SATURDAY MORNING SALSA
For some, Latin music’s polyrhythmic frenzy and joy might be
a bit much so early in the morning. Yet for the past three years, Javier
Rivera’s “Esencia Latina” has kicked off each morning
on Jazz 90.1 WGMC — at 6 a.m.
“It’s been fun,” Rivera says rapid-fire through an
ever-present smile. He gets up at 4:30,
is at the station by 5:30, and says:
“I can’t wait for Saturday. This is my fix.”
The show begins with a bang; no easing the listeners in. “I used to do that at first,” he says. “But
not anymore. I just go for the jugular right away: wake ’em
up.”
Those who are awake dictate what gets spun.
“I don’t come in with a play list,” he says. “I mean, I got
some stuff, but listeners basically pick what I’m going to do.”
Originally from Puerto Rico, Rivera,
33, is a Latin-music collector who interned at WGMC before being given the
opportunity to host Esencia Latina.
“There was a vacuum of Latin music here,” he says.
Despite having an enthusiastic and knowledgeable fan base,
he uses the show to educate.
“Salsa is very Cuban, like mambo and stuff like that,” he
explains. “Merengue is the fast-paced one. There’s
not many steps to it: shake your hips, and pretty much you’re doing it. Bachata is Dominican; it’s a lot slower. Then there are the
Puerto Rican rhythms bomba and plena.
Here on the program, we focus more on the salsa scene and Latin jazz from
independent artists.”
Rivera mixes in mainstream Latin grooves and artists when he
DJ’s Friday nights at The Palm Bar (61 Commercial
Street). This has gone on since June, swelling to
a weekly crowd of roughly 200.
“It’s a mixed crowd,” he says. “A lot of dancers.”
Through his radio show and nightclub events, Rivera clears
up misconceptions. This is not “La Bamba” or “La
Cucaracha” or anything like that, he says. “Latin music is part of the culture,
and we try to feature that. This music and the culture go hand in hand. The
fusion of jazz and tropical rhythms is an important part of the culture.”
(“Esencia Latina” airs Saturdays
on Jazz 90.1 WGMC, 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.
The show is also live on the internet at www.jazz901.org. Rivera also hosts Latin Night every Friday at The
Palm Bar Ultra Lounge, 61 Commercial Street,
325-3030, 9 p.m. -2 a.m.)
— Frank De Blase
CHENEY FOR KUHL
In the race for the House of Representatives seat in the
29th district, the war in Iraq
is quickly becoming the dominant issue.
This summer, retired General Wesley Clark came to Rochester
to stump for Democratic challenger (and former subordinate) Eric Massa.
On Friday, perhaps in an effort to blunt Clark’s
appeal, GOP incumbent Randy Kuhl brought one of the war’s architects, Vice
President Dick Cheney.
Cheney was in Rochester
only for a few hours, just enough time for a private thousand-bucks-a-pop photo
shoot and remarks to an audience of Republican contributors.
Cheney’s apologetics for the war in Iraq
in particular and the one “on terror” in general dominated his short speech.
Although he rarely strayed from GOP talking points, Cheney’s tone and rhetoric
were both subdued — more C-SPAN than FOX News. He employed none of the
messianic language this administration has become known for. Still, the speech
wasn’t completely without cheap shots.
At one point Cheney said Democrats were actively pushing for
“defeat” in Iraq;
at another, he asserted that Senator Jay Rockefeller “believes the world would
be better off if Saddam Hussein were still in power.”
Here are a few annotated excerpts from the speech:
On Kuhl and the race
in the 29th:
“The congressman’s lived in this part of the country all his
life. He knows the territory; he’s in tune with the district.” A subtle jab at Massa? The challenger — of necessity, having
been a career military officer — hasn’t lived in the 29th district for all
his life.
“Like all of you, Randy stands 100 percent behind the men
and women in the United States Military.” And
Massa — a veteran — does not?
On the “Global War on
Terror”:
“We harbor no illusions about the kinds of enemies we face.
Our country’s never before had to confront adversaries like these, that have no
standing armies or navies. They wear no uniforms. They recognize no conventions
of war, nor any rules of morality.” This
was the first of a few oblique references — and one overt one — to the
latest beltway squabble, over which interrogation techniques are permissible.
On withdrawing troops
from Iraq:
“One of those who’s been calling for a withdrawal from Iraq
is congressman Jack Murtha. Jack’s an old friend of mine. When I was Secretary
of Defense, he was the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee. We
did a lot of business together. But on this issue, Jack’s wrong. In making his
proposal, he’s cited two previous instances of American military withdrawal and
suggested they would be good models for us to follow in Iraq.
The first was America’s
retreat from Beirut in 1983. The
second: our withdrawal from Somalia
in 1993. That proposal is contrary to the national interest and draws exactly
the wrong message from the examples of Beirut
and Somalia. If
you look back at the years before 9/11, you will see case after case of
terrorists hitting America
or American interests and America
failing to hit back hard enough.”
Murtha’s plan “would simply validate the al Qaeda strategy and invite more terrorist attacks in the
future. If we have learned anything from modern experience, it is that we have
to stay on the offensive until the danger to civilization is removed.” Murtha — also a vet — and Massa have campaigned together, so Cheney’s
remark seems calculated to associate the two in the minds of the rabidly
pro-war GOP base. Those war supporters use terms like “cut-and-run” and
“defeatocrats” to refer to Democrats. But Cheney manages to hit a sweet spot
where he doesn’t need to sully himself with that kind of language. Instead he
comes across as almost genial.
On “the terrorist
surveillance program” (also known as “warrantless wiretapping”):
“Like the detainee program, the terrorist surveillance
program is set up in a manner that is fully consistent with the Constitution
and the responsibilities and the legal authority of the president and with
adequate safeguards for the civil liberties of the American citizens.” Perhaps it didn’t occur to the Veep that
telling us the wiretapping program meets the same high standards as Guantanamo might not be comforting to anyone not
already sold on the idea. Then again, it was a friendly crowd.
— Krestia DeGeorge
BOSTON WINS RIVERA
He was named the national Superintendent of the Year. He got
an impressive grant from the Gates Foundation. Test scores have been rising,
and he’s pushing a broad initiative called the Children’s Zone to provide
services to families in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
But now he’s leaving.
In July, Rochester Superintendent Manny Rivera will head to Boston,
to lead that city’s school district. Rivera had previously said he wasn’t
interested in the job, but apparently Boston wouldn’t take no for an answer.
And for Rivera, who has family in the Boston area, the location was a strong
pull.
Rivera will finish the school year here and said he made the
announcement now so the Rochester School Board could have nine months to look
for his replacement. Board President Domingo Garcia says the board will create
a search committee and hire a recruiting and consulting firm.
Rivera isn’t the first superintendent to leave Rochester
for a bigger, more prestigious position, and he won’t be the last. Former
School Board President Rob Brown compares the district’s situation to that of
the Rochester Philharmonic: an institution strong enough to attract some of the
best talent in the nation. But it can’t keep them forever. “What we have to
understand is that we’re a second-tier city,” Brown said after Rivera’s
announcement. “But we’re the best.”
“If people go on to the most prestigious districts in America,”
said Brown, that’s cause for celebration.
Rivera has his detractors. He has been criticized for not
advancing student achievement fast enough. Some board members as well as some
City Councilmembers and business leaders have
questioned what the community gets for the district’s $650 million budget.
And recently, several African-American ministers and former
district employees have charged that the district discriminates against
African-Americans in its hiring and promotion practices.
“I think no matter where you go in any community, especially
when there is change, there will be difficult conversations and difficult
meetings,” Rivera said in an interview after his retirement announcement. And
conflict, he said, is not always bad. “It’s what you do with it, how you
respond to it, that matters,” he said.
There’s seldom a good time for a school district to lose its
superintendent, and Rochester
manages to keep superintendents longer than many urban districts do. Still,
Rivera’s announcement was a blow. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino
told a Boston Globe columnist that Rivera has “done everything he can do in
Rochester.” Rochester may disagree. Talented and charismatic, Rivera was
respected by many people, locally and nationally. And he was overseeing a
district with enormous needs. Rochester’s child poverty rate is among the
highest in the nation, and as a consequence, achievement and graduation rates
are low.
And the important initiatives Rivera has set in motion will
have to be picked up by a new superintendent, someone who — unless the
district hires from within — will have to become familiar not only with the
district, its administration, its School Board, its principals and teachers and
support staff, but also with the community.
That will not happen overnight. Nor is there any guarantee
that the School Board will be able to find a successor to Rivera before he
leaves.
Projects like the Rochester Children’s Zone, Rivera says,
will continue to move forward. While Children’s Zone was driven by the
district, he says he never intended for it to be managed by the district. “The
idea has always been for this to be a community-owned plan,” he says.
And last week, he was talking about yet another initiative:
the district will begin piloting a new type of intervention program that has
been used at the NormanHowardSchool, a private school
specializing in teaching students with learning disabilities.
“We are learning more about how students learn,” Rivera
said, “how their brains work, how they plan, organize, and implement
information. What is their short-term memory and long-term memory like? And
we’re going to be designing programs that teach individually to that student’s
strengths.”
— Tim Louis Macaluso
CHAMPIONSHIP’S AT PAETEC
After the first game of the Rochester Rhinos’ two-game
semifinal playoff series with Charleston
Friday, Rhinos rookie defender Kenney Bertz, sweaty
and exhausted from the game, was still exuding excitement.
“You can definitely feel that it’s more intense,” he said of
the playoff atmosphere at PAETECPark.
“There’s a lot on the line. You have to play like there’s no tomorrow.”
Fortunately, there will be a tomorrow for the Rhinos. On Friday the Rhinos beat the Battery
1-0, and on Sunday the two teams played to a 0-0 draw in Charleston.
As a result, under the aggregate-goal format, the Rhinos now advance to the USL
First Division championship match this Saturday against Vancouver.
But the Rhinos got even more good news Sunday: they learned
that they’ll host the title match at PAETECPark at 7 p.m., giving the team a chance to win its first title
since 2001 in front of the home fans.
Rochester’s
semifinal win was secured thanks to the spectacular play of goalkeeper Scott Vallow, who made several key saves in Sunday’s match to
further prove why he’s the team’s 2006 MVP.
“This organization has waited so long to get back to the
final,” Vallow said on 93.3 FM’s post-game show
Sunday. “It’s a little overwhelming. It’s almost too much for me.”
Vallow added that the Rhinos
played well on both ends of the field during the two-game series. To beat Vancouver,
he said, “that’s what it’s going to take.”
— Ryan Whirty
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2006.
