The Good News Flower Hour #3 Folks, here’s the third installment of The Good News Flower Hour, wherein I provide the voice for a flower that reads the news. The debut is HERE and the last one is HERE. We are still tweaking the concept and streamlining the production schedule on these — it takes a LONG-ass time to make these little three-minute suckers — but we hope to make this a weekly feature in the very near future. Enjoy.
LIE BERRY: What A Difference 3 Years Makes
FAMOUS LAST WORDS: Protester at Save The Libraries rally, City Hall, today [Photo by RAY SKWIRE] BRENDAN CALLING: Philadelphia is facing a budget shortage of $1 billion dollars over the next five years. In response, the Mayor is cutting services, including closing 63 of 72 community pools, 11 branches of the Free Library (most of which are in low-income neighborhoods), and even the city’s nature centers. Meanwhile, despite ample opportunity to take to the bully pulpit, the Mayor has not said a word about the Philadelphia Eagles, who are shamefully welching on a $10 million dollar debt to the city. […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
FOUR DUDES & A GRITTY URBAN BACKDROP: local free jazzers Shot x Shot [Photo by MARTIN BROWN] BY DAVE ALLEN First thoughts upon entering the charmingly fusty Powel House Museum in Society Hill: “They play jazz here?” I would soon find out that the museum is one of jazz and avant-garde presenter Bowerbird’s regular sites in the “Bowerbird @ Landmarks” series. In addition to old paintings and ornate woodwork, the upstairs room where Philly free-jazz collective Shot x Shot played also held a harp of, presumably, Revolutionary War-era vintage. If one of the guys in the band gets a hold […]
HEAR YE: Like A Fox Where Is My Golden Arm?
Now playing on Phawker Radio! BIO: Songwriter Jay Laughlin and engineer Dave Grubb spent the 1990s developing their vision in the critically acclaimed Philadelphia/New Jersey area noise-pop band Lenola, releasing numerous full lengths and amassing an international word-of-mouth following for their unique sound that proved Pop music could be seriously damaged, yet retain its infectious hooks & charms. Following Lenolas demise in late 2002, Laughlin soon began work on new compositions that pushed harder into some of the Electronic-meets-Rock directions that latter period Lenola had only hinted at. A full ensemble was put together in 2004 to perform these songs […]
WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE: Jersey Cops Post $10,000 Reward For Information About Hickey Hit & Run
INQUIRER: A $10,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the arrest of the hit-and-run driver who critically injured a popular Philadelphia journalist last week in South Jersey. Brian Hickey, 35, was struck by a car after 10 p.m. on Black Friday as he walked to the PATCO High Speed Line in Collingswood near N. Atlantic and W. Linden avenues. Since then, Hickey — the former managing editor for Philadelphia City Paper and a contract video producer for Philly.com — has been in a coma at Cooper University Hospital in Camden. Anyone with information is asked to call Collingswood […]
FETISH FATALE: Philly Dominatrix At Center Of Bizarre Murder-Suicide-Kidnapping Tragedy
NY POST: [Prominent Manhattan attorney] Anthony Ottaviano and [ex-Penn grad student/part-time dominatrix] Edythe Maa partied together at kinky New York City fetish parties, sometimes with him wearing lipstick, a garter belt, stockings and high heels. His secret leather-loving lifestyle — seen on photos posted on fetish Web sites — turned out to be his downfall. The violence began when Ottaviano, 40, and his girlfriend returned to her Philadelphia home after a cozy dinner, police sources said. David Krieg, a former client of Maa’s who had been stalking her for months, was waiting for them in a parking lot near her […]
NEWS CLUES: Painfully Ordinary Local Edition
BREAKING: Local Man Gets Dog West Philly’s Ben Morgan, who books bands at the Mill Creek Tavern (42nd & Chester), didn’t want a dog, but his live-in girlfriend, Allison Paul, did. In March, Morgan, who also plays in the Rare Birds and occasionally performs as a German rapper, MC Digga, told Paul they could get a dog when “Chinese Democracy” came out. Morgan assumed the long-awaited Guns N’ Roses record, 17 years in the making, would never come out. He was wrong. The record, which can be listened to here, was released Nov. 23, days after he agreed to take […]
PAPERBOY: Special ‘Who Hit Hickey?’ Edition
Brian Hickey at Citizen’s Park in better days [Photo by MICHAEL T. REGAN] “Brian Hickey was managing editor of City Paper from 2003 to 2008. He sat in a corner office, usually wearing his ratty Cubs hat or a Broncos knit cap (Brian is too stubborn to root only for local teams), and listening to Springsteen, classic rock, hair metal, or — sorry for putting this out there, Hic — Top 40. He slicks back his long hair, shaves irregularly, chose a rumpled white suit on his wedding day, and spends a lot of time in a bar called Krupa’s, […]
NEWS CLUES: Like An Industry Shake-Up Of the Truth
IMPLICATED: Cops Charge Kids With Computer Snooping On Murdered Dad ARUNKUMAR Ingle never knew that he allegedly was being watched for four years by the very people he once watched over. Ingle’s children, Parth, 22, and Avnee, 25, were charged Tuesday in Delaware County with repeatedly hacking into their dad’s e-mail account and tracking his whereabouts with concealed GPS devices in his cars. It was only when Arunkumar Ingle, 55, was discovered beaten and stabbed to death inside his Middletown Township home on Jan. 21 that the alleged spying came to light through state police investigations. The Ingle children were […]
LIPSTICK ON A PIG: What Ed Said
INQUIRER: This morning, CNN confirmed that Rendell said of Palin: “Look, she has a right to be here. I think she has great instincts. … She has very good political instincts … cooperate where we can because that’s what the American people want to hear … not bull—-.” PolitickerPA.com, however, reports that the full quote includes, “She’s not a genius, but she has very good political instincts.” The “not a genius” part is so difficult to hear, it’s uncertain if Rendell said it, according to CNN. MORE PREVIOUSLY: Yesterday in Philadelphia, Gov. Ed Rendell made some blunt remarks that could […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
HANG TIME: Bell Tower Rail Jam, Temple University, Yesterday [Photo by TIFFANY YOON]
GAYDAR: My Own Private 9/11
BY AARON STELLA GAYDAR EDITOR Today we set the Wayback Machine to September 11th, 2001, which will forever live in infamy as the day I was expelled from the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). Freshman year at ASFA, I boarded in the high school dormitories, until the dorm directors permanently banned me for illicit acts of sodomy. By the time my sophomore year rolled around, I had accepted the mantle of ‘delinquent in the making.’ And so, one afternoon, September 10th, 2001 to be exact, I snuck back into the dorm to have one last romp in the sack […]
TONITE: South To Rise Again
Southern rock-and-roll may have started with Skynyrd, but thankfully it didn’t end there, and some bands with down-home roots have got enough passion and polish to make “Sweet Home Alabama” sound downright sour. Tennessee’s Kings of Leon are the current, well, kings of the region’s rock, with a couple albums’ worth of delightfully scuzzy boogie topped with an aching drawl. At the other end of the spectrum of what Dixie can dish out is the arty, inscrutable jangle of Athens, Georgia’s REM, who add space to their riffs where other acts add swagger. Fresh out of Atlanta, The Modern Society […]