Sideshow: Yarrow: 'Puff' wasn't about puffing

"So, 'Puff, the Magic Dragon' was not about drugs?" Reuters asks

Peter Yarrow

, 69, the founder of '60s folk trio

Peter, Paul and Mary

, whose famous song has long been taken to be a paean to the (alleged) joys of smoking pot.

"No," Yarrow says. "Even if I had had the intention of writing a song about drugs . . . I was 20 years old at Cornell in 1959 when it was written and I was so square at that time. . . . Drugs had not emerged then.

"Now you've heard that from the mouth of the dragon's daddy," says the singer.

So, what's it about? "The innocence of a lost childhood," Yarrow says, in a total buzzkill.

Arthur C. Clarke

, who died Wednesday at 90, will be buried in his adopted home of Colombo, Sri Lanka, tomorrow, his aide

Nalaka Gunawardena

announced yesterday. The science fiction author left instructions that his funeral not include any religious rites, and will be given "a secular, simple funeral" without any speeches.

"We're at a major crossroads. We all have to really be serious about the foot we are putting forward and what we're standing for." So advises musico-religio-politico-psycho-sexual dynamo

Lenny Kravitz

- about what, exactly, who can tell? In an interview with

CBS News Sunday Morning

set to air Sunday, the latter-day monk defends his decision to remain celibate while he awaits his promised bride-to-come: "That's a promise I made to God three years ago. God's going to present me with the right person," says the onetime champion ladies' man.

That's how

Mel Gibson

says he felt over news that a construction worker hanged himself from the rafter in a house in Agoura Hills, Calif., that sits on land owned by Gibson. Not much else has so far been made public about the apparent suicide.

"Kiss Kiss" singer

Chris Brown

issued a nondenial denial in response to murmurs that he has forged love bonds with Barbadian singer

Rihanna

. No, says the 18-year-old, who tells MTV News UK he is "definitely single." The kid adds, "I have a close friend but it's not like a relationship, I'm not trying to settle down. I'm only 18, so I'm just trying to live my life and have fun." (

Boys just wanna have fun . . .

)

Comedy Central's post-political para-pundit

Stephen Colbert

, who'll tape his show in Philly April 14 through 17, has urged viewers to help heal Pennsylvania's public schools by giving donations to DonorsChoose.org. Colbert, who is intensively and exhaustively pseudo-covering the state's presidential primaries, made a similar appeal last fall on behalf of schools in South Carolina. The $66,000 he raised saved the lives of 17,000 students - or at least bought them a couple of pencils.

Talk about exposure: Not only are images of

Jennifer Lopez

's twins slathered all over the new issue of a leading celeb-publicity mag, but images of the image-rich mag - which features the self-same images of J.Lo and

Marc Anthony

's tykes - have been copied, reproduced and rerun by every news outlet from here to Kandahar. The media overkill is justified, of course, not only because J.Lo's li'l ones are

soooo

cute, but because of the obscene pile of cash ($4 mil to $6 mil, reports suggest) that People spent for exclusive bragging rights to the pics.

Sharon Stone

's provocative

Basic Instinct

line "What are you going to do - arrest me for smoking?" has taken on a whole new meaning for

Shia LaBeouf

(

Transformers

,

Disturbia

), who has pleaded not guilty in an L.A. court to unlawful smoking. The 21-year-old former star of Disney Channel's

Even Stevens

faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. Details about the circumstances of his alleged offense have not been released.

This year's Jam on the River festival, to be held at the Great Plaza on the Delaware waterfront over Memorial Day weekend, will feature the

Flaming Lips

,

Josh Ritter

,

RJD2

and

Bassnectar

on May 24; and

Disco Biscuits

,

Deadmau5

,

Avett Brothers

,

Lotus

and

American Babies

on May 25. Tickets until May 1 are $40 for each day. On May 2, the price of entry rises to $45. Day of show, ducats are $50. Info:

» READ MORE: www.jamontheriver.com

.

- Sam Wood

Soprano

Angela Meade

, who is both on the Astral Artistic Services roster and a member of Philadelphia's Academy of Vocal Arts, makes a last-minute Metropolitan Opera debut tonight in Verdi's

Ernani

. She replaces

Sondra Radvanovsky

, who fell ill, the latest in a string of Met casualties this month.