POLITICO: McCain suspends his campaign, and asks to postpone Friday’s debate, to address the financial crisis. Both candidates have been marginal players; McCain, though, seems to have the potential to make himself a major one, and his move is a mark, most of all, that he doesn’t like the way this campaign is going. But in terms of the timing of this move: The only thing that’s changed in the last 48 hours is the public polling. MORE WASHINGTON POST: A new Washington Post-ABC News poll gives Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama a nine-point lead over Republican nominee John McCain. […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
BLISSED OUT: My Bloody Valentine, Roseland Ballroom, NYC, Monday Night BY JOHN “Phawker Tech Guy” REFANO They had arena sized amp rigs – I counted at least 12 speaker cabinets and 8 amplifiers for the 4 piece band. Brutal. The light show was intense. My eyes were literally tearing up. They had some great background visuals, but the strobes were what was killer. It added to the performance though. Kevin and Belinda don’t have much for stage presence, as could be expected. The rhythm section, Debbie Googe and Colm O Ciosoig, put a little more physicality into it. I don’t […]
MEDIA: Alycia Lane Sues Larry Mendte, KYW
ASSOCIATED PRESS: A fired Philadelphia newscaster has filed a lawsuit accusing her former co-anchor of invading her privacy and leaking personal information to the media. Alycia Lane’s lawsuit was filed Tuesday. Her former co-anchor, Larry Mendte, has pleaded guilty to illegally accessing Lane’s e-mail and is awaiting sentencing. He admitted reading thousands of Lane’s e-mails from 2006 to 2008. Lane’s lawsuit also names KYW-TV, the station that employed the two. She accuses the station of defaming her before and after she was fired after being arrested in December following a scuffle with New York police. Tuesday’s lawsuit expands on one […]
EARLY WORD: The Buena Obama Social Club
Michael T. Regan is, as you may well know, the City Paper’s staff photographer. He is also a friend of Phawker. Astute readers will recall his excellent Tom Waits photo essay (with wry commentary from local filmmaker Jon Michals) which ran here earlier this summer. On Sunday, he will be unveiling photos from a recent trip to the sultry, forbidden (for Americanos, anyway) land of Cuba. Michael tells us there will be food, music and it’s all for a good cause — kinda like Cuba, without the failed Marxism and odious totalitarianism: A portion of the proceeds will benefit Urban […]
G-MEN: FBI Probes Wall Street Collapse
WALL STREET JOURNAL: Federal investigators have opened preliminary probes into the financial troubles of four high-profile companies that are at the center of the current financial turmoil that the Bush administration says requires an unprecedented proposed taxpayer-funded bailout to clean up.The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s preliminary inquiries are focusing on whether fraud helped cause some of the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc., according to senior law-enforcement officials. Lehman and AIG declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which regulates Fannie and Freddie and has both companies […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Federal Bailout Of The Truth
NOBAMA: New Jersey Just Got Dumber TRENTON, N.J. – Residents in one New Jersey town are disturbed after receiving fliers over the weekend that question Barack Obama’s candidacy on racial grounds. Roxbury resident Elizabeth Corsetto says a flier was left in her driveway asking, “Do You Want A Black President?” and showing a doctored photo of Obama with a long beard and turban. Roxbury Police Chief Mark Noll says the fliers were left on various streets in the northwestern New Jersey township by a white supremacist group called the League of American Patriots. Noll says the incident is being investigated […]
CONCERNED AMERICAN: We Really Need To Talk
DEAR OLD WHITE MEN WHO RUN EVERYTHING, I will turn 23 in just about two months, which means that over a third of my life has been spent enduring the seemingly intentional incompetence of the Bush Administration, the contrarian Congresses of the Clinton years and ‘do nothing’ Dem-majority Congress of now. In that time, I have seen a catastrophic terrorist attack on my homeland. I have seen a government invade and occupy a country that harbored our attackers, and then manipulate the fear and anger those attacks aroused in the American people to justify the invasion of a country that […]
BREAKING: 2 Cops Shot, 1 Dead; Perp Killed
UPDATE: One Philadelphia police officer was killed and a second officer was injured when they both were shot in in North Philadelphia early this afternoon. The suspected gunman was killed. INQUIRER: Two Philadelphia police officers were shot in North Philadelphia early this afternoon and the suspected gunman was killed. The shootings occurred shortly before 2 p.m. in a neighborhood about three blocks north of Temple University. One of the officers was shot near 17th and Dauphin Streets; the other on the 2200 block of Colorado Street, police said. Police shot and killed the suspect gunman. The two officers were rushed […]
ARCHIVE: Phawker Talk With Amy Sedaris
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Pretty girls aren’t funny for the same reason that pretty boys aren’t funny: they don’t have to be. Form fits function, and function answers to need. Pretty people rarely need for much, least of all the ability to win friends and disarm foes with a few well-placed yuks. It’s basic Darwin. Lucille Ball? Phyllis Diller? Roseanne Barr? Funny fuckin’ ladies. Pretty? Not so much. Amy Sedaris knows this. Her career puts the lie to that premise, by the way, but to do so she has to put on a fat suit and give herself an overbite, problem […]
INSTA-REVIEW: Dear Science
Now playing on Phawker Radio! BY ED KING ROCK EXPERT It’s good to hear a band make something worthwhile out of the scrapheap of Yamaha DX-7 synths and Linn drum machines that was the ’80s. Whether sounding like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark on human growth hormone on “Halfway Home” or INXS with the shades pulled back and a window opened on “Crying,” human hands firmly guide the mouse. Unlike Gnarls Barkley, another practitioner of Silicon Soul, there’s a muscular sexuality at the core of TV’s productions. Like mid-period Roxy Music, you can take this band to a fancy restaurant […]
RALLY FOR CHANGE: Pride In The Name Of Love
Chicago, IL – Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Barack Obama will return to Pennsylvania this week. In Philadelphia, Mrs. Obama and Mrs. Biden will share with voters Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s plans to end eight years of failed policies, and change Washington, so that instead of just talking about family values, we actually have policies that value families, and strengthen the middle class. CHANGE WE NEED RALLY WITH MICHELLE OBAMA AND JILL BIDEN WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24 Francis Meyers Recreation Center 5803 Kingsessing Avenue Philadelphia, PA Gates Open: 4:30PM The event is free and open to the […]
EARLY WORD: Yes, Virginia, There Is A Santogold
Santogold plays the TLA tomorrow, details after the jump…
ARTSY: Pooh Deer In The Headlights
BY AARON STELLA I admit I don’t often frequent galleries, save perhaps on occasion when strolling the fairway of First Friday. Other than that, I rarely go out of my way. So this is totally a fluke, but a notable one at that. Just the other day, I saw a photo in the arts section of City Paper of what looked to be the bust of a deer that on its face had the fur and familiar feature of Winnie the Pooh. Sure enough, the caption under the photo read “Pooh Deer,” and that it was being showcased in the […]