“There’s a reason for this, there’s a reason education sucks, and it’s the same reason it will never ever ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better. Don’t look for it. Be happy with what you’ve got… because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the real owners now… the real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. […]
BREAKING: Bob Dylan May Or May Not Have Used Drugs In The 60’s; Regardless He Turns 70 Tomorrow
ROLLING STONE: In newly released audio from a March 1966 interview, Bob Dylan claims he kicked a heroin habit after moving to New York City. “I got very, very strung out for a while,” he says in excerpts released by the BBC. “I kicked the habit. I had a $25 a day habit and I kicked it.” He was speaking to New York Times writer Robert Shelton on a plane from Lincoln, Nebraska to Denver while on his legendary 1966 electric tour. This may sound like a huge revelation, but Dylan has been telling journalists wild lies about his past […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Jimmy Fallon has spent most of his career coming up with jokes and doing impressions. His early impersonations of Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby, Pee-Wee Herman, Adam Sandler and Eddie Murphy helped get him an audition in front of Lorne Michaels and then a job on Saturday Night Live, where he stayed for six years. After leaving the show to appear in several films, he was tapped by NBC to become the host of Late Night, after Conan O’Brien left in 2009 to prepare to take over Jay Leno’s slot on The Tonight Show. When he’s not interviewing guests, […]
Bogus End Of The World Predictions Are All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Their Feelings Hurt
NEW YORK MAGAZINE: “Wanna order a pizza?” Jeff asks. “I don’t know if we’ll have time to eat it, but we might as well get it.” It is 4:48 p.m. on May 21, and earthquakes have not yet riven the Earth. “When the sky goes dark and you feel a rumbling, I’m going to ask you and the kids to step outside very quickly,” Jeff told me when I first arrived at his small ranch house in Hicksville, Long Island. “God willing, we’ll all be taken up in a whirlwind to Heaven. I know it might sound strange, but that’s […]
(PRETTY) GOOD FELLAS: Feds Roll Up Local Mob For…Wait For It…Video Poker Violations (Sigh)
INQUIRER: FBI agents fanned out across the area this morning, arresting alleged Philadelphia mob boss Joseph “Uncle Joe” Ligambi and 10 reputed associates on charges of racketeering, gambling, extortion and loan sharking. The arrests and charges against two others already in custody capped a 5-year investigation targeting Ligambi and his organization. The gambling charges contained in a 50-count indictment unsealed today center around a sports gambling and illegal video poker machines. No actual violence is alleged. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Where Have All The Gangsters Gone? PREVIOUSLY: HELP WANTED: Mob Looking For A Few Bad Men
SIDEWALKING: Somewhere Over The Rainbow
Festival Pier, 6:56 PM Friday by JEFF FUSCO
CONCERT REVIEW: Fleet Foxes At The Tower
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER It is well known that the Fleet Foxes look like lumberjacks and sing like angels, but less known is that live, they play like a band that made a deal with the devil at the crossroads. If you loved their 2008 self-titled LP but were a little underwhelmed by the new Helplessness Blues, you should have been at the Tower Theater on Saturday night, because those same songs blared loudly with the kind of heat, friction, and true grit sorely lacking on the recording. The moral of the story, I suppose, is that sometimes […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Big Brother’s Holding Co.
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY Be afraid, people, be very afraid. Of the Taliban, al Qaeda, or terrorism in general? No. Street gangs, career criminals, or crime altogether? Nope. Rising prices at the pump and on grocery store shelves, or inflation overall? Not even close. Folks, I’ve got something to tell you about that should raise every hair on the back or your neck and send a stampede of shivers right through your soul! It’s called the National Security Agency or NSA. It’s headquartered in Fort Meade, MD, and your hard earned tax dollars–a whole bunch of them–as well as your […]
CONTEST: Win Tix To See Willie Nelson At The Mann
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] A man who needs no last name, Willie is to Country what Neil is to rock: the Buddha, bestowing laid-back grace on all those who bask in his benevolent THC-tinged glow. Born April 30, 1933, in Abbott, Texas, Nelson begins writing songs at age seven. After serving briefly in the Air Force during the Korean War and studying agriculture at Baylor University, Nelson moves through a series of luckless, low-paying career changes–disc jockey; door-to-door vacuum and encyclopedia salesman. By 1958, in dire financial straits and married with children, Nelson is forced to sell his songs for […]
TONITE: Let The Buyer Be Weird
tUnE yArDs, AKA Merrill Garbus, plays Johnny Brendas tonight. And yeah, that random capitalization thing is fucking annoying, and so too is the music sometimes, but Garbus is easily one of the most original thing going these days. She makes Lady Gaga’s music sound like the third rate house music it is — and if it weren’t for her outrageous outfits and even more outrageous videos, would anyone give a shit? The short answer is no, the long answer is check out tUnE yArDs.
PAPERBOY: This Is The End
BY DAVE ALLEN So, this is going to be the last Paperboy, at least the last one with my byline on it. This one will do what all the others do—warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center, as always—while taking a look back at what some of what I’ve observed in nearly three years (yikes) of perusing the alt-weeklies. Here goes. ON THE COVER CP: I first read one of A.D. Amorosi’s covers long before I started writing Paperboy—even before I moved to Philly. I believe it was his John Legend cover in advance of […]
TONITE: The Odd Future Of Tyler The Creator
BY MATTHEW HENGEVELD While Bill O’Reilly and the Unfair & Biased clan are busy tarring and feathering Common, I’ve got a nagging feeling that somebody somewhere didn’t do their homework. Obama invited Common Sense to the White House last week and George H. W. Bush invited Eazy-E to the White House in 1991— but when it comes to thuggishness, real or manufactured, neither Common (Oh puh-leaze! The guy is like the Sesame Street of rap, and I mean that in a good way) or that dyed in the wool Republican Eazy-E hold a torch to the sheer pathology of Tyler, […]