You may have noticed this piece in the Sunday Times about how, through a series of serendipitous events, a dizzying array of some of the world’s most famous (and expensive) works of art have been slated to go up for auction this week. A third of the story centers around the collection of legendary Philadelphia art collector and humanitarian David Pincus, who passed away at the end of last year. (Oh, to have some version of this line in one’s obit: “Mr. Pincus was fond of basset hounds, stiff martinis, athletics and monumental acts of generosity.”)
The collection Pincus left behind is, frankly, breathtaking: De Koonings, Rothkos, Cindy Shermans, Nan Goldins, and on and on. And when taken in whole, one can’t help but get the feeling that this stuff should stay here — Pincus was a cooler, less issues-y Barnes. So when we learned that the Pincus collection was being auctioned off at Christie’s in NYC this morning, our first thought was: Please let someone from the Philadelphia Museum Of Art be heading up there to grab this stuff. So we asked, and we got the terse reply: “The museum does not comment on upcoming auctions.” We looked for a twinkle in the eye, or a wink, but we found none. Here’s hoping, though. We’d hate for this nice Wynnewood gent’s utterly amazing art collection to wind up in some Russian disco. It just wouldn’t be right.
There are days when we honestly believe the The Orc, aka Buzz Bissinger is trying to make our heads explode. From what? Oh, just the sheer Buzziness of it all. It began innocently enough: We grew up looking up to Buzz — A Prayer For The City remains essential reading for all Philadelphians — but over time, Buzz has gotten weirder, more leather-y and more… orc-ish. We feel unease taking in his media glow (no, Buzz, it’s not sexual, and for the love of cripes, WASH THOSE PANTS); nothing Buzz says or does feels real anymore. It is all a strange parlor game in which Buzz has these weird… whatever the opposite of safe words are, like when the whole Sandusky story was breaking and there was Buzz, on every cable news program, intoning the word “OMEERRRRRTTTTAAAA” like some fucking strange old timey Disney snake. (OK, maybe it is sexual. Who the fuck knows anymore.)
We only mention it because next week at NYU, Buzz will participate in the ultimate parlor game: A Slate-sponsored discussion of whether or not college football should be banned. Speaking on behalf of Team Yes, Let’s Ban College Football are Buzz (who has been beating this drum for a while now) and (here is where it gets very dreamlike indeed) Malcolm Gladwell (and all we need now is a classroom, my high school girlfriend and a dozen chickens and HOLY SHIT, I HAVE HAD THIS DREAM, WAIT, AM I IN IT NOW, AM I INCEPTION-ING MYSELF?). Speaking against the ban: Two jock assholes with jobs in sports media. What will be achieved here? Will the Lords Of College Sports be so convinced by Buzz and Gladdy that they are like, fuck it, all colleges are WIZARD SCHOOLS now, and of course there’s no football! And I suppose it doesn’t matter how I wrap this post up since it’s all a dream anyway, so shit, why the hell not:
Canada’s Feist, also known as Leslie Feist, the chick from the iPod commercial, and that lady with the super-short cameo in The Muppets, is returning to Philadelphia behind her 2011 release Metals. She’s got that M. Ward-y AM radio sound to her voice, without the annoying/appealing twee-ness of Zooey Deschanel. And you know, her songs are pretty good too. Timber Timbre will be opening, and we have two pairs of tickets to give you. To enter to win, email ihopeiwin[at]philebrity[dot]com with “METALS” in the subject header. You’ll automatically be subscribed to the forthcoming new Philebrity Reader weekly newsletter and win chances for other exclusive free stuff. We’ll be picking winners early Monday.
For those of you who may not know, Crossing Broad is an often poorly written sports blog that covers all the local Philadelphia teams. The site, run by Kyle Scott, often borders on the too-bro-to-handle side, but he mostly knows his shit, so he gets by. However, dude’s about to be put on blast for a post he wrote yesterday.
In his recap of all the sporting events going on, he posted a screengrab of a woman at the Phillies game, accidentally flashing the cameras a look up her skirt. Which is neither necessary, nor classy, nor a good look. His response? “It. was. on. television.” Yes, it was. It was an accidental slip, on television, of someone who is not in the public eye and should be able to expect some sense of privacy. So while it slipped by possibly unnoticed by most on TV, Kyle Scott posted a screengrab of it (sent to him by a reader), to make sure no one missed it. A move which he apparently cannot distinguish from “it just happened in the corner of a shot on TV.” We don’t really get too fired up about that much around here (the thick coating of snark usually doesn’t allow it) but this is the kind of stuff that is just vile and disgusting.
It may be legal (is it legal? We’re not law smart) but it certainly isn’t right. So stay classy, Crossing Broad. We should have probably seen this coming.
Update: Edited to reflect that the screengrab was sent to Crossing Broad by a reader, not taken by Scott himself.
The criminal trial is over, but the lawsuit against the Ride The Ducks company (and the company that owned and operated the barge) for damages is just about to hit the courtroom. The lawyer for the families of the two Hungarian victims who died in the crash say the video shows the mate on the boat abandon ship before the impact, and captain Gary Fox wasting time and not instructing the passengers to put on their life vests or calling for help. But the main problem, Lawyer Robert Mongaluzzi argues, is, “the way this duck boat was designed, once you turned off ignition when you have a suspected fire your radio and your air horn didn’t work.” Mongaluzzi is also trying to get around a law that maxes out the damages available at the value of the vessels involved.
So, here’s what went down yesterday: It was all a bit hectic as it was happening, but now that the dust has cleared, we know two protesters were arrested at the attempted shut-down of a Wells Fargo branch on Walnut Street. According to NBC 10, “one person is charged with assault on police while the other is charged with disorderly conduct.” The assault seems to have stemmed from a possible coffee tossing incident. But the strangest incident of the day comes from Occupy Philly Media (which we give a reliability score of about 60%), which says:
At one point, a man in a suit tried to use the ATM but was prevented from doing so by two Occupy Philly participants. When he tried to shove his bank card into the mouth of the young woman in his way, police responded not by holding the man for the near-assault, but instead forcefully removing protestors from the ATM area …
Firstly, we don’t really think it matters if the dude was wearing a suit or a goddamned tutu; sometimes not-rich people wear suits too. But let us also say this to the man trying to shove his ATM card into a protesters mouth because he was denied his Fast Cash: HEY MAN, THAT WON’T GET YOU YOUR CASH EITHER, AND IT IS ABSOLUTELY THE STRANGEST RESPONSE YOU COULD HAVE HAD. Come to think of it, it is a very OP thing to do though. How were they not sitting outside of banks with ATM cards in their mouths for months already? They’re losing their touch.
Once they finalize all of the upgrades they have planned (May 12th to be exact), the casino formerly known as Harrah’s Chester will now be known as Harrah’s Philadelphia, because the worst thing about Harrah’s Chester was being reminded you were in Chester. Those upgrades? 200 new slots (including Dark Knight and Ghostbusters slots), three new restaurants (including a “Philly favorite to be announced at a later date,” our money is on Tony Luke’s), and live entertainment almost nightly. So now, if you want to see Mr. Greenjeans without trekking all the way to Sea Isle City, you can just shoot on down to Harrah’s Chest … ehem … Philadelphia. And how to kick off an exciting, fresh new era? Why with a concert by the fresh and exciting Lynyrd Skynyrd and Collective Soul of course.
>>> After a short hiatus that included a few weeks of record gathering, our own Joey Sweeney returns to the 700 tonight for an evening that’s sure to include a little something by this week’s Philebrity Salon cover star, the late, great Sandy Bull. >>> Meanwhile, over at The Fire, raconteur Jonas Oesterle is back with the May edition of The Tuesday Show, a live chat show/variety program that includes, this time around, Nick Krill and Thomas Hughes of The Spinto Band, Tony Catastrophe, comedian Ryan Shaner and Chalk & The Beige Americans, among others. >>> And finally, Mickey Roker returns to Ortlieb’s for the recently re-opened venue’s return to Tuesday Jazz Jam Sessions.
We took a lot of flak back in January when we lamented the sorry state of The Franklin Institute’s off-the-rack “exhibits.” (Damn you, still-missing pre-Disqus comment archives.) Our gripe? That while just about every museum in the city we can think of is in the process of actually stepping up their respective games, TFI is blowing its rep as a place of learning in favor of a bunch of crap that mostly amounts to educational junk food for kids’ brains. Back in January, a rep from TFI countered — and we are radically paraphrasing here — that we were just being snobs and dicks. And we considered this. Until we saw this story today that the Franklin Institute was partnering with Trump Plaza on “Identity: An Exhibition of You,” an exhibit billed as family entertainment that, we shit you not, is actually in the casino. Infuriating pullquote, please!
“The Franklin Institute has gathered some of the best scientific experts and research on the topic of identity, and transformed it into an experience the entire family can enjoy,” said Dennis M. Wint, President and CEO of The Franklin Institute in a statement released to the media. “This is a very entertaining way to demonstrate the science behind various concepts of the ‘self.’” and we invite everyone to attend.”
While we agree, in principle, that the Mayor’s Press Secretary Mark McDonald was kind of out of line when he put Daily News columnist Ronnie Polaneczky on blast (anonymously, even) via Twitter yesterday, we have two larger problems with this whole little media bubble kerfuffle: · Why on EARTH is Nutter apologizing for McDonald? · And how in the FUUUUUUUUDGE did Ronnie Polaneczky and husband rack up 215 tickets in the past 16 years? And if this is a fate that befalls you, at what point does one just say, “OK, enough already, no more driving?” None of these begin to address the tut-tutting, harpy, annoying hall monitor nature of Polaneczky’s reporting in general, but that is a matter for another time. Mostly, we’d just like to remind you to be careful on those streets, people. This city is a WILD place.
Well, here’s what seems to be going down: There is a livestream set up here, by the OP people, that seems to be live only sporadically. Here is a view of what seems to be a large majority of the protest crowd a few minutes ago, here they are in front of a Wells Fargo (the only bank, of the promised all banks, OP got to protest), and here is what is waiting for them in case things get out of hand, which the protesters do not appreciate. And while all of this is going on, most of the media is covering Occupy Zara. FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY.
As ratified by the U.S. Congress back in 2003, today, May 1, would be St. Tammany Day, a day of recognition in honor of one of the more peaced-out dudes to ever walk these streets, the mighty Lenape cheif Tamanend. Who he, you ask? Allow us to save you the trip to Wikipedia:
Tamanend or Tammany or Tammamend, the “affable”, (c. 1628–c. 1698) was a chief of one of the clans that made up the Lenni-Lenape nation in the Delaware Valley at the time Philadelphia was established. Tamanend is best known as a lover of peace and friendship who played a prominent role in the establishment of peaceful relations among the Native American tribes and the English settlers who established Pennsylvania, led by William Penn. Tamanend reputedly took part in a meeting between the leaders of the Lenni-Lenape nation, and the leaders of the Pennsylvania colony held under a large elm tree at Shakamaxon in the early 1680s. There, Tamanend is reported to have announced that the Lenni-Lenape and the English colonists would “live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure.” These words have been memorialized on the statue of Tamanend that stands in Philadelphia today.
That statue, by the way, stands just a block from our offices, at Front and Market streets, and bears the legend that “Tamanend was considered the patron saint of America by the colonists prior to American Independence.” It’s also worth noting that, so legendary were his good vibes, “Tammany Festivals” had all but replaced May Day festivals in these parts by the late 1700s. We’re told that a society in Philadelphia called The Order of St. Tammany still exists, and somewhere, today, they are celebrating Tamanend’s sweet vibe, and wondering how we might all get back to it.
While I agree that Philadelphia has tremendous potential, let me caution people that the majority of the companies featured in the article are based in the Philadelphia suburbs and not Philadelphia itself. DuckDuckGo, Monetate, QVC, and Neat are all based outside of the city. I attended a great Philly Startup Leaders event during Philly Tech Week where this exact issue was addressed. I believe that unless the city makes it more attractive to found a startup inside of the city (lower the 4% city tax rate or eliminate it for less than two year old companies) and incentivize startups to stay in the city, you won’t see the change expressed in the article. The Philadelphia region is definitely on the rise but this does not create the jobs and inspire the change as it would if these companies were actually based ‘in the city.’ My two sense (pun intended). -Anthony Coombs Founder interact – ph.ly/interactapp
We were greatly saddened to learn of the death of Daniel James Krawiec, known to many as Dan K. Dan, who was a fixture on Philly’s punk and indie scenes for years — as well as a familiar face in Northern Liberties, where he’d worked for Rustica Pizza for several years — passed away on Saturday. He was just 32 years old. Dan was a true-blue music fan and musician in his own right — he played in the punk band Women — and was a friend to many; he was easygoing and friendly, and always had a kind word. Our mutual friend Andy Crowley tells us that friends of Dan’s will be gathering tonight at the Druid’s Keep in NoLibs to remember Dan:
This weekend, Dan Krawiec, our good friend and one of the best loved dudes in Philly, passed away. If you were in a band or DJed in Philly or Baltimore, or went to any shows around here, or ever hung out in NoLibs, chances are you’ve met him. Those of us who remember him best will be meeting for drinks at the Druid’s Keep, one of his favorite bars, tonight at 8pm. Even if you only met him in passing, stop by and have a beer with us. We’d love to hear your stories.
Our sincerest condolences go out to Dan’s family and many friends. We’ll miss you, Dan.
We haven’t heard from them in a while, but right about now, the Occupy Philly people are on the move. It’s May Day, and they have big plans. Firstly, they are calling on all of the rest of the 99% to skip work, skip school, and do no housework, banking, or shopping. NO LEARNING! NO CLEANING!
But for their grand return, they have big ideas. The main one being that they want to shut down every bank in the city (guys, that is so many banks). Their argument is that even if they can only stop a bank from being open for 30 minutes, during their “festive march and roving picket which will shut down several bank branches throughout the day,” they will be doing tons of good by stopping banks from collecting unfair overdraft fees, doing predatory lending, making foreclosures, etc. But they seem to ignore the fact that by striking individual branches, the only people they’re inconveniencing are tellers (who, we hate to break it to you occupy folks, aren’t exactly 1%ers) and people who lost their debit cards. But hey, at least there will be face painting.
You can follow Occupy Philly’s actions here, which is sadly what we’ll be watching all day.
After announcing last month that Wilco will headline this year’s XPoNential Music Festival, WXPN has announced the full lineup for this year’s fest, set to take place at Camden County’s Wiggins Park and the Susquehanna Bank Center from Friday, July 20th through Sunday, July 22nd. Acts include: Wilco · Counting Crows · Avett Brothers · Dr. Dog · The Hold Steady · Kathleen Edwards · Diego Garcia · War On Drugs · John Wesley Harding’s Cabinet of Wonders · Patterson Hood · Mike Doughty · Ozomatli · Lee Ranaldo Band · JD Souther · The Lumineers · Good Old War · JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound · JD McPherson · Work Drugs · Delta Rae · City Rain · Matt Santry Band · Dana Alexandra
There are days when we could kiss “celebrity” “boxing” promoter Damon Feldman if only we weren’t so completely grossed out by him. Today is one of those days. On Friday, Feldman will bring to his new boxing gym in Havertown the one and only Dustin Diamond, aka Screech from Saved By The Bell (and yea, he of the Dirty Sanchez tape). There, Dustin will host the Feldman’s “Pillow Fighting Championships promo matches and the Ms Pillow Ring girl Contest,” events which… exist. Says Feldman in his inimitable press release-ese: “It is in a Boxing ring but the Ladies use Pillows!” (His caps.) Anyway, would it be the strangest thing if ol’ Screech got a taste of Havertown Friday nights and decided that this might be a place where he could finally settle down? Well, yes, it would, but that doesn’t stop it from being a really funny thing to think about.
At any rate, the NAACP says that when they tried to place the campaign at PHL, it was blocked, with Airport officials claiming that they don’t, as a rule, accept “issue” or “advocacy” advertisements at the airport — a claim the NAACP charges is pretty much an outright lie. So they’re going to court over it, asking that PHL rescind its so-called policy, let the billboards run, and pay the NAACP damages for getting in its way while the group was trying to educate. All of which, by the way, we support. If you like the ad above, feel free to grab the image above and print it out in glorious 1500+ pixel resolution. Suck it, PHL.
There are days when we honestly believe the The Orc, aka 
We took a lot of flak back in January
As ratified by the U.S. Congress back in 2003, today, May 1, would be St. Tammany Day, a day of recognition in honor of one of the more peaced-out dudes to ever walk these streets, the mighty Lenape cheif Tamanend. Who he, you ask? 
We haven’t heard from them in a while, but right about now, the Occupy Philly people are on the move. It’s 
After announcing last month that Wilco will headline this year’s XPoNential Music Festival, WXPN has announced the full lineup for this year’s fest, set to take place at Camden County’s Wiggins Park and the Susquehanna Bank Center from Friday, July 20th through Sunday, July 22nd. Acts include:
There are days when we could kiss “celebrity” “boxing” promoter 
