Today On PW

PW own Alli Katz braved freezing temperatures — I wouldn’t know how cold, I was inside somewhere — to stand outside the Academy of Music last night and interview fine comedy fans like the couple at left and ask ‘em if they liked Chris Rock. And, hey, they did! I can only assume these people will all be holding candles outside Wawa tonight as well.

Was it good for you? [PW]

Yes, Yes: Wawa Vigil At 11 Tonight

Ahh, yes, the Wawa. Sometime over the weekend the wheels began to turn on the closing of the RIttenhouse Wawa tomorrow. (2/29 NEVER FORGET!)

Despite being a multi-billion dollar corporation, Wawa is a regional chain; instead of inspiring hatred like Starbucks, regional chains are adored by residents of that particular locale. People will argue for hours on ends about how much better Wawa is than Turkey Hill or Sheetz or whatever. (This is true, of course.)

To be fair, it’s a sad state. The mysterious Jerome Nottingham IV gave us a description of the one-stately Wawa in yesterday’s Metro: The Wawa here looks like a Soviet grocery store in the 1980s, filled with empty shelves and customers complaining there’s no mustard for their pretzels. A young man in his 20s tries to order a roast beef sandwich, only to learn the store has run out of roast beef. An ATM screen simply reads ‘out of service.’ It won’t be repaired.” The place is closing tomorrow.

There’s also a Wawa at 20th and Chestnut — as opposed to 20th and Locust — but that one has more homeless people in front of it, though I always found it cleaner. As such, the minor inconvenience has nonetheless inspired a movement so great you’d think the Real World pretended to move out of town!

Yes, there’s a vigil tonight at 11 at the Rittenhouse Wawa.

Update: Whoever the dude is who blogs at The Illadelph — who is also among the Very Angry Wawa Customers but has some good comments as usual — has some extra info from an awesome release of some sort.

It is “not going to disrupt commercial activity in the store — on the contrary, [they] plan to buy up whatever is left, and thank everyone inside for serving [them] all these years — but after indulging in the Wawa goodness, [they]‘re hoping to stage some nice photo opps [sic] out front with signs, maybe some candles, who knows.”

Man, I was kind of hoping people would be tearing shit up, though I do kind of like the idea of protesting Wawa by purchasing a ton of products. Plus if this were my 10th & Walnut location I would probably have organized this myself.

Ted Williams Livens Up Courtroom

Parodies of MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign are now usually limited to practical jokes played on people who got drunk and flashed their vag or passed out at parties (link NSFW if you have filtering off). This is good!

It’s also, though, apparently popular for those trying to inject a little humor into a preliminary hearing for a drug addiction-fueled robbery case! Bensalem’s Ted Williams — the Priceless ad campaign debuted the year the Splendid Splinter hit .406 — described his loss in court. The late slugger’s frozen head apparently gives presentations at the planetarium at the Franklin Institute:

“Planetarium software … $1,000.

“Two flash drives … more than $150.

“Kids missing planetarium presentations … priceless.”

I’d agree, though, but the kids probably did get to see a noted white European ruler King Tut, which was the biggest exhibition of antiquities since Geraldo opened Al Capone’s vault. And, hey, now it’s Star Wars!

Later, one of the other robbery victims testified, “My stuff went away! It just kept going and going and going and going…”

Residents line up to testify [Bucks County Courier Times]

Angry Ex-Journalist

By now you may have seen the site Angry Journalist — Is that a hacked Wordpress install? Pretty clever if so! — where anonymous journalists rant about why they hate journalism.

While things aren’t exactly going all that smoothly in the industry right now, journalists have been complaining since Johan Gutenberg said, “Fluch! Bewegliche gedruckte Art ist ein Ausfall.” (According to Babelfish, “Damn! Movable printed type is a failure.” I translated that from English, so the German translation is no doubt wrong.)

Anyway, a co-worker of mine (thanks, Alli!) came across a possible recent anonymous post that really fits well with a certain former editor of a local alternative weekly.

Oh, now, come on, Hickey! I can’t speak for everybody, but I never trusted you — to soil our youth by mocking a man trying to show them the evils of 4:20… becoming Johnny Doc’s campaign manager was really your only option.

Update, 2/29: Aw, Hickey says it wasn’t him. Which is what I knew, which is why I didn’t ask, because then I’d have to make a new joke. If you need me, I’ll be circling around a dying man somewhere in Arizona.

Socialist Workers Party Running A Candidate Just As Eligible As John McCain

The New York Times big scoop today is, basically, something that’s been floating around on stupid Internet messageboards for a while now. (The NYT — and others — for some reason think the Internet is real life, and so Matt Drudge and McCain_SuX_6969 get to influence the media.) Anyway, apparently John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which makes him ineligible to be president.

As you know, I’m a bit interested in ineligible candidates (aka “criminals”); I paid a bit of attention to Larry West’s ultimately doomed campaign for mayor. And, as such, it’s nice to know I’ll be able to joke about another (Walnuts!) one in the presidential.

But that doesn’t mean he’s the only ineligible candidate! In addition to McCain, the presidential race also has Socialist Workers Party candidate Róger Calero. The SWP candidate visited Temple recently, and PW’s über-talented Cassidy Hartmann talked with him for her MTV political thing.

Calero was born in Nicaragua, though. While the U.S. had invaded and taken the Panama Canal Zone at the time of McCain’s birth (1786), by Calero’s time Uncle Sam was content simply to destabilize these countries in more clandestine ways. And while he is of age to run for president, the Constitution forbids him from actually being elected. He can still get on some states’ ballots, though (but not Pennsylvania, where it is impossible).

One might think Calero could at least have an army of hilarious online followers, but dedication to the Socialist cause is a little lacking these days. (The illegal presidential candidate summed up Temple the way you could sum up pretty much every school: “Temple is generally a liberal school, but not that liberal in the sense of revolutionary politics.”)

But with smaller numbers, it appears the supporters of our fair Socialist candidate are a bit more realistic than fans of a certain other candidate with socialist supporters. Gordon Barnes (at left in photo) brought Calero to Temple, and here’s what he said: “We realize Róger’s not going to win.” Now if only Ron Paul’s supporters could get that. Or, for that matter, John McCain’s.

The Candidate for Change? It’s All Relative. [Think MTV]

Pol-Threatening Newest Hot Crime

First demons, now this guy. Something is going on in Bucks County!

The county north of Philadelphia is well known for being shaped like a short fat man’s boot, but maybe there is something more sinister going on. The demons who vandalized churches have been caught, it seems, but now 49-year-old Katsuo Matsui Clark of Bensalem is terrorizing Buxco.

According to Bensalem police, Clark was meeting with state Sen. Tommy Tomlinson, who — like most politicians — has been in office since 1642. Sometime before, he had told Tomlinson (at the funeral home he owns, natch) that neither he nor Bensalem mayor Joseph DiGirolamo had much security and to watch out. For some reason, apparently Tomlinson took a meeting with him later, just to be nice or something, and Clark told Tomlinson to look under the couch cushions to see what he could do; the senator found a hunting knife and a cap gun!

I’m not totally positive about the timeline above; things are a little confusing in the Bucks County Courier Times story, and with good reason. The cops didn’t even want this in the newspaper!

Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran declined to comment on the specifics of the case. In fact, Harran did not publicize the charges against Clark in the police department’s daily press releases to the media because he said he’s concerned about the possibility of “copycat” crimes.

“I didn’t want to comment on security issues knowing this would start a media frenzy,” Harran said Wednesday morning. “We don’t want to make too many comments on this particular case. I don’t want to sensationalize the case.”

They must be in a lot of danger. Man, how much do people hate the mayor and state senator in Bensalem? This isn’t apparently just one man with mental and other issues, there’s a whole mob out to get those two. (It’s like Resident Evil 4, only instead of disease-infected Spaniards it’s dudes with cap guns. These guys must be awesome politicians to keep getting re-elected, though.

Cops: Officials threatened [Courier Times]

Childish Graf Taken To New Levels (Penis!)

Penis graffiti is a well-known tradition on subway ads and school posters. Meh. But when somebody goes out all, like on this Robbins Diamonds sign on 76 near Spring Garden, one just has to applaud:

This has since been taken down, sadly, but Art of the excellent Foobooz had captured it on his iPhone a little bit back. The replacement billboard is the same one, so it’s only a matter of time ’til it happens again. Only one the guy with the jewel in his beard this time.

Abridged Daily News Columnists

I’m so excited about posting working this time that I’m going to do two days of ADNC!

Thursday
Michaerl Smerconish: Ha, ha, remember when Ronald Reagan essentially tried to steal the Republican presidential nomination? Oh, well Hillary Clinton won’t do that.

Stu Bykofsky: Neat, people doing nice things for cancer patients.

John Baer: Much like random Internet commenters, your friends and random dudes in bars, the media loves Barack Obama and is really annoying about it. (Just wait ’til a bunch of octogenarians start crowding the street for Republican candidate WALNUTS! McWars.)

Wednesday
Jill Porter: The word bitch, bitches!

Phil Goldsmith: “Me, Fidel Castro and my congas.”

John Baer: Hey, Hillary didn’t do well in the debate either.

Technical Difficulties!

Yes, the site was down yesterday due to tech stuff! Still having a few problems, but things will hopefully be back to normal as soon as possible and I can write about puppies and porn stars to my little heart’s content.

Center City Wawa To Close

Noooo! Kirsten Henri reports the Wawa in the Dorchester is closing by the end of the week! Okay, so the one on Chestnut is about the same distance from the office, and it’s nicer… but by the end of the week, we’re going to have one fewer Wawa than we originally did.

Wawa spokesperson Laurie Bruce says there is no secret plan to close all the Wawas in the city limits without gas stations, despite the rumors. (But of course.) I have to believe the one at 10th and Walnut is safe. It better be, Wawa!

Protip: I usually go to The Foodery (10th and Pine) and the Serv-Rite Deli (10th and Locust) anyway, but neither are open 24 hours.