Or maybe he’s the William Carlos Williams of SEPTA. Or the Carl Sandburg of SEPTA. Either way, his name is Mark Fuller and he gives mass transit rhyme and reason. From Scrapple TV, our partners in new media crime.
FROM THE VAULT: A Hard Night’s Day
Hy Lit and the Beatles, Convention Hall, Philadelphia, 1964 BY JONATHAN VALANIA It is precisely 9:36 p.m. in West Philadelphia on the second splendidly summery September night of 1964, and exactly six minutes ago everything suddenly changed. For teenage Philadelphia, the calendar just flipped, along with everyone’s wig, to a new era. It will be years before anyone fully understands all the far-reaching implications, but this much is indisputably true: The hazy, crazy 1960s have officially begun. OMIGOD, THEY’RE HERE! THEY’RE REALLY REALLY HERE! For months, their songs have blared from the tinny speakers of transistor radios, and they’ve stared […]
BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY: Live From Wizard World
We duly deputized the gang from Panic Hour as our Geek Space Correspondents and sent them to Wizard World to ask the really hard questions nobody has the guts to ask anymore. No geeks were hurt in the making of this video. Special thanks to Scrapple TV/Woodshop Films, our partners in new media crime.
ENDORSEMENT: N.A. Poe For City Council
Photo by LAUREN M. WAKSMAN Folks, we got trouble right here in Philadelphia. Trouble with a capital “T.” And that rhymes with “C” and that stands for CORRUPTION. All the major institutions in this city are wretched hives of patronage hires, hacks and shady backroom deals. There is zero accountability for the police, the unions, the politicians and don’t even get us started on the PPA. There is just one candidate running for City Council that aims to do something about it. His name is N. A. Poe and he is running on a platform of pulling back the curtains […]
John Oliver Schools The Climate Change Denialists
TIME: Marco Rubio may or may not be ready to hold the most powerful job in the world, but one thing is clear: He’s certainly prepared to run for it, at least in the modern Republican Party. If there was any doubt on that score, it was settled during an interview on ABC News on Sunday, when he checked one of the most important boxes on any GOP hopeful’s job application: declaring that he did not, could not, would not, believe that climate change is real. “I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our […]
LISTEN: The Flaming Side Of The Moon
THE FLAMING LIPS new digital release, FLAMING SIDE OF THE MOON is live now in digital form. Designed as an immersive companion piece to the original 1973 album, DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, listeners are encouraged to listen to the new LIPS album while listening to DARK SIDE at the same time. FLAMING SIDE OF THE MOON was also carefully crafted to sync up perfectly with the 1939 film, THE WIZARD OF OZ. For ideal listening conditions, fans are encouraged to seek out the original Alan Parsons’ engineered quadraphonic LP mix of DARK SIDE, but it will work with the album on any format. Available now through all participating digital outlets. […]
BEING THERE: All That You Can’t Leave Behind
U2, Roof of 30 Rockefeller, Tonight Show, by JONATHAN COHEN BILLBOARD: Fallon welcomes to the couch his new regime’s first musical guest (“who you saw earlier”), U2. “Have you ever performed higher?” he jokes … of the band having just played 70 stories up. Fallon asserts that activist Bono could give a speech about anything. “Can you do a speech about … this coffee mug?” he challenges. “It’s not a cup,” Bono begins, easily rising to the task. “It’s a container that demands to be filled … by love.” The Roots join in with appropriately emotional backing music. Fallon congratulates […]
Sign Petition, Help Netflix Find Its Spine & Stop The Internet From Becoming Another Cable TV Rip-Off
In an open letter to investors, Netflix warned that if broadband providers started charging tolls for US Internet subscribers and slowing down video, it would encourage its 34 million American customers to join them in demanding an open Internet — and ditching ISPs who don’t follow them. This is an amazing first step, and an amazing ally to win in the war for a better Internet. But if we want to succeed, we need to make sure Netflix uses action, not just words. Please, join us in thanking CEO Reed Hastings and CFO Davids Wells and encouraging them to […]
WORTH REPEATING: I Got High With David Brooks
Artwork via DRIFTGLASS DAVID BROOKS: For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships. […] But then we all sort of moved away from it.most of us developed higher pleasures. Smoking was fun, for a bit, but it was kind of repetitive. Most of us figured out early on that smoking weed doesn’t really make you funnier or more creative (academic studies more or less confirm this). We graduated to more […]
The FBI Labeled It’s A Wonderful Life Communist Propaganda Because It Makes The Rich Look Bad
The Communism begins at the 3:14 mark when all the people of Bedford Falls rally to help George Bailey — who sacrificed all his hopes and dreams to protect the working class of Bedford Falls from the from the Capitalist predations of vampire squids like Mr. Potter — in his hour of need because he was there for each and every one of them in their darkest hours. Sick, isn’t it? Like we always say, when you’re children ask you who the Tea Party Republicans are, tell them they are the people who root for Mr. Potter when they watch […]
MEDIA: The Least Trusted Name In News
Psyched to see our former colleague and Scrapple News anchorman AP Ticker, aka Frank Baker, on the cover of PW this week. AP Ticker is, among other things, The Second Most Interesting Man In The World (after the Dos Equis guy). PW: Sounds like Ticker is quite the unsung pioneer of television news. “He actually coined the phrase, ‘We’ll be right back,’” continues Baker. “Until then, it had been very awkward for anchormen. Because they would say, ‘We’re going to be here, but we’re going to a commercial now, but we’re not actually going to leave.’ It was very long. […]
ASK A WIZARD: Backstage w/ Wayne Coyne
In conjunction Scrapple TV, our partner in New Media crime, Phawker sat down with Flaming Lips mainman Wayne Coyne on his tour bus a few hours before their performance at the Festival Pier last month and rolled film. DISCUSSED: Sex, drugs, rock n’ roll, why the new Lips album is so goddamned dark, why he has Nick Cave’s blood, the story behind the Wayne Coyne Hand Grenade Incident, how he got Erykah Badu naked and covered in cum and glitter, and if he wasn’t the lead singer of the Flaming Lips what would have he done with his life. The […]
EXTRA!: This Is The Kind Of Journalism That Will Die With Newspapers, And Then We’re All F*cked
DAILY NEWS: IN THE ANNALS of Philadelphia crime, the name Nafis Pinkney rings no bells amid the high-profile murderers, mobsters, corrupt cops and politicians. But in 2009, with a high-school diploma, a steady job as a baggage handler at Philadelphia International Airport and no criminal convictions, Pinkney, then 20, found himself beneath the bright light of a criminal interrogation. In a 24-hour span, he went from neighborhood witness to prime suspect, accused of murdering his friend since day-care days, Jonathan Pitts, 21, and Pitts’ girlfriend, Nakeisha Finks, 20. Steadfastly maintaining his innocence, Pinkney spent the next four years in […]