TRENTONIAN: Ed “NJ Weedman” Forchion is sparking a new kind of buzz these days, and he’s taking some heat for the way he’s used the likeness of President Obama. Forchion, who at one point or another ran for just about every elected office in New Jersey on a platform of marijuana legalization, is now running a medical marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles, and a poster for an upcoming party he’s hosting has gotten him in some hot bong water. Forchion, formerly of Willingboro, is set to host an “Obama One Year in Office Celebration” out in California, and the poster […]
Camden Teens Charged In Super-Brutal Slayings
INQUIRER: A 14-year-old Camden girl was charged with murder today in the grisly slayings of a man and a woman found buried last month in the backyard of a South Camden rowhouse. The girl was among a group of at least 10 people who beat and strangled Muriah Ashley Huff, 22, of Cinnaminson on Feb. 22, authorities said. Members of the same group also killed Huff’s boyfriend, Michael Hawkins, 23, of Mount Holly. Hawkins was bound and beaten for hours – until most of the bones in his face were broken – and then shot and stabbed repeatedly, said Jason […]
THE NEW DORK: Entrepreneur State Of Mind
Hilarious social media playa spoof of Jay-Z’s “Empire State Of Mind” currently blowing up viral on an Internet near you.
BRING IT ON: Let Philly Host ‘Trial Of The Century’
INQUIRER: Taken aback by the intense criticism from political opponents and local officials of President Obama’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in a civilian courtroom in New York, the City of Brotherly Love just may be the perfect location to transfer the trial of one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks. Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau, take note. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell may be historical, but they’re old news. A terrorist trial, that’s history in the making and would deliver the biggest financial payoff since William Penn made the deal with the Lenape tribe. All Mayor […]
SPARKLEHORSE: Sick Of Goodbyes
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Mark Linkous, the singer-songwriter who released his music under the band name Sparklehorse, has died after shooting himself in the chest in Tennessee. He was 47. Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk said Linkous shot himself outside a friend’s house around 1:20 p.m. Saturday with his own rifle. DeBusk said Linkous was staying with friends and became upset after receiving a text message. DeBusk said Linkous left no suicide note behind. The North Carolina-based artist was moving to Knoxville and staying with two friends, who told police Linkous was drinking and became upset after texting with an unknown […]
EARLY WORD: Monster Mash
Miro Dance Theatre has set out this Spring to open up a creative laboratory. Blurring the line between chaos and creativity, the company is about to embark on an ambitious new edition to their Open Studio Series- The Miro Mash-Ups. Miro is joining forces with the rising Philadelphia rock band Toy Soldiers, a producer, and two new music composers to create a new dance and music work in four days each month in Miro Mash-Ups. The first one will be Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 6:30 p.m. All of Miro’s Open Studios take place at the Miro Studio at Girard […]
POTUS Makes Health Care Housecall At Arcadia U
President Barack Obama drumming up support for his health care reform legislation at Arcadia University WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Leslie Banks introduced the President [at Arcadia University earlier today]. On February 11th, Leslie wrote the President an e-mail expressing her frustration with the cost of health insurance. Leslie is a self-employed, single mother with type 2 diabetes, whose daughter is a sophomore in college at Temple University. In January 2010, Leslie received a notice from her health insurance provider that her plan was being dropped. To keep the same benefits, the premiums for her and her daughter would more than […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Melissa Febos’ new memoir, Whip Smart, details the four years she spent working as a dominatrix. Febos enacted fantasy sequences, spanked grown men and verbally humiliated them for $75 an hour in a dungeon located somewhere in midtown Manhattan. Febos, who writes that she got started in sex work to pay for a drug habit, tells Terry Gross that working in a dungeon felt like “being in a womb.” “Pretty much all of the dungeons were outfitted with some sort of coat rack-related thing that had all sorts of floggers, riding crops,” she says. “We had giant coils […]
Keystone Cops Crackdown On Too Much Beer Choice
DAILY NEWS: IT WAS ELIOT NESS and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops. More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location. The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control […]
MUST SEE TV: Zach Galifianackis’ SNL Monologue
RELATED: The considerable cult that has grown up around Galifianakis’s performances over the last few years, both live and on video-sharing sites like YouTube, has done so largely because his routines are, arguably, the most unpredictable in contemporary comedy. A typical hourlong set might meander from carefully composed, conceptual one-liners à la Steven Wright to profanity-drenched tirades against members of the audience to slapstick to solemnly tacky musical interludes (Galifianakis is an able pianist) to Andy Kaufman-esque attacks on the genre that seem less concerned with eliciting laughs from the crowd than with confounding its notions of what comedy or, […]
RIP: Sparklehorse’s Mark Linkous Dead By Own Hand
NEW YORK TIMES: Mark Linkous, a singer-songwriter whose music, released under the name Sparklehorse, was renowned in the indie-rock and alt-country worlds for its dark, allusive themes and fragile beauty, committed suicide on Saturday in Knoxville, Tenn. He was 47. He shot himself in the heart in an alley outside a friend’s home, said his manager, Shelby Meade. Lt. Greg Hoskins of the Knoxville Police Department confirmed that the police responded to a call at 1:20 p.m., and that Mr. Linkous was pronounced dead at the scene. According to his family, Mr. Linkous owned the gun that he used. MORE […]
TRUTH IS OUT THERE: Pentagon Subway Shooter Was A Bi-Polar Truther, Armed And Off His Meds
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The man who opened fire in front of the Pentagon had a history of mental illness and had become so erratic that his parents reached out to local authorities weeks ago with a warning that he was unstable and might have a gun, authorities said Friday. It’s still unclear why John Patrick Bedell [pictured, above] opened fire Thursday at the Pentagon entrance, wounding two police officers before he was fatally shot. The two officers were hospitalized briefly with minor injuries. Bedell was diagnosed as bipolar, or manic depressive, and had been in and out of treatment programs for […]
EARLY WORD: Chi-Congo
Down Beat magazine published a review of a John Coltrane performance referring to the music as “anarchistic” and as “a horrifying demonstration of what appears to be a growing anti-jazz trend.” This review documented one of the most controversial moments in the history of jazz: the advent of Free Jazz or “The New Thing.” IHP and ANW’s fifth concert series, Anti-Jazz: The New Thing Revisited, celebrates the 50-year trajectory of Free Jazz. The series, while bearing in mind landmark contributions such as Ornette Coleman’s Free Jazz and John Coltrane’s Ascension, is a glimpse at the current state of the phenomenal Free Jazz […]