FRESH AIR “There’s no one in contemporary popular music who has created a more impressive legacy — or one that spans a wider variety of styles — than Merle Haggard,” music critic Peter Guralnick once said. Haggard, who helped create the famous Bakersfield Sound, has recorded 38 No. 1 hits, including “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” “Mama Tried” and “You Take Me For Granted.” In 1994, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Five years later, he would receive a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for “Mama Tried,” his famous honky-tonk tune about a mother’s suffering after her […]

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. This awareness already exists in places like New York and Texas and California, and there have even been projections of the time(s) at which it will occur and when different nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber the former white majority. But it also exerts a strong subliminal effect in states like Alaska that have an overwhelming white preponderance. Until recently, […]

 [Illustration by JAY BEVENOUR] In honor of the Pixies kicking off their Doolittle tour at the Tower next Tuesday, we got Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Kittredge Thompson III on the horn to break down the 21-year-old classic for us track by track. Look for it later this week on a Phawker near you! RELATED: Burying The Hatchet With Black Francis  

EDITOR’S NOTE: Huffington Post blogger Beau Friedlander posted a largely thoughtful summation of the culture wars and ended with a modest proposal: $100,000 for a sex tape that would end Glenn Beck’s career. HuffPo editors spiked the post after a few hours, and after and initial round of indignation, he issued an apology to Beck. Friedlander is no stranger to controversey, previously he helmed failed liberal talk radio network Air America and back in the 90s published  the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber. In the interest of free speech and people being able to read the post en […]

Atlantic City, 5:59 PM Saturday Night by JEFF FUSCO DAILY RECORD: SEASIDE HEIGHTS — A woman allegedly assaulted by private security employed by MTV’s “Jersey Shore” is suing MTV’s parent company, Viacom, the reality show’s production company, 495 Productions, and the entire cast for the assault and on racketeering charges, according to court papers.The documents allege that four private security guards tossed J.P. to the ground last September after she and several friends got in a heated verbal argument with Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. During the course of the argument, four unidentified bodyguards pushed J.P. to the ground, according to the […]

“The Wilderness Downtown,” an interactive film by Chris Milk featuring “We Used To Wait” from Arcade Fire’s new album The Suburbs can be experienced now at HERE. Taking its name from a lyric from the aforementioned song–“so when the lights cut out, I was lost, standing in the wilderness downtown”–“The Wilderness Downtown” exemplifies the Google “Chrome Experience” and HTML5 technology, cueing the opening of multiple browser windows, visually incorporating viewers’ childhood addresses (if they are available via Google Street View) , allowing the viewers to write and share messages to their younger selves and more.  Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom […]

NATIONAL HURRICANE SERVICE: This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected, and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The dot indicating the forecast center location will be black if the cyclone is forecast to be tropical and will be white with a black outline if the cyclone is forecast to be extratropical. If […]

BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY I hadn’t been to the Mann since the mid-80s. I was in high school and they had a sweet system going to promote underage drinking. Any time there was a show, beyond the fences in a semi-wooded area of which I have only the fuzziest recollection, there would be kegs set up. How many? Twenty, fifty, a thousand, who knew? But it was beer paradise for thirsty 16 year-olds who otherwise had to take their chances and trek to that “special” distributor in Springfield that (almost) never carded. Outside of the Mann, you’d just pick […]

‘Ben Franklin, Love Park, 8/25 by JEFF FUSCO RELATED: What The Hell Happened To Old City?

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Pennsylvania couple secretly videotaped a Roman Catholic priest having sex with their then-17-year-old daughter in the basement of their home and are now suing, saying he got her pregnant. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Berks County Court, alleges that the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito carried on a sexual relationship with the teen while he was the chaplain of Reading Central Catholic High School and she was a senior there. The girl’s parents became suspicious and installed a camera in their basement, where Bonilla and the teen were spending large amounts of time. The camera recorded the […]