Fresh on the news that he’ll most likely be taking over South Philly Foxwoods, gambling impresario/mesmerizing teeth-and-hairpiece Steve Wynn was interrupted by protestors from Casino-Free Philadelphia when it was his turn to speak at a PA Gaming Control Board meeting this morning, Philly Clout reports. The protestor was heard to say, “We do not want you in our city. Please go back to Las Vegas. We do not welcome you.” To which Wynn replied, “Usually, it takes people a few days after they know me to not like me.” Zing! We gotta say, we’re starting to warm up to this guy. I mean, if we’re going to have casinos — and yes, we are going to have some damned casinos — better to have a smilin’ cheeseball pro like Wynn than some humorless suit or frowning tribesman. But maybe that’s just the Jew, Italian, and Vietnamese in us talking.
Just a quick note: The Phillies begin exhibition play vs. Florida State today at 7:05PM. Tomorrow, Roy Halladay faces CC Sabathia and the Yankees at 1:05PM. Click here for a schedule: Tomorrow’s game will be broadcast on Comcast SportsNet.
… and a demolition won’t even be necessary at all! We’ll just all sit around in the parking lot, sucking on mustard packets and listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs. (Actually, this sounds like a fucking fantastic time.) Here’s the next item up for sale:
Comcast-Spectacor plans to sell 500, 8-inch by 10-inch pieces of glass — at $74.75 — that feature autographs of members of the Philadelphia Flyers’ two Stanley Cup teams (1973-74 and 1974-75) etched into the glass. In addition, smaller pieces of the hockey glass will be cut into 2,700 pieces in the size of a standard hockey puck available for sale at a price of $19.67 each.
This is pretty much the most badass Philly-style coke mirror thingy we have ever heard of.
On Monday, we passed along an item the originally ran on Gawker, which accused Inky film critic Carrie Rickey of failing to disclose a possible conflict of interest when she reviewed The Art Of The Steal, the controversial new documentary about the Barnes Foundation’s move from Merion to its future home on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (a drawing of which is pictured at right). Her conflict was said to be that her husband was Paul Levy, President & CEO of the Center City District, and given any presumed dinner table conversations between the two over the years, she was bound to have some kind of perspective on the matter; and the charge was that she’d be favorable to the move because hey, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Since then, we’ve been in touch with both Levy and Rickey, who maintain that no conflict of interest whatsoever exists. (Gawker has since ran a retraction of sorts, and we’ve updated our original post, feeling heartily sorry for ever trusting Gawker’s fact-checking skills.) But in an issue already laden with controversy, it’s been interesting to see the ways in which Barnes controversy sparks out almost wherever the issue touches down. We were lucky enough in the process of all of this to talk with Levy (and Rickey, though she declined to go on the record) about the Center City District’s place in the battle over the Barnes. He was frank with us in his assertion that the CCD never lobbied in any way to have the Barnes moved downtown. By his count, he says, the CCD never would have had any authority to do so anyway. But this isn’t to say that what happens on the Parkway doesn’t have some bearing on what the CCD does.
“Part of the problem,” said Levy, “is seeing this only through the frame of the Barnes issue. In my professional capacity, I have been an advocate for more development on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, long before the issue of the Barnes location ever came up. My organization has released two plans for improving the Parkway – one in 1999 and one in 2003 – both proposing filling in unfinished pieces of a cultural district created in the City Beautiful era 1907-1917.”
Levy went on to explain the CCD’s overall role: “The CCD is a downtown management organization that seeks to improve and animate public spaces. On the Parkway we’ve installed new information panels, directional signs and pedestrian light fixtures; illuminated the facades of cultural institutions and sculptures, renovated two parks, built a café and are working on a new environmental education park for children. As advocates for filling in empty spaces on the Parkway so there is more pedestrian activity, we suggested new residential development (hasn’t happened), a new Calder family museum (didn’t happen) and were publicly supportive of the Barnes Foundation when it announced its move. But neither I nor anyone on my staff had any role at all (let alone any authority) to recommend, lobby or cause the Barnes Foundation, its board, or local foundations to decide to move to the Parkway.”
Ultimately, though, whether the Barnes was moved here or not has no real effect on Center City District’s bottom line anyway. “The CCD is supported by assessments on taxable real estate,” he said, “and the Barnes is tax-exempt.”
Whoops, wrong photo! Oh, here is what this is: Christian Sourbrine (left) presents his newly planted sunflower to Sesame Street Live’s Elmo at the Discovery Corner Child Care and Enrichment Center. Elmo is in town promoting “Elmo’s Green Thumb” at the Susquehanna Bank Center Indoor Theater from Thursday, March 4 through Sunday, March 7.
Sorry, everybody, but the only thing allowing us to claw and scrape through these last three weeks of winter is any and all music that sounds like The Jesus & Mary Chain and The Ronettes put together. So yesterday, it was Best Coast; today, it’s Philly’s own Party Photographers. This is real primitive Velvets-styled screeching and thumping we’re talking here, pulled along by simple tunes that indicate the grotesque violence and hidden beauty of this totally happening world we all live in today, baby. Sure, it could have been made at any point in time since 1965. That’s the whole idea. And sure, there could be 5,000 bands doing just this all over the world right now — hell, there probably are (and guess what, they’re ALL playing SXSW this year!) — but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t love every one of them just as much as we love our little sister. And dude, we love our little sister. So go see Party Photographers at Silk City tonight, with Far Out Fangtooth and DJ Astro Caveman. Hey, if you have to believe in something, it might as well be the positive power of noise.
Call him Bizarro Nutter, call him The Dude, call him WAKE UP MAN YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR MAYOR AGAIN SOON, call him anything you like: But Mayor Michael Nutter cannot catch a goddamned break. Sometimes it’s his fault, most of the time it’s not, but one thing is for sure: A fresh hell awaits Mixmaster Mike seemingly every day he wakes. Here’s today’s round: He’s got a new budget proposal due out in a minute, and sources are telling the Daily News that The Dude is gonna try to pay for the City’s budget gap with trash fees and taxing soft drinks. (Shh. Be quiet: You can hear brains belonging to the noble, obese working class of Philly exploding like brilliant Chinese fireworks.) The trash fee nonsense comes nearly a year to the day when Nutter first floated this fart in church and, as for the soda thing, well, OK, sure. Tax my goddamned Cherry Coke. And while we’re at it, please institute the trash fee, too, so long as some part of that also goes towards muzzling all the chest-pounding and sputtering, barely racist comments that are sure to come on Fishtown.us and PhiladelphiaSpeaks and the rest about all this. If you can keep these mouth-breathers quiet, Dude, I’ll pay double.
>>> Phillies legend Jim Bunning apparently has not followed the go-mellowly-into-old-age lesson set forth by übermensches like Richie Ashburn. Rather, he’s gone a more, say, Darren Daulton-esque route wherein his crazy old coot-ness is now threatening to eclipse his sweet old baseball dude-ness. Witness his great political moments of late:
He said his opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. He suggested that he and his wife had been roughed up by “little green doctors” at a political picnic. He refused to debate in person, instead doing so by teleconference from Republican National Committee offices in Washington, where he used a teleprompter.
The banner above adorns the wall of The Tract House, currently on view at 231 North Third Street, and we have to say: We like the cut of this Voltaire guy’s jib. Together with friends, contributors and a designer, artist Lisa Anne Auerbach has produced about 153 tracts for this exhibit that’s in conjunction with the “Dialogues with Darwin” exhibit at the American Philosophical Society. Each tract is a response of some kind to the lessons of Charles Darwin, and they range from the sublime to the scientific to the psychedelic. The exhibit is up through April 11th, with Auerbach giving a lecture about tracts called “Pass It On!” on Friday, March 5 at 6:30 pm at 104 S. 5th St. Don’t miss it.
What in the Sam Hill has Man Man been up to lately? We have no idea: Singer Honus Honus hasn’t been on IM all day (obsessing over ChatRoulette, we bet), so we can only speculate. This photo suggests that a new Man Man record might not be too far off, and a string of dates ramping up this week backs up a theory attached to road-testing some new tunes. So when Man Man plays The Trocadero this Friday, which Man Man will we see? The Waits-y howlers? The Tex-Avery cartoon chase-music makers? The Etta James appreciators? Probably all of ‘em, all at once. But better to just go for yourself and see; and we’ve got some tickets to help you with that. You know the drill: To enter to win, email ihopeiwin[at]philebrity[dot]com with “HONUS PHONE HOME” in the subject header. You’ll automatically be subscribed to the new Philebrity Reader weekly newsletter and win chances for other exclusive free stuff.
Here, we thought it would just be dog turds and cigarette butts. Turns out, it’s… bodies! Three of ‘em, and counting. On one hand, yes, this is bad; but on the other hand, if we are to truly ever gentrify the shit out of Camden, we’re guessing finding and moving out all of the bodies is going to be the first order of business. So maybe the silver lining here is that spring cleaning started a little early this year? Sorry, we’re starting to head into Valania territory here. The real silver lining is that cops don’t seem to think this is the work of serial killer.
· Number of minutes suspect Christopher Cimini (pictured) of South Philadelphia is believed to have been fumbling around the Gamble & Huff offices before the fire began on February 21: 90 · Cimini’s blood alcohol level when he was arrested on the scene: 3.3 · Legal blood alcohol limit: .08 · Age Cimini turned while being held awaiting bail over the weekend: 28 · Number of platinum records Gamble & Huff have been awarded (career total thus far): 170 · Percentage of Gamble & Huff memorabilia in the offices estimated to have been destroyed by the fire: 40 · Number of times Cimini has been arrested before: 0
Based on the popularity of both the Gayborhood as a growing gay tourism destination and the success of Mr. Gay Philadelphia in previous years, it was announced yesterday that the Mr. Gay United States competition will be held this year in Philly on November 13th, 2010 at Voyeur Nightclub. Now, in case you didn’t already know how we feel about pageants like this, please allow our old friend Charles Nelson Reilly at right to clue you in. We’re not gonna lie: This shit is every bit as lame as dressing up your little Jonbenet and forcing her out like some sort of prize animal on the Bible Belt Thank Heaven For Little Girls circuit. Worse than that, and please pardon us for getting on a soapbox here, it’s probably more destructive to gay rights than anything else we know (none of the gays we know — except maybe you, HughE — would be caught dead at this thing), and in a state where gay marriage could become a viable issue soon, crap like this is just annoying. Worse still, the Mr. Gay brass wrap themselves in the EveryGay flag when trying to explain just what it all means to us:
The Mission of the Foundation, explains Spradlin, is to “Advocate International Equal Rights by confirming the essential nature and contributions of gay men to a healthy society where “gay” is not a stereotype. We are especially concerned about the damage done by our society’s acceptance of the ‘gay stereotype’ to define all gay people. We showcase real gay men to show that we are not the ‘other’.”
To illustrate just how far off the traditional gay stereotype Mr. Gay veers, how about we have a look at the 2009 finalists? Oh, we see what you mean: Only half of them have fauxhawks. Charles, we miss you.
Remember that time that design professionals panned the design of the new XFINITY logo? Well, the consumer-issues siteConsumerist gave its readers the chance to use their creativity to make the logo a whole lot better by making it more porn-o-rrific (ya know, since XFINITY sounds more appropriate for an adult-oriented business than for a buttoned-up cable provider). At the very least, it looks like the people who created the top three submissions (which you can, and should, see here) put some time and effort into their graphic designs. Who knows what heavenly delights they would have been able to create had Comcast decided to rebrand itself as something more along the lines of Cum-cast or ComNasty. Oh, what could have been!
While Tony Danza is staking his claim for the reality TV spotlight, onetime genre stalwart (and all-time Philebrity fave) Kate Gosselin isn’t ready to relinquish her former glory without a fight: According to multiple sources, she’s set to compete on the upcoming season of Dancing With the Stars. Take a moment to let that sink in. It’ll be a big change — for the past few months, we’ve been largely liberated from Gosselin domination, only having to contend with the occasional sighting on a supermarket tabloid. While we could conceivably avoid the three or four times that DWTS airs every week, the juiciest tidbits are always cherry-picked and replayed on countless other TV shows and websites that traffic in reality fodder. And we know Kate’s contributions are sure to be juicy. Just consider the show’s basic premise: A celebrity non-dancer is supposed to obey a professional dancer’s constant instructions. How will Kate deal with that? Quite honestly, we don’t know. This could be the first time in her life that she won’t be in the driver’s seat. In the past, we’ve seen her completely dominate her kids and Jon (quite frankly, doing a fine job of keeping him safely away from the Ed Hardy). When people do attempt to stand up to her, she won’t hesitate to cut them out of the picture (remember Aunt Jodi and Uncle Kevin?). When a dance instructor starts ordering her around and critiquing her, we can imagine that it will be the start of some major Kate fireworks. Maybe she’ll be the first contestant to dance solo. Maybe she’ll devise a new style of dance tailored for her unique talents. Maybe she’ll find a new daddy for the kids. The possibilities seem limitless! Oooh, Dancing With the Stars, can’t wait! Damn, we’re already in too deep. Help!?
UPDATE: Since Gawker first posted the item linked to above — with reference to a possible conflict of interest for Inky film critic Carrie Rickey — there’s been a back-and-forth wherein Rickey puts forth the ways in which there wasn’t a conflict of interest. Gawker has since half-retracted (or something like that), and we’re honor bound to do the same, or better: There is no evidence available to us to suggest that Center CIty District actively lobbied to move the Barnes into downtown Philly, and we regret the error we foolishly reprinted. But there is, perhaps, a little more to this; clearly, the likes of the CCD would benefit from the Barnes move — or would it? Bearing that in mind, we’ve also been in contact with both Rickey and Levy, and are presently preparing a post to get their direct takes on the matter. It’ll be up soon.
In what passes as the reality show equivalent of getting tenure, Tony “Daily” Danza has had his teaching contract at Northeast High extended through the rest of the school year. No, not because he has finally found his true calling in life (he actually found that long ago)… the production company responsible for his still-in-the-works reality show just needs more footage to put together a full season’s worth of episodes. The catch? Even if shooting wraps part-way through the spring semester, Mr. Danza still has to teach the kids until the end of the school year, just like a regular teacher. We ask you, his Piazza at Schmidt’s neighbors: Has Tony seemed a little irritated to you since he found out the news?
In celebration of Mr. Danza’s full-time employment status, we’d like to present you with a listicle of some potential names for his reality show that pay homage to both Tony’s outstanding legacy of ‘80s sitcom excellence as well as Philly’s longstanding tradition of slightly “improving” on the conventions of the English language:
Yo Teach…! (A la Funny People…Jason Schwartman has thrown down the gauntlet, Mr. Danza. Don’t disappoint us.)
Wif Honors
We Got Spirit Yes We Do! We Got Spirit, How About Youse?
Head of the (Working) Class
Saved by the Liberty Bell
Scrapple for the Teacher
Ouch. That didn’t go so well. Surely you can do better in the comments.
Fresh on the news that he’ll most likely be taking over South Philly Foxwoods, gambling impresario/mesmerizing teeth-and-hairpiece Steve Wynn was interrupted by protestors from Casino-Free Philadelphia when it was his turn to speak at a PA Gaming Control Board meeting this morning, Philly Clout reports. The protestor was heard to say, “We do not want you in our city. Please go back to Las Vegas. We do not welcome you.” To which Wynn replied, “Usually, it takes people a few days after they know me to not like me.” Zing! We gotta say, we’re starting to warm up to this guy. I mean, if we’re going to have casinos — and yes, we are going to have some damned casinos — better to have a smilin’ cheeseball pro like Wynn than some humorless suit or frowning tribesman. But maybe that’s just the Jew, Italian, and Vietnamese in us talking.
… and a demolition won’t even be necessary at all! We’ll just all sit around in the parking lot, sucking on mustard packets and listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs. (Actually, this sounds like a fucking fantastic time.) 
Call him Bizarro Nutter, call him The Dude, call him WAKE UP MAN YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RUN FOR MAYOR AGAIN SOON, call him anything you like: But Mayor Michael Nutter cannot catch a goddamned break. Sometimes it’s his fault, most of the time it’s not, but one thing is for sure: A fresh hell awaits Mixmaster Mike seemingly every day he wakes. Here’s today’s round: He’s got a new budget proposal due out in a minute, and 
>>> Phillies legend Jim Bunning apparently has not followed the go-mellowly-into-old-age lesson set forth by übermensches like Richie Ashburn. Rather, he’s gone a more, say, Darren Daulton-esque route wherein his crazy old coot-ness is now threatening to eclipse his sweet old baseball dude-ness. 
Here, we thought it would just be dog turds and cigarette butts. Turns out, it’s… bodies! 
· Number of minutes suspect Christopher Cimini (pictured) of South Philadelphia is believed to have been fumbling around the Gamble & Huff offices before the fire began on February 21: 90
Based on the popularity of both the Gayborhood as a growing gay tourism destination and the success of Mr. Gay Philadelphia in previous years, 
Remember that time that design 
While Tony Danza is 
Bet you thought this was a post about about Brian Tierney, didn’t you? Nope! Well, it is in that it shows the trickle-down of the Tierney age: Contributors who’ve apparently learned from the old master that it’s not what you say, but the bullshit that is hiding behind what you say. Take Inky film critic Carrie Rickey, who’s in hot water because 
In what passes as the reality show equivalent of getting tenure, Tony “
