This just in: Mayor Michael Nutter has signed an executive order to make the more than 200 city owned recreation centers, playgrounds, and pools 100% smoke-free, including all outdoor spaces. “We’re making this change so that recreation spaces can be healthier, safer, and cleaner for the tens of thousands of kids and adults who learn, play, and gather here every year and for all of the city’s recreation center staff,” he said. Smoking Baby could not be reached for comment at press time, though we do anticipate some rather harsh criticism for Nutter coming from the Almagamated Smoking Street Urchins Of Fishtown (Fishtown Rec Chapter). They also represent The Lollipop Kids.
One man’s trash Is another man’s nightmare. Found this on Craigslist.
You can be the owner of this one-of-a-kind, mixed media installation that has captivated every person who has experienced it. Chicken Birthday was first displayed at a private function on May 20th, 2011 and is only now being offered for sale. Chicken Birthday is constructed of wood, aluminum, acrylic, latex, paper, wool, chicken, and other materials.
This is absolutely terrifying on several levels. Video interview with the artist after the jump. (more…)
According to the Greater Philadelphia Culture Alliance (the same people responsible for that culture index we told you about last week), “Our region’s arts and culture support 62,000 jobs across the Commonwealth, pump $2 billion into our economy, generate $283 million in tax revenues, and educate our children so that they’ll be able to compete in the 21st century.”
The proposed budget would cut the PCA’s budget for arts grants from $8.262 million to $2.5 million. To do your part, the Greater Philadelphia Culture Alliance has a list of all the State Representatives phone numbers. Call them.
The Kimmel Center is calling for local singers, bands, and musicians to partake in that most modern of dues-paying efforts: A YouTube talent search. The winning act (which will be voted on by the public on Facebook) will perform at The Kimmel’s Summer Solstice Celebration on June 18th. Voting on the top 5 finalists will take place from June 6-June 9 and in order to vote you must “Like” The Kimmel Center on Facebook (which we reccomend doing in the middle of the night, so it doesn’t pop up on the News Feed).
Those interested in entering the contest also need to “like” the Kimmel Center’s Facebook page. After this, they must fill out the form here, and then upload their video to the Kimmel Center’s YouTube channel (by responding to the hilariously under-produced video here). Submissions must be received by May 29th.
NBCUniversal — that little company now owned by Comcast — announced this morning that it is seeking applications from non-profit, locally-focused news organizations “interested in entering into cooperative news gathering and reporting arrangements with NBC owned-and-operated stations.”
In many cities, including Philadelphia, NBCUniversal will be willing to share news footage, technical facilities and personnel; grant on-air opportunities, and promotional assistance and they ask in return for cooperative researching, writing, and reporting. They are modeling this program on one they have been running in San Diego for a few years with local non-profit VoiceOfSanDiego.
NBCUniversal asks that, “Organizations interested in applying should have robust news gathering capabilities, a track record of accuracy, fairness and independence in their journalistic efforts, and an ability to provide diverse viewpoints and programming.” Applications must be submitted by July 22nd and can be filled out here. This doesn’t necessarily sound terrible, but it’s also… interesting.
You know the ones I’m talking about: Those well-intentioned ads that are part of the Love The Arts In Philadelphia campaign, where they grab whatever famous person is around that day — which is usually Danny DeVito or Guy Fieri — and make them talk about how they really dig going to the ballet here when they’re not eating meat and cheese goop on bread. They’re so embarrassing, they’re not even on YouTube. We get what they’re saying, but it’s all so disconnected and weird. We wish they’d just show, you know, the arts in Philadelphia and not a famous person being held hostage. Unless, of course, they did one that was like, “YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE THE ARTS IN PHILADELPHIA, OR WE’RE GOING TO KILL GUY FIERI RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU.”
This is something completely different than Philly’s next generation of White Flight, which is set to happen any minute now when all your friends who’ve had babies in the last few years who swore they’d never leave up and relocate to whatever surburb, glazey-eyed and repeating the mantra “the schools, man, the schools.” Although it is something sort of like that, sort of. #streetflight, rather, will be what we talk about when we talk about those among us who either threaten to leave or leave outright should John Street somehow become Mayor of Philadelphia again. For the record, our official position on the matter is this: If Street does indeed run again and his whole gambit is not, in fact, akin to Donald Trump’s whole “I’m just crazy enough to do it!” stunt last month, he will win. In a landslide. And there will be nothing any of us can do about it.
Except move. And if that sounds like you, there’s already a Facebook group for you, just started by occasional Philebrity contributor Kristine Kennedy. Even though we ourselves threatened #streetflight in a moment of pique last week, we were kidding. We’re not sure about these people on Facebook, though. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens when Street reclaims his weird kingdom. Which, again, will absolutely happen if it’s what John Street wishes. (Milton got a quarter of the vote on a lark, remember.) In the meantime, do us a favor: Use the hashtag #streetflight on Twitter when discussing this whole mess and what you’d do. It’d be pretty funny if we somehow got that trending.
And he left us all of these LOLBOLARIS-es! Look at them! Can you even believe them? Two of them will be good enough for Willie Nelson tickets; the rest will be forgotten. You probably shouldn’t send us any more of them because we feel like the story’s dead already, but you know, we say this every time the city’s most groovy weatherman gets roofied twice by Latvian broads and becomes an accidental crimefighter. So you never know! Thanks for playing, and there’s a whole bunch more after the jump! (more…)
The end of the world may be coming, and we just lost our best soldier in fighting it off. Rest in Peace Randy Poffo a.k.a. Macho Man Randy Savage.
FRIDAY: >>> Odd Future at the First Unitarian Church. Sold Out, but guaranteed to be nuts. >>> Radiohead tribute band Meeting in the Aisle at the North Star Bar. We have a soft spot for tribute bands, and these guys sound great.
SATURDAY: >>> IT’S THE RAPTURE PEOPLE! We’ll probably be left behind which means party all night (attention people with Fleet Foxes tickets: They’re definitely going up). >>> It’s also going to be 80 degrees and sunny, so go out and enjoy your last day on Earth/beginning of long period of suffering. One good way to do that would be to check out the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby/Trenton Ave. Arts Fest. If you like Kenzinger and bikes with toilets on them, you may think that the rapture is happening after all, and that you just happened to line up on the good side. >>>Don’t Block the Bocks at Johnny Brenda’s Downstairs. Starting at 11am, featuring 10 different bocks on tap all day until there’s nothing left. The event starts at 11:00AM and goes until 2:00AM. Featuring beers from Victory, Troeg’s, Lancaster, Great Lakes, Stoudt’s, and Sly Fox. >>>PhillyNORML’s 2011 Cannabis March and the Philadelphia Freedom Festival (featuring music from Psychadelphia, Before the Accident Happens, The Primate Fiasco, I Yan I Arkestra, The Thirst Quenchers, and The Synth Circus). The march starts off at 5:00PM at South and Broad Streets while the doors at the TLA open at 6:30PM for the concert.
SUNDAY: >>> R5 Productions is putting on the Punk Rock Flea Market Spring Fever Edition. Head on over and pick up some old records, clothes, food, and just about anything else. Admission is $3 and it all goes down at the Punk Rock Flea Market Dome (461 N. 9th St.) >>> And after some possible showers Sunday, we return to rain all week, so enjoy as much sun as you can this weekend.
Brian K. Davis and Rev. Richard Cobb (Reverend? Oh come on) have been arrested on multiple theft-related charges.
According to the Office of the Inspector General, Davis posed as an L&I Inspector and collected more than $10,000 from a property owner on the 5300 block of Wayne Avenue in Germantown. Cobb, a Brookhaven native and pastor at St. Mark’s Baptist Church in South Philly apparently masterminded the scheme. Cobb would tell Davis which fines and fees to seek out while posing as the inspector, and then split the money with him.
I know at this point we shouldn’t be surprised in any way when a member of the clergy does something wrong, but this still rubs us the wrong way.
A few weeks ago, when Dick Ebersol announced Comcast SportsNet would soon change it’s name to NBC Sports, we assumed he be around for the switch over, but he’s calling it a day.
Ebersol has resigned as chairman of NBC Sports group, a post he had held for 22 years. Current NBC Sports Cable Group president Mark Lazarus will succeed him (an immediate image search for Lazarus doesn’t show anything as sweet as the sweater on Ebersol on the right).
GOOD ENOUGH FOR WILLIE NELSON TICKETS? WELL DOOD, WE JUST DON’T KNOW! SEND YOUR LOLBOLARISES TO TIPS[AT]PHILEBRITY[DOT]COM! NO, WE’RE NOT KIDDING! DO SHOT! DO SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
LOLLY BOLLY, WE LIKE TO PARTY, WE DON’T CAUSE TRUBBLE, WE DON’T BOTHER NOBODY! YO HOSS, YOU WANT THEM WILLIE NELSON TICKETS? SEND YOUR LOLBOLARISES TO TIPS[AT]PHILEBRITY[DOT]COM! NO, WE’RE NOT KIDDING! DO SHOT! DO SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
IS IT WORTH WILLIE NELSON TICKETS? WE JUST DON’T KNOW YET, DUDE! SEND YOUR LOLBOLARISES TO TIPS[AT]PHILEBRITY[DOT]COM! NO, WE’RE NOT KIDDING! DO SHOT! DO SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE INVENTION OF THE LOLBOLARIS! READ THIS, THEN GET ON YOUR PHOTOSHOPS, PEOPLE! SEND YOUR LOLBOLARISES TO TIPS[AT]PHILEBRITY[DOT]COM! BEST ONE BY END OF DAY TMRW GETS WILLIE NELSON TICKETS! NO, WE’RE NOT KIDDING! DO SHOT! DO SHOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
We reported two years ago, when the first Cultural Engagement Index was released, how psyched we were that it revealed Philly to be a vibrant, creative, and culturally engaged city. Now 2010’s CEI is out and oh boy, we did great.
Overall, there was an 11% increase is cultural engagement, with 8 of 9 categories seeing an improved score (minus consumption of popular media, which remained steady). The report says, “Particularly high CEI scores were seen for younger respondents (18-34), families with children; African-American and Hispanic respondents; and those active in theater, visual arts and online creative activities.”
But the key finding here is this: “Despite the economic crisis, the CEI suggests that Philadelphia is more culturally vibrant than the nation as a whole.” That’s pretty sweet. Let’s pat ourselves on the back, but not for too long: We should probably get right back to creating things and being all around awesome in the hopes that some socialist European country will adopt us and give us health insurance.
So there you have it: The world is not totally made of shit. Have you got some good news? If so, send it to tips[at]philebrity[dot]com with “GOOD MOTHERFUCKING NEWS!” in the subject header — we’d love to hear about it.
The Daily Beast has a story up about Kia Grasty, a woman who makes $140,000 a year (HOLY SHIT!) cleaning up after Penn students. She works for the parents of privileged kids and cleans up after them, which kinda bugs us, but you cannot slight this woman in any way. Grasty is working hard and doing the job few want, so kudos to her.
This just in: Mayor Michael Nutter has signed an executive order to make the more than 200 city owned recreation centers, playgrounds, and pools 100% smoke-free, including all outdoor spaces. “We’re making this change so that recreation spaces can be healthier, safer, and cleaner for the tens of thousands of kids and adults who learn, play, and gather here every year and for all of the city’s recreation center staff,” he said. Smoking Baby could not be reached for comment at press time, though we do anticipate some rather harsh criticism for Nutter coming from the Almagamated Smoking Street Urchins Of Fishtown (Fishtown Rec Chapter). They also represent The Lollipop Kids.
The state budget vote is coming up, and with a proposed 70% cut to the 
The Kimmel Center is calling for local singers, bands, and musicians to partake in that most modern of dues-paying efforts: A YouTube talent search. The winning act (which will be voted on by the public on Facebook) will perform at The Kimmel’s Summer Solstice Celebration on June 18th. Voting on the top 5 finalists will take place from June 6-June 9 and in order to vote you must “Like” 
NBCUniversal — that little company now owned by Comcast — announced this morning that it is seeking applications from non-profit, locally-focused news organizations “interested in entering into cooperative news gathering and reporting arrangements with NBC owned-and-operated stations.”
