A group of Chelsea Pensioners attending a concert by The White Stripes, left, at the Royal Chelsea Hospital in central London Tuesday June 12, 2007. The White Stripes won some new fans Tuesday during an intimate and unusual gig at a home for elderly British military veterans. (AP Photo/Andy Willsher) [via WASHINGTON POST] NOW PLAYING ON PHAWKER RADIO: ICKY THUMP
BIG DIG: All Men Are Created Equal — Eventually
BY RICK MORAN In 1789, Congress was charged with the difficult task of locating a Capitol city that would satisfy the concerns of the two sections, north and south. The current Capitol of New York was deemed unacceptable by most — except New Yorkers for the most part. Congress had earlier carved out some land near Trenton, New Jersey to serve as the Capitol but southerners put their foot down and refused to appropriate any monies to build anything on the site. The Senate compromised by moving the Capitol to Philadelphia following the second session of the new Congress while […]
VERDICT: Match.com Rohypnotist Guilty Of Sex Assault
A Common Pleas Court jury today found Jeffrey Marsalis — accused of drugging and raping seven women whom he met on Match.com — guilty of two counts of sexual assault and not guilty on five other counts. The jurors failed to reach a verdict on one count of rape. The jury of eight women and four men began deliberating last Thursday after 2 ? weeks of testimony highlighted by the appearances of the seven women who accused Marsalis, 34, of drugging and raping them. The assaults occurred from 2003 to 2005, they said. Marsalis was found not guilty on the […]
THE EARLY WORD: We’ve Got Levitation
WHOLE LOTTA SHAKIN’: The Woggles perform tonight at the North Star Bar. The Woggles are a garage band in the wooly, frat-rock party-animal tradition of ’60s bands like the Sonics. All the songs sound like steroid-fed mash-ups of “Louie, Louie” and “Shout,” and on a good night, it’s all you can do not to stand up between songs and shout, “Otis! My man!” Based in Atlanta, the Woggles are fronted by a Don Imus lookalike named Manfred Jones, who, on this night, is hands down the hardest-working man in garage rock. By the second song his sweat-soaked black tuxedo shirt […]
MEDIA: INTERNET KILLED THE TV NEWS STAR
“We’re all pretty convinced that news doesn’t break on TV anymore,” said Eric Bader, senior VP-managing director of digital connections at MediaVest. “Almost everybody across pretty much every economic and age demographic learns of breaking news online, increasingly on mobile.” And where the viewers go, so do the ad dollars. Since 2003, CNN’s cable revenue has dropped 11%, from $424.2 million to $378.5 million in 2006, while digital revenue has nearly doubled, from $34.8 million to $71.4 million, according to TNS Media Intelligence. Mr. Walton wants to make sure that if the audience is tuning out on cable, it’s tuning in […]
Lightning Strikes Teen, Stops Heart, Sets Shirt On Fire
Lightning struck a 14-year-old Cherry Hill boy [NOT pictured] yesterday afternoon, stopping his heart, setting his shirt on fire, and eventually landing him at the Temple University Hospital’s Burn Center, where he was in critical but stable condition this morning. Just after 5:30 p.m., as thunderstorms moved through, a resident in 300 block of Monroe Avenue heard the loud boom of a lightning strike and looked out the window to see a boy lying on the ground with his shirt on fire, according to Lt. Bill Kushina of Cherry Hill police. The resident called 911, ran outside and used his […]
HEAR YE: Now Playing On Phawker Radio
“Somehow the fake-brother-and-sister/ex-husband-and-wife duo of John Anthony Gillis and Megan Martha White, aka Jack and Meg White, has managed to transmute gimmick into mystique, to create a shimmering garage mirage out of little more than trashcan drums, greasy geetar and a natty tricolor fashion palette, and sell it to 4 million people. Having proven time and again that less is more, the White Stripes remain adamantly reductionist about everything, from their music to the truth about their lives. They are masters of illusion via subtraction. And the less they give us, the more we want.” — Jonathan Valania, A Long […]
BART WHITE: The Hardest Button To Button
In Jazzy and the Pussycats, Bart learns drums and in a parody of The White Stripes’ video of “The Hardest Button to Button”, every time Bart hits the bass drum, he “creates” a new identical drum kit next to the other drum kit, but leaves the old kit behind, therefore creating a trail of drumkits. Bart goes around Springfield, through the Springfield Elementary School with Principal Skinner chasing him in time with the music, and soon goes onto a footpath. MORE
TODAY I SAW…
[Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA] BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by […]
SPORTO: The Hating Is The Hardest Part
BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY I’d never been to Citizens Bank Park. I’m not even a Phillies fan — all Astros all the time. My favorite color is orange, and growing up in the late ’70s those rainbow uniforms spoke to me. The last three years I’ve been working as a minor league baseball announcer in South Jersey, and haven’t had a chance to see the Fightins in their new home. But the Giants were in town and I wanted to see good ol’ Barry, so last Monday I packed up the toddler and made the trip. I wore my […]
DARFUR: Local Sudanese Settle The ‘Genocide/Not Genocide’ Debate With An Old Fashioned Chair Toss
PHILADELPHIA — The Darfurian audience at the forum took their turns to lash out the Sudanese ambassador. Dr. Ali Dinar, president of the Darfur Alert Coalition, reminded Ukec of the article he wrote three years ago in Iowa in which described the situation in Darfur as genocide. Ukec laughed sarcastically asking Dinar whether he is “asking a question or chatting with him.” Then the situation in the hall started turning ugly. Sara Mansour, a woman from Darfur, addressing Ukec told him to “stop lying” before leaving without waiting for his response. Ukec gestured with a big smile “come back young […]
BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT: Everybody Daylight
Yes, this is what you think it is.
King Britt, Need New Body Dude Score Pew Grants
Ki CUT CHEMIST: King Britt spins the crowd before Obama’s arrival at the Electric Factory, last month. Twelve fellows were awarded $50,000 each to spend any way they wish. The Pew program, in its 16th year, aims to identify Philadelphia-area artists at critical career junctures and give them the freedom to advance their artistic ambitions. “One of the things [recipients] say to us is that now when people ask them what they do, they say first and foremost, ‘I am an artist.’ There is something about the validation that these grants bring,” program director Melissa Franklin says. Validation, yes, and […]