BY MICHAEL FICHMAN Last Sunday, when Cam’ron appeared on “60 Minutes” (videos here) and tried to explain how his credibility as an artist was subject to his obedience to the Code of the Streets, he neglected to acknowledge the consequences of an imperfect code. Furthermore, he didn’t rhyme the same word over and over again, nor did he suggest that he and Anderson Cooper should tip Cristal and run trains until Gawker or Bossip find out. But I digress. The “Stop Snitchin” credo is rooted in the distrust borne of centuries of systemic racism — much of it at the hands […]
Today I Saw…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which […]
BOBBY “BORIS” PICKETT: Monster Mash
WASHINGTON POST: “Bobby “Boris” Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music’s most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69.”
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
SPACE LORD MOTHER: Acid Mothers Temple, First Unitarian, Last Night [Photo by ERICA CORBO]
FROM THE DEPT. OF WTF: Jilted Lover Mows Down Mother, Daughter and 5-Year-Old With Maxima
BY DANA DIFILIPPO OF THE DAILY NEWS Steaming and screaming, Wykia Townsend was fury incarnate, allegedly there to confront her romantic rival in a love triangle, investigators said. Before Charlese Burrows, her mother, Donna, and several children frolicking in the late-day sunshine on Germantown Avenue near Somerset Street, could react, Townsend stomped on the gas pedal. Her Nissan Maxima roared onto the sidewalk and into the family, hurling bodies into the air. When the engine quieted, Burrows, 33, her mother, Donna, 47, and her 5-year-old niece lay broken and bleeding near the battered car. Townsend and her passenger — whom […]
SOLOMON BURKE: Cry To Me
The viddy’s a little, well, YouTubish, but THIS SONG — ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, all the lawyers in glass towers, all the homies in the ‘hood (we know you’re readin’ this, don’t front) and all the ships at sea: Please rise and set your computer speakers to LOUD-ASS for King Solomon!
MEET THE PHAWKERS: Yer Kids Too Fat? Piggyback Rides Breaking Your Back? Miss Fiend Can Help
Sure, it was fun to be the fattest city in the fattest nation on Earth for while, but the novelty is wearing, um, thin. All kidding aside, we are facing an unprecedented epidemic of obesity and diabetes. It’s feared that the current crop of school age children will be the first American generation to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents — due solely to poor eating habits. The smart solution? Don’t wait until it’s too late for these kids! Get kids invested and schooled in healthy eating from the get-go. Join Elizabeth Fiend in a series of cooking […]
L&I Shuts Down Citywide Psychic Friends Network; Turns Out Fortune Telling Is Illegal In Pennsylvania
(CBS 3) PHILADELPHIA — A sweeping raid by Licenses and Inspections led to misfortune for Philadelphia fortune tellers as all psychic businesses were shut down due to a decades old city law. It turns out fortune telling in Pennsylvania has been illegal for more than 30 years. A 1971 law makes it a 3rd degree misdemeanor for “A person (who) pretends for gain or lucre to tell fortunes or predict future events by cards, tokens, the inspection of the head or hands of any person.” The seers, including five fortune tellers, were unable to foresee the issuance of cease operation […]
KILLADELPHIA: Feds Take Down 3 Gun Pushers
Three men suspected of funneling illegal guns to the streets of Philadelphia were arrested yesterday and charged. In announcing the indictment of the trio, U.S. Attorney Patrick L. Meehan said investigators were trying to trace the weapons they sold to an undercover agent back to their legal origins to determine whether they had been stolen or purchased for black-market sale. The undercover agent purchased 22 guns – including 15 semiautomatic pistols – during the sting operation set up by a task force involving the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Philadelphia police, and the state police. INQUIRER: Smells Like […]
JUNK SCIENCE: Seasons In The Sun
BY ELIZABETH FIEND I’ve been reading Wild Fruits, an unfinished, recently published manuscript by American naturalist Henry David Thoreau [pictured, above]. The book is a combination of diary and essay, chronicling the ways Thoreau spent his days and what he learned during the final years of his brief life. With each page I get more jealous, wishing I too could spend my day stalking a bee to find its hive and to learn what type of flower the bee drinks nectar from and how that affects the flavor of the honey. Of all the things I love to do (and […]
THE SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN BANDSTAND: The Fall Of Bob Horn And The Rise Of Dick — Drunk Driving, Statutory Rape, Geator The Bagman, And Mrs. Annenberg Is NOT Amused
Let us just say up front, we have no idea where the truth lies in all of this and merely offer this up for your consideration. In the last 10 years, a very different story about the rise of Bandstand has emerged that runs counter to the soft-focus squeaky-clean nostalgia we’ve all come to know and accept about the beginnings of the Philly-based Mecca of Sock-Hopdom. (The time-hook on this is a glowing notice in the Inquirer about Leonore Annenberg — widow of Walter Annenberg and noted philanthropist and a major 215 civic supporter in her own right — being […]
GUNCRAZY: Pennsyltucky Gun Nuts Call For Lynching Of State Rep. Cruz
[S]everal gun-rights proponents unfurled a banner saying that State Rep. Angel Cruz (D., Phila.) should be hanged for introducing legislation that would require people to register their guns and pay a $10 fee to the state police. “People want to hang me for doing my job,” Cruz said, adding that his bill was aimed at trying to reduce gun violence in his district. His bill outraged gun-owner groups that used its introduction this month to mobilize members for a rally yesterday at the Capitol. Rally organizers had hoped to promote bills to ease restrictions on gun purchases, but anger over […]