Sex, Drugs and the Sacred Heart

By Art Gallagher

"Any pilgrimage to the sacred heart of the Jersey Shore music scene has to include a stop at the former home of the Upstage Club on Cookman Avenue in Asbury Park. It was, after all, the venue where Bruce Springsteen, the beginnings of what was to become the E Street Band, Southside Johnny and other local luminaries jammed and honed their skills between 1968 and 1971."

That is the first line of an otherwise inane editorial in the Asbury Park Press today. Emphasis added by your favorite blogger.

What is APP Editorial page editor Randy Bergmann thinking? What is he smoking?

Invoking profound religious imagery about an abandoned Asbury Park building that might get rehabbed, because The Boss and Southside Johnny jammed there 30 years ago, as if the rockers are divine, is highly inappropriate and insensitive to devout Catholics. Perhaps not surprising from the same editorial board that said allowing a mosque at ground zero is the right thing to do, but insensitive and offensive just the same.

For those who are unaware, The Sacred Heart is a symbol of Jesus to devout Catholics. A pilgrimage is a long journey of great moral significance to a sacred place.

If Bergmann had used Islamic imagery rather than Christian imagery in his inane-itorial he'd be hiding out with Salman Rushdie now.