Any of those Oceanside kids heard of PHIL OCHS?

Here's a little forum item for you. The question to others in the forum...will it be nice to move from Queens, New York to a little further away...Oceanside, on Long Island?

While Brooklyn and the Bronx are considered worse, not everybody is thrilled with Queens. One of the most notorious crimes in New York City history happened in Kew Gardens, Queens: the murder of Kitty Genovese.

Legend had it that her screams were heard as she fought with her attacker, and from various windows, citizens mutely watched and did nothing. Phil Ochs used this as the first lines of "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends." As in: "Look outside the window there's a woman bein' grabbed...now she's bein' stabbed..." Chorus: "...it wouldn't interest anybody..."

Such a thing couldn't happen in Queens again, right?

Just to be on the SAFE side, how about further away, in Oceanside?

Some kid is walking with a girl who "belongs" to somebody else. The girl is trying to make her boyfriend jealous? Whatever. The kid is called out and...

Look outside the window, there's a student bein' stabbed.

What did the kids do who were watching all this? They started recording it on their phones.

This is the apathy of the 21st Century. Don't get involved, don't call 911, just record it because...wouldn't it be cool if it went viral? That sure beats spray-painting your TAG on a subway train.

The kids who were making sure to capture the last moments of a fellow student's life probably are big fans of Drake. Kanye. Cardi B. Whatever the names are of the current rappers who wear the bling and stomp around in expensive sneakers and make crippled-up finger gestures that are supposed to mean something.

Back in the day, "the kids" were turning away from meaningless pop tunes on the radio and beginning to put "Eve of Destruction" on the charts, and "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Like a Rolling Stone." Even pop groups like Spanky & Our Gang were donning gospel robes and singing "Give a damn about your fellow man."

And Phil Ochs was on a major label and touring.

The perp walk was done and the killer taken to a police precinct.

Maybe nobody should expect "kids today" to listen to the music their GRANDPARENTS may have listened to. Is it too much to expect that they'd be listening to music that doesn't glorify violence, or call out and curse other rappers and pop stars in every verse?

In Phil's time, violence in movies was minimal. People were sounding alarms when Sam Peckinpah gave us "The Wild Bunch," and many were appalled by the violence in "Bonnie and Clyde" or "The Godfather." Now, that stuff is literally laughable, and the ante has been upped to...REALITY. Kids go online to watch THE REAL THING, and to them, it's just like the movies. Like the video games. It's just entertainment.

So they were on their phones recording the death of a fellow student.

And I stick this on the blog knowing that "I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody, outside of s small circle of friends....