DAILY NEWS: In the darkness Thursday night, Esther Schultz ran into the kind of criminals who give this city a bad name. Schultz, 25, parked her car on 24th Street near Parrish, in Fairmount, at about 9 p.m. and started walking toward her house, chatting with her mother on a cell phone along the way. A car pulled up alongside her and a man jumped out and tried to steal her purse, police said. The man knocked Schultz, a therapist for Keystone Hospice, to the ground. Police said a female passenger shouted, “Shoot the bitch! Shoot the bitch!” and the […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
It’s Official: O.J. Simpson Is Completely Fucked An audio recording of the alleged robbery released by TMZ.com identifies an agitated Simpson uttering obscenities to an unknown person. “You think you can steal my (expletive) and sell it?” says the voice identified as Simpson. The district attorney said he expected Simpson to ultimately be charged with seven felonies and one gross misdemeanor. If convicted of the booking charges, Simpson would face up to 30 years in state prison on each robbery count alone. Simpson owes the Goldman and Brown families $33 million for the deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, […]
THE EARLY WORD: Chico And The Man
BY DAN BUSKIRK JAZZ CRITIC If you could slip through into anybody’s skin, Chico Hamilton‘s life would definitely be an “A” ticket. He was the L.A.’s hottest drummer in L.A. in the 1940s and ’50s, playing with the Big Acts in the Big Rooms, with people like Ellington, Lena Horne, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett and Billie Holiday. He was there playing behind Chet Baker when the women were just starting to swoon and his own band gave birth to major players like Eric Dolphy, Charles Lloyd, Gabor Szabo and Larry Coryell. He wrote and performed the scores for cinema […]
Nanny-Basher Gets Probation For Bashing Nanny
BY KATHY BOCCELLA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER Villanova heiress Susan Tabas Tepper [not pictured], who recently completed a court-ordered month of psychiatric care for attacking two employees in one year, was sentenced today to 15 months’ probation and fined $600. Tepper smiled but remained silent as she arrived at Montgomery County Courthouse holding hands with her boyfriend, Tony Fercos, the star of an animal and magic act. Compared with previous court appearances, when her hair was disheveled and her face puffy, Tepper looked rested and relaxed. Tepper pleaded guilty in July to physically harassing Urszula Kordzior, a housekeeper and nanny. In […]
GAYBO: The Fringe? Honey, I AM The Goddamn Fringe!
TOMMY ZANE GAYDAR EDITOR I just don’t know how they do it — 70 Fringe and Live Arts Festival performances packed into three weekends. This year was a better year at Fringe all around, with better organization and quality shows. I love theatre as much as anyone, but September is typically outside activity time, and tramp-it-up at the bars time, too. Still, I managed to see some performances. * “Java Drama,” three world premiere plays presented by Dragon Stage and Screen at site-specific performance space Doubleshots Espresso, led the pack of comedies. My fave of the three was “Next Year […]
WAR PIGS: Iraq Revokes Blackwater’s License To Kill
BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Interior Ministry canceled the license of controversial American security firm Blackwater USA today after Iraqi officials charged that eight civilians were shot by company bodyguards accompanying a U.S. State Department motorcade the day before in Baghdad. “It has been revoked,” said Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf, a spokesman for the ministry. “They committed a crime. The judicial system will take action.” The decision marks Iraq’s boldest step yet to assert itself against foreign security contractors, who arrived in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Blackwater has become the symbol of foreign gunmen accused by many […]
Meanwhile, Back At The War…
KYW: A marine from New Jersey has been killed in Iraq. His family was planning his wedding celebration, when they learned of his death early Saturday morning. Terry Allen from Pennsauken, New Jersey, was supposed to come home from his second tour in Iraq on Tuesday. But the 21-year-old Marine Corporal was killed by sniper fire. RELATED: Emmy’s Censor The Flying Nun Sally Field’s Anti-War Speech
CURIOUS: Fumo’s Super-Lawyer Recuses Himself
BY JOHN SHIFFMAN INQUIRER STAFF WRITER In a surprising move, Richard A. Sprague and his firm asked today for permission to withdraw as lawyers for indicted state Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.). The request comes just three weeks after U.S. District Judge William Yohn ruled that Sprague and his firm, Sprague & Sprague, could represent Fumo, despite conflicts of interests alleged by prosecutors, as long as Fumo waived and acknowledged any such conflicts in court. Yohn had set such a hearing for later this month. Instead, Sprague and colleagues Mark Sheppard and Geoffrey Johnson filed a motion this morning, […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR When Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, the Nixon White House tried to discredit him. Among other things, Nixon loyalists burglarized the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist. On this edition of Fresh Air, we spend the entire hour with Bud Krogh, who went to prison for his role in the Ellsberg affair — and who has a new memoir. It’s called Integrity: Good People, Bad Choices, and Life Lessons from the White House. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 Is Barack Obama a symbol of a new generation of black leaders? We’ll talk about […]
KILLADELPHIA: 2 More Dead Since U Went 2 Bed
Shortly before 3 a.m. yesterday, Nicholas Bonilla, 41, was found with multiple gunshot wounds to the torso in the 3100 block of North Front Street. Bonilla, of the 3200 block of Frankford Avenue, was taken to Temple University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m., police said. * About 4 a.m. Friday, Herbert Purnell, 48, was found in the 1800 block of Cornwall Street with multiple gunshot wounds to the legs. Purnell, who lived in the same block, was taken to Temple and pronounced dead at 6:34 a.m. No arrests have been made in either case, and […]
NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs
VEEP’S WIFE IN TOWN TO CELEBRATE THE CONSTITUTION HER HUSBAND SHITS UPON Lynne Cheney the wife of the vice president, was at the National Constitution Center on Monday morning to launch a web site called Consource.org. It’s an online library of the notes and writings of the founding fathers. Cheney was addressing students in Philadelphia. Joining her in a webcast were US Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who was participating from Maryland, and US Supreme Court justice Steven Bryer, who is teaching constitutional law by webcast from the Harvard Law School. [via KYW] * TEMPLE PROF. STUDYING 215 CHILHOOD DIABETES […]
JUSTICE: O.J. Simpson Arrested For Armed Robbery
LAS VEGAS — O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday and faces multiple felony charges in an alleged armed robbery of collectors involving the former football great’s sports memorabilia, authorities said. Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m., Capt. James Dillon said. The charges against Simpson will include robbery with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a firearm, all felonies, Dillon said. [via ASSOCIATED PRESS]
FRINGE DWELLER: Recommended
Songs From Under the Bed The Absinthe Drinkers Music, 45 minutes Unbelievable monstrosities unleashed in lit-pop monster-vision! Unspeakable beasts summoned forth from forgotten, forbidden literary tomes! The Drinkers take a census of things lurking under the bed, in the closet, and outside the window. Poems transmogrified into monster-filled music and visual delights! * Fatboy Brat Productions Theater, 70 minutes Bacon! Money! Blood! From the creators of last year’s Live Arts hit Eye-95 Re-tarred comes another super-size portion of American excess. Written by John Clancy, FringeNYC founder and winner of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe First, this brutal comedy […]