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LIVE & DIRECT: Michael Nutter For The Deaf
JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: Michael Nutter speaks in complete paragraphs, with subsections A., B., and C. and attendant footnotes, which also have their own subsections A., B., and C. He is overflowing with good ideas, not just slogans. Smart, principled, and aspirational. Spidey senses tingling. Is he the The One to lead us out of of the Matrix of our own bullshit? (Spidey senses also warning against crossing metaphors) True, he needs a joke writer or a court jester. (Although he did just describe himself as “just another unemployed guy from West Philly looking for a job.”) His only crime is […]
EATING CROW:Philebrity Retracts PW Sale Story While Blaming PW For Scuttling The PW Sale (Story)
OFFICAL OFFICIAL STATEMENT We here at Philebrity regret that we inadvertently published what has turned out to be false information regarding the sale of the Philadelphia Weekly to Village Voice Media. We initially published, based on what we believed to be a credible tip from a knowledgable source, that a deal was on the table between the two parties. What we could not have predicted and did not know at the time was how far up the corporate ladder the Weekly’s ineffectual, incompetent malaise stretched; we could have never known that at whatever key moment, the Weekly brass would have […]
GAMBLOR: The Sands To Auction-Off Glass Sinatra Kept His Dentures In, Plus Some Other Stuff
The gambling hall is having a giant liquidation sale on Thursday, and many items once touched by New Jersey’s own Frank Sinatra are up for sale. There will be hidden treasures aplenty, according to organizers, including everything from the Plaza Club, a swank 19th-floor hideout that became Sinatra’s private playground whenever he stayed at the Sands. Chandeliers (priced at $4,250), a marble-and-wood bar, and leather chairs are among the furnishings from the club that are expected to go quickly. All told, about $1.5 million worth of merchandise is being sold off, from one-dollar towels and linens to the giant red […]
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, […]
KILLADELPHIA: Gunman Now Deadman
Police internal affairs and the homicide division have taken over the investigation into a police-involved shooting early Tuesday morning in South Philadelphia. Philadelphia police were called to the 1200 block of South 19th Street at the turn of midnight Tuesday when neighbors reported a man screaming. As officers arrived on the scene, authorities say, a man [NOT pictured] exited a home and approached them, pointing a shotgun. Despite warnings, the man refused to drop his weapon. Police fired one shot that struck the suspect. He was rushed to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where he died. KYW: Guns […]
LIVE AND DIRECT: Bob Brady For The Deaf
Marty: Do you own a gun? Bob Brady: Yes. Do you know why I have a gun? I have children and grandchildren. JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: Bob Brady would be the perfect mayor for this city — if it were 1945. Big, beefy, with hands the size of Easter hams, grandfatherly in a Sopranos-esque kind of way, he is the prototypical loveable ‘Big Lug’ and as Philly as an old soft pretzel. Marty just asked him his prime motivation for wanting to be mayor: “We have to be safe as a city.” Solution: bring back beat cops. A return to the […]
GAYBO: Breaking Up Is Hard To ‘Tube
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR Okay, so Ramon and I split up. I don’t want to talk about it — suffice it to say, he’s an asshole. While licking my wounds, let’s eat bon-bons and trawl YouTube together. We’ll commiserate and I will show you something most straights aren’t supposed to see: The Top Five Most Horrifyingly Bad Queer Clips On The Net. C’mon! Let’s get gay the Gaybo way — without ever having to leave your chair! Or, gay — you can get it on computer now. 5-Liberace and His Diamonds Liberace was the original “sister,” all dolled […]
HOT DOCUMENT: ‘I will miss this newspaper and you’
[To The Inquirer Staff:] For the past five years I have served as the Managing Editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer and it has been a service of great joy and, at times, of great turmoil. But it has always been the most interesting, challenging, vexing and rewarding thing I have done in my professional life. Now, however, after much thought, I have decided it is time to do something else. I am leaving to accept a partnership offer with a private-investment firm directed by a man I have come to like and admire over the past eight months. That man […]
BREAKING: Anne Gordon, Managing Editrix, Is Leaving The Inquirer
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE: Pictured from left to right, Anne Gordon (with head down), Amanda Bennett, former editor of Inquirer, Joe Natoli, former publisher of the Inquirer. Developing…
LIVE AND DIRECT: Chaka Fattah For The Deaf
JONATHAN VALANIA REPORTS: When you live blog at WHYY, this is what you see. For reasons still not quite clear, you cannot sit in the actual studio with Marty and Chaka Fattah and if you ask why they say “Look, you seem like a nice kid. You don’t want me to get Patrick Stoner to come in here and straighten you out, do ya?” No, siree, you say, shaking your head vigoriously. And so, you are escorted to a nearby conference room where you watch radio on the television — in this case a Hi-Def flat-screen curiously framed by Barney […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
WISH U WERE HERE: Beretta 76, Rick D Tribute, Tritone, Last Night