BARELY LEGAL: Tokyo Police Club, Johnny Brenda’s, Thursday Night BY AMY Z. QUINN I was almost starting to feel bad for Tokyo Police Club. Here they were, headlining the very-important Thursday night bill at Johnny Brenda’s. Yet in the space of 12 hours, the opening band on the bill, Vampire Weekend, had not only sucked up all the critical buzz, but had the Philly indie/blog scene’s musical tastemaker riding the express bus to Crushville. Vampireweekend. And we don’t know what else to say: It’s love. We spent a whole afternoon earlier this week scouring the web for as many of […]
HOLY COW: Phil Rizutto, RIP
Phil Rizzuto, the sure-handed Hall of Fame Yankees shortstop nicknamed The Scooter, who punctuated his extended Yankee life as a broadcaster with birthday wishes to nuns and exclamations of “Holy cow!” died today. He was 89. His death was confirmed by the Yankees. Rizzuto played for the Yankees from 1941 to 1956. His departure was abrupt. No longer willing to carry an aging, seldom-used infielder, the team cut him on Old-Timers’ Day. Soon after, he began calling Yankee games for WPIX-TV/Channel 11 and did not leave that role until 1996. Rizzuto played an integral role on the dynastic Yankees before […]
Pot-Bellied Cops To Crack Down On Saggy-Assed Pants
MANSFIELD, LA — “Pull ’em up or pay up.” That’s Police Chief Don English’s interpretation of a new law that takes effect in Mansfield on Sept. 15 Anyone caught wearing sagging pants who exposes his or her underwear will be subject to a fine of up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail. Mansfield aldermen voted unanimously at today’s 4:30 p.m. meeting to enact the new law. The law makes it illegal to found in a “state of nudity, or partial nudity, or in any indecent exposure of his or her person or undergarments, […]
TOTAL RECALL: Dick Cheney 1994
I swear to God this man saying that an invasion of Iraq would lead to ‘quagmire’ (his word) looks JUST like Dick Cheney. So weird.
WANTED: HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ordinarily, I would say this sort of thing was recklessly inflammatory, wildly irresponsible and patently offensive to many. Ordinarily. * THE LAST HURRAH: As he said to the WSJ, he wants to spend more time with this family. Of course, this is a load of horse puckey — if he had wanted to spend time with his family, he surely would have done it before his son went to college… So it’s quite possible that Rove is leaving just three steps ahead of one of the many sheriffs that have him in their sights. These include: The Abramoff […]
CINEMA: Bonnie & Clyde At 40
BY A.O. SCOTT OF THE NEW YORK TIMES The story of “Bonnie and Clyde” has been told so many times that it has acquired the patina of legend. It’s the kind of historical fable that circulates to explain how the world once was and how it came to be the way it is now: a morality tale in which the wild energies of youth defeat the stale certainties of age, and freedom triumphs over repression. I’m not talking about the adventures of the actual Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, who robbed and shot their way through Texas, Oklahoma and adjacent […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
SALVADOR DALI*: “Young Virgin Auto-Sodomized By Her Own Chastity” FRESH AIR Journalist Frances Harrison has been the BBC’s correspondent in the Iranian capital city of Tehran for the past 3 years. She says conditions have gotten worse, especially for women, under the increasing strictures being put in place by the ultraconservative Islamic government. PLUS, Fresh Air‘s TV critic reviews the new Showtime dramedy Californication. It stars X-Files veteran David Duchovny as a charming, jaded rogue of a writer trapped in a Hollywood fame-and-identity crisis; he’s still hung up on his ex, so much so that he’s sleeping with every woman […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Arcade Fire Fall Tour Dates
Arcade Fire has confirmed and announced all dates for their fall US tour, which will be the last American shows in support of their second album Neon Bible. LCD Soundsystem will support on all dates, including a special evening at Randall’s Island in New York, to which additional support acts are still being added. September 15 – Austin TX – Austin City Limits festival September 17 – Morrison CO – Red Rocks September 20 – Los Angeles CA – Hollywood Bowl September 21 – Mountain View CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre September 24 – Seattle WA – Bank Of America Arena […]
UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES: 4th Amendment Abuse
SAN FRANCISCO – In open court and legal filings, it’s referred to simply as “The Document.” Federal officials claim its contents are so sensitive to national security that it is stored in a bombproof safe in Washington and viewed only by prosecutors with top-secret security clearances and a few select federal judges. The Document — described by those who have seen it as a National Security Administration log of calls intercepted between an Islamic charity and its American lawyers — is at the heart of what legal experts say may be the strongest case against the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping […]
KILLADELPHIA: WWND? What Would Nutter Do?
“Six months ago, in certain parts of the city, the crime issue would come up, but people had a certain sense that it was happening somewhere else,” Nutter said in an interview. “Now, that doesn’t matter. More and more citizens have finally come to the conclusion that it’s happening in my city, it’s tearing this place apart. We’re embarrassed by it, and we’re increasingly fearful. . . . “And there’s even less confidence that anything is being done that makes any kind of sense to the average person, that says to them, ‘This is our game plan, this is how […]
APOCALYPTO: Surging The Surge, Pentagon Sends Rapture Video Game + Stephen Baldwin To Baghdad
DAILY KOS: The “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” video game, is set in a “post apocalyptic” New York that looks almost exactly like New York City after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and lets players simulate commanding a paramilitary Christian army that seeks to convert Jews, mainline Christians, Muslims, atheists, Buddhists, and everyone else in New York City to fundamentalist Christianity. All who resist will be killed. THE NATION: Actor Stephen Baldwin, the youngest member of the famous Baldwin brothers, is no longer playing Pauly Shore’s sidekick in comedy masterpieces like Biodome. He has a much more serious calling these days. […]
WAR OF THE WORDS: Stay Classy Upper Darby
A platoon of American troops in Iraq is sporting the very popular “Not in my town, scumbag” t-shirts that are all the rage these days in one Delaware County community. Army National Guard Specialist Valerie O’Donnell of Upper Darby has been sporting the shirt while serving her country overseas. Now everyone in her unit of 32 is getting a shirt compliments of Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood. He says his department created the shirts when he began his campaign to rid the community of drug dealers and drug users: “I think that when you look at the analogy between Iraq and […]
HOLY SHIT: Karl Rove Resigns
Karl Rove will leave George Bush’s side this month one of the most controversial political figures in living memory. The verdict on his legacy will be similarly conflicted: He can claim credit for political victories of historic proportions, but also stands accused of policy failures and a strategy of divisiveness. He expressed little regret and defended what many Republicans consider his most questionable decisions: pursuing a strategy that divided the country and provided little margin for error; trying to overhaul Social Security when his party did not want to; and pushing Bush to draw sharp lines on foreign policy and […]