In this Issue - Purchase College

...“Blue Oyster Cult” From Page 7
People started jumping on tables,” he said.
“One guy jumped up and kicked the mic stand
into my head...the whole place just went crazy
for this one song...We kept finding ways to
extend the song: guitar solo, bass solo, drum
solo. Everyone sing, ok now no one sing...
every possible way you can imagine.”
For a CD project, they created a mock
lounge band with Bumblefoot, the guitarist
who replaced Buckethead in Guns N’ Roses.
“Joe said just be as silly as possible,”
Castellano said. “We wore costumes and went
really over the top with it.”
He said Bumblefoot played different
characters, one being Checkers Goldstein
a Frank Sinatra type. “I played the part of a
mushed up lounge musician.”
***
Earlier that day, Professor Ferry sorted
sheet music on a table at the far side of the
orchestral practice room. Stefan Fink and I sat
across from him in the corner of the spacious
room.
“I’m playing bass. We have a horn section,”
Ferry said. “Ritchie’s going to play guitar and
sing and we might have a drummer. Not a full
set, just a snare drum.”
Ferry showed Fink a few sheets of music.
Ferry’s band, Big Ska, were going to practice
“Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder, “Sway”
by Dean Martin and “Get This Party Started”
by Pink.
“Ritchie and I toured together with Sue
Foley,” Ferry said. “We produced a lot of
records together. We’ve known each other
for a good ten years...My friend Dr. Adam
Messenger; he’s one of the doctors who saved
my wife’s life last year; he has a great rock
voice,” Ferry said. “He’s going to be singing
Blue Oyster Cult songs with Ritchie.”
“He produced Regina Spector’s first
album, 11-11,” Ferry said of Castellano. “They
recorded it on the third floor of this building...
He’s a great improviser, a great singer...he’s
tremendously versatile. He’s a very strong
player. He has a great command of the
instrument.”
Ferry said Castellano has matured
musically since he first met him. “His solos
build now much more dynamic,” he said. “His
rthymn is very sharp his choice of notes is
better. Much more deep...Everybody come
out and check it out. Yes the most important
part. Everyone please show up.”
***
Stefan Fink, freshman Arts Management,
is the one booking the show. Fink tipped me
off on the Castellano show and set up the
interviews for me. We had just gotten coffee
and tea for Big Ska. Fink told me how he got
involved in the Ritchie show. “He [Ferry]
was interested in bringing Ritchie here and
he knew I was the go to guy,” he said. “Over
spring break he sent me a text asking if I was
still up for it I texted back, ‘Hell yeah!’” Fink
said he was the intermediary between Ferry
and WPSR, who are streaming Castellano’s
show on their website.
Fink also said that he was unhappy with
the lack of musical diversity at Purchase
college, saying that the Stood and Co-Op
predominantly played indie music. He also
said that at the PCA, “you get mostly classical
music. It’s not arranged for the students. It’s
for the rich Westchester-ites...It’s [this show]
a breath of fresh air,” he said. “I think people
will actually enjoy this and appreciate the
difference.”
Fink said that his job was to, “promote,
promote, promote, promote, and convince
WPSR we can actually do the show...I more
or less took full responsibility for the station’s
side of it,” he said. Fink said that he booked the
Co-Op on Tuesday because he runs the WPSR
Coffeehouse which happens just previously.
“I made a Facebook group and I’ll have flyers
out by Tuesday,” said Fink.
As Big Ska started playing Sway by Dean
Martin, he spoke very highly about Ferry.
“He’s one of the best people I’ve had a chance
to work with,” Fink said. “He asks what I want
to see in it. It’s really a collaboration.”
“The bottom line is just filling the place,”
Fink said. “He’s a great guy but he needs
people to see him otherwise this concert is
for naught. It’d just be a practice...I want the
Co-Op to be standing room only...I think that
they’ve got that sound you don’t hear anymore.
That 70’s classic rock crunch,” he said. “There’s
an event floating around on Facebook.”
I
...“Dana” Page 9
to hide, if I do in fact want to scurry to a dark
corner somewhere and hide come the day of
publication?
The only answer I can possibly have for
myself is that the Naked Issue is an embrace of
the fact that, in a culture where being naked is
seen as such an extraordinarily risqué thing, it
can also be so extraordinarily unextraordinary
at the same time. I first thought this over a
year ago in a community college life drawing
class, where everyday I came in and drew
naked people, naked people, and more naked
people. And eventually it hit me, it’s just a
naked person. It’s no big deal. It is just a
person not wearing clothes.
With that, over brimming with my own
self-confidence and new found sense of
enlightenment, I decided to do the Naked
Issue this year. And doing so made me feel
a certain amount of empowerment. It hit me.
This culture of sameness I mentioned earlier
has it all wrong, and what a beautiful thing this
mainstream culture of same is missing out on
at that.
We are different and that’s okay. We are
given an unreachable standard of beauty by
this mainstream culture and the media which
empowers it and even that’s okay because we
have the power to repel it. We as individuals
can disregard it, mock it, and take light in the
fact that our bodies are beautiful all the same.
So this is the part, as Linus in Charlie
Brown’s Christmas, where I walk off the stage,
blanket in tow, and say, “That’s what being
naked for the Naked Issue is all about Charlie
Brown.”
...“MSAF” From Page 3 ed on every two years at every SUNY school, it
opportunities here as possible, and for that we hasn’t been voted on at Purchase for about six.
need a mandatory student activities fee.” This is because either previous PSGA’s did not
Besides being harmful to the school’s extracurricular
realize this was mandated, or because they
activities, a voluntary student ac-
realized what a drawback it would be to the
tivities fee is impractical.
college if the student activities fee were voluntary,
“First of all, you’d have the issue of collecting
said Stromberg.
the fee from everyone who chose to pay it,” “I think this would really hurt Purchase,”
said PSGA President Jon Stromberg. “Clubs, said Ana Orellana, a member of Latinos Unidos.
organizations and services would not be able
“If we didn’t have the fee, this school
to plan for a budget because they wouldn’t would basically be strictly academic. The way
know how much they would be getting until people get to know each other on this campus
around October of that year. The PSGA budget is through clubs, not classes. I can’t imagine
we’re working on now would be pointless.” Purchase without everything the student activities
There would also be no way of making
fee pays for.”
sure that only students who paid the voluntary “Everything is funded by this fee,” said
fee would benefit from its uses.
Ritchie. “Culture Shock, pre-shock, the GLBTU
and their faith.
I
Though the SUNY Board of Trustees mandates
that the student activity fee status be vot-
see all of that disappear.” I
Striptease, Fall Fest…it would be a shame to
know about the election but I look forward to Culture Shock. I* I wish Neil Fridd were running again. CONTINUATIONS19
I
... “Passover” From Page 3
holidays in the Jewish year. The Culture
Shock scheduling is yet another indicator of
the administration’s and the campus’ lack of
respect for its Jewish population.
“Purchase College would never have
considered hosting Culture Shock during
Easter weekend, which sometimes occurs
in April, just like Passover. There is a large
Jewish community on campus who now have
to make a decision as to how they celebrate
Passover and possibly put their traditional
customs aside in order to participate in a
campus-wide celebration, or attend Passover
Seder meals and miss out on one of the most
looked forward to events on campus,” said
Ruth Kleinman, Hillel Program Director.
In a campus-wide email sent out this
morning, the PSGA did issue an apology: “On
behalf of the PSGA, I would like to apologize
for the conflict of Culture Shock with the
Passover holiday weekend.”
However, this brief apology was buried
in a very long email pertaining to the Culture
Shock itinerary, and is hardly consolation
for the many Jewish students who must now
choose between their campus, their families,