MONICA YANT KINNEY: And so he boldly revived the soda tax. He hoped to raise $80 million for the School District, no matter what it cost him politically. After Ackerman found a way to save full-day kindergarten, he nonetheless remained resolute. (His backup plan for the soda tax, an additional 10 percent property-tax hike, was equally unappetizing.) […] Concern didn’t begin to describe the mood in Council Thursday, where rivals Bill Green and Jim Kenney repeatedly agreed on how much they disagreed with the mayor’s requests. After hours of arm-twisting and team-switching, it was Nutter who emerged most bruised. He […]
SIDEWALKING: Twilight’s Last Gleaming
Somehwere along Route 11, Upstate New York 3:46 PM by JEFF FUSCO TANGENTIALLY RELATED: Most bands have a shelf life of ten years tops — five in obscurity trying to get your attention, and another five trying desperately not to squander it. By then, the ultimatums of long-suffering significant others, accruing debt, mounting substance abuse issues and internecine in-the-van squabbling conspire to break the back of even the strongest rock steeds. Bands like Grandaddy are in a war of attrition with the Fame Machine, and invariably the Machine wins — not least of all because it does not have to […]
RIP: Ryan Dunn, Human Cannonball, Dead At 34
TMZ: “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn was the driver in this morning’s fatal crash … this according to cops who also say Dunn’s car was “fully engulfed in flames” when officials arrived to the scene. The West Goshen Township Police Department says officers found Dunn’s 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 “off the road and in the woods.” Both Dunn and his passenger “died as a result of injuries sustained in the accident.” Cops will release more information on the passenger once officials can positively identify the body. Cops say “speed may have been a contributing factor to the accident.” MORE RELATED: On […]
JUST ANNOUNCED: My Morning Jacket At The Mann
August 23rd with Neko Case. Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 AM at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. * NEKO CASE — Middle Cyclone A tomboyish siren with a thick red mane and lungs of fine Corinthian leather, Neko Case is equal parts gender warrior and indie aesthete, a potent hybrid aptly evoked by the Joan-of-Arc-on-a-muscle-car tableau on the cover of Middle Cyclone. Case is also in possession of what is arguably the greatest voice of her generation — clarion in tone; trans-national in its reach; and bottomless in its capacity to transmute […]
DOPES TO INFINITY: New Jersey Lawmakers To Vote On Decriminalization Of Minor Marijuana Possession
FREEDOMISGREEN: NJ Assemblyman Reed Gusciora is expected to introduce a bill this week to decriminalize the possession of up to 14 grams of marijuana by adults. A look at the Uniform Crime Report from the NJ State Police reveals some striking statistics for marijuana arrests. The 2009 report contains the most recent published data available, although preliminary data on 2010 points to an increase for cannabis violations in the region. In 2009 the Garden State arrested 26, 254 people for marijuana. Eight-five percent of the arrests (22, 439) were for possession of less than 50 grams. Currently, adults caught with anything from a […]
THIS JUST IN: Bob Dylan At The Mann Aug. 17th
On sale Saturday. Tickets available at Ticketmaster.com, 800.745.3000, AEGLive.com, MannCenter.org, TicketPhiladelphia.org, 215-893-1999 or The Mann box office. ROLLING STONE: In newly released audio from a March 1966 interview, Bob Dylan claims he kicked a heroin habit after moving to New York City. “I got very, very strung out for a while,” he says in excerpts released by the BBC. “I kicked the habit. I had a $25 a day habit and I kicked it.” He was speaking to New York Times writer Robert Shelton on a plane from Lincoln, Nebraska to Denver while on his legendary 1966 electric tour. This […]
SIDEWALKING: Miss Thang
Silk City, 1:09 AM last night by JONATHAN VALANIA
TONITE: The Gold Heart Mountaintop Queen Directory
Employing the same Buckeye ingenuity that keeps the Goodyear blimp afloat, Robert Pollard can polish a turd with Budweiser until it shines with 24-carat radiance, transmuting a tossed-off, six-pack idea into a classic rock artifact or at the very least a beguiling no-fi curio. As captain of the drunken boat that is Guided By Voices, Pollard built a cottage industry by churning out cheap, miniature melodic masterpieces with all the fidelity of a ham radio broadcast. He does it with volume — by which I mean quantity not loudness. As such, the discography remains daunting if only for its sheer […]
Usually Hilarious Taiwanese News Animators Now Calling Philly ‘Crappiest Place To Live’ On Earth
This from people who’ve been known to eat cats and dogs? RELATED: Eating dog meat is a long-standing culinary tradition not just in China, but also Korea. Cat meat can be found on the menu in China, Vietnam and even parts of South America. MORE
CINEMA: The Man Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest
[Illustration by NOMA BAR] BY ALEXANDER POTTER In America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, real life was truly more shocking — and infinitely more sleazy — than fiction. The resignation of a disgraced president was still fresh in citizens’ minds, and the stench of corruption permeated the walls of every bureaucratic institution in the nation. Likewise, the Big Apple was rotting from the inside out: Garbage collectors went on strike, leaving fetid mountains of refuse to pile up on the city’s streets; the murder rate was skyrocketing to an all-time high; and to add insult to injury, president […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Love, violence, death and America have always been themes for Australian-born singer-composer Nick Cave, so he was a natural to compose the soundtrack for 2007’s epically paranoid Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Cave also wrote the screenplay and soundtrack for the Australian epic The Proposition, which Roger Ebert described as “pitiless and uncompromising, so filled with pathos and disregarded innocence that it is a record of those things we pray to be delivered from.” Cave appeared in Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings of Desire, and he’s written plays and novels. In 2008, […]
SH*T MY UNCLE SAYS: Uncommon Sense
BY WILLIAM C. HENRY It’s official. She’s running, and she says she’s going to bring “the voice of common sense” to the White House (a revelation that no doubt brought an even more deeply furrowed brow to the faces of those still trying to figure out which planet she commutes from). Recognizing Miss Sensible’s all-too-self-effacing nature, I think it’s only fitting that I cite a few past examples of Michele’s “common sense” utterings so that those who may be unfamiliar with these quasi-cum-laudables might join in appreciation of the intellectual depth and derring-do exhibited by this nimble-minded master of malapropism. […]
LOVE WILL KEEP US TOGETHER: Internet Mistakes Cop-Clobbered Couple For Lovers In Repose
HUFFINGTON POST: While a city burned its Stanley Cup dream in the flurry of flames, looting and bone-breaking that was the 2011 Vancouver riots, an altogether different sort of passion spilled, literally, into the streets. At the moment, they’re known only as the kissing couple. But that won’t last long. When this unlikely snapshot of lovers entangled on a tear-gas filled street, with riot police in the fore and background emerged Thursday morning, you can bet the great media race was on. It will, most certainly, be the picture that launched a thousand media inquiries. Who are they? What were […]