[Artwork by BEN HEINE] NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Before the meeting, I assumed that someone with a stage name like “Lady” (her given name is Stefani Joanne Germanotta) was going to be a bit standoffish—that’s the strategy employed by most nervous young musicians on the occasion of their first real interview, in any case. But I never thought she was going to actually be Lady Gaga. These days, very few artists play the media like Bob Dylan, or stay in character as Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh did in his early career. In the age of VH1’s Behind the Music, tabloid culture, and […]
SIDEWALKING: Sometimes You Wynne
54th and Arlington 5:54 PM Tuesday by JEFF FUSCO INQUIRER: A news release from Wynn Resorts Ltd. in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon sent seismic waves through Philadelphia: Gambling magnate Steve Wynn had changed his mind and did not want to build a casino on the Delaware River waterfront after all. A lawyer for the original investors in the Foxwoods Casino project said he was “amazed.” Mayor Nutter, who had just met Wynn on Monday to review drawings of the proposed gaming hall, was “stunned.” And Gov. Rendell was uncharacteristically silent, issuing an official “No comment.” MORE PREVIOUSLY: Steve Wynn […]
WILCOPALOOZA: The Solid Sound Festival
WILCO WORLD HQ: If you tuned in to the Boston stream on Tuesday night, you may have heard Jeff mention the first ever Solid Sound Festival — a Wilcoworld production scheduled for August 13-15, 2010 at MASS MoCA (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art) in North Adams (northern Berkshire County). In addition to being Wilco’s only Northeast US show of the Summer, the three-day event will also feature band members’ solo/side projects including Glenn Kotche’s On Fillmore, The Nels Cline Singers, The Autumn Defense (w/ John Stirratt and Pat Sansone) and Mikael Jorgensen’s Pronto. We plan for this to be the […]
SHAZAM: Usain Bolt To Run OWN Penn Relays
INQUIRER: Usain Bolt, the holder of world records in the 100 and 200 meters and the most recognizable name in track and field, will compete at the Penn Relays as part of the USA vs. the World event April 24, USA Track and Field announced Thursday. Bolt, of Jamaica, is scheduled to compete in the men’s 4×100 relay. He established world records in the 100 (9.58 seconds) and the 200 (19.19) at last summer’s World Outdoor Championships in Berlin. Bolt won three gold medals in 2008 at the Beijing Olympics, setting world records of 9.69 in the 100 and 19.30 […]
FREE TIX: For The Philly Film Fest’s Spring Preview
TICKET OFFER: Philadelphia Film Festival has offered us limited number of passes for the Spring Preview screenings, if you would like to attend drop us a line at feed@Phawker.com and please include a cell-phone number. RELATED: Dan Buskirk’s Spring Preview Review *** SCRAPPLE TV NEWS: The Week In Weed A.P. Ticker puts Philly’s new pot possession policy in his pipe and stuffs it.
SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION: Reuters Spikes Story About The ‘Collateral Murder’ Of Its Reporters
GAWKER: David Schlesinger, the editor in chief of Reuters, declined to run a story by one of his own reporters containing claims that the 2007 killings of two Reuters staffers in Baghdad by U.S. troops may have been war crimes. Reuters staffers Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh were killed by U.S. helicopter gunships in Baghdad in 2007. Video of the attack, which shows the journalists standing next to unidentified armed men on a Baghdad street and records the destruction of a van attempting to retrieve a wounded Chmagh, was published this week by Wikileaks. The video has launched a debate […]
BREAKING: Steve Wynn Pulls Out Of Foxwoods Fail
BUSINESS WIRE:Wynn Resorts, Limited announced today that Development Associates, LLC, and certain other of its wholly owned subsidiaries have terminated all agreements and negotiations with respect to a potential investment in the Foxwoods Casino project in Philadelphia, PA. “We are fascinated by the legalization of full gaming in Pennsylvania and stimulated by the opportunity that it presents for Wynn Resorts, but this particular project did not, in the end, present an opportunity that was appropriate for our company,” commented Stephen A. Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, Limited. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: Just this week, Wynn released a colorful sketch […]
RIP: Sex Pistols Svengali Malcolm McLaren Dead At 64
BBC: Malcolm McLaren, the former manager of punk group the Sex Pistols, has died in New York, aged 64, his agent has said. McLaren, the ex-partner of designer Vivienne Westwood, was believed to have been diagnosed with cancer a while ago. He set up a clothes shop and label with Westwood on London’s King’s Road in the 1970s and was later a businessman and performer in his own right. His agent told the BBC McLaren passed away on Thursday morning. Spokesman Les Malloy said he expected McLaren’s body to be returned to the UK before it is buried in Highgate […]
CINEMA: Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview
BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Most local film lovers don’t even want to discuss the collapse of this Spring’s Philadelphia Film Festival, it’s down there with bummer thoughts like the loss of a beloved pet or the rise of the Tea Party. I know some of the my favorite films of the decade were features caught during the festival that never again arrived on area screens. Like a friend looking to cushion the blow, the Philadelphia Film Society has staged a Spring Preview mini-festival this weekend, bringing twelve new films to the Prince Theater and the best thing is that […]
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 […]
GLEEN GREENWALD: When Presidents Kill
GLENN GREENWALD: In Barack Obama’s America, the way guilt is determined for American citizens — and a death penalty imposed — is that the President, like the King he thinks he is, secretly decrees someone’s guilt as a Terrorist. He then dispatches his aides to run to America’s newspapers — cowardly hiding behind the shield of anonymity which they’re granted — to proclaim that the Guilty One shall be killed on sight because the Leader has decreed him to be a Terrorist. It is simply asserted that Awlaki has converted from a cleric who expresses anti-American views and advocates attacks on American […]
SOS: God Save ‘The First Lady Of The Sea’
LOS ANGLES TIMES: Once, it was the fastest and one of the most luxurious ocean liners in the world. On its maiden voyage in 1952, the United States set a transatlantic speed record — New York to Bishop Rock, England, in three days, 10 hours, 40 minutes — eclipsing by 10 hours the mark set by the Queen Mary in 1938. But for 14 years, the pride of a nation has gone nowhere, rusting away at a pier in South Philadelphia, a fading landmark seemingly destined for one last journey: to the scrap yard. Its owner, Norwegian Cruise Line, which […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Shoe Bomb Of Truth
QUATARI DIPLOMAT SCRAMBLES F-16s BY SMOKIN’ IN THE BOYS ROOM Two F-16s scrambled to escort a United Airlines jet into Denver International Airport on Wednesday night after a Qatari diplomat apparently tried to sneak a cigarette, then joked that he had wanted to set his shoe afire, federal law enforcement officials said. Initially, the incident raised fears of another terrorism strike similar to a passenger’s Christmas Day attempt to ignite explosives in his underwear as a Northwest jet approached Detroit, and to the 2001 shoe bomber, Richard Reid, who tried to set fire to his shoes on a transatlantic flight […]