I am the D.J.

This one is from David Bowie, I believe it came out in the early '80's, but I could be mistaken.
When I was in college, way back in the late '70's, I used to cruise around Long Island to check out bands at nightclubs, and hopefully meet women. I was alway surprised at how hip the D.Js, who played the tunes between band sets were. They played stuff that I never heard on the radio, when I talked to them, they would often show me the album covers, and the bands were NOT the playlisted, top twenty, radio formula music. I often wondered, if they didn't hear it on the radio, how do they find out about these groups? Well I later learned, once I was established at WLIR F.M., that there's something called, "music service". This was a subscription organization that provided D.J.s with records.
Once I got out and began spinning tunes at clubs, I still had to buy my records like every "Joe Average". This became an expensive endeavor. I often drew the ire of music fans because I wouldn't spend my hard earned money on music that I didn't like. One evening a girl asked me to play a song by Bruce Springsteen. I told her that I didn't have any Bruce with me at the time, which was true...but I also didn't have any Bruce with me at ANY time, because I hate his tunes.
The club owner happened to be coming to tell me to make an announcement, and overheard the request. He told the girl to write down what she wanted to hear, and they'd get the record. He handed her a yellow legal pad that I happened to have with me and she wrote down her request, but as she moved away, she muttered, " I don't like him". By some strange coincidence, that happened to be my last night as a D.J. at that club. I have no probem playing tunes that I don't like, I just didn't want to pay for them.
The days of the ultra-hip D.J.s are a thing of the past, now you have to spin what the public wants, regardless of how inane it is. There may be some dance clubs where the unknown song can be snuck into a set without too much bad kharma, but I could never get the admiration of the common man by turning them on to the obscure rock that moved me. So it goes. ( A tune by Nick Lowe off the "Pure Pop For Now People" lp)

Neighbors

Yep, another Stones song for a title. This one's from the landmark '80's ablum, "Tattoo You". In the summer, for six weeks my job took me to Upstate New York, to the cozy community of Saratoga Springs. This could turn into a headache, since I don't drive and getting around was always a nightmare, but things there still had the "Small Town" feel of the late '50's/early '60's, so walking to breakfast and dinner was less of a nightmare than it would be here on Long Island ( Lawn Guyland for us natives).
One thing that I noticed was, that in the process of going out, people that I passed on the street all said, "Good Morning" or "Hello" as they passed, whether they knew me or not. That always gave me a good feeling, like the entire world hasn't become jaded, only the small portion I live in. When I return back to the Island, I try to be civil as I pass people on the street, for the most part, they regard me suspiciously as they pass. It's as if they're asking themselves, " What does that guy want?". I had hoped that this tiny gesture, might have a snowball effect and spread through the area, but that hasn't been the case. We've become more insular, shutting out the world and barricading ourselves behind real and mental barriers. I don't know if that old adage about strong fences building better neighbors has any truth in this day and age, it sure seems like stronger fences build suspiscion, doubt and underhanded ways to break them down or go around them.

Centerfold

Once again, I've borrowed a title from the '80's. The J. Geils Band had a hit by that name, circa 1984. When you think of Centerfolds, Playboy is the first magazine that comes to my mind. They made them famous, with such notable women, as Marilyn Monroe to Pamela Anderson baring it all for men to drool over. I've had a subscription to that "Gentleman's" magazine since the mid nineteen seventies. I don't think I threw any of them away. Inside there are advertisements for leather folders to preserve the naked women in a classy way. I put mine in boxes. When I was airbrushing fairly regularly, I often used them as references for my work, but lately, I've been reading them and then putting them into storage, never to look at them again. Due to my inability to find gainful employment, I have to move back home. I've amassed a sizable amount of junk, and sorting through it is a full time endeavor. There is a lot that has very little practical use, but I can't bring myself to part with it. My father is a worse pack rat than I am. He won't throw anything away. So compiling my junk with his is a good way to insure that most of it will remain buried in a time warp.
I tried gettig rid of some of my worldly goods on the internet. I have a couch that I cannot bring to his place, simply because there's no place to put it. I put that up for sale for $1.00. So far nobody's interested. I have one of those mini-cube refrigerators that has also garnered zero interest. The last item was my collection of Playboys. They're only magazines so who would want them? I put them on Craigslist for $1.00 just to get them out of my possession. I was hit by a number of inquiries, so I quickly changed the ad to read "Best Offer" instead, hoping that I could actully benefit from they're disposal. Once I weeded out the kids who were looking for "Whacking material", I was left with only two bidders. I ended up settling for $35.00 which was fine with me, otherwise they would have ended up in the recycling pile and the trashmen would have scored on that one. As much as I hate to admit it, times are changing too fast.
We now live in a disposable society. Buy it, use it, throw it out and buy a new one, seems to be the standard procedure for most of our goods. The electronic industry creates an incredible amount of pollution, due to the rate that things become outdated. I keep seeing stories on the news about how much recyclable material is in most ciruitry, and someindustrious guy goes about salvaging old computers, cell phones, radios and other assorted gizmos and not only melts down the precious metals from the circuit boards, but also found that the i.c. chips are even more valuable. I've got some computer equipment that's outated but in good condition, I hate to just dump it, yet when I try to find one of these industrious recyclers, there are none in my area. Why is that? I always see what a potential danger old batteries are to our environment, and back in the early nineties, some sort of ordnance was passed that stated any business that sold batteries, had to take old ones to be recycled. I never found anyplace that did. With Hilary, Barack and John out stumping for votes, I'd like to hear their thoughts on ways to get people up off their lazy asses and do something about a probelm that I'm reasonably sure I'm not the only one experiencing. As a race, we're too cavalier about what happens to what we don't use once it leaves our hands. The old "Out Sight, Out Of Mind" adage holds true in that respect. We only think about potential pollutants once they cause a problem like Love Canal, we're not proactive about environmental hazards, we wait until things get out of hand, then react to them, rather than mandate change before things get over our heads.
We as humans are so disposable, yet our dominance on the planet is making life difficult for the other living things. In New Jersey, they've had to change the hunting regulations because bears have been a problem in populated areas. Well DUHH, if we keep bulldozing wooded areas and building homes there, the bears don't exactly have Travelocity to help relocate them, so our solution is to kill them. If a bear kills a human, we feel justified doing it in, but bears would rather avoid us if they had the choice. We're taking that option away. It's even more mind boggling that I started out writing about a J. Geils Band song and ended up worrying about the future of our planet's animal life. I think I may have a problem...