DEAR BOSS, I’m taking this week off. But wait! There’s more! When I come back, the week of Aug. 20th, I’ll be joining a new venture with the extremely cool and terribly hip folks over at The McClatchy Company, who you may remember owned the Inquirer for about 12 seconds. They’ve put together a team to provide non-traditional (well, for a newspaper company, at least) coverage of the 2008 election — a project called alt.campaign — and I’ll be part of it! alt.campaign will appear in the Election 2008 area of McClatchy’s national website and yes it is a paid […]
DOOMSDAY: The Day After
Nagasaki, August 10, 1945
EXPLAINER: Pulling Byko’s Head Out Of His Ass
Don’t get us wrong, we love us some Byko, the same way we love all old people, even when they’ve stopped making sense and start to smell funny. Stu is the last of a dying breed of boozy, chain-smoking ink-stained wretches, a salty old dog still shaking an angry fist out the sandbag bunker of print — and for that we salute him. Sometimes we even agree with him. But this We Need Another 9/11 column… ONE MONTH from The Anniversary, I’m thinking another 9/11 would help America. What kind of a sick bastard would write such a thing? A […]
MAILBAG: Zappa Fan Freaks Out
DEAR PHAWKER I have never understood the whole music critic phenomenon, which basically seems about self promotion. After taking all your lame pot shots at the musicians and the audience, do you really think you have convinced anybody that you are cooler than all of us? OK, so you don’t get Zappa’s music. Guess what? People like you aren’t supposed to. How would you suggest updating the arrangements? Techno beats? Let’s take the music of probably the most unique individual the pop music world ever produced and make it sound like every other piece of garbage spewing out of a […]
KILLADELPHIA: Blues For Allah
MYRA MORTON couldn’t give her husband more children, but her younger, thinner romantic rival in Morocco was apparently ripe and ready to conceive.That, according to authorities, was why hubby Jereleigh Morton, 47, was to fly off to the North African country last Sunday — to impregnate his second wife, Zahra Toural, in hopes of having a son. The trip, Montgomery County authorities contend, was why Myra Morton, also 47, killed her husband with two gunshot blasts to the head while he slept in their million-dollar Whitpain Township home early Sunday. Authorities yesterday also contended that the family’s $6 million in […]
OUTRAGEOUS: Pregnant A.C. Woman And Baby Dead After Pointless Road Rage Incident
A pregnant South Jersey woman who was run over last week by a raging gang member as her horrified husband watched has died of her injuries, police said. Rosa Maguire, 27, was severely brain injured when she was struck Aug. 1 by an SUV driven by an alleged member of the Bloods gang. The Cumberland County woman, who was three months pregnant, died last night in Atlantic City at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, authorities said. It appears her unborn baby also died. “It looks like the child was a victim, as well,” said Capt. Al Della Fave, spokesman for the […]
DOJ REPORT: Let’s Talk About Drugs, Baby
BY JEFF DEENEY MEAN STREETS EDITOR What’s up with drugs? By that I don’t mean, “Dude, who’s holding?” or “which set’s got the bomb bag today?” I’m talking bigger picture stuff. Like, what’s up with drugs, what’s happening in the Philadelphia region? Who are the weight movers and high-level traffickers out there making sure there’s plenty of powder for your nose on a Friday night? This isn’t exactly the kind of information you’re going to come by talking to guys with bad neck tattoos on Kensington Avenue, and anyone who knows and is willing to talk about it probably can’t […]
CRAZY: Moscow Cat Lady
The good news is 130 homeless cats now have a roof over their heads. The bad news is it’s the SAME roof.
THE EARLY WORD: What We Do Is Secret
Freeway – What We Do Lyrics (feat. Beanie Sigel, Jay-Z) [Freeway] Man if I get rocked, this shit for my kids nigga It’s that real shit… [female singer, repeated throughout the verses] Even though what we do is wrong… We still hustle ’til the sun come up Crack a 40 when the sun go down It’s a cold winter Y’all niggaz better bundle up And I bet it be a hotter summer, grab a onion Yes the ROC gets down, you hot now, listen up Don’t you know cops’ whole purpose is to lock us down? And throw away the […]
MAILBAG: Question The Parking Authority
Folks, The Parking Authority never does anything for the benefit of drivers, businesses or even the city government. The PPA operates purely as a greedy, ever-expanding for-profit business. It primarily benefits them, period. And they are not even answerable to city government, so why should they consult with anyone about how to run their business? Their payroll is always growing; it seems they have a ticket-writer assigned to every block, and they continue to slap stickers over every parking sign, changing the hours on a daily basis. If left to their own devices there eventually will be 24 hour limits […]
ETHICS: The Last Days Of Modern Rock OR How I Learned To Start Worrying About Conflict Of Interest
SHAKE HANDS WITH DEATH: Live’s Ed Kowalczyk Meets His Maker * BY JONATHAN VALANIA I still remember the stern lecture I received from the Inquirer’s A&E editor about journalistic ethics, standards of conduct and the necessity of avoiding even the appearance of impropriety, real or imagined. This was back in 2000 when I first started reviewing concerts for the paper and the circumstances that occasioned this lecture stemmed from a thumbs down review I had written of Y-100‘s annual Feastival, wherein all the big Modern Rock stars of the day fly in and play for free in exchange for the […]
COMING ATTRACTION: Rick Moody Q&A
[Illustration by ALEX FINE]
REPORT: White People And Cocaine Use Down Sharply
WASHINGTON — Cocaine use by U.S. workers is at its lowest rate in at least a decade, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy said Thursday. It cited a 16 percent drop in positive workplace drug tests for cocaine in the first six months of this year, based on the experience of the leading American tester. The decline coincides with tight supplies and rising prices in many U.S. cities, according to a drug market intelligence report released by John Walters, the office’s director. Emergency room visits for cocaine-related problems also are down, Walters said in an interview. While […]