BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right — these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. Hey, we know how it is — so many words to read, so little time to surf for free porn. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you, freeing up valuable nanoseconds that can now be better spent roughing up the suspect over at Suicide Girls or what have you. Every week we pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey caramel center each edition. Why? Because we like you.
ON THE COVER
CITY PAPER: Gettin’ Fringe-y With It, also known as an exhaustive (no fewer than eight separate pieces, plus
picks within picks within picks) guide to and preview of the Live Arts/Fringe Festival, kicking off this weekend. I’m already looking forward to “Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical” and “Wawapalooza,” which sounds like a bit like a live-action, South Jersey version of Kevin Smith’s entire filmography. Also, look for “Sonic Dances,” described as “something of a public art tour wherein your guides are sinewy waifs decked out in iPods and speakers who do cryptic interpretive dances about art, government and civics.” Man, I can’t wait until the homeless dudes in City Hall Plaza get a load of that.
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: Curtis Jones Jr. hasn’t even officially been elected to the 4th District City Council seat yet, but he’s already made a significant contribution to the city’s political vocabulary with one word: solutionary.
After 15 years at PCDC, Jones says he?s learned what the city does well, what it can do better and what it fails at miserably.
?But the folks in City Council, a lot of them don’t get it,? he says. ?I don’t think they get the urgency?not at all. And that’s one reason I decided to run. I believe I have something to offer. I’m not a status quo guy. I’m a solutionary.
Best I can tell, from Kia Gregory’s profile of the guy about to take over Mike Nutter’s old job, a solutionary is a person who’s been a city political insider for most of his life, came up with Chaka Fattah, done most jobs in city government-type work except hold elected office, etc. etc. who’s going to use all that accumulated inside knowledge of how the status quo operates in Philadelphia to . . . take it in a new direction? Well, he’s not Carol Campbell, at least.
INSIDE THE BOOK:
PW: Former Inky columnist Steve Lopez isn’t even finished writing his next book and it’s already headed for the Tinseltown treatment! Somehow this news does not fill us with righteous indignation, the way a similar announcement did. Doug Wallen “bro[s] down” with the A-Sides about their new record; PW has the lowdown on holy humor at the Fringe — hello, “Heebs In The House”? These people know from funny!
CP: Woah, it’s another A-Sides Q&A, with deets on The Hills, the farm, the show tonight, etc. etc. See you there. You know, whenever I’m having a bad day or feeling less than fabulous, it helps to spend a little bit of time with I Love You, I Hate You, where spurned lovers come to call out two-timers, family dramz come home to roost and some women are not to be trifled with. It’s funny to listen to a.d. amorosi write about “freaks.” Haha . . . oh wait, it was the American Idol tryouts. He’s right: Freaks.
WINNER: CP, for the hot naked guy on the cover and the number of one-liners in the “Idol” story worth ripping off.