Backstage Thursday night at Philebrity’s Second Anniversary Party at Johnny Brendas.
The Banality of Evil: Two Pickets To Tittsburg, Please
Why do you people give a shit about celebrities? Maybe it’s because we’ve met a few, but we could NOT care less. Unless it has to do with Lindsay Lohan. But that’s different. Anyway, the blog consultant we hired was very clear: if we have any prayer of ever getting women and gay men to read this thing, we better have some celeb shit. Christ, the things we do for you people. Okay, I don’t know if everybody else has already weighed in on this but it’s all we got today. Besides, who covers Pittsburgh? Well, we do. Have you […]
215 Fest Leftovers: Phawker Tawks With Get Your War On Creator David Rees
Makin’ Bacon With The War Pigs Somebody important once said that irony is the only rational response to an irrational world. Maybe we did. Who can tell in this crazy, mixed-up Internet world where nothing is true and everything is permitted. As you may recall, in the days after of 9/11 Vanity Fair poobah Graydon Carter famously declared the sudden “death of irony,” as if they kept it in the World Trade Center or something. Well, assuming for a moment that was even remotely true or possible, David Rees CPR’d that fucker back to life and gave it a job: […]
Ordinarily We Say Halloween Is Amateur Night (Paging Amorosi! Paging Count Amorosi!)
But these people strike us as pros. Invite Phawker to your Halloween jawn at feed@phawker.com. Unless it’s gonna suck. Then nevermind.
215 Fest Leftovers: Phawker Tawks With Amy Sedaris
Pretty girls aren’t funny for the same reason that pretty boys aren’t funny: they don’t have to be. Form fits function, and function answers to need. Pretty people rarely need for much, least of all the ability to win friends and disarm foes with a few well-placed yuks. It’s basic Darwin. Lucille Ball? Phyllis Diller? Roseanne Barr? Funny fuckin’ ladies. Pretty? Not so much. Amy Sedaris knows this. Her career puts the lie to that premise, by the way, but to do so she has to put on a fat suit and give herself an overbite, problem hair and a […]
Deep Thoughts: About New Beck, Old Wars, John Prine And How To Give A Dirty Santorum
As a boy I wanted to be Sherlock Holmes when I grew up, but now I’m thinking I wanna be Nigel Godrich. Seriously, the “it” boy producer’s life is most people’s idea of a rock ’n’ roll fantasy camp. Just take a look at his day planner for the last couple of years. Monday: Give Paul McCartney edge. Tuesday: Dial back Thom Yorke’s edge. Wednesday: Make Beck a man. Ironically, it’s the latter who suffers the greatest cred deficit these days. Some say Beck jumped the shark back at Midnite Vultures. Others lost faith when they found out he was a […]
Gitmo Jukebox
Just Like War, Torture Is Over If You Want It Like STDs or race relations, torture is the great unspeakable. Nobody will talk about it. Not your friends or your family, not your congressman or Fox News and certainly not our president. He won’t even use the T-word—he calls it “alternative interrogation” like it’s something you’d see on the midway at Lollapalooza. Well, you can call rape “a forced backrub with benefits,” but it’s still rape. Perhaps the least heinous of all reported U.S. torture techniques was the blasting of Eminem and Dr. Dre at teeth-rattling volume into the virgin […]