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PAPERBOY: What’s Black & White & Dead All Over?
BY DAVE ALLEN 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. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. 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 […]
HURRICANE SARAH: A Pitbull In Lipstick
Our completely unfair and totally biased analysts tonight will be Amy Z. Quinn, aka Citizen Mom, recently converted Obama supporter/longtime Hillarycrat dead-ender, and Jonathan Valania, aka ME, who was right about Obama, and most other things, all along. We join the third night of the RNC in Minneapolis with Rudy Guiliani about to take the stage… 9:53 PM me: are you watching CNN? Citizen: no, cspan PUT IT ON me: WTF no Citizen: i’m not riffing on the friggin’ cnn anchors and shit me: only got CNN put it on 9:54 PM Citizen: Eff these pundits no i want to hear the […]
RAW FOOTAGE: Beat The Press
[“Peace officers” at work: Police Intimidate Press at RNC & Brutalize Protesters] The violation of the First Amendment will not be televised, for obvious reasons.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Conventional wisdom has it you can tell a lot about a person by the company he or she keeps. But, what if posterity makes a big mistake in judging a famous somebody’s friends; wouldn’t that blunder then trigger a huge misreading of the chief person of interest? There you have the reasoning underlying Brenda Wineapple‘s fascinating new book, White Heat, that explores the relationship between Emily Dickinson and one of her closest confidants, Thomas Wentworth Higginson. For decades, Higginson has been derided by Dickinson scholars and fans as a kindly oaf; a Victorian man of minor letters damned […]
KILLADELPHIA: Death In The Afternoon
INQUIRER: A Philadelphia man was shot dead yesterday afternoon on a street in the city’s Kensington section, police said. Keith Bolden, 31, was lying on the 800 block of Thayer Street with a gunshot wound to the chest when police found him about 2:30 p.m. Emergency crews took Bolden, of the 5100 block of Saul Street, to Temple University Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:35 p.m., a police spokeswoman said. Investigators have no motive or suspect in the slaying. MORE INQUIRER: Two men found dead yesterday in an apartment above a North Philadelphia car stereo store had […]
FRINGE PICKS: The Sweet, Sweet Vampires Of Sodom
Sweet By-And-By Pig Iron Theater OBIE Award-winning Pig Iron Theatre Company teams up with Swedish Teater Sláva to create this all-acoustic whistle-stop tour of America in a time of union martyrs, Seventh-Day Adventists, and lost souls. A forerunner of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Billy Bragg, Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant, well known on California picket lines as a union organizer and radical songwriter. Sweet By-and-By features Hill’s wickedly funny songs on banjo and concertina, while following his journey from Sweden to California to a Utah jail, and on up to Mars, where all good union leaders go to […]
WORTH REPEATING: RNC Chaos Theory
JAY ROSEN/HUFFINGTON POST: John McCain’s convention gambit is now a culture war strategy. It depends for its execution on conflict with journalists, and with bloggers (the “angry left,” Bush called them last night) along with confusion between and among the press, the blogosphere, and the Democratic party. It revives cultural memory: the resentment narrative after Chicago ’68 but with the angry left more distributed. It dispenses with issues and seeks a trial of personalities. It bets big time on backlash. At the center of the strategy is the flashpoint candidacy of Sarah Palin, a charismatic figure around whom the war […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE: War On Drugs, Johnny Brendas, Last Night BY TIFFANY YOON Last night’s show was surprisingly light on paying customers, considering Windsor For the Derby just returned from a massive European tour and War on Drugs is set to leave for their own with the Brooklyn based Hold Steady. War on Drugs and WFTD were backed by two drummers, serving as a driving force for each set. It was only the second time they’ve tried incorporating two drummers and I’d say it was a complete success. These bands are all tightly knit, sharing Charlie Hall, Adam […]
JERRY REED: Wabash Cannonball
ASSOCIATED PRESS: NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jerry Reed, a singer who became a good ol’ boy actor in car chase movies like “Smokey and the Bandit,” has died of complications from emphysema at 71. Sony BMG Nashville Chairman Joe Galante called Reed a larger-than-life personality. “Everything about Jerry was distinctive: his guitar playing, writing, voice and especially his sense of humor,” Galante said. “I was honored to have worked with him.” Reed’s catalog of country chart hits, from 1967 through 1983, were released under the label group’s RCA imprint. As a singer in the 1970s and early 1980s, Reed had a […]
ELEPHANT GUN: Spitballing The RNC In IM
Our completely unfair and totally biased analysts tonight will be Amy Z. Quinn, aka Citizen Mom, recently converted Obama supporter/longtime Hillarycrat dead-ender, and Jonathan Valania, aka ME, who was right about Obama, and most other things, all along. We join the second night of the RNC in Minneapolis with First Lady Laura Bush introducing her husband… 9 minutes 9:49 PM Citizen: Laura Bush: Proof that with a pack of Marlboro Lights and a Xanax, a girl can do anything! 9:50 PM me: nice 9:51 PM nobody has ANYTHING good to say about No Child Left Behind except for the White House Spokesperson and […]
RAW FOOTAGE: Armies Of The Night
Stormtroopers unleash thunderous salvo after salvo of tear gas grenades at peaceful protesters at Republican National Convention. Hat tip to GNOOZE for actually doing some journalism at the RNC. The talking head chick completely loses her shit at one point, but then she collects herself and does her job and you are in the moment. And what a sadistic moment it is. Forget Denver, this is Chicago ’68 redux. And then there’s this. I don’t remember seeing this on the news. Did we invade Minnesota?
HURRICANE SARAH: Palin’s Rev. Wright Problem
POLITICAL PUNCH: An intense “she said”/”she said” has emerged over whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was ever a member of the Alaskan Independence Party, the third-largest political party in the 49th state. The AIP wants Alaskans to get an opportunity to vote on whether or not they will remain a state, or become a commonwealth, or split off as an independent nation. Officials of the AIP say Palin was once a member, but the McCain campaign — providing what it says is complete voter registration documentation — says Palin has been according to official records a lifelong Republican. MORE TALKING […]