To Whom It May Concern: We live in small towns and rural areas throughout Pennsylvania and we support Barack Obama for President. A few days ago, Sen. Obama made some comments that his opponents are now using to make him appear as if he is something he is not. Instead of speaking to us honestly about how they intend to solve the problems we are facing, they are playing the same old Washington games that accomplish nothing. What Sen. Obama said is that over the last 25-30 years, working class people in places like Pennsylvania have been falling behind, and […]
BOB DYLAN: Forever Young
About a month ago, a friend of Phawker forwarded a series of public service announcement YouTubes made by her uncle imploring the president to restore the cuts he has made to cancer research (SEE BELOW). The spots were made by an ad exec named Jerry Hunnicut (aka Uncle Jerry) and his son Matthew, who also works in advertising (if you have seen a Coke ad in the last few years, you have seen his work). Don’t know all the details, but Uncle Jerry was diagnosed with terminal cancer and told he had a year to live. More recently, Uncle Jerry’s […]
SONGS MEAN ALOT, VOL. 1 Matt Pond PA, “Last Light,” from the album Last Light
BY JOE WARMINSKY A confession: Although I’m a fellow Keystone Stater, I ignored Matt Pond PA until a few months ago, and I’m not even sure why I decided to listen to Last Light, the long-running band’s 2007 disc. Guilt? Housecleaning? Doesn’t matter. Bingo, voila, whoo, it’s front-loaded with a majestic title track that shoves aside alt-rock’s amorphous, self-conscious present and instead intelligently honors the ancient “120 Minutes” aesthetic: The production is proudly slick; the drums have some of that big ’80s sound; the guitar riffs are firm, but also classically shoegazerish; and the vocals are pushed frontward. And there […]
CINEMA: Film Festival Guidance
WHAT WE DO IS SECRET (2007, directed by Rodger Grossman, 92 minutes, U.S.)BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC What is no secret is that the old-fashioned Hollywood bio-pic is over-due for an overhaul; why hasn’t first-time director Roder Grossman received the news? Indistinguishable from about fifty percent of VH1’s Behind The Music scripts, this bio of quintessential L.A. punk Darby Crash and his briefly viable band The Germs hits most of the same notes as Judd Apatow’s Dewey Cox parody from last winter. The Germs‘ music still kicks ass and E.R.s Shane West (collecting the Festival’s Rising Star Award at Saturday’s […]
MEDIA: How Chris Matthews Is Hurting America
We are at a loss to explain to exactly what, besides halitosis and hot air, Chris Matthews and David Shuster bring to the table in ANY discussion, let alone one about politics. It beggars disbelief that these two are paid good money — Matthews reportedly makes $5 million a year to spew this drivel! — to handicap a presidential election, but then again, the last eight years simply could not have happened without these mice among men. And just for the above exchange, which is about as inane as it gets, these two get to share ASSHAT OF THE WEEK […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR Author Philip Roth began his writing career in 1959 with the publication of Goodbye, Columbus, a collection of stories about Jewish communities in America following World War II, which won the National Book Award for fiction. Since then, Roth has written nearly 30 novels, including American Pastoral, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1997. Most recently, he published Exit Ghost, the final novel depicting the story of Nathan Zuckerman, Roth’s so-called alter ego. In 2001, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded Roth its prestigious Gold Medal for Fiction. Roth turned 75 in March, and […]
THRILLS, CHILLS, SPILLS: Amazing Car Chase
Apparently this went down in the Great Northeast back in October, but totally eluded our radar. Won’t be the first time nor the last. Be that as it may, this a helluva car chase, if you like that kind of thing. Apparently the guy had just robbed a bank, and he sure drives like it. Hats off to the Philadelphia police department. Barring the officer with his boot grinding perp’s face into the street while the cops cuff him (which, although we ordinarily frown on such extra-judicial justice, an argument COULD be made that dude fucking had it coming, and […]
CINEMA: Philadelphia Film Festival Picks
DEFICIT (2007, directed y Gael Garcia Bernal, 75 minutes, Mexico)BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Mexican heartthrob Gael Garcia Bernal (Che from The Motorcycle Diaries) tries his hand at directing with this multi-character story of twenty-something college friends meeting at a decaying summer home. Bernal’s roving camera picks up a number of relaxed and funny performances although none overshadow the director’s own, alternating between cockiness and insecurity as a privileged son in a quiet panic as his parents are in the middle of losing their fortune. Ultimately Deficit is lacking the ambition to make much of an impact yet Bernal’s insights […]
HOT DOC: Democracy Needs Your Autograph
DEAR FRIENDS, Zimbabwe is on a knife’s edge between democracy and chaos. Election results STILL have not been released from the 29 March nationwide vote — two weeks after the polls closed — and each day, more signals emerge that Mugabe will resort to violence and fraud to hold on to power. Mugabe is unlikely to listen to the world’s outcry–but he might listen to his old friend and powerful neighbour Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. Click below to add your name to a petition calling for the results to be released, verified, and peacefully honored, and we will […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT: Hot Chip, Starlight Ballroom + Barbary, Last Night [photos by JUSTIN ROMAN & TIFFANY YOON] CLICK TO ENLARGE
KILLADELPHIA: Nutter Declares Independence
INQUIRER: Mayor Nutter likened himself and City Council members yesterday to the band of rebels who formed this country as he signed five new gun-control laws that defy the state legislature and legal precedent. “Almost 232 years ago, a group of concerned Americans took matters in their own hands and did what they needed to do by declaring that the time had come for a change,” Nutter said as he signed the bills in front of a table of confiscated weapons outside the police evidence room in City Hall. “We are going to make ourselves independent of the violence that’s […]
REVEALED: House Of Horrors
DAILY MAIL: The White House was directly implicated for the first time last night in the decision to torture Al Qaeda prisoners. Sources say that Vice President Dick Cheney and a handful of other top politicians met in secret and agreed to the mistreatment of prisoners, according to ABC TV News and the Associated Press. As part of the decision-making process, they were given demonstrations of the techniques used. And as a direct result, the CIA was given the go-ahead to punch suspected terrorists, deprive them of sleep, and practise waterboarding — simulated drowning. According to the sources, Mr Cheney […]