Actor/rapper Will Smith could be the latest entertainer to hold a stake in a professional basketball team. The Philadelphian is among a set of investors interested in purchasing the Philadelphia 76ers from Comcast-Spectacor, according to The Philadelphia Daily News. The group, which was assembled by basketball legend Julius “Dr. J” Erving, would like to have a meeting with officials from Comcast in the near future, a source told the newspaper. […] Recent speculation suggests that owners could ask for as much as $450 million for the Sixers, the Daily News reports, adding that the amount would represent the largest price […]

First it was the Metro, and now this gauntlet-throwdown from the City Paper’s painful example of why taking a badly under-resourced and, as a result, aggressively mediocre alt-weekly on-line only makes for a droopy-dog blog, a.k.a. The Clog. Really now, ‘Prophets of Rage’? Good grief. How high was Hickey when he thought that was funny or clever? Loathe though we are to share some of our precociously large and scandal-driven foot traffic with a cyber-doorstop like the Clog, this sucker-punch-wrapped-in-a-rimjob is just too nakedly jealous and syntactically-challenged to ignore: Rave for Doree Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 11:48 am posted […]

Previously: Cassidy Effed Up Bad In Auto Crash CassidyMusic: Admired. Feared. Adored. And In Stitches. VIBE: When Words Attack David Cassidy: The Understudy?

MEDIATOR CALLED IN October 23, 2006 The Guild Monday asked for a federal mediator to help reach a settlement with the Company on a new contract. The action means that the government will provide a neutral party to narrow the issues that the Guild and the Company remain at odds over. The mediator cannot force either side to accept a proposal. His value is to lend an objective hand to a process that now has spanned 11 meetings without much progress. The mediator contacted the Company Monday afternoon and is expected to set up meetings with both sides.On Monday, the […]

OK, first a mea culpa. Since our first installment of this feature, Phawker has learned a valuable lesson: commenting on the pectoral pulchritude of alt-weekly art directors while praising their creative acumen is neither clever nor edgy, it’s hurtful and immature. Sure some people think it’s sexy, but others find it sexist. And that’s just a few letters away from ‘racist.’ And let’s just stop that kind of talk, RIGHT NOW. Anyway, onward and upward. This week is a tough call. Both alt-weeklies have handsome enough covers, for a change. Pictures of handfuls of dangerous drugs always gets our attention. […]

We knew damn well we were opening a whole new can of whup-ass with our Metro ass-clowning. And that’s fine, after all, if you’re gonna dish it out you better be willing to take it like a man, too. That’s how it works: you take your best shot, and then we take ours. So here it is — DUCK! — the Metro’s stinging rebuke:   Dear Phawker, Glad you dug the Week that Was. I almost cut the healthcare answer to get the Sweeney answer in, but it was too good. We at Metro have long since surpassed the monkey […]

File this under Mountain Range Made Out Of Mole Hill. As previously reported, the Metro named us Celeb of the Week. There was a ticker tape parade. Lotsa confetti. Oversized key to the city. Everybody dancing to “Louie Louie.” The whole nine yards. (Lil’ known fact, the Metro Celeb of the Week gets to smoke WHEREVER he/she fuckin’ feels like it. Like it’s America again, or something. But this only applies for the duration of the week of your celebdom, after that it’s back to the curb with the rest of the shivering punters. As per usual, we abused this […]

Let us introduce you to another regular feature: Cover Wars, in which we will make an entirely subjective call on which alt-weekly has the best-looking cover each week. (FULL DISCLOSURE: Yes, we do tapdance about architecture for PW, but they will get no special treatment from us, paybacks bein’ a bitch, an’ all. Unless they give me a raise, in which case, they win every week). In this corner, we have PW’s Sara Green, a gifted newcomer — and in full-posession of a “great rack”, or so we hear, sorry but we did hear that, so get off your high […]

Because it’s infinitely more fun to stage these media cockfights instead of being in them, and because this issue is too damn important to be left to the pros, we thought we’d throw a little fuel on a dimming fire. To recap, two weeks ago, PW‘s Steve Volk debuted a new media-watchdog column called Tierney Watch, wherein he wrote a piece about the Inky’s coverage of the casino issue, with all the manifold complications, shortcomings and conflict-of-interest duly noted, and gave the anti-casino activists a chance to weigh in and then let various Inky bigwigs respond. You can read it […]