Letters from the issue of Thursday, May 15, 2008

They're Digital Summer!: Digital Summer is an amazing band that has so much talent and deserves this type of recognition and much more ("Sticker Shock," Benjamin Leatherman, May 8).

Jason, you're kidding, right?: I'm in a local band, and I can tell you that Digital Summer is made up of a bunch of pretty-boy phonies. Why is it that New Times always picks the bands that everybody really likes to feature prominently in its pages, instead of bands that nobody seems to like but are artistically great?

It's easy to draw crowds of loyal supporters, but it's hard to labor with few supporters and people telling you to "keep your day job." (I mean, like my music career allows me to work at a day job!) When even your parents don't like your music (and want to kick you out of your room at their house) you know that you must be something right.

New Times is supposed to be an alternative paper, so why does it give a cover story to a band that is supported by countless thousands of people in the Phoenix area? This is intellectually dishonest. Discover something new — a band that nobody likes yet!
Jason Drew, Phoenix

A band that could go national: Anybody who hasn't gone to a Digital Summer show is missing something special!

This is a band that could go national, and it's right here in the Valley.

I've questioned almost every one of New Times' choices of bands for the newspaper's cover in the past, but not this time. New Times, you finally got it right!
Sue Matthews, Phoenix

See, Jason, they're not phonies: Thanks for featuring a band that really knows how to rock, for a change. Digital Summer's shows are drawing several hundred people each now. Can it be long before they become red hot nationally?

What I like about Digital Summer is that they are honest hard rock. They aren't phonies who try to do street hip-hop when they have no idea what that's about. They write songs about what they know, and a lot of it's relationship stuff that we all can relate to.
Richard Poe, Phoenix

Last name says it all: Digital Summer [band members] are a bunch of poseurs. Their music is totally soulless, and their fans are all idiots. Fuck 'em.
James Envy, Tempe

As good as their CD: Digital summer is the shit. Bottom line: The first time I realized that they were the band to represent Arizona's rock scene was when they played the Homeless for the Holidays acoustic set. Any band that can play acoustic and sound just as good as their CD has talent.
Dante M.F. White, Peoria

You keep hurting us, too: Just goes to show that you don't need talent to be on the cover of New Times. Great job, New Times! Another shitty band with a gimmick. You disappoint me more and more.
Name withheld by request

COOLIDGE AND THE GANG

How about an economic exception?: Closing down the Arizona Training Program at Coolidge is such a sad situation ("Home Invasion," Megan Irwin, May 1).

New Times told such a poignant story of how this facility has been home to these 129 people for so long. Who wouldn't be suffering at the loss of one's lifetime home?!

Dire economic times are truly to blame for the situation. It makes no sense, I guess, to keep this place open at taxpayer expense. But it's also sub-human to make these already-burdened folks suffer separation anxiety from Coolidge.

It's true that so many residents over the years should never have been put in a so-called "institution" in the first place, but since the state allowed that to happen, shouldn't an economic exception be made?
Maylene Woodbury, via the Internet

Shine a light: As the parent of a special-needs child, Megan Irwin's article was right on.

The experts who beat their chests about closing down this type of place always forget to mention that, when it happens, a lot of these people [don't] have families to take them in. A large percentage of them make up the homeless population that we have today, and some (worse yet) wind up in the prison system.

By the way, the term mentally retarded is offensive to special-needs people. Many of these people have physical problems, but their brains are as sharp as yours or mine.

God bless you for shedding light on the plight of these people.
Name withheld by request

BLACK AND WHITE

Last name says it all: I see that New Times' editors had Sarah Fenske write another article on the Wilkerson case ("Free Bryant Wilkerson," May 1) to kiss some black ass after [New Times executive] Michael Lacey offended black people with his remark ("Lacey Responds," April 17).