Citypaper
February 16, 2006
"Standard Tap Poster Flap"
When Neil Simpkins—drummer for Philly's cabaretronic The Nite
Lights—wrote to tell me their gig at Standard Tap for Feb.
15 was cancelled, I thought nothing of it.
Until the next line: " … because of Joe B.'s promotional
flier."
The usually quiet Joe Boruchow—singer/graphic artist—had
come up with something not so quiet: an image of a Klansman holding
a Bible and a U.S. flag with a cross burning in the background,
an image he designed, then posted, around Northern Liberties.
"I looked at it as an editorial cartoon where the religious right
had co-opted the country," says Simpkins. So did its creator. Between
President Bush's State of the Union address and its outlook on terrorism,
the controversy of Muslim cartoon art, and having to hear Southern
politicians praise Coretta Scott King after years of damning her
husband, Boruchow snapped. "I saw a real immorality in all of that
false morality," he says. "The Klan itself was a terrorist organization
long ignored by this country and the FBI."
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