MORE FUN IN THE NEW WORLD: John Doe, World Cafe Live, About An Hour Ago BY JONATHAN VALANIA Meet John Doe, fiftysomething atypicial American male. Claim to fame: Leader of Los Angeles punk band X, which combined indelible noir-ish poetics with buzzsaw punk and twangy Americana. Actually, you have met John Doe before. Every post-X solo album is a re-introduction to the man with the prototypical American alias, and every time, America’s reaction is the same: commercial indifference underscored by the righteous indignation of critics that a talent like Doe should have to come begging for his due time and […]
ROSEY GRIER: It’s All Right To Cry
Penn State grad Rosie Grier was All-Pro linebacker for the New York Giants and later the Los Angeles Rams. He was Robert Kennedy’s body guard the night he was assassinated.
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
WAGON TRAIN: Porter Wagoner, opening for the White Stripes, Madison Square Garden, Last Night BY AMY Z. QUINN For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of the dude with the Siegfried & Roy hair playing playing twang-tastic guitar behind Porter Wagoner. I got to my seat just after they came on, as he was singing Wagoner to the stage: “The Wagonmaster’s comin’, the Wagonmaster’s comin’ . . .” and, tragically bereft of an Internet-ready device with which to google, the solution finally came to me. Time to call Mom. She’s a country fan from way back when […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
FRESH AIR German filmmaker Werner Herzog discusses his new film Rescue Dawn, a Hollywood adaptation of his 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. Both the movie and the documentary are based on the true story of Dieter Dengler, the only U.S. pilot to successfully escape from a North Vietnamese-controlled prison. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 Philadelphia’s rising murder rate. This week, CBS News did a three-part series on Philadelphia’s gun violence. Why is the murder rate so high, and what can be done about it? We’ll talk with MEL WELLS, president of One Day At A Time, one of the social services […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
WHITE SNAKE MOAN: Nick Cave & Grinderman, Madison Square Garden, Last Night [Photo by JONATHAN VALANIA]
Sheehan Peace Rally Brings Out The Dogs Of War
BY DAVE DAVIES OF THE DAILY NEWS “She’s a publicity whore!” yelled Chris Hill, a pro-war veteran who led a group of about 20 hecklers calling themselves “The Gathering of the Eagles,” many with tattoos, denim vests and sunglasses. “You’re disrespecting your son’s honor!” Hill shouted at Sheehan, referring to her son Casey, who died in Iraq. “I hope he’s going to heaven, because you’re sure not!” “Yes, my son Casey died in George Bush’s illegal and immoral war,” she said to the crowd, as some of the hecklers blew air horns to try to drown her out. “They don’t […]
SIMPSONS: ‘Me Lose Brain?’
[Executive Producer James L.] Brooks’ anxiety over leaked plot spoilers represents an obsession with quality control that included 2 1/2 years’ worth of rewrites before the Simpsons brain trust even arrived at a suitably madcap story outline. “The other day somebody guessed we did 100 drafts, and I would say it took us 70 before it began to look like we didn’t give a damn!” says Brooks, ensconced in his bungalow on the 20th Century Fox lot. “It was daunting because we were very concerned about this passionate Simpsons subculture. We had to get past the white knuckles because this […]
MONICA: iMayor Phones Home, Finally
“As Street talked about fighting an “attitude” that kills, he could have been referring to his own. With months to go before ending a 30-year government career, the mayor must wake up some mornings wondering how he will be remembered. No politician wants to go down in history as having done nothing because he didn’t bother to tell anyone what he did and why. No one wants to be recalled as weird, uncaring, or clueless because of where he doesn’t go, what he doesn’t say and the company he doesn’t keep. At this point, Street can’t do much to get […]
TODAY I SAW…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which […]
PLAN FOR VICTORY: Draft College Republicans
This is quite awesome.
INTRODUCING: Inconspicuous Consumption
EDITOR’S NOTE: Inconspicuous Consumption is a new weekly Phawker feature by mystery columnist ALLAN SMITHEE. According to Wikipedia, “Alan Smithee is a pseudonym used between 1968 and 1999 by Hollywood film directors who wanted to be dissociated from a film for which they no longer wanted credit. It was used when the director could prove to the satisfaction of a panel of members of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) and Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers that the film had been wrested from his or her creative control. The director was also required to keep the reason for […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE WIZARD OF MOZZ: Morrissey, The Mann, Last Night BY A.D. AMOROSI FOR THE INQUIRER As Brit-pop’s patron saint of things smartly smarmy, sexually obsessive and shyly sensitive, Morrissey — regarded as divine since he fronted the Smiths from 1982 to 1987 — has become more iconic with each solo effort. It’s odd, then, that an idol so untouchable has grown more willing than ever to engage his feverish fans. Take his show on Monday at the Mann Center. With a graying, spiky pompadour and a thicker middle than in his waifish youth, Morrissey, 48, may appear more pope than […]