Coming soon to a Phawker near you. Check local listings. PREVIOUSLY: Kinks Guitarist* Ditches DN For WHYY * The Kinks – Waterloo Sunset
FROM THE VAULT: Clothes Make The Man
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY There is, perhaps, no more efficient way to remind yourself that you are no longer 22 than to walk the aisles of Urban Outfitters. For the postcollegiate slackerati it is a mecca of precisely modulated urban hipster cool, a time-warp thrift store aesthetic filtered through a retrograde prism of detached irony and kitsch–proof positive of the fashion adage that everything, no matter how uncool, comes back into style eventually. This is readily apparent to anyone old enough to remember when most of these styles were cool for the first time. Rule of thumb: […]
Limbaugh Rushed To Hospital With Chest Pains
WASHINGTON POST: HONOLULU — Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was brought by ambulance to a hospital here on Wednesday after experiencing chest pains, according to a local television station. Limbaugh has been staying a short distance from the Obamas, at the Kahala Hotel & Resort, according to local news accounts. The conservative radio host was spotted on a golf course next to his hotel earlier in the week. KITV reported that Limbaugh was taken Wednesday afternoon from the resort in serious condition and transported him to the Queens Medical Center in Honolulu. MORE BUSINESS WEEK: Rush Limbaugh, the conservative […]
HOT DOC: Kinks Guitarist* Ditches DN For WHYY
Sent: Mon 12/28/2009 8:51 AM To: Daily News Subject: FW: Important message from [city editor] Gar Joseph Staff: Dave Davies is leaving the Daily News to return to his second family, WHYY-FM, which means I just got 50 percent stupider. Like a lot of other people around here, I used Dave as a sounding board, a memory aid and a moral compass. He has done nothing but bring credit to this newspaper since he walked in the door in 1990, about 6 city editors ago. Dave had already built a reputation as a solid reporter with WHYY and KYW and […]
PW: The Phantom Plot To Blow Up The Liberty Bell
BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY In the spring of 1969, four activists from the Philadelphia chapter of the Students For A Democratic Society (SDS) were arrested for plotting to blow up the Liberty Bell after the police found bomb-making materials in the refrigerator of their West Philly apartment. According to the police, the planned destruction of the Liberty Bell was part of a larger plot hatched by a network of student radicals to destroy national landmarks across the country. The shocking news spread quickly when footage of the police search of the apartment — captured by a KYW […]
RATM Busts Up Simon Cowell’s X-Mas Monopoly
THE INDEPENDENT: Rock band Rage Against the Machine ended Simon Cowell’s four year domination of the Christmas charts tonight after a hugely popular Facebook campaign helped the Los Angeles nu-metallers snatch the Christmas number one slot from X-factor’s Joe McEdlerry. More than half a million people downloaded the band’s famously anti-authoritarian and expletive laden track “Killing in the Name” in what was seen as a broad protest against the increasing influence of manufactured pop music. It is the first time a non-X-Factor song has made it to Christmas number one for four years and represents a major snub to the […]
ORAL ROBERTS: The Last Of The Tycoons
THE GUARDIAN: His message was a simple promise of health, wealth and salvation: Jesus wants you to be saved, healed and prosperous. It was a message that struck a natural chord with Americans, appealing to the desire for both material and spiritual success. His preaching gained traction far beyond Pentecostal circles. His message and his manner gained traction with me, too. As a Pentecostal teen, “on fire for the Lord,” I went through a period of devouring his writings and his broadcasts. It was the 1990s, when the UK received its first Christian satellite station, and footage from the old […]
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 […]
MILESTONE: It Was 20 Years Ago Today…
[Click image to enlarge] RELATED: To cap its 20th anniversary, Fox will air a documentary special on “The Simpsons” produced and directed by Morgan Spurlock. Titled “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special in 3-D on Ice,” the outing will air Jan. 14. According to the announcement, Spurlock “will examine the cultural phenomenon of ‘The Simpsons’ in his distinctive and innovative style. The special will document how the world sees ‘The Simpsons’ and how the Simpson family has seen the world for two decades.” Huh. “When they first called me about this, I thought it was a prank and I hung up,” […]
SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: With Your Host A.P. Ticker
AP Ticker’s [Scrapple News] Hiking in Iran
LET IT BLURT: Lester Bangs Speaks
ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: Back in the day, Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer and Nick Tosches formed a terrible triumvirate of rowdy, hard-living rock scribblers — angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of rock — feared and loathed by the music industry’s power elite. They didn’t just write about rock ‘n’ roll; he lived it, drank it, smoked it, felt it up, snorted it down and puked it up all over the page the morning after. BOING BOING: So what an incredible thrill it was to come across a 90-minute interview with Lester […]
THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIV: Down The Shore
WARNING: Audio NSFW MONICA YANT KINNEY: Did Andy Warhol have Jersey Shore in mind when he predicted that “in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes”? That was around 1968, before cable provided a forum for the classless masses to share their special gifts. It’s easy to argue that these playas are acting. In her Jersey Shore introduction, cast member Angelina even compared herself to reality royalty, bragging that “I’m the Kim Kardashian of Staten Island.” And yet every drunk Guidette scarfing Cool Ranch Doritos after an evening of videotaped humiliation was once someone’s little girl. In ranchers […]
NPR FOR THE DEF: Q&A With Nick Spitzer, Professor Of American Boogie & Host Of NPR’s American Routes
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Nick Spitzer is a folkorist, ethnographer, professor of American Studies at Tulane University and host of the altogether wonderful American Routes — which can be heard locally on WHYY from 2-4 PM on Saturdays and 4-6 PM on Sundays — a heady Creole gumbo of blues, folk, soul, rock and Cajun stylings. Each week Nick scours the highways and the byways, the juke joints and roadhouses, the coffeehouses and corner bars, of these United States to map the crazy quilt patchwork of regional flavors, customs and musics to, in effect, create an audio […]