A GHOST IS BORN: Jeff Tweedy & Wilco, Tower Theater, Saturday Night BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Saturday night at the Tower theater, Wilco was merely great. The qualifying “merely” is hard to explain, because on the face of it Saturday night had all the makings of a bragging rights concert experience. Totally jazzed, way sold out crowd? Check. Storied, acoustically-friendly venue? Check. Legendary opening act, one John Doe, tragically ignored by most in favor of the beer line? Check. Must-see headliners with a live rep for fireworks ready to throw down? Check. Perhaps the only thing missing was […]
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN: Nader To Fuck It All Up
[Artwork by MILA JOHNSON] POLITICO: Ralph Nader, 74, announced on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he’ll run as a third-party, anti-corporate candidate for president this fall, which would be likely to drain votes from the Democratic nominee and provide a huge boon to Republicans. Democrats say they will work behind the scenes — and use court challenges, if necessary — to try to thwart his access to ballots. The longtime consumer activist said on “Meet the Press” that Washington has become “corporate occupied territory” and that none of the current presidential candidates are sufficiently addressing corporate crime, labor rights or […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
WILCODELPHIA: Last night Wilco was selling these posters for $25 and all proceeds went to the Anti-Violence Project of Philadelphia. Good on ’em.
TODAY I SAW: The Untouchables
BY JEFF DEENEY The Inquirer’s first attempt at serious homelessness coverage in a long time, imaginatively titled “Homelessness in Philadelphia,” saw the first of its three parts run in the Sunday paper. You might remember back in November that I took a swipe at Inky writers Jennifer Lin and Joseph Slobodzian for peddling the same weak sauce the Inky usually peddles when it comes to homelessness and linked to a hard hitting series by the Boston Globe that did it right and won accolades. Imagine this: four months later Lin and Slobodzian return with a series just like the Globe’s that […]
WORTH REPEATING: It’s The Incompetence, Stupid!
FRANK RICH: Clinton fans don’t see their standard-bearer’s troubles this way. In their view, their highly substantive candidate was unfairly undone by a lightweight showboat who got a free ride from an often misogynist press and from naïve young people who lap up messianic language as if it were Jim Jones’s Kool-Aid. Or as Mrs. Clinton frames it, Senator Obama is all about empty words while she is all about action and hard work. But it’s the Clinton strategists, not the Obama voters, who drank the Kool-Aid. The Obama campaign is not a vaporous cult; it’s a lean and mean […]
SOLD: Four Hundred North Broad
INQUIRER: Patriot Equities LP of Wayne says it has agreed to buy the Inquirer and Daily News headquarters in Center City and will seek to rezone and refurbish part of the underused complex for retail services. Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the building along with the two newspapers, the Philly.com Web site and other publications, will not comment on terms of the sale or plans for the site until a definitive agreement is signed, said Bill Luff, managing director at the Philadelphia office of Jones Lang LaSalle, the real estate firm advising Philadelphia Media Holdings. Philadelphia Media says it plans […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
GATHERING OF THE TRIBES: Human Be-In, Media Bureau, Last Night [PHOTOS BY TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]
BEING THERE: A Star-Studded Interview With I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Director Sam Jones
BY JONATHAN VALANIA In honor of you-know-who playing the Tower tonight (look for pix tomorrow, and an Inquirer review up Monday) and the Oscars on Sunday, I give you this Q&A with Sam Jones, the director of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart and photographer to the stars. Sam recently called out of the blue to tell me how excited he was about this band he was working with from Chambersburg, PA, called The Shackeltons. I told him I would check out these Shackeltons if he would sit for an interview, because that’s the way show biz works, Sammy. […]
AZ Campaign Chair Indicted; Lobbyist Denials Disputed
THE NATION: Another GOP congressman has been indicted. This time it’s Rick Renzi [pictured below right, during what looks like a War On Drugs photo-op], indicted by a federal grand jury in Arizona today on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and extortion as part of a multimillion dollar land deal that allegedly improperly benefited Renzi and his business partners. Renzi, who announced his retirement in August, also happens to be a close ally of Senator John McCain. Renzi is a co-chair of McCain’s campaign in Arizona. The Arizona Republic describes the two men as “close.” In June 2006, McCain […]
Q&A: Dancing With The Devil & Daniel Johnston
WIKIPEDIA: Daniel Dale Johnston (b. January 22, 1961) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and artist. Johnston was the subject of the 2005 documentary The Devil and Daniel Johnston. He currently lives in a house adjacent to his parents’ home in Waller, Texas. Johnston has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and is autistic.[1] His songs are often called “painfully direct,” and tend to display a blend of childlike naïveté with darker, “spooky” themes. MORE Phawker: Hi. How are you? Daniel Johnston: Good. I just woke up. And I just found a bunch of comic books I haven’t even looked at […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
THIS JUST IN: Milton Street Convicted Of Tax Evasion, But Beats Fraud Rap INQUIRER: The jury in the federal trial of T. Milton Street Sr. rendered its verdict today, convicting him of three counts of tax evasion for failing to file returns in 2002, 2003 and 2004; acquitting him on four counts of mail and wire fraud; and deadlocking on two charges that he filed false returns in 2000 and 2001. Codefendant John H. Velardi Sr. was acquitted on three counts of wire and mail fraud. The jury, which was drawn from nine counties, as far west as Lancaster and […]
CINEMA: Do You Know Where You’re Going To?
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE (2007, directed by Alex Gibney, 106 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Everything I know about politics I learned at the movies. Take torture. It was watching all those WWII movies with my older brother that introduced me to the U.S. policy on torture and war, especially prison camp films like The Great Escape, The Bridge On the River Kwai and Stalag 17. In each of them, the U.S. soldiers were left fairly unmolested, forced by dumb luck to wait out the war in lousy P.O.W. camp conditions. Occasionally a Japanese or German commander […]