BY MICHAEL ‘Fich’ FICHMAN Baseball is America’s perpetually redeeming characteristic. I care too much — I’m a harsh critic, a cynic. Sometimes I’ll hate something just on principle. I think too much, can’t relax. I’m always thinking about which 10 things I need to be doing, instead of doing them. But in the spring, I’m mellowed out and ready for baseball. This is a music column. However, I used to be a sportswriter and hey, a guy can like both pickles and ice cream, sometimes at the same time. I’m gonna throw together some kosher dill pistachio mint for yinz […]
MEDIA: Evolve Or DIE
For the first time in years, every sector of television news lost audience in 2006, and newspapers, despite garnering a larger audience than ever for their content via online platforms, faced increasingly downbeat assessments of their business models, a new report from the D.C.-based Project for Excellence in Journalism finds. According to the fourth-annual edition of State of the News Media, shifting economic fundamentals are spurring mainstream news organizations to try to build audience around “franchise” areas of coverage, specialties, and even crusades. Cable’s”argument culture” is giving way to an “answer culture,” a growing pattern that has news outlets, programs, […]
GUNCRAZY: Robbery Attempt Leaves Teen Paralyzed
BY DAVE GAMBACORTA OF THE DAILY NEWS Police say it was during this routine stroll that the lives of Leon [Harris, 17], an honor student at Upper Darby High School, and Michael and her brothers intersected. At 9:47 p.m., Michael’s brothers Breon Jones, 15, and Ronald Johnson, 17, jumped out of the SUV and approached Leon. Police say they asked him for cash – he had none – and told him to get into an alley. Frightened for his life, Leon turned and ran. Jones shot him once in the back, police said. Leon fell; the bullet had hit his […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
THE MAN COMES AROUND: Norman Mailer, The Free Library, Last Night [Photo by Eva Liao]
HIZZONER ’07: Judge Says Rules Are For Other People, Says THE MACHINE, Er, Bob Brady Stays On Ballot
BY WENDY Luzerne county Common Pleas judge Patrick Toole found Brady should have disclosed pension contributions the carpenters union makes on his behalf on his candidate?s statement of financial interests. But Toole said Brady acted ?in a reasonable and responsible manner? in filing out the form and should be allowed to amend his filing. ?Whenever possible, election contests should be decided by the hand of the voter in the election booth and not by the pen of the judge in a judicial chamber,? the judge found. He concluded that Brady was not required to disclose his city pension, because he […]
The Case Of The Vanished Owner, The Silent V.P. & The Newspaper That Got Scooped On Its Own Sale, Possibly
As you may well have heard by now, the following item appeared in Michael Klein’s Inqlings column in this Sunday’s Inquirer: The Philadelphia Weekly is on the market, according to publishing sources around town. I hear that the asking price for the freebie formerly known as the Welcomat is north of $25 million and that Review Publishing LP has signed confidentiality statements with prospects. It’s not clear whether other Review papers — the Atlantic City Weekly and the South Philly Review and the Southwest Philadelphia Review — are involved. Neither publisher Anthony A. Clifton [NOT pictured], who’s owned the paper […]
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 […]
GUNCRAZY: Letting God Sort ‘Em Out
BY JOSEPH GAMBARDELLO OF THE INQUIRER An 18-year-old man was shot and fatally wounded yesterday afternoon outside a McDonald’s restaurant in West Oak Lane. Detectives were seeking the killer and a motive in the 1:17 p.m. shooting in the 2200 block of Stenton Avenue. The victim, not immediately identified, was taken with a stomach wound to Albert Einstein Medical Center and died at 2:10 p.m.It was the second fatal shooting of the day as the number of homicides in the city grew to 95. At 3:12 a.m., a 29-year-old man was shot multiple times in the chest in the 1300 […]
GAYBO: FIRST WE TAKE LOS ANGELES
BY TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR Hollywood. Malibu. Beverly Hills. All calling cards for the rich and famous. But beneath that superficial veneer lies a dark side to L.A. living. Ramon and I took advantage of an airfare war in January and snagged cheap tix to L.A. Neither of us had ever been, mostly because I had always heard such awful things about the place. Still, the lure of sunshine and 75-degree days was strong, so off we went. Driving. Nobody walks in L.A. Having lived on the East Coast all my life, I’m quite familiar with the concept of traffic, […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
OK Go outshines top act Kicks Snow Patrol’s Motherfuckin’ Ass! BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Saturday at the Tweeter Center, it was OK Go’s night; Snow Patrol just headlined it.Snow Patrol, as you may well known, is the British band that had huge, ubiquitous hits with “Run” (a.k.a. the “Light Up” song) and “Chasing Cars,” which, thanks to some emotionally pitched placement in movies and TV dramas, have become suburban anthems for minivan malcontents everywhere – the kind of songs that make you want to open up the moon roof and pump your fist in the air. That’s the good […]
DN’s Philly Confidential Gives TODAY I SAW Props
BY DAVID GAMBACORTA I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now that reporters rarely, if ever, witness a crime that we end up writing about. Ninety-nine percent of the time, someone gets shot, our little breaking news pagers go off, and we dash out to the crime scene. But every now and then, someone comes along and tells us what it’s like when you fall into that other one percent. Super friends, meet Jeff Deeney. Jeff’s a local freelance writer who also doubles a social worker in our troubled town. He details his gritty and sometimes unpleasant encounters in a vivid […]
HIZZONER ’07: Fattah Leading In Tribune Poll
PHILADELPHIA, March 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A recent poll among 400 registered African-American voters who said they planned to vote in the city of Philadelphia’s May 2007 Democratic Primary Election has provided evidence that black voters still rank Chaka Fattah first (27 %), and Dwight Evans second (18%), but that Tom Knox (now at 14%), has moved past Michael Nutter (9%) and Bob Brady (8%), since October 26-29, 2006, when the poll was last taken. While he still maintains a lead position among black voters, Fattah’s support has decreased from 33 percent to 27 percent; Evans and Brady have each increased […]
GUNCRAZY: Mother Of Four Shot In The Head
Cops said the woman had been shot in the back of the head and pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania shortly after 5 p.m. Police weren’t able to release the woman’s name, but a woman at the scene who claimed to be the victim’s aunt identified her as Yvonne Myrich. A 19-year-old was shot in the leg and taken to Mercy Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. A man in his 30s was shot in the chest and taken to HUP, where he was listed in extremely critical condition. A 17-year-old male was shot […]