[SOURCE: The Onion] BILL MAHER: People are always debating, is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy: it’s a religion. You’re a religion if you do something as weird as when the Buddhist monks scrutinize two-year-olds to find the reincarnation of the dude who just died, and then choose one of the toddlers as the sacred Lama: “His poop is royal!” Sorry, but thinking you can look at a babbling, barely-housebroken, uneducated being and say, “That’s our leader” doesn’t make you enlightened. It makes you a Sarah Palin supporter. MORE
CONCERT REVIEW: Flogging Molly At The E-Factory
BY JAMIE DAVIS Flogging molly have been around for a while, so they know how to put on a show. Their shows are like a worship service to Ireland, drinking, and punk rock, and the crowd are there exactly for that. You have never known happiness unless you have cheered on the girl who just took a break from moshing to stand in the middle of a circle and do a jig. Friday night at the way sold-out Electric Factory, Flogging Moly played an epic two hour long set, that covered everything from songs they wrote back in the early […]
I, GAMER: Bioschock 2
BY ADAM BONANNI Playing the first Bioshock was a bit of a painful experience. I liken a playthrough of it to the plight of an English teacher grading the term paper of a promising student; to see a piece of work come so close to achieving what it set out to do, only to dock it for the little mistakes along the way really makes one meditate on what could have been. Unfortunately, you might have to flunk it anyway. The promise of discovering and unearthing the secrets of Rapture, an envisioned paradise of free thought and free will, built […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR This week, a new Johnny Cash album — American Recordings VI: Ain’t No Grave — was released to coincide with what would have been the music icon’s 78th birthday. Today, we take a look back at the Man in Black, who spoke with Terry Gross in 1997. Cash began recording albums and performing in the 1950s. His long romance with wife June Carter Cash, celebrated in the 2005 biopic Walk the Line, spanned five decades — from their early touring days to their rise as one of America’s most popular country-music couples. Cash recorded over 1,500 songs in […]
LIFE LESSONS: So You Lost Your Job
With your life coach, A.P. Ticker
CINEMA: I Walked With A Zombie
THE CRAZIES (2010, directed by Breck Eisner, 101 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSIKIRK FILM CRITIC This latest cycle of films about the End Times has no end in sight. Was it the 2002 film from Danny Boyle, 28 Days Later that got this zombie apocalypse ball rolling? I can’t remember, its been a blur of flesh-eating zombies and doomy-gloomy conclusions for years now, and hopefully there will come a day when we’ll look back at the genre and it will look as quaint and reassuring as a 1950’s Western. Taking it on the chin this week is the All-American town […]
HEROES: Sean Penn Pulls Haitian Orphan From Rubble; Britney Donates Dress To Haiti
TMZ: Penn — who runs the Jenkins-Penn Haitian Relief Organization — drove an hour- and-a-half with his daughter Dylan to rescue a woman and child who were trapped in rubble outside Port-au-Prince, possibly from an aftershock. An eyewitness tells TMZ Penn helped extricate the woman, who suffered leg injuries, and the child, who suffered head injuries. Penn drove them in his truck to the University of Miami hospital camp in Port-au-Prince. MORE RELATED: She’s no George Clooney, but Britney Spears is doing her part for the Haitian relief effort — she’s donating a dress she wore at the 2008 MTV […]
GAMBLOR: Steve Wynn To Takeover Foxwoods Fail
INQUIRER: Wynn Resorts confirmed Tuesday that it had signed a letter of intent to take control of developing and running the struggling Foxwoods Casino project. But the deal is contingent on approval from Pennsylvania gaming regulators. The Foxwoods project is at risk of losing its license for repeated delays since winning one of the city’s two slots licenses in 2006. He only offered a general idea of what he had in mind, saying it would be a one-story casino with two or three levels of parking on either side. Asked how much Wynn Resorts would spend on the waterfront site, […]
ARTSY: There Are More Things In Heaven And Earth Than Is Dreamt Of In Your Bollywood Fantasies
[Photo by ARUSHI TERWAY] BY KISHWER VIKAAS When I first met Urmika Devi, she was a senior at Central High School who was known for both her acting skills in the drama society and her commitment to studying Indian classical dance. Almost ten years later, now a third-year law student at Temple, the 26-year old Devi has veered very little from her original interest in the arts. This Friday and Saturday she brings her dance company, Urmika Devi Dance Collective to Chinatown to present MOVING BEYOND FORM: Explorations in Rhythm & Storytelling in Classical & Contemporary Indian Dance, a show […]
TONITE: St. Vincent’s Holy Soul Jellyroll
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), was a missionary and logician. Annie Clark (1982- ), the American singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalist who goes by the name St. Vincent, brings a missionary zeal to her current status as indie’s ambassador of goodwill from The Other Side. Likewise, despite all its head-spinning detours and U-turns, her music follows the pristine logic of a flowchart. Such was the case Thursday night when St. Vincent stunned a near-capacity crowd in the sweaty basement of the First Unitarian Church with a flawless recreation of selections from Actor, her just-released and deservedly hyped sophomore collection […]
McCain Uses Local Birther To Trash Senate Opponent
PHILLY CLOUT: U.S. Sen. John McCain has a new campaign video up on the web that uses a local attorney to attack J.D. Hayworth, the Congressman turned radio talk show host who is challenging McCain in the Arizona Republican primary election. McCain’s ad compares Hayworth to Philip Berg, a Montgomery County attorney who unsuccessfully sued in federal court to challenge President Obama’s election, based on the debunked theory that he was not born a United States citizen. MORE Meet Phil Berg, Alpha Birther Of The Bizarro Nation BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY In the soft twilight of the first Saturday […]
OH GOD: Jesus Appears In Pennsyltucky Pizza Sauce
TIMES-TRIBUNE: When Mary Louise Salerno saw Jesus Christ in a bucket of pizza sauce, her instinct was not to alert the media or even to tell many friends. She did not want people descending on her family’s West Scranton pizzeria, and she did not want to invite critics or doubters of what she felt was a clear sign. “To us, it was something special,” Ms. Salerno, 65, of Old Forge said. “God smiled on us that day.” The image of Jesus has a history of unexpected appearances, from rocks and windows to medical X-rays and a tortilla. Add to that […]
BOOKS: Michele Bachmann Vs. The Gays!
TALKING POINTS MEMO: The new issue of the Michele Bachmann comic, False Witness! The Michele Bachmann Story, is now out on sale. The producers of the comic appear to be taking a thematic approach in the series, dedicating an issue to a particular area of Bachmann’s right-wing obsessions — and they’ve done a great job of it in this issue. This episode: The gays. As for the treatment of the subject matter, the creators set out to make a serious point: That Bachmann has advanced her career on a platform of singling out a group within society for hatred and […]