Behind the Headlines

By Charles Slat
Downtown Monroe will look a little different this holiday season.
That’s because the Downtown Development Authority will use light-emitting diode (LED) Christmas lights to deck the halls instead of the traditional lights that have adorned the downtown in the past.
DDA director Andrea Jones says the lights will give the downtown a different look and save about 90 percent of the energy that traditional lights would use.
‘Bout time considering that Santa’s sleigh has made use of wind power for decades.

When you want good music, ya call Ray Parker Jr.
Probably best known for his theme to the “Ghostbusters” movies, Mr. Parker played the River Raisin Jazz Festival on Sunday and the crowd went crazy when he broke into his signature piece.
“That was the highlight of my seven years of jazz festivals,” said John Patterson, president of the Monroe County Convention & Tourism Bureau, which organized the event. “When that huge crowd yelled `Ghostbusters.’ It was an awesome moment. It sounded just like the record, and everybody’s face lit up.”
As he was checking out of the Hotel Sterling in downtown Monroe Monday morning, however, he set the record straight about the lyrics of the song. It’s not “Who ya gonna call?” or “Who ya goin’ to call?”
“Those lyrics are nowhere in the song,” Mr. Parker said. “It’s who ya gon call?” That colloquialism is lost on most listeners, he explained.
Mr. Parker, by the way, is still collecting royalties on that song and the music will be used again on an upcoming release of a Ghostbusters video game.
Part of his performance Sunday, included a rendition of “Shaft,” a tribute to composer Isaac Hayes, who died last week.
Mr. Parker said he enjoyed his gig in Monroe. Having most recently played Chicago and a number of European cities, he was looking forward to returned to his Detroit hometown for a couple of weeks.
He said he never had stopped in Monroe before and just viewed it as a place on the way to Cedar Point.
“I think the whole city’s wonderful,” he said. “It seems like the whole town is involved” in the festival.

By Charles Slat
Passersby might have noticed a lot of excavation work going on recently at St. Mary’s Park.
That was the city “installing” more event seating.
Actually, the City of Monroe Department of Public Services did some plastic surgeon-like sculpting of the landscape to rid the venue of a grassy knoll near the bandshell.
The knoll was flattened and soil carted away to leave an even plane with the rest of the park. Seems the knoll was an obstacle for those attending events at the park and was most noticeably an obstacle during the annual River Raisin Jazz Festival. The knoll itself and festival-goers who used it for seating obstructed the views of a lot of people behind them.
From now on, the park will be a level playing field for all those attending.