At the Trocadero on November 24th.
LAWSUIT: McFadden’s Is Stone Cold Racist
ABC NEWS: A Philadelphia bar actively discriminates against black patrons and employees, banning drinkers who wear baggy clothes and forcing black workers into behind-the-scenes jobs, according to a lawsuit filed by an attorney who moonlights there as a bartender. In a class action lawsuit against McFadden’s Restaurant and Saloon, lawyers for bartender Michael Bolden said they have obtained e-mails and text messages in which managers discuss ways to limit the number of black patrons. “We don’t want black people we are a white bar,” one manager is alleged to have e-mailed another, according to the lawsuit. The class action suit […]
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 […]
ARTSY: Roy Lichtenstein Painting Sells For $42 Million
BBC: A painting by Roy Lichtenstein has sold at auction for $42.6m – a new record for the US ‘pop artist’. The cartoon-style painting, sold to an anonymous telephone bidder at Christie’s in New York, features a woman on the phone with a speech bubble containing the title. The Lichtenstein sale smashed a previous record for the artist set in 2005, when his work In the Car fetched $16.2m. In a statement, Christie’s said Ohhh…Alright… – painted in 1964 – “characterises Lichtenstein’s captivation and inspiration with techniques of commercial printing and reproduction.” MORE
OBAMA DEBT COMMISSION REPORT: Balance Budget On The Back Of The Poor And The Middle Class; White House Caves On Bush Tax Cuts For The Super-Rich
FROOMKIN: The two deficit-hawk extremists President Obama put in charge of his fiscal commission released their personal suggestions for cutting the federal budget deficit on Wednesday. And while it’s quite possible that not a one of them will make it into the commission’s official recommendations, which require the approval of 14 of the 18 commissioners (not just two), the document will inevitably be welcomed as a “serious” contribution to the debate – at least by Republicans and conservative Democrats. But taken as a whole, the plan authored by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson would have devastating effects on the government […]
CONTEST: Win Tix For Ariel Pink/Os Mutantes
We have a pair of tix to give away for Ariel Pink and Os Mutantes at the Troc on Friday. First reader to email us at FEED@PHAWKER.COM with the phrase “Bat Macumba” in the subject line wins. Please include a cellphone number for confirmation. Good luck and godspeed! ROCK SNOB ENCYCLOPEDIA: Os Mutantes: The year is high in the mid-’60s. The place: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a country chafing under a brutal dictatorship. The setting: a swingin’ ’60s nightclub au-go-go straight out of Austin Powers. Lights flash and the music throbs as the camera zooms in and out to the […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In 1960, while leaning up against an old toilet, country star Loretta Lynn wrote her first song, “I’m a Honky Tonk Girl,” in just 20 minutes on a $17 guitar her husband had bought her as an anniversary present. At the time, Lynn was 24. She had been married for 11 years and already had four children. (She would later have two more.) The country star, now 76, went on to accumulate 16 No. 1 country singles and numerous honors over the course of her career. She’s the subject of a new tribute album, Coal Miner’s Daughter, which […]
ALTERED STATES: Got Peyote?
[Painting by BRIAN KIELING] ASSOCIATED PRESS: When the state of Texas licensed him as a peyote distributor in 1990, Mauro Morales put a sign in his front yard with his name and phone number: “Peyote Dealer. Buy or Sell Peyote.” His neighbors balked, saying calling so much attention to his trade had to be against the law. “So I called Austin and said, ‘I think everything’s legal. I’ve got the paperwork. Can’t I put up a sign?’” Morales recalled. Twenty years later, the sign still stands, but it’s harder than ever for Morales to make a living. The hallucinogenic cactus […]
STEVE COOGAN: Being Michael Caine
VANITY FAIR: What’s the mark of a good Michael Caine impression? Is it the ability to mimic the “specificity” of Caine’s cadences? An attention to the sluggishness of his speech? Above, Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, stars of the BBC’s The Trip, perform dueling impressions in an attempt to answer this question. MORE
MIXED MESSAGES: FDA Proposes Graphic Anti-Smoking Messages On Cigarette Packs
NPR: Under the law, these warnings will have to appear on both the front and back of cigarette packs, taking up half the real estate on each side of the label. In big ads, they’re supposed to occupy at least 20 percent of the space. For smaller ads, there will be alternative anti-smoking messages with bright logos. Will they work? Some research shows that bold graphic warnings do a better job than text alone in communicating risks and affecting behavior. Other countries, such as Canada, have blazed this trail already. Yet, the scare tactics can sometimes backfire. One study that […]
CONCERT REVIEW: The Blow At First Unitarian
[Photo by CHAZ BOWIE] BY PELLE GUNTHER To kick off what would turn into one of the most entertaining concerts I’ve ever attended, the openers, a pop band called Blair, played a very cute and pretty set of songs. Their talent was showcased by the lead singer’s breathy vocals as well as song structure well above that of average pop songs. Blair parted ways, and Khaela Maricich [pictured, above] the quirky songwriter and unexpected comedic genius known as The Blow began her act without any warning, as the filler music was cut short to be replaced by a flat, metronome-sounding […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Keith Olbermann vs. Stu Bykofsky
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a testy email exchange between The Daily News’ Stu Bykofsky and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann regarding the latter’s suspension. Olbermann breaks his media silence to berate Byko and takes great offense at Byko’s column from last Thursday which itemized the respective ideological affiliations of guests on Olbermann’s The Countdown and Bill O’Reilly’s The Factor and concluded that O’Reilly was the more fair and balanced. Whether Juan Williams, Alan Colmes or Geraldo Rivera actually qualify as legitimate voices of the left — and not Fox News-financed straw men — remains debatable at best, in our opinion. Still, […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
Roger Waters’ THE WALL, Wells Fargo Center, Last Night by SCOTT COLAN BY JONATHAN VALANIA FOR THE INQUIRER Thirty years after its release, The Wall still looms large on the cultural horizon, a forbidding totem marking the zenith of rock’s commercial and artistic ascendancy: never before (and probably never again) would a double album of such dark and potent ideas — the brutal profiteering of war, the magnetic allure of suicide, emotional fascism of celebrity — become a mega-selling pop music blockbuster. That it happened once still beggars belief, and yet the album has gone on to sell 11.5 million […]