Uwishunu just went ahead and broke the news that The Roots (pictured) have just been added to the July 4th Welcome America festivities, thereby making things kinda rough on previous headliner Sheryl Crow as well as you, because up until now, you were totally planning on saying “Hells NO” to the insane migraine in waiting that is Welcome America. (If you still feel this way, we should let you know that the Philebrity Sync Stage @ The Piazza, alternately titled “YANKEE GO HOME,” has been rescheduled for July 4th; updated lineup info coming soon.) Anyway, in case you haven’t been paying attention lately to the Roots’ regular gig, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, check out last night’s episode: They were totally hilarious in Fallon’s spoof of The Hills, and the “Freestylin’” section was downright hilarious to the point that, shit, maybe Fallon should do this every night, maybe this should be the whole show. Meanwhile, in other Roots news, ?uestlove now follows Philebrity’s Twitter. Honored to have ya, dude.
If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you know that the grand experiment that is Yelp!, where anyone at all can post a review of any business at all, has done little else but prove two things: 1) That the Fourth Estate, as loathsome as you’ve been trained to regard it, exist(ed/s) for a reason and 2) given the chance, people will bitch about anything, anything at all, on the Internet. But what of the humble users who’ve used the site primarily not to complain, but to give props where they’re due? Consider a recent incident involving our friend Jen. Over the last year or so, Jen has used Yelp (even though we told her not to) to review places she thought were great or under-rated; of 18 reviews she’s written, only one has been unfavorable. And here is where The Dark Mojo Of Yelp enters our story.
Jen’s one unfavorable review was of Northern Liberties’ now-defunct The Toy Shop. In her review posted nearly a year ago, Jen’s big gripe was poor customer service — a frequent retail gripe, to be sure, and one that any savvy retailer would have taken pains to correct, and then address on Yelp! itself. Cut to last week, and Jen, out for an evening stroll with a friend: (more…)
You may not know this, but Boston and Philly share a common scourge: They’ve both had dumb, glossy Metrocorp magazines bearing down on their respective cities as the last word in Stuff White People Like for years and years now. Both Boston and Philadelphia magazines are owned and operated by Metrocorp — run since the dawn of man by Herb Lipson and family — and both magazines, we can safely assume, don’t know where they’ll be in a few years, if in fact they’ll be in existence at all. Here in Philadelphia, PhillyMag has done a uniquely awful job transferring its once-great fortunes to the web, and we can only assume Boston is no different; and in any case, both magazines are subject to the current print-mag crunch, web or no web. Yesterday, Boston announced that it had laid off six people, including the mag’s editor. Since February, PhillyMag editor Larry Platt has been editorial director at Boston (while just-deposed editor James Burnett was still there), a curious situation that might speak more to the PhillyMag over-your-shoulder writing and editing style than it does to hard times, perhaps. In any case, six layoffs at once — plus a one-week unpaid furlough for current employees — is harsh, suggesting that the rot can’t be all that far away from PhillyMag. Here’s the part where we open a PayPal account so you can help us afford Steve Volk. No, seriously.
Like us, since March, you crammed to understandStrongbox Lounge, the Rittenhouse bottle-service joint that, upon its opening in the spring, became synonomous with the words “douche” and “Kade.” But we all should have known: Such an inspired class-war fever could have never lasted for long, and like an impetuous love affair, Strongbox 1.0 shut down last week after just one season of hot-ass, ball-ass luxe lounge stylin’. Michael Klein first broke the news last week, along with the tidbit that Strongbox would be back in the fall with some big changes — a notion which drove us to distraction. Would Strongbox 2.0 be stronger? Boxier? We asked proprietor Brett Perloff what was the what, and it turns out, there’s quite a lot. “We are adding LED lighting, Plasma TVs, additional HVAC, video projection, reupholstering (already a lot of holes in the banquettes),” he said, prompting us to wonder, then hold our ears and go “LALALALALALA,” just how and in what fashion those holes were made. But also, he said, there will be “additional painting, bathroom improvements, additional design features, structural changes to the bar (this is the big one) and structural changes to the back elevated room.” Which, basically, means that Strongbox is basically completely doing itself over, although Perloff also says the room will be open for private parties over the summer should the need arise for you to get your Strongbox on and you just can’t wait until the fall. Best of all? “We are installing a ‘Kade Room’ but its only for the city’s ultra uber super duper social elite.” Huh. Wonder what’ll go on back there.
If you spent any time in front of CNN over the weekend, you probably encountered the new ad from local auto dealer Gary Barbera, who’s currently running a sale dubbed the Obama Trade-O-Rama. Featuring the above Barack Obama look-alike promising “bailouts,” the ad gives voice to the like-duh “where’s my bailout?” crack each one of us has made at this point. Fair enough, but, not to put too fine a point on it, it’s weird and uncool. Somewhere between the out-and-out cringeworthy status of, say, the various Obama Fried Chicken stores popping up and, say, the campy creepiness of the Reagan and Nixon masks in Point Break, there is the burgeoning field of Obama look-alikes. And we’ll be honest: We don’t know how to feel about that. On hand, Barbera’s ad, whether it’s aware of it or not, could be seen to make a lawn jockey out of a sitting president — could you imagine an auto dealer running ads with a George Bush imitator while he was still in office? — but on the other, maybe this a step to Rappin’ Ronnie-ize the Obama era. In which case, then yeah, this ad is definitely fucked up. More stills after the jump. (more…)
Gizmodo points us to this collection of Rocky-inspired USB thumb drives, created, of course, by someone in Japan who loves us more than we love ourselves. For years, after all, we’ve wondered just what was behind the red dot, and now we know: A fully functional USB flash drive that’ll run ya ¥ 2,850.00. (You can also get Mr. T and Apollo Creed editions; in Creed’s case, he looks strangely, though not inexplicably, aroused.) Of all the, uh, “improvements” Sylvester Stallone has made to himself over the years, we have to say: Packing a hot 1GB of flash memory down there is a good way to go, if you’re gonna go that way. We bet Brigitte Nielsen misses him more than ever these days.
We’re celebrating summer’s arrival and (we hope) the first non-rainy day in forever the only way we know how: By taking the day off. Philebrity will return tomorrow, refreshed and full of tales of wonderment. Like the Sarge says: Keep it crispy.
Dear Friends:
We had a feeling it might come to this. Regretfully, due to inclement weather, everybody at Philebrity.com, VitaminWater and the Piazza @ Schmidt’s would like to inform you that The Sync Stage has been postponed until Saturday, July 4th. However, The Second Street Festival and Popped! Philadelphia are STILL ON. The Second Street folks just let us know that they are proceeding, rain or shine, and that the music stage and beer gardens are tented, so if you’ve a mind to, you should still definitely plan on going down there and doing your thing. As for our postponed date, check in with Philebrity next week for updated lineup info and more. And to our friends at Popped! and Second Street Fest, good on ya! Here’s hoping everything clears up.
FRIDAY:
>>> Little Joy probably released the best little album you never heard last year, but ’round these parts, it’s still on heavy, heavy rotation and now that it’s summer, even more so. If you ever wanted The Lovin’ Spoonful to leave Greenwich Village, move down to Brazil, then come back to Los Angeles for a sunset hang, you may very well be a future World’s Biggest Fan Of Little Joy. (High five, we are, too!) That’s them in the video upstairs and that’ll also be them at the Khyber tonight, and then that’ll be us drinking Coronas down in the crowd and swaying in the dirty breeze! That’s us! That’s them! That’s YOU. With Dead Trees, Fang Fang and Edison Proposal.
>>> Get into the party for Frenz, the new exhibit at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery curated by Bonnie Prince Billy, and the freak legendry on display: Alan Licht & Andy Lampert, Able Brown, Meg Baird & Greg Weeks are all performing to celebrate the opening (7PM), and we have every reason to believe this will be the best thing you do all day, because Little Joy probably won’t go on until after midnight.
>>> Relish this Weekend Picks: It’s the first time in forever when we’ve actually extolled the virtues of live music. Don’t pat us on the back just yet, because it’s only by the force of a litany of totally legit shows that we’re doing it. We just heard Elvis Perkins In Dearland lay down one of the best XPN Free At Noon sessions we’ve ever heard, which would suggest he’ll be in even finer form this evening at Johnny Brenda’s; Melody Gardot is someone we never even realized we loved until just now, but her show at World Cafe Live is sold out so get crafty and work your hookups; and Free Energy open for Harlem Shakes at Kung Fu Necktie. See what I mean?
>>> What, you hate all that? Typical. See you at Turnaround Vs. Immediate at the Barbary, lateside.
SATURDAY:
>>> OK, we got some updates for the Second Street Festival/Popped Philadelphia/Philebrity Sync Stage @ The Piazza: The 2nd St./Popped folks have announced that their portions of the day’s events are RAIN OR SHINE. However, seeing as how our stage is not covered and Philebrity is sadly not in the business of electrocuting musicians, we do in fact have a rain date established (Sat., July 4); we’ll make a call when we wake up tomorrow and see just how Woodstock ‘99 everything is looking. Weather permitting, however, you should be mindful of the fact that we’re going to have the best time ever and rock your face off like it was a Ronald Reagan mask. Deal with it.
>>> Once all that is over (or you’ve spent the day rained in, listening to Loudon Wainright records and drawing pictures of sunrises), the best party in town is clearly, obviously Summer Collection, a fundraiser for choreographer Kate Watson Wallace’s next show, Anonymous Bodies. You may have only recently become aware of Kate’s work via the new Animal Collective video, and you may be wondering: “Will this party be like that video?” And verily we say unto thee: This party will be exactly like that video.
>>> Also noteworthy: Patrick Wolf headlines the Nylon Summer Music Tour at the North Star Bar, and the Philly premiere of Bjork’s Voltaic is at 941 Theater, where they will also be holding a “Bjork Costume Contest.” I’m already wearing mine.
SUNDAY:
>>> It’s Father’s Day, and you have mixed feelings. Take a number, pal. Instead, forget it all for a day and give the man who gave you the lame half of your DNA an ice cold Miller Lite and act like it’s not weird. It’s just what you do.
>>> Later that night, rebel against him all over again at the Philly Zombie Beach Crawl at the Trocadero, where you can act like Scott from the Austin Powers movies and dance to Bauhaus like it’s 1983 and that actually means something.
RECOMMENDED: By now, you’ve probably read at least something about Food, Inc., director Robert Kenner’s indictment of the American food system, and all of the crazy, shit-tastic things it’s doing to people and farmers and small businesses and other living things. And it would seem that, whatever light Supersize Me! turned on above your head regarding fast food, Food, Inc. promises to do for any other foods that aren’t 100% organic. We have a feeling this movie is gonna grow legs for the organic movement the way The Omnivore’s Dilemma never could, and, hey, that can’t be a bad thing. Take anyone you know who subsists mainly on orange-colored food. Promise you’ll buy them nachos. Whatever it takes.
ALSO NEW IN THEATERS THIS WEEK:Year One, which, if you haven’t experienced it yet, is the moment that your brain finally announces to you and everyone you know that Jack Black needs to go away forever; and The Proposal, a Sandra Bullock vehicle that is, oh, we’ll just let you guess what it’s about.
The state of New Jersey is taking some seriously foolish measures to rid their landscape of avian colonies, but the 600 block of Pierce Street in South Philly, according to this pretty great City Paper piece, has shown how fully embracing birds can successfully spruce up a neighborhood, adding character and presumably an ample supply of fresh eggs. Following South Philly’s example, we have suggestions for Philly locales as to which birds would make the best additions…
Society Hill: What could be more delightful than spotting a covey of quails, a bird practically synonymous with sophistication, while strolling in Society Hill? We recommend Worcester’s Buttonquail because of its rarity.
Chinatown: China may no longer have an emperor, but that shouldn’t stop Chinatown from having some dignified emperor penguins shuffling around.
Northern Liberties: Falconry sounds like the type of activity that hipsters would like, right? Falcons it is!
Cobbs Creek: A creek without flamingos is like a lawn without plastic flamingos: Simply incomplete.
Old City: Would telling tourists that the first flag was sewn by Betsy R’ostrich be too revisionist for history purists?
“When you go to war, you have casualties, you’re in for a fight.”
That’s District Council 33 president Pete Matthews, quoted by KYW1060 at a rally outside City Hall last night. This makes Matthews two for two in abhorrently stupid quotes in the press, coming hot on the heels of yesterday’s nonsensical delight. After regaling us yesterday with a fundamental lack of understanding of what the word “negotiation” means, today Matthews draws the insipid comparison of his own union’s talks with the City with, for instance, the struggle of our soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan, which I’m sure they’d all love to hear and debate with him. Because it’s the same struggle, really, isn’t it? What, pray tell, would these “casualties” of the negotiations be, then, Mr. Matthews? Because it’s pretty apparent that your fucking brain has already gone missing.
We know you’re wondering what these “HUMANS ONLY” bus shelters are about, so let us save you the trouble: It’s all to get you onto the website for District 9, a sci-fi movie out in August starring nobody famous. The website is pretty fun, though, even if its marketing campaign is in blatant disregard for a basic fact of Philadelphian life: Our bus system is geared specifically towards non-humans.
Seeing something around town of note? Cameraphone it to: tips[at]philebrity[dot]com.
So, there’s an article about Philly in this month’s Dwell. You’re not gonna be able to read the whole thing online unless you subscribe, but it was… interesting. They interviewed novelist Ken Kalfus who is married to architecture critic/Philebrity standbyInga Saffron, about some of the highlights of Philadelphia. It’s curious that they interviewed the husband of an architecture critic about architecture in Philadelphia, rather than the actual critic, but whatever. Dude is from Philly, so I guess that makes him as qualified as yours truly to talk about it. [Update: Kalfus, it turns out, is a native New Yorker and a Mets fan. -- Ed.] The article starts out mentioning the “unfortunate” associations with cheesesteaks and the MOVE fire (which I’m pretty sure if you mentioned it anywhere in America, most people would have little to no idea what you were talking about), thereby reinforcing those associations, and also likens some of our neighborhoods to “sets from a zombie horror film.” WTF! The article or interview or whatever, is in the “Detour” section of the magazine, as in: You should take a detour to Philly, but neither the magazine nor Kalfus seem to harbor a whole lot of enthusiasm. Kalfus I can forgive… he is, after all, a native Philadelphian and there are no harsher critics of our fair city than us. I want to smack this Geoff Manaugh guy for talking shit, and THEN more or less saying that in spite of some of the fucked up stuff, it’s still sort of okay. At least that was the tone I came away with. There are so many other great things going on in Philly, like the $100K House Project that fit into the general ethos of the magazine, but instead, we get “Ken Kalfus’s Philadelphia.” When I came across the article I was pretty excited. Now I am pissed that this guy Manaugh says that we “deserve to stand, if not equal to, at least favorably compared with its East Coast neighbors.” Where’s that douche from? Connecticut?
Dr. Ward is a frequent Philebrity commenter and, like Jesus, a carpenter by trade.
Neil Patrick Harris and Amy Sedaris were both in Sugar Moms last night in Old City. They had come for a party after finishing shooting on a film and were two of the nicest people ever. They talked at length with anyone who approched them, took multiple pictures with people, and drank rounds of shots. Also, Neil Patrick Harris was carded for looking underage and they both tipped very well.
Oh snap, that reminds us: We’ve been meaning to tell you all week that perhaps the best part of this whole Neil Patrick Harris movie shooting here is that Amy Sedaris is in it, and also walking among us. In honor of their gracious appearance, we think the Sugar Mom’s peeps should concoct a drink named “The Pole And The Hole.” If you watched Strangers With Candy you’ll get it.
Do you know of Someone Famous Who Went Somewhere in Philadelphia? We don’t care, but we’ll humor you. Send your tips and pics to tips[at]philebrity[dot]com.
Uwishunu just went ahead and broke the news that The Roots (pictured) have just been added to the July 4th Welcome America festivities, thereby making things kinda rough on previous headliner Sheryl Crow as well as you, because up until now, you were totally planning on saying “Hells NO” to the insane migraine in waiting that is Welcome America. (If you still feel this way, we should let you know that the Philebrity Sync Stage @ The Piazza, alternately titled “YANKEE GO HOME,” has been rescheduled for July 4th; updated lineup info coming soon.) Anyway, in case you haven’t been paying attention lately to the Roots’ regular gig, Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, check out last night’s episode: They were totally hilarious in Fallon’s spoof of The Hills, and the “Freestylin’” section was downright hilarious to the point that, shit, maybe Fallon should do this every night, maybe this should be the whole show. Meanwhile, in other Roots news, ?uestlove now follows Philebrity’s Twitter. Honored to have ya, dude.
If you’ve been paying any attention at all, you know that the grand experiment that is Yelp!, where anyone at all can post a review of any business at all, has done little else but prove two things: 1) That the Fourth Estate, as loathsome as you’ve been trained to regard it, exist(ed/s) for a reason and 2) given the chance, people will bitch about anything, anything at all, on the Internet. But what of the humble users who’ve used the site primarily not to complain, but to give props where they’re due? Consider a recent incident involving our friend Jen. Over the last year or so, Jen has used Yelp (even though we told her not to) to review places she thought were great or under-rated; 
You may not know this, but Boston and Philly share a common scourge: They’ve both had dumb, glossy Metrocorp magazines bearing down on their respective cities as the last word in Stuff White People Like for years and years now. Both Boston and Philadelphia magazines are owned and operated by Metrocorp — run since the dawn of man by Herb Lipson and family — and both magazines, we can safely assume, don’t know where they’ll be in a few years, if in fact they’ll be in existence at all. Here in Philadelphia, 
Like us, since March, 
Remember earlier this month, when 
The state of New Jersey is taking some seriously 
So, 
