Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys Embroiled in First Amendment Scandal


An open letter to all decent people who also love art and the freedom of self-expression

Perhaps Stephen Colbert would say – The First Amendment? Why pay so much attention to that when there are so many other cool amendments, like the right to bear arms…

We're not constitutional rights experts but we do like all of our rights served up equally.

As many of you know the PGM show, which airs on the Lowell public access channel during safe harbor hours, was recently attacked for airing an episode with allegedly objectionable content. Walter and I were not a part of the specific episode in question, but the episode we filmed last weekend was shown on several channels while they highlighted what some people could have considered objectionable.

We can only guess that they (http://wbztv.com/local/local_story_037162423.html used footage from our show because the episode in question had been pulled from the site and not because our content was in question. (Perhaps you should watch to see if that is the case -http://blip.tv/file/139654) We're actively engaged in acquiring the minutes of the city council meeting at which they discussed this very topic because we like to do our homework about an issue before we rile off in a public form how objectionable we actually find people…

Regardless, the PGM show has done the right thing. They are a public content form run by the public, on a public TV station, which has followed the rules of the FCC as far as those of us who are not lawyers can tell.

As a band, Walter Sickert & the Army of Broken Toys will continue to perform our brand of Death Folk for all of the decent people of the world.

Love and Tentacles

- Edrie
(One of the broken Toys)
www.armyoftoys.com