and saving lives. Period.”

Did the Jewish community apologize? Did they say to the Mayor, “Slicha. We were overcome with grief for our dead Rebbe, but we were thoughtless and disrespectful to our neighbors. It won’t happen again, no matter who dies. Although if Messiah comes, we’ll probably still turn out in big numbers.” 

That was not the response of the Haredis or the greater Jewish community. Instead, they jumped on the race wagon and accused de Blasio of de Bigotry for singling them out. 

What a load of schmucks! The Mayor singled you out because you didn’t single yourselves out, you multiplied. If you’d stayed home and watched the funeral on Instagram, or done an orderly procession with everyone six feet apart and masked, you could have served as an object lesson for the world: “When the shutdown ends, this is how you can go into a sports stadium, a school assembly, a klezmer rave party—in a safe, public-minded fashion.”

Instead, you poured into the streets and milled around like a fire drill. And that behavior gives ammunition to real anti-Semites. Why shouldn’t they sneer, “You see? The Jews claim to love the USA, but but when push comes to shove, they push and shove. Religious ritual supersedes American law. And they turn a blind ear to mayors, governors, police forces—anyone outside their crazy creed.” 

For their part, the Haredis say they notified police before the march and were given the go-ahead. A conversation that I imagine went: “Hi. We’re gonna congregate. Better get barriers ready so the goyim don’t bother us. Thanks!” They also noted that crowds elsewhere in the region turned out in numbers to watch a military flyover of Air Force Thunderbirds. “Why is de Blasio picking on us and not them?” Fair point. He should have crapped all over both of you. Instead, the Mayor was forced to temper his tweets. He didn’t apologize, thank goodness, but he did express regret for lashing out, saying he was frustrated by this disease, which has killed 63,000 New Yorkers—among them quite a few Jews. 

Over the next year, this country must have serious debates about the line between security and civil rights. I mean, it’s 18 years since 9/11, and we still take off our shoes at the airport. What is that about? I’ve hurt more people with my foot odor than a shoe bomber ever could. So it will be interesting to see if the Orthodox, in their huddled masses, spread coronavirus so much worse than the rest of us on our couches watching “Nailed It!” all day. 

But that’s for scientists and statisticians to figure out. In the meantime, the law—especially in a sardine tin like the five boroughs—is to socially isolate. I admit, that’s easy for me, because I hate people. But whatever your ethnicity, if you think your religion is more important than common sense or the common good, please, convert. And stay 6 feet—600 feet!—away from people like me who don’t wanna die. And if I do, no procession. Just give me a Pay-Per-View special with Gilbert Gottfried telling dirty jokes and Morgan Freeman doing the eulogy. Oh, and naked cheerleaders. For obvious reasons.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches.

(c)2020 TotalTheater

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NON-FICTION – ESSAY – HUMOROUS: Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #160 (4/10/20): SHAKING HANDS

Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #160 (4/10/20): SHAKING HANDS 

(Rabbi Sol Solomon’s 160th Rabbinical Reflection aired Saturday, April 10, 2020 as part of Dave’s Gone By. Watch & Listen on Youtube: https://youtu.be/FBe-_trL2vI / http://davesgoneby.net/?p=25519)

Shalom, Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon, with a special Rabbinical Reflection for the Rave Social Distancing Festival of 2020. 

Now let’s be honest. If you personally have not gotten sick with the COVID-19. And nobody close to you has died. And your job, God willing, is safe. It really hasn’t been a bad disease. 

I know: the store doesn’t have your favorite toilet paper, so you’re using the scratchy kind that hurts your tuchas. You have to wear a mask when you go outside. Lemme tell you something: the vast majority of us are so homely, in public we should wear masks. You can’t see a show on Broadway. Big deal. Netflix has tons of homosexuals. And one of them raises tigers. You don’t see that in Hamilton. The lions inThe Lion King? Not real! What a gyp!

So in terms of social distancing . . . Nisht gefelech. No big deal. So you can’t go to work and see your colleagues five days a week. Ask yourself: the day you retire, will you miss any of those assholes one bit? Even the nice assholes? Of course not! So why miss them now?

But people are all upset about these minor alterations in behavior. Like when Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the coronavirus task force, told a reporter that if we’re really serious about stopping the spread of infectious disease, we would never shake hands again. Never shake hands? How do you end a job interview? (mimes OK signs) “Thank you!” (and double handjobs) “When will you be deciding?”

Americans have this attachment to the hearty handshake. Extend your forearm, look your adversary in the eye, shake vigorously without bruising any cartilage, smile and start your business. This is the universal language of macho respect. It’s also a fantastic way to transfer the germs and the yuch and the hangnail and the paper cuts on your fingers to a perfect stranger.

You ever meet someone who wears too much fragrance, you shake their hand, and the whole rest of the day, your hand stinks like them, no matter how many times you wash it? And you can’t help yourself. The rest of the day, you’re smelling your own hand. You’re working on something, you’re eating dinner; you tell yourself not to… and yet you bring your hand to your nose and goddammit, it’s still there. Well, if that eau de Toilet stays on your fingers 10 hours, imagine how long their phlegm SARS will stick around. 

Dr. Fauci has a good point. We don’t need to press the flesh to impress the fresh. Why can’t we bow like the Japanese? A deferential tilt of the head, a bend at the hips like you’re davening. Then you stay on your side of the tatami mat, and I’ll stay on mine. And you know what with the Japanese? No sushi. I love my wife, but it tastes like her vagina. And not, like, 30 years ago when it was tolerable. Now it smells like someone farted into rubber cement. It’s horrible.

But I digress. We need to find ways to greet each other that don’t involve hand-to-hand microbial combat. We could adopt the royal wave. Queen Elizabeth is 187 years old; you think she wants people getting close to her? She gives a little wave, her subjects bow, no one gets chlamydia. 

Maybe we can do the namaste thing. “The Divine in me honors the Divine in John Waters movies.” I show my respect to you by shaking my own hand and leaving yours alone. Because I can tell, that’s your Pornhub hand. 

And then there’s the Israeli way: say “shalom,” back off six feet, and be ready to shoot.

Either way, we can keep in touch without keeping touching. If the new normal means shifting a few cultural practices that threaten the greater good, we should make the effort. Personally, I think we could eradicate 99 percent of all diseases if we got rid of doorknobs. And the underside of toilet seats. And Dennis Rodman.

But until then, let’s all do our part to keep each other safe and healthy so that after this strange and difficult Passover, we can finally have a true exodus. 

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

(c)2020 TotalTheater. https://wp.me/p1ixhV-wz

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NOTES & BACKSTORY: 

[April 2020] This Rabbinical Reflection, written during the COVID-19 crisis, was specially created to be part of the Rave Social Distancing Theater Festival, an online-only fest to which playwrights and theater artists submitted pieces of five minutes or less that dealt with social isolation and other aspects of life during a pandemic. 

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SONG: Toilet Plume (parody)

TOILET PLUME

(song parody sung to the 1867 tune of “The Flying Trapeze” by lyricist George Leybourne & composer Alfred Lee.)

It flies through the air with the greatest of ease
A big toilet plume of your tainted feces
When you squeeze a poopie from deep in your tush
It reaches the world when you flush

The dinner you ate in your kitchen last night
Is hanging around in the room
Whoever inhales will be swallowing down
The doo-doo you left in your plume

It flies through the air like a great bird of prey
The morsels of stool that explode in your spray
So when you make doody just keep it well hid
And make sure you lower the lid.

The droplets of dookie get aeorosolized
And easily passed to the lungs
If you leave your seat up, then please be advised
that strangers are tasting your dungs

That fly through the air from an open latrine
Dispersing the microbes of COVID-19
So kindly remember when you’re making slop
To reach down and lower the top.

© 2020 David Lefkowitz

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NOTES & BACKSTORY:
[April 2020] This was written, April 3, 2020, to be performed as part of the “Greeley Crimes & Old Times” segment of my weekly radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By the following morning. In the segment, we often go “elsewhere” for odd stories in the news. I found one (in the New York Post, natch) reminding folks that some researchers advise closing the lids on toilets when you flush so that microscopic particles don’t go in the air.
The recommendation itself was not new—I’d heard it years earlier regarding the downside of hand dryers recycling air in public rest rooms—but this story came during the height of the Coronavirus pandemic (aka COVID-19), which was America’s latest bubonic/polio/swine flu nightmare (for those of you still alive and reading this 20 years from now).

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