Boy, itís like The Mellow Legend says: 2005 ó she sure was a sweet olí bitch, wasnít she? The Year of The Rooster has more spills, chills, thrills and kills than we could count, and still, each day, it seemed like something still crazier would happen. Oh, and for some reason, Philly became the center of the universe for reasons known only to the collective press meldy-mind. But you know what? Weíll take it.
And now, on with the show…

Susanna Goihman: Iím Just Wild About Being Batshit
From June on, we were mystified a few times a month regarding tapas-slinger turned alleged hit-and-run killer Susanna Goihman and her utterly next level press con/gamble. Basically, it went like this: Lady gets all zonkified on toodle-tinis with resto buds, runs over teen Kayla Peter on the way home, somehow doesnít go to jail immediately. (What can you say? We all loved her ceviches. We didnít want to believe.) Meanwhile, she managaes to rack up one of the all-time weirdest softball Dr. Phil-esque mea culpa stories in the history of the Daily News, and keep going out and drinking and shit, all while the victimís family amasses an angry mob set up nightly at both her home and her restaurant. Luckily, the Goi gets herself a good lawyer and can refocus herself (now that the restuarantís gone) on what is newly important to her: Concocting one insanely bad outfit after another, with each new one a study in inappropriateness unto itself. Phew. You got us, Suze. We gotta lay down after that one.

Daily News: Bah Humbert!
DN, you must know this: We love you like a rock. Truly. But we are still kinda pissed about how you played the Jason Sweeney murder trial, vis-a-vis your totally louche portrayal of co-conspirator Justina Morley as sexy horror movie barely legal vixen. Donít get us wrong, weíre not sticking up for her. Far from it. Playing her like a teenage Bonnie Parker only gave her depth and made you guys look like horny douchebags. Better luck next time.

Presslermania, Sixth Borough Fever And Its Aftermath
What can we say, really, that hasnít already been said about that time that Jessica Pressler wrote an article for the New York Times Sunday Styles section that said Philly was becoming the ìsixth boroughî of NYC and:
a) Everybody was initially just bitchy towards her because the were jealous she got a byline in the Times, and
b) Upon reading the article, most people saw that it was really at root a flimsy, breezy piece written for flimsy and breezy purposes, but
c) Still got pissed off that Pressler/NYT/New Yorkers in general would be so bold as to try to co-opt our thing, even though
d) Nobody with a brain actually believed any of it, they just thought it would be a cool thing to say at parties or on their blog, and then
e) Holy shit! For some reason, the story turned out to totally have legs and started getting rehashed everywhere, and
f) In the beginning it was funny and exciting, but now itís just one other piece of noise to deal with and anyway,
g) Jokeís on you, indigdant Philadelphians because Pressler moved to NYC anyway, which in its way has its own special irony because
h) Weíre still, at this moment, the coolest city in America, and the seeds of our destruction have already been planted not by people like Pressler, but rather, people like you, with that same old Philly bitchface attitude. Now get the fuck out of my office.

Trouble Everyday: Nobody Loves You When Youíre Down And Out
If you had told any of us in 2004 that one day, Trouble Everyday would be interesting for any reason whatsoever, we would have laughed and been like, ìSure, genius! Next, youíre gonna tell me [REDACTED] is going to try and sue us, too!î (Why is it that we never listen when FutureMan speaks?) But lo and behold: At a moment of all-time insanely high levels of city/rock scene pride, these fucking boneheads decided to come out and tell anyone who would listen, ìHey Philly! You stopped coming to our shows, so you know what? Fuck you! Weíre never playing here again!î This, of course, was met with a chorus of cackles so deafening it threatened to obscure the facts that a) here was this hilariously already-dated discopunk band pulling some serious true-fine U2 diva shit, and b) Trouble Everyday had never even gotten so much buzz until they rocked this divine laughing stock move. For a while, even we were convinced that this might all be some Pistols-esque publicity stunt in which, hey, the joke was on us, but after we talked with them a few times about it, we were mostly just a little bummed to find out that seriously, these guys were just not that smart. And after all of that grand kissing off, how resolutely did the boys stick to their Iím-picking-up-my-toys-and-going-home guns? Why, you can ask them yourself: They play Philly about twice a month now.

Itís Quite Crap, Innnit? Lady Sov Melts Down At Silk City
There are times when hype, hysteria and hateration can combine to form a truly inspiring moment of ridiculousness. And so it went when Lady Sovereign, the Chav/grime answer to Monie Love, graced the stage at Silk City with one of its all-time memorable bitchfits. Of course, it was over the sound. And looking back now, people got so nuts about it. You would have thought the bar ran out of beer or something. Tell the truth: It was the track suit that made you that crazy, wasnít it?

Craigslist/Whole Foods Missed Connections: My Smelly Valentine
How many times do we have to tell you people? Itís okay to fuck the help. And that seems to be just as much what was on peopleís minds anyway: For what felt like a solid half of the year, the Craigslist Missed Connections was ablaze with hymns of praise to one dreamy vegan or another. Briefly, we even toyed with holding a Craiglist/Whole Foods beauty pageant, but we put the kaibosh on it straight away when we realized that vegans are boring anyway, and seriously, dude, that Tomís of Maine deodorant does not work. At all.

All Hail: The Ghost Of Ron White
Takes a lickiní and keeps on jibber-jabberiní! Dear Ron White, we here at Philebrity want to thank you for a year of valuable service and some truly awesome post fodder. No man has helped our cause from beyond the grave more, and thatís even counting Byko. You inspire us. May your FBI transcipts continue to flow from the teat of the Freedom of Information Act for the rest of time itself as a tribute to what a total boob you really and truly were.

Party Out Of Bounds: The Philebrity Weekender
Weíre still not sure where in the hell we ever got the sack to just call up all these venues on one of the busiest going-back-out weekends of the year and be like, ìYo! Itís Philebrity! Weíre doing three nights of insanity! Give us your club!î But man, we sure were glad we did. The Weekender started out as a lark, and weirdly became something weíre supposed to do every year now. Weíre still humbled by all of the awesome music and people that converged, still laughing about the wrap party, and still, yes, still totally shitting our pants about how to top it for ë06.

Ghetto Drabulous: Stop Snitchiní And White Tees
Weíre probably not gonna get a Nobel prize for this, but weíre going to come right out and say it: This whole ìStop Snitchiníî thing? Kind of awesome. Not because it promotes distrust between ghetto folks and the po-po, but because it is such an insane modern commment on distrust between ghetto folks and the po-po. That a t-shirt ó seriously, a t-shirt, people ó could garner so much controversy in this day and age only proved how close to the bone the sentiment cut. We canít help but feel that the Stop Snitchiní thing, coupled with 4XL white tee fever, might be the last desperate cries of city youth, stripped of their individualities by both the Man, who at this point is probably just freaked out, and themselves, via rampant disregard for their fellow ghetto folk, insane anti-intellectualism and that truly evil Nextel sound that seriously clouds the thoughts of anyone within hearing range. It is kind of scary to think what will come next, though. Unless dudes just start going whole hog and wearing belts around said white tees, which would, at long last, finally reveal what most of us already know: Homie wears a dress, yo.

Y100: Whither The Chain Wallet?
Tell the truth: Back when Y100 was still on the air, it sucked big, giant, hairy monkey balls. Now that theyíve been forced onto the Internet ó in retrospect now, a good move all the way around ó theyíre keeping it a little more real, but you know shit is bad when Jim McGuinn had to come out and produce soundbytes like, ìDo you know there is now no radio station in the city that plays BECK?î Meanwhile, weíre like, ìFuckiní A! FINALLY!î And just like it finally smacked the newspaper folks in the face, a large portion of Philly radio folks got hit with the awful truth: People donít rely on them for the new shit anymore. But weíve got to give props where theyíre due ó in death, Y100 (now Y100rocks.com) has proven strangely to be more relevant than it was in life. Not being under the thumb of a giant radio parent corp has gone a very long way in them finally squelching the date rape rock, and in the process, they also managed to finally teach lots of date rape rock fans how to listen to Internet radio. Everybody wins! Way to go, ghost of Y100!

PNI Staff Cuts: The Clothes Have No Emperor
Hey Inky: Now do you believe us when we tell you that you suck and you have no one but yourselves to blame? The chickens finally came home to roost this year when it was revealed that after years of pretty much ignoring the city and its readers therein, the Inky was to suffer a staggering number of layoffs in its newsroom. Less thrilling was the notion that The People Paper was going to take it on the chin, as well. Still even more, um, less thrilling were the reports of one Inky staffer, feeling the media world slip away from him like so much Suburban Metro section copy, was actually moved to try and fistfight one well-intentioned, blog-loving intern. (Itís cool, though. Heís here with us now and he is safe.) And as always, truth was in short supply, just once, we would have loved to have seen someone (who was not Will Bunch) come out and be like, ìYou know what? The layoffs/buyouts are coming at us from the bean counters, but the truth is, we here at the Inky have been ignoring you and passing off a shitty newspaper for like years now. Every time we beefed up a suburban section, showed the older, whiter readers a disproportionate amount of love and in general made this thing the pat, idealess void you will only be able to hold in your hands for like another 3 years tops, we came a little bit closer to this moment right here. And weíre sorry.î

The SEPTA Strike: Was That Anything?
Confidential to transit workers: Next time you plan on staging a strike intended to cripple the city, please make sure that everyone doesnít already hate your fucking guts anyway. You can catch a lot more flies with honey, sugar.

Do Not Look Directly Into The Center Of The Sweater: Cosby Loses His Shit
It was sad to watch, really: Every time he could, Bill Cosby melted down in front of a microphone this year. If it wasnít his sure-to-please-OíReilly never-ending rant against ebonics, it was the sexual assault charges, and if it wasnít either of those, it was just the dude on public access talking about, seriously, God knows what. To The Cos we say: Dude, take 2006 off. Just the whole fucking year. Go down to Barbados, lay on the beach, drink a few cocktails and just chillllllll. Seriously. Youíll be glad you did. No one wants to see you go down like this.

Live 8: Much Ado About Sucking
How this city did not burn with the mighty power of everything that was stupid about this concert is still, frankly, beyond us. And just like George Bush doesnít care about black people, The Boss apparently does not care about rescuing charity concerts from utter suckitude. At least now we know.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2006 at 2:51 am.