On the subway psycho and guns gone wild!
LANDMARK: Despite All Appearances To The Contrary Roe V. Wade Is Still The Law Of The Land 40 Years Later
To read the headlines as of late — trans-vaginal probes, Planned Parenthood defunded, ‘legitimate rape’ — you would be forgiven for thinking that Roe lost to Wade back in 1973, but the fact is the Supreme Court rule 40 years ago today that abortion is a woman’s constitutionally protected right. To mark the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Cherry Bomb Books has just published GET OUT OF MY CROTCH a not-so-subtly titled and illustrated collection of essays marking the anniversary, including one by PW’s Tara Murtha on the infamous Gosnell abortion clinic house of horrors. Here’s an excerpt: […]
THE BLACK ANGELS: Don’t Play With Guns
From the new album Indigo Meadow, which drops April 2nd. They play Union Transfer April 7th. RELATED: Three people, at least two of them students, were wounded in a shooting on a Texas community college campus Tuesday, a school spokesman said. One of the shooters at the North Harris Campus of Lone Star College was among the wounded and is in custody, spokesman Jed Young said. The other shooter fled the campus, he said. Authorities were searching for a suspect in a wooded area next to the campus, a law enforcement source said. A fourth person at the college suffered […]
BREAKING: Roots Picnic Line-Up Announced
Today, the legendary Roots crew announced their annual ROOTS PICNIC is returning to Philadelphia’s Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing on Saturday, June 1st. The festival is celebrating its sixth year with an eclectic lineup over two stages that Roots Picnic fans have come to expect – boasting performances by: Gary Clark Jr., Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and a show-stopping set with Naughty By Nature backed by The Roots. Gary Clark Jr. has swagger. The guitar virtuoso, whose roots run deep in blues, jazz, soul, country and hip-hop influences, has taken 2012 by storm and continues to amaze in 2013. […]
CINEMA: Lost In The Canyons
NEW YORK TIMES: Brett Easton Ellis is noticeably absent, holed up less than a mile away waging one of his frequent Twitter wars. (He has mounted social-media jihads against David Foster Wallace, J. D. Salinger and Kathryn Bigelow.) He thinks Lohan is wrong for the part, especially if she’s cast opposite the porn star he courted online. But he spent all his capital getting his man cast. Also, his condo is under water. Ellis will give in. Schrader, Pope and Lohan talk details. The film, “The Canyons,” has a microbudget, maybe $250,000. Ellis, Pope and Schrader are putting up […]
BEING THERE: Soundgarden @ The Tower
Chris Cornell, Tower Theater, last night by HOWARD GAINES BY JOE PAONE The Tower Theater’s iconic marquee read “SOUNDGARDEN SOLD OUT.” The WMMR Fun Times Party Van was out front. Shiny tractor trailers stretched as far as the eye could see. Middle-aged superfan rock dudes excitedly chattered about the latest projects from people like “Tom” (Morello). Silver-haired middle managers and salespeople roamed the venue with their uncomfortable-looking wives. Some people looked like they hadn’t been to a rock show since Eric Lindros captained the Flyers. And then there were the kids who weren’t even born during the height of grunge, […]
PURLING HISS: Water On Mars
Promotional clip for Purling Hiss’ Water On Mars LP, out March 19th on Drag City.
Lost P.T. Anderson Footage Of Elliott Smith
PREVIOUSLY: Near the end of The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson’s storybook cinematic fable of wasted potential, the character of Richie, a disgraced world-class tennis player with a dark secret, looks soulfully into the bathroom mirror. It’s impossible to say what he’s thinking–he looks scared, confused, angry, on the verge. A tensely strummed acoustic guitar spirals in the background, accompanying a hushed, faintly ominous vocal. It’s Elliott Smith’s “Needle in the Hay.” Richie picks up a scissors and methodically, if crudely, crops his shoulder-length tresses down to the scalp. He lathers up his lumberjack beard and shaves it clean. He stares […]
CINEMA: Less Than Zero
ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, 157 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC I find myself in stone disbelief over a few of the things Hollywood is telling itself about three of the season’s high profile films: 1. The Hobbit’s “high-frame rate” process is preferable to film. 2. Django Unchained has important things to say about race and slavery. 3. Zero Dark Thirty is an apolitical look at C.I.A. torture and the capture of Osama bin Laden. It was surprising to hear so many characterize a film filled with sympathetic, good-looking actors carrying out a G-rated […]
SIDEWALKING: Forever Boner
Broad & Erie, by DAMONABNORMAL
Q&A: Ex-Daily Show Correspondent Wyatt Cenac
Ex-Daily Show correspondent/stand up comedian Wyatt Cenac will be bringing the funny to the Troc tonight so we got him on the horn for a wiseass Q&A. DISCUSSED: Cee-Lo, The Grey Album, Danger Mouse, King Of The Hill, black Republicans, banging Lena Dunham, why he left the Daily Show and what comes next. PHAWKER: So, what’s it like working with Cee-Lo? Really LOVE that “Crazy” song and that Grey Album was rad! WYATT CENAC: I once went on a date with a woman who told me that she had also dated Danger Mouse. We stopped hanging out. My guess […]
REVIEW: Being Louis C.K. Is Harder Than It Looks
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILLY POST Louis C.K. is the perfect comic for right now, for the Age of Lessness, when the economy is as clinically depressed as the national psyche is tortured, and the imperial hubris of American exceptionalism turns out to be just another Sarah Palin fever dream for people high on Fox News. He is a prophet of white male failure in the time when aging caucasian alpha dogs are losing their lock on entitlement as society is increasingly bred to be more inclusive and egalitarian. He channels the bummer zeitgeist of the dawning of […]
BALLAD OF MANTI TE’O: The Saddest Song Since Jan Brady’s Imaginary Boyfriend Died Of The Truth
DEADSPIN: Notre Dame’s Manti Te’o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school’s football program back to glory, Te’o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it, Te’o learned first of the death of his grandmother, Annette Santiago, and then of the death of his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua. Kekua, 22 years old, had been in a serious car accident in California, and then had been diagnosed with leukemia. SI’s Pete Thamel described how Te’o would phone her […]