As you may have noticed, Cover Wars have been on hiatus for the last coupla weeks. We have been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the PW Sale story because, hey, we feel that people fearing for their jobs don’t need our shit-talking, unless their name is Imus. But that’s just us. While we are waiting to see where PW owner Anthony Clifton’s gold-plated loafer will drop, we’d like to take a minute here to ponder what all this means: First and foremost, the golden age of the alternative weekly is OVER, and the industry is moving from […]
FILM FEST PICKS & PANS: Dante’s Inferno; Wicked Flowers; Book Of The Dead; Severance
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Heading into its last weekend, the 2007 Philadelphia Film Festival unleashes the big celebrity guns, giving us this year’s American Independent Award winner, Dermot Mulroney. I spent a few minutes this week trying to stoke a friend’s memory on exactly who the very recognizable Mulroney is, and finally had to give up. His specialty in nearly 20 years of film acting has been in supporting roles, often playing ingratiating nice guys who are romance-bait for the female lead. He’s worked with Altman on Kansas City, with Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding and most […]
THE EARLY WORD: Somebody Bring Imus
1915’s “Birth of a Nation” was the film that simultaneously launched the modern movie industry and gave the Ku Klux Klan a foothold in the 20th Century. Friday night is the Philly premiere of a film project that DJ Spooky calls “a digital exorcism” .. taking the original 1915 footage and doing a live 3-screen video/audio remix that turns the tables on the original.. It all goes down this Friday night 4/13 at the Gordon Theater, Rutgers-Camden.. DJ Spooky will be there at 6pm for a FREE roundtable discussion with the RU-C departments of film and African-American studies.. More info […]
HOW THE MSM FAILS YOU: Did You Know Water Is A Right, Not A Commodity? You Didn’t, Did You?
OK, let’s start with this story from KYW: Groups Tell Mayor: Tap Water Is Good Enough by KYW’s Karin Phillips A coalition of advocates, students, and faith organizations is sending a letter to Mayor Street asking him to terminate city contracts with bottled water companies. The letter to Mayor Street is part of the “Think Outside the Bottle” campaign by Corporate Accountability International, which is leading a charge against what it calls the marketing muscle of bottled water corporations. Michael Gagne is Philadelphia coordinator: “It calls on him to lead a public education campaign on the quality of our public […]
KYW UNLEASHES TASTE-KILLER COMPOUND AT READING TERMINAL; ‘This Is Horrible, This Is Great’
Sugarest(TM) is a minty tablet which dissolves in your mouth and temporarily blocks and neutralizes the sweet-taste receptors of your taste buds. Simply place a tablet in your mouth for 2 minutes, and sugary foods and sweets lose their taste and appeal, giving a dieter the “instant willpower” they need to keep to their diet. The effect lasts for 20-30 minutes, long enough for a dieter to defeat their sugar cravings and lose their desire for sweet but fattening foods. Additional information may be found on the Sugarest(TM) website. The KYW reporter held a live taste test for Sugarest(TM) at […]
POPPED! FESTIVAL PICKS: BARKING SPIDERS, NORMAL LOVE, BEAR IS DRIVING
NOTE: All week we will be sharing responses to our Popped! band-libs. Barking Spiders 1. We are called Barking Spiders [pictured, above] because it’s what grandpa called farts. 2. No, that is not a stupid name for a band and it is correct of you to say that. 3. We are a band because we are good friends. 4. If we were not a band, we would be another band. 5. People say we sound like lawn mower. 6. But really we sound like jet skis. 7. A year ago we were online dating and now we’re married. 8. If […]
MOJO RISING: Jimbo Named ‘XPN Drive Time Jock
CITIZEN MOM REPORTS: WXPN is finally bringing Roger Jim McGuinn into the fold, moving him from King of Y-Rockism to the “regular” station lineup. McGuinn, the paterfamilias of Gen X radio in Philly, will remain as Y-Rock’s program director, but he’ll move from the Y-Rock on XPN broadcast to David Dye’s 4-7 p.m. on-air shifts, every day but Friday. The Funk remains. Here’s Mr. Dye’s open letter to listeners: Dear Amy, I have an announcement that may seem sudden, but has actually been a few years in the making. About two years ago, I crawled into XPN GM Roger LaMay’s […]
MEDIA: Don Imus Suspended For Calling Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team “Nappy-Headed Ho’s”
BY AMY Z. QUINN This is Essence Carson [pictured, right], a forward on the Rutgers women’s basketball team. She’s also a straight-A student, a music major who plays several instruments, and an athlete who was named the Big East women’s basketball player of the year. But of course, that’s not why she’s in the news today. No, people care about Essence Carson all of a sudden because she’s one of the “nappy headed hos” Don Imus and his producer were talking about the other day. Flanked by her teammates — including South Jersey’s own Rashidat Junaid, a towering center from […]
THIS JUST IN: NEW TWIST IN PW SALE SAGA
PW’s Steve Volk is reporting that the sale of PW to Village Voice Media (AKA New Times) is NOT the done deal Philebrity has been reporting, and reveals yet another apparent bidder: In a story published on Tuesday evening, a local blog reported that PW had already been sold to Village Voice Media (VVM), a Phoenix-based chain of alternative newsweeklies. That report now appears to be erroneous, and the bidding is ongoing. PW: Get Back Jo Jo
MEDIA: Feds Arrest CBS Staffers For Filming Conditions At War Veteran’s Hospital
PHILADELPHIA — TWO CBS 3 staffers were detained Thursday by officers assigned to the Veterans Administration Hospital (39th & Woodland) for videotaping without permission.The pair were caught “in an area of the nursing facility where they were not allowed to be,” Rich Manieri, U.S. Attorney’s office spokesman, told us Friday. A female photographer was fined $150 for disorderly conduct after putting up some sort of struggle when confronted, and was also fined $50 for trespassing and $50 for unauthorized photography. A male producer also received the lesser two fines. VA officers confiscated a videotape from the CBS 3 crew and […]
CHIX WE DIG: Marty Moss-Coane, Host & Executive Producer of WHYY’s Radio Times & Total Babia Majora
BY JONATHAN VALANIA How do we love Marty? Let us count the ways: The way she picks Philadelphia’s brain every day for two hours, leading listeners through two completely different, but somehow relevant, topics of interest — with confidence, class and MILF-y aplomb. The way she never loses her cool or raises her voice or engages in ad hominem attacks, and expects her guests and callers to do the same; how she enforces that covenant with the gentle firmness of a Cub Scout den mother. The way she and her girlfriends — back when they were teenagers — sometimes went […]
Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?
WINNER: DAILY NEWS?