BLOTTO #13: Kick Out The Jams, Motherf*cker

BY LANCE DOILEY Yeah, I live in my truck. I own property of course, but the house that was willed to me has been rendered practically uninhabitable due to years of neglect and arson. If it’s an exceptionally hot day out I might sleep in the cool confines of my crawlspace, but nine times out of 10 I run to the rig. It’s not something I should be proud of since I’m union-protected and bring home an average of 65-70K a year, but with the lifestyle I lead I just don’t see the point. Wasn’t a concern of mine since […]

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SIDEWALKING: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Neil Young’s tour bus, Tower Theater, 8:07 PM Saturday night BY JONATHAN VALANIA SET LIST: My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue) / Tell Me Why / Helpless / You Never Call / Peaceful Valley Boulevard / Love and War / Down By The River / Hitchhiker / Ohio / Sign Of Love / Leia / After The Gold Rush / I Believe In You / Rumblin’ / Cortez the Killer / Cinnamon Girl/Walk With Me  

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FAUX NEWS: Fox News Still Unable (Or Unwilling) To Tell The Difference Between Osama And Obama

This is a an actual screen grab of Fox News’ breaking report last night on the death of Osama. RELATED: According to CNN, “[t]here are photographs of the body with a gunshot wound to the side of the head that shows an individual who is not unrecognizable as bin Laden. No decision has yet been made on whether to release the photographs and if so, when and how.” MORE RELATED: The New Yorker has a round-up of the latest information, including a photo of the compound where bin Laden was hiding out

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MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: Osama Bin Laden Is Dead

[Painting by DON COKER] Eight years to the day that Bush stood on an aircraft carrier and declared ‘Mission Accomplished,’ Osama has reportedly been killed in a firefight with U.S. forces in a mansion in Abbotabad, Pakistan. The U.S. now has custody of his corpse. No U.S. personnel were wounded in the operation. RELATED: American officials said Bin Laden resisted and was shot in the head. He was later buried at sea. RELATED: Apprentice pre-empted. RELATED: Fox News still assholes. RELATED: Is It Possible ‘Osama’s Hideout’ Was On Google Maps All Along? UPDATE: Live-Tweeting White House conference call media briefing. […]

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COMING ATTRACTION: Q&A With Bert Jansch

“As much of a great guitar player as Jimi [Hendrix] was, Bert Jansch is the same thing for acoustic guitar…and my favourite”  –  Neil Young Legendary folk guitarist Bert Jansch opens for Neil Young at the Tower on Saturday and Sunday. We recently got him on the horn to discuss Nick Drake, skiffle, The Libertines, Pentangle, Anne Briggs, Devendra Banhart, heroin, Lead Belly and getting ripped off by Led Zeppelin. Look for it tomorrow on a Phawker near you. *** RELATED: Huddie Ledbetter was the world’s greatest cotton picker, railroad track liner, lover, and drinker as well as guitar player. […]

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Man Released From Graterford After Serving Nearly 20 Years For Crimes He Did Not Commit

TRIBUNE: This week, after spending almost twenty years in prison, Muhammad Don Ray Adams Jr. walked out of Graterford Prison a free man, once again able to live a life that most people who have never been incarcerated take for granted. Adams spent 19 years and six months behind bars for two murders that he maintained from the beginning that he didn’t commit. Though convicted in 1991 of the December 22, 1990 killings of Darryl Patterson and Thomas Winn, Adams was not sentenced to death — he was sent to prison for life, instead. Then, just this past Monday, April […]

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Franz Kafka Said There Would Be Days Like This

THE GUARDIAN: The most saddening thing was the descriptions of completely innocent old men and young boys who were shipped off to Guantánamo for no very good reason, except they were rounded up in a dragnet. There’s an 89-year-old Afghan villager, who was picked up merely because there was a list of suspicious phone numbers in a satellite phone found near his compound, shipped off to Guantánamo, where they discover he’s not only very, very old and doesn’t know anything, but he’s also suffering from dementia and probably can’t even remember what day of the week it is. Similarly, a […]

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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 […]

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WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION: Philadelphia School District To Layoff Nearly 4,000 Employees

INQUIRER: Facing an “unprecedented” fiscal crisis, the Philadelphia School District could shed 3,820 employees – 16 percent of its workforce – and is planning for more painful cuts, including losing full-day kindergarten, officials said Wednesday. At a hearing on the district’s $2.7 billion budget, Chief Financial Officer Michael Masch told the School Reform Commission (SRC) that to close a $629 million gap, the district must also make painful trims in areas ranging from gifted and alternative education to transportation and counselors. Class sizes will go up; individual school budgets will go down. A still-soft economy, flat city revenues, and sharp […]

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