Shameless Self-Promotion 05.30

There are two — two! — items by yours truly in this week’s PW. Don’t get excited, neither of them are any good.

• I wrote about that new alt-rock station, Radio 104.5, as well as Skin Radio (the alt-rock station on AM) and Y-Rock on XPN, Y-100’s stepchild.
• And I do that Cultural Report Card thing in the front of the paper every week.

Yeah, I’ve been forgetting to do this every week, so you’ve had to actually open the paper (or www.phillyweekly.com) to get your Dan McQuade fix. Well, I’ll probably forget again, so get used to it.

Leftovers: Back Into The Swing

• The eagles — as opposed to “Philadelphia Eagles” — in Philadelphia couldn’t even build a damn nest correctly. [AP/Philly.com]

• Teamsters: Still boycotting Yuengling. [AP/Inquirer]

• N.J. residents can now search the pensions of everybody in the state system. Hooray! [Camden Courier-Post]

Road To 10,000 Losses: A Giant Sweep

Road to 10,000 Losses is a countdown to the Phillies’ 10,000th loss, coming sometime later this year. With a 5-4 loss to the Diamondbacks last night, the Phillies stand at 9980 losses, only 20 away from 10,000.

Well, well! The Phillies finally started playing some good ball over the weekend, sweeping the Atlanta Braves and improving to an improbable two whole games over .500. The Phils beat Atlanta 8-3, 6-4 and 13-6 in the sweep, their first of the Braves on the road since, like, they were in Boston.

The Phillies lost last night despite a furious ninth-inning comeback that had last week’s goat, Rod Barajas, fall a few feet short of a game-winning homer in the bottom of the ninth. The Phillies might have been in a better position if Charlie Manuel had pinch hit for Freddy Garcia in the bottom of the sixth, since the Phillies had the bases loaded and 1 out with the pitcher at bat. Garcia grounded into a double play, but did pitch two more scoreless innings.

The Phils could use wins in the next two nights to win another series before Barry Bonds and the Giants come in this weekend. Also, in an Inquirer story on why members of the Phillies wear certain numbers, Adam Eaton revealed himself to be totally awesome:

“It was the only one that looked remotely interesting. I had 21 in Texas. They gave me 53 in San Diego. You don’t buy numbers from older guys, so I wasn’t getting 21 here. Plus, my number is free. Why spend money? No, there’s really no significance to my number. But I could create some. Let’s see, 53 was my first number in the big leagues. Two and 3 equals 5. Three is the second number in both numbers. Two plus 1 is three. So you can have people draw their own conclusions. Everybody asked why I was 21. Well, five minus 3 is 2. Three minus 2 is 1. It was a progression. And it was available.”

‘Bulletin’ Paragraph Of The Day

Shortly thereafter, I bought my first issue of Playboy. And things got interesting.

On The Trail Of Something [The Bulletin]

‘Inquirer’ Soon To Be All Cheesburgers, All The Time

I know that you probably thought there couldn’t be anything on Philly.com better than Craig LaBan’s “Cheeseburger, I Hold” video, but it has most certainly been topped.

It has been topped, of course, but Craig LaBan’s Sunday story ostensibly about the writing of the song “Cheeseburger, I Hold.”.

The song was made in collaboration with Phil Roy, who you may remember from the time he made DigPhilly/NBC 10 writer Teresa Masterson cook dinner for his guests.

But mostly, the LaBan piece reminded me of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Philosophy of Composition,” an essay about the writing of “The Raven,” if only “The Raven” were about cheeseburgers.

Burgers in his belly, and a song on his lips [Inquirer]
May 25: Philly.com Annoying Us In New Ways Every Day

And We Still Have Five More Months Of This

The election isn’t over, Philadelphia! That’s the message of ineligible mayoral candidate Sanjaya Larry West, who announced today he had joined the Green Party and would seek their mayoral nomination at tomorrow’s meeting. It’s becoming more and more apparent Larry West is an art-school prank or perhaps the new host of Punk’d.

Apparently Kerry Foster, the presumed Green Party candidate, didn’t get the 2/3 vote required to win the mayoral nomination, so Larry West wants to get on the agenda for the Green Party’s meeting and then get some party backing for his ineligible mayoral run. “I’ve been talking to Brian Rudnick, the Green Party Candidate for the 8th Council District, and he really supports this!” Larry’s release says he said.

More »

The Shore: So Tacky It’s Awesome

There’s an Associated Press story in Metro today about all the different rules the different South Jersey shore communities have. In Wildwood, for example, camels are banned from the beach. Mayor Ernie Troiano: “Our beaches are as wide as a desert, but you won’t find any camels on our sand.” Hopefully, that is Wildwood’s new motto.

Meanwhile, in Surf City you can’t dig deep in the sand because the township isn’t sure if the unexploded munitions found on the beach were all removed.

“How can you tell a kid not to dig in the sand?” asked Faith O’Dell, who lives near the beach in Surf City, where most of the old fuses and such were found. “It’s their nature; it’s what kids do. And when your kid says, ‘Why, Mommy, why can’t I dig in the sand,’ what do you tell them, that they could blow themselves up?”

Yeah, that’s exactly what you tell ‘em. You say: “Don’t dig in the sand, son, or you’ll die.” Scare ‘em into submission. But while some were lamenting the munitions found on the beach, one entrepreneur was loving it:

Presiding over a busy cash register, a jubilant Joe Muzzillio, owner of Exit 63 Wearhouse, reported his best Memorial Day weekend ever.

“It was definitely busier than usual for me,” Muzzillio said. “I came out with these T-shirts that I can’t keep on the racks.”

Muzzillio motioned to a display of shirts printed with “Surf City Bomb Squad,” “Surf City’s a Blast,” and “I Got Bombed in Surf City” – which cost $8.99 to $14.99 and came in various styles, including a cute pink camouflage style for women.

Wait, did he do “I Got Bombed in Surf City”? Oh, oh, he did.

Thou shalt not [AP/Metro]
In Surf City, the goal was to have a blast [Philly.com]

Dear God Please Somebody Give Milton A Radio Show

From Michael Klein on Sunday:

Erstwhile mayoral and City Council candidate Milton Street walked into WYSP-FM studios Wednesday to inquire about a talk-show host’s job. Guard slapped a visitor’s sticker on him, and off he went. The Barsky Show spotted him in the halls and pulled him into the studio for a chat on 94.1 about the mayor’s race and solving the murder problem.

Doesn’t every minor celebrity in the world have a satellite radio show? I’m pretty sure Milton’s a big enough name to get one of those. Or maybe he can start a podcast. Oh, if only it could be as groundbreaking as Phillyfeed¹!

¹ I just went to the Phillyfeed website and apparently it’s sponsored by Bundy Computer, where my friend recently bought a typewriter at.

Radio activity [Inquirer, 3rd item]

Kids In Haddonfield Are Disgusting

According to a column this weekend by Monica Yant Kinney, here’s what happened at a March party of teenagers in Haddonfield:

• Somebody took a dump on the piano.
• Somebody “loaded a Super Soaker with urine and sprayed everything in sight.”
• Guys ejaculated onto stuffed animals.

Sounds like a good time, huh?

Later, somebody downloaded photos off of Facebook or whatever and sent them to the mayor and schools chief of Haddonfield. They showed Haddonfield High students “so proud of their partying, so unconcerned with reprisal, that they put hundreds of images on the Internet.” (Nobody tell Monica Yant Kinney about Facebook or Flickr or Myspace or even Yahoo! Photos.) Anyway, now these kids are forever immortalized in a slideshow the mayor’s bringing around to tell people kids drink and how he was “blown away by the boldness” of the photos.

I always thought that when people have parties, photos are taken. And now with digital cameras, instead of prints of 18 year olds playing suck and blow, there are digital photos of 18 year olds drinking. But no matter. This should all blow over soon, thanks to these stellar ideas to stop kids from drinking:

Ideas are trickling in - such as no-cut athletics (to keep high school students from having any free time for crime) and a coffeehouse teens can call their own (to get them hooked on a legal stimulant).

I can’t wait ’til next year when Haddonfield’s caffeine-addicted high schoolers go 0-27 in basketball due to their 53-person roster.

Monica Yant Kinney | Haddonfield teens going to extremes [Inquirer]

Heroic Circuit City Clerk Revealed

The identity of the heroic New Jersey Circuit City employee smart enough to hand over a jihad practice tape to the opposing team, i.e. the police, has finally been revealed! Brian Morganstern appeared on CNN’s American Morning today and told all about his decision.

The two men who brought him the tape to transfer to DVD in late January 2006 seemed like ordinary customers, and he did not know if he should breach their privacy. He wasn’t even paying full attention to the video until he saw things that were troubling.

“It was more of a moral dilemma at that point,” Morganstern said on an interview Tuesday on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Do you mean to tell me that big box store employees actually care about their customers’ privacy? Please. If it was a bunch of people practicing for a porn shoot that tape would have been copied in five seconds.

Anyway, the dude doesn’t feel like a hero, choosing to label soldiers and cops as “real heroes.” He’s got his media savvy! Of course, now that he’s identified, it’s only a short matter of time before Michael Smerconish invites him on the radio so he can talk about how great profiling is.

Store Clerk Discusses Foiling Fort Dix Terror Plot [AP/CBS 3]