I work part-time for a group of radio stations in the Hudson Valley as a DJ. There’s five stations in all, three of which I can be found on on the air at any given time. Three different stations means three different formats, in this case rock, mix and country, a sort of format schizophrenia for me. Today I was on the mix station and as I was playing a Savage Garden song I thought to myself this is possibly the most misleading band name of all time. If I were in high school back in my day and had heard of a band called Savage Garden I most probably would have gone right out and bought the record sight unheard. That’s the kind of thing I did back then in my unending search to hear something new, unknown and possibly cool. My searches also leaned towards heavy metal, so…Savage Garden? Hell, that name practically screams heavy metal doesn’t it? A savage garden of rock I would have thought, a garden of savage roll, it had my name written all over it right? Boy, would I have been wrong. And If I had listened to the whole thing? I would’ve had to go back to the music section at the Caldor department store the next day to sue them for the fact that I woke up gay. Spandau Ballet had more balls for god’s sake. Savage Garden? That’s like Led Zeppelin being named Plant’s Polka Pompadours or Black Sabbath calling themselves Pretty Poodle. Sorry, I’m stuck on P’s for the moment, I don’t know why. Maybe I need to find my old Planet P Project record (dating myself). Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, without a name change, takes on a whole new meaning in the brave new world where I might have thought that Savage Garden could be a heavy metal band huh? Anyway…

Rosaria Art

Flowers laze her nape
along star beacons
with butterfly guides
to the small
where Tigger and Winnie play
as for Christopher Robin to smile
or blush
in soft blue slatted light
out there unwelcome
but for the glow of a streetlight
redeemed
in the
flash drops of rain
tiny bulbs on the sill.

I hold my hand
slowly
in front of my eye
then the other
back
again
over

Between my fingers light lulls
the pane
in the comfort of rain
where the clock ticks slower
and these fingers are real.

My cheek warms at the art of her.

I’m alive.

sjf

Letter to the Editor Musings

After reading about Don Imus’s imminent return to the radio all I could think was thank god for the preachers, the pastors and especially the reverend Al. Without them what other better examples of exaggerated self-righteous victimization would we have to use as learning tools for the kids? Rev. DeForest Soaries says the girls from the Rutgers team have lots of problems that they’re still working through. Ah yes, back woes from eventually being used as willing soapbox pulpits for self-important melodramatic talking heads. Move on already, your 15 have passed. As to reverend Al who wants to know if there are any safeguards in Imus’ contract against his past behavior. Glass houses Al, glass houses.

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To a voicer in the NY Daily News: You say that another voicer missed two important facts about Adams, Jefferson and Lincoln, that they were raised Christian and it had a profound and positive influence on their lives. Really, Joe, you have no way of knowing the effect Christianity had on their lives but instead make that assumption through a religious arrogance that so many suffer. If any connection can be made to faith or religion, however remote, distant or inconsequential, it is automatically trumpeted as the prime reason for all positives. However religious or not these men were, they were smart enough to know the dire consequences of mixing religion with government, Lincoln even kept a proposed Christian amendment out of the constitution. Sadly being that smart is not something that can be said about today’s “leaders” and the damage is evident on a daily basis here and abroad.

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To those who have found fault with Barrack Obama’s comments about why he no longer wears his flag lapel pin: Please stop already, your overreaction is exactly why Obama has stopped wearing the pin. It’s your voracious hunger for symbols and symbolic gestures outweighing your need for action and results that has Obama making his own symbolic gesture. This appetite of yours is eagerly fed by our current administration on a daily basis knowing it needs no substance and is the easiest way to try and ensure your continued fealty. The symbols also come in pretty handy for distracting you from the truth and even, on occasion, scaring you. You need to look beyond the flag and see what, if anything, is actually being done in its’ name. Be open to profound disillusionment.