BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and […]
GAMBLOR: Dozen Casino Protesters Arrested
INQUIRER: The organized act of civil disobedience by Casino-Free Philadelphia came as the casino company announced it planned to have a formal groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 8 for its slots parlor. More than 40 people gathered for the protest on Delaware Avenue about 6 a.m. They carried signs and banners wore red shirts that read “Bankrupt them” on the front and “Before they bankrupt us” on the back. About a dozen chanting volunteers sat down and linked arms in front of the construction gate. MORE
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
GREATEST HITS: Best Of Today I Saw…
BY JEFF DEENEY Today I saw a long and boxy old black Cadillac parked on Master Street just west of 17th. Master Street is on the south edge of Pill Hill; up the block towards Jefferson Street young pushers were perched on every stoop with pockets full of Oxys, Percs, and Xanies. They watched the passing traffic for white guys from downtown who might be out cruising on their lunch breaks with fat wallets and runny noses, hoping to cop their medication. Every eye in that crowded corridor between Jefferson and Master Street vied for contact with mine, assuming I […]
FRINGE PREVIEW: Q&A With Dean Wareham
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Back in the 60s, Andy Warhol’s Factory, his studio-cum-playpen situated in a brick-walled walk-up on 47st street in Manhattan, was the epicenter of all things edgy, artsy and, ultimately, profoundly influential. Dylan, Edie Sedgwick, Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Nico, and The Velvet Underground all came and went, and most sat for one of Warhol’s screen tests — a three-minute black and white stare-down between the camera and subject. There are some 500 of them in the Warhol archives. Recently the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh commissioned ex-Galaxie 500/Luna mainman Dean Wareham — whose cred as a modern […]
FRINGE REVIEW: The Chairs
BY LINDSAY HARRIS-FRIEL Absurdism is a lot of things, but in its most classic form, it’s tragicomedy, where characters are lonely, stuck spinning their wheels, unable to move forward and unwilling to go back. The playwrights most credited with creating this trend are Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet, Arthur Adamov and Harold Pinter. A play in which characters are permanently stuck in pointless or repetitive action — or worse, inaction — absolutely goes against every expectation of good theatre, which is to keep moving forward, to take action against conflict. These plays, if not acted and directed very carefully, […]
PAPERBOY: Slow-Jamming The Alt-Weeklies
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
NEW COLUMN: Men I Have Dated
BY GLORIA MARIS He’s a musician and has worked as a musical director off-Broadway and in the Catskills. He appeared in a few episodes of a well-received cable sitcom, now off the air. He had a very brief speaking part (no close-up, but a credit in the end titles) in a film that won the Academy Award for best picture. He’s a cruciverbalist, a person who constructs crossword puzzles. He lives in New York, and we met during the fringe festival a few years ago. That year, there was a late-night cabaret of various acts — based on the vaudeville […]
TONIGHT: Full Metal Jacket Required
Two acclaimed Australian companies descend on the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival, now in its final 4 days, this week. Geelong, Australia’s Back to Back Theatre presents the Philadelphia premiere of their Bessie Award-winning small metal objects, which takes place at the 40th Street field on UPenn’s campus. Actors are outfitted with microphones. You are given headphones. From a prominent riser you listen to an intense drama happening somewhere in the crowd. In a public space with pedestrians wandering every which way, only gradually do the actors become distinguishable from the rest of the passersby. small metal objects explores how respect […]
OBAMA: Is That All There Is To A Teabagging?
[Photos by TIFFANY YOON] BY GREG ADOMAITIS President Barack Obama came to town this afternoon to attend an invitation only fundraiser for Senator Arlen Specter at the Convention Center. White House press pool reports indicate the haul was hefty. Christopher Nicholas, Specter’s campaign manager, said that they were “within striking distance” of the $2.5 million goal for the two-tiered event. Proceeds were to be split between the Specter campaign and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Guests dined on steak, crab cakes, potatoes, carrots and green beans. For giving $10,000 or raising $50,000, donors posed for photos with the president and […]
Q&A: With Jesse Thorn, America’s Radio Sweetheart
BY JONATHAN VALANIA Jessie Thorn has been dubbed “America’s radio sweetheart” by, well, Jessie Thorn. It started as a joke, but each week it comes closer to self-fulfilling prophecy courtesy of the thoughtful and illuminating interviews Thorn conducts with underground rappers, indie-rockers, and edgy comedians as part of The Sound Of Young America, the nationally-syndicated public radio talk show Thorn tapes in the spare bedroom of his apartment in Los Angeles. Heard locally on WHYY Friday nights at 9PM, The Sound Of Young America has morphed in recent years from an unpaid hobby dating back to Thorn’s college years into […]
TONITE: Smut Cave Live
Though it sounds like the title of some great lost Russ Meyers flick, Smut Cave is actually Woodshop Film‘s bi-monthly journey to the center of the all-consuming vaginal blackhole of Internet porn. Each episode, your host The Spelunker (aka Nick Fiore) — outfitted with mining helmet, safety glasses, coveralls and seated behind an old refrigerator box that serves as his talk show desk — brings you the strangest flavors the pornucopia of online smut has to offer, from the downright lascivious to the deeply ludicrous. Tonight, The Spelunker is saying ‘Fuck it, we’ll do it live!” as part of the […]
DOOMSDAY: Libraries To Close October 1st If State Legislature Is Still Dicking Around With Budget Fix
INQUIRER: The Free Library of Philadelphia has posted notices at its branches and on its web site advising users that all libraries will close at the end of business on Oct. 2 if the state Legislature does not act on the city’s budget request. The notices also say that all material will now be due Oct. 1 and that nothing can be borrowed after Sept. 30. Besides closing libraries, the Nutter administration’s so-called Plan C doomsday budget includes eliminating court-system funding, shutting down all recreation centers and laying off up to 3,000 workers, including police and firefighters. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: […]