‘Rocky’ Statue To Attract Billions Of Fans

Today, the city Art Commission will decide the fate of the Rocky Statue — the real one, not the Michael Untermeyer fake one.

Although it rejected the move to the side of the Art Museum early last month, the full commission is expected to approve the move today, so much so that a concrete base has already been installed and Friday’s unveiling has already been planned.

Also, did you know it’s “Philly Loves Rocky” week? Yes, in preparation as a promotion for the upcoming release of Rocky Balboa, the entire week is apparently dedicated to the fictional boxer, culminating in Friday’s 6 p.m. statue dedication, which Jimmy Binns says “hundreds of thousands” will attend.

Hundreds of thousands! Just like the thousands of dollars it’s going to cost to repair the damage done to Love Park by bubbles.

Will Rocky win the decision? [Inquirer]
Archives: Rocky

An Oop De Doo For ‘Rocky’

Way back in May, the Fairmount Park Commission announced it was going to move the Rocky statue to the side of the Art Museum. It seemed like a move that would please everyone: The Art Museum doesn’t have to put a giant ad for the new Rocky movie on the top of the steps, tourists going to the Art Museum steps can get their photos taken with the statue in an out-of-the-way place and birds have a new place to shit.

Of course, then we remembered: This is Philadelphia. Yesterday, the city Art Commission put the kibosh on the idea, at least for now. Commissioner Moe Brooker’s reasoning:

“It’s not art,” said artist Moe Brooker, a commissioner. “It was a prop.”

Aw, c’mon, Moe. Can’t you see the similarities between your work, Oop De Doo (pictured, available for $500 from Brandywine Workshop), and the Rocky statue?

Tell you what: We’ll put it at the top of the Art Museum steps, call it a meta-commentary on the comercialization of American art and charge $25 to get your photo taken with it. Hell, we’ll cover the Art Museum steps with a giant print of Oop De Doo, too, and sell prints of that. It’ll be so artistic our heads’ll explode.

Art Commission doesn’t like site near museum for ‘Rocky’ [Inquirer]
May 21: People Quackers Over ‘Rocky’ Statue

Promise Of $10 Sends Shoppers Into Oppressive Heat

This morning, the new Macy’s in the Wanamaker Building opened, and people flocked there.

The main reason people stood in lines that were “two blocks long, wrapping around two sides of the building” was the $10 gift cards Macy’s was handing out to the first 1,000 customers. And 10 “lucky shoppers” won a cool thousand bucks to buy, buy, buy to their heart’s content.

Of course, it was in the high 80s this morning when everyone lined up for the store’s opening. Here’s how the Inquirer describes it:

Joseph Burnside of Philadelphia said he arrived at 7:30 but wished he’d gotten there by 5. “I thought I would beat the crowd but the crowd beat me. I should have bugalooed down here.” Occasionally, he’d shout out a suggestion for another giveaway: “Maybe you could pass out some water!” ¶ Other people were trying to handle the heat by fanning themselves with newspapers, and blotting their brows with tissues.

I can see the headlines tomorrow: 25 die of heatstroke at Macy’s opening.

Still, it’s not all possible bodily harm due to dehydration. Some people have shopping down to a science:

Lorraine Jamison and Leticia Robinson, both in town for a sorority convention, came straight from the gym. “We have a strategy,” said Robinson. “If we see anything, we kindly ask them to put it on hold, we go back and shower, and get our credit cards.”

And they say shopping’s not an art form.

Crowd forms early for Macy’s opening this morning [Inquirer]

Stripper’s A Regular Warhol, Dahmer

An exotic dancer in New Jersey — who, naturally, does her stripping at a nude juice bar — has been arrested after police found a hand in a mason jar and six human skulls in her home.

Police went to her house to investigate a suicide attempt Friday. They found no suicide victim, but they did find the hand and skulls, and arrested Linda Kay for “improper disposition of human remains.”

She, however, says her collection of skulls and the hand — which she calls “Freddie” — is simply her strange taste in artwork. Her mother said she got the skulls from a mail order catalog or over the Internet. (Amazon.com is branching out!)

The laywer for Hott 22, the juice bar she strips at, defended her art collection:

“Hott 22 does not knowingly hire mass murderers.”

[Ira] Weiner said Kay is “artistic, but not vicious. I believe that’s why she collected those items. Other people might take issue with her tastes. I know I do.

“But look at Andy Warhol. He painted soup cans.”

Warhol painted hands in mason jars, too. One of his lesser-known works.

She got a hand [Daily News]

Bungling Cleaners Erase Mercer Museum Artwork

Every once in a while, crime will hit even the pride of Doylestown, the Mercer Museum:

Graffiti was found on a wall at the Mercer Museum on Friday night or Saturday morning. The drawings included a portrait of a female and a circle.

A portrait of a female? Impressive, graffiti artists.

Police News [Doylestown Intelligencer]

Suspect Is Hatless. Repeat, Hatless.

A posting on Craigslist regarding a robbery (emphasis mine):

Gould Gallery was ROBBED at 3.00 PM Sunday afternoon. Anyone around that area with ANY information about that time period is urged to call PhialdelphIa Police. Description of suspect: black man, average build, wearing sweat pants.

Oh, a black man wearing sweatpants. Did he have two eyes and a nose, too?

ROBBED!!!!! (Please Read) [Craigslist]

Quickies: Howard’s Massive Homer

• If you haven’t seen Ryan Howard’s 496-foot home run yesterday — and, really, homers aren’t measured accurately, so who knows how long it actually went — Phillies.com has the video, although they have the Florida announcers and not Harry Kalas. The homer did go out to Ashburn Alley, though, and was retrieved by a 19-year-old ARAMARK employee. [Daily News]

• A tasteful art exhibit of nude women in Newtown has drawn the ire of Borough residents, natch. Bucks County Courier Times columnist J.D. Mullane lays the smack down, and other cliches, on those who think it’s distasteful. [BCCT]

• Now you can’t even enjoy a nice nap in front of your television set on a Sunday afternoon without being shot and killed. Sigh. [Daily News]

• If you haven’t seen this video of how actual, professional TV journalists are covering the Duke rape trial, you really need to. It’s so offensive it’s funny and then is somehow offensive and then funny again. I honestly can’t believe it’s real. [Video Dog]

• If you have some time, check out my good friend Dave Zeitlin’s feature on the late Colin Fitzpatrick. (It’s about 3,000 words, so get a cup of coffee beforehand.) Since he’s my good friend, I’ll leave him out of the overwritten lead of the moment feature, but you get points for this, buddy: “A stand-up comic in training, Colin laughed like William Butler Yeats cranked out literature — prodigiously.” You can punch me later. [West Chester Daily Local]

• In case you’re wondering, stay the hell out of the Midwest unless you want to get mumps. Coming soon: Whooping cough! [Slate]

Herb Denenberg, art critic

Today’s Evening Bulletin contains a headline that says “Yale Jihad,” which is enough hilarity in a newspaper for one day. But although the paper could have stopped there, it also ran the daily Herb Denenberg column, in which Herb features himself as an art critic — and not just an art critic, but the art critic.

Not only does Herb know the best art in the world, he also knows that his opinion is the only correct one. After all, Herb is an expert on how squirrels get into attics, the number of items carried in supermarkets and why doctors are awful. He clearly knows everything about everything, and so why should art be any different?

The reason for Herb’s attack on modern art? Marcel Duchamp’s urinal was recently named the most influential modern art piece of all time. And, obviously, that’s a little silly, although the fact some guy got a urinal he signed to be considered art is kind of an art in itself. (Woah.) Of course, it’s just a list, and it’s one of those “most influential” lists, so you don’t need to really analyze on quality, just on reach, so you get a free pass.

But while I simply would move on at this point, Herb has an idea:

I plan on becoming the next great an influential genius of modern art. I’m going to take a toilet, paint my name and a date on it and donate it to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I will request that it be placed near the Duchamp urinal. I figure if a urinal can become the most influential piece of modern art to date, a toilet will be able to do even better. I can now imagine the great art critics and curators comparing the simple urinal to my more complex creation.

And I also submit that I have demonstrated what I have set out to do — to show the modern artistic world is a fraud, and the artistic world would benefit if someone had the courage to flush it all down the drain…. But wait a minute. Maybe modern art isn’t a fraud. Perhaps this shows that everything is art and art is everything. And that’s exactly the kind of gobbledygook any good art critic produces without end. And that’s the kind of gobbledygook in a frame so many of the great critics, curators, art dealers and museums continue to embrace.

You hear that, art world? Herb Denenberg is pissed and he’s not going to stop until art is all fat ladies and martyred saints again! Although, I must say, using the word “gobbledygook” twice in 14 words is quite a piece of artwork in itself.

Duchamp’s urinal tops art survey [BBC]

Blogicized: Good to the Last Drop

• Both the Inky and the New York Times take on the strange-but-awesome-except-for-the-smell-which-makes-me-vomit coffee exhibit at Moore. [artblog]

• MC Hammer has a blog. And it gets even better: He has a link to his own Wikipedia entry. [MC Hammer's Blog via Attytood]

• With the salary cap and NFL labor “woes” — they’re not really that huge of a deal, but whatever — Terrell Owens could be in for a much smaller payday. And the world is right again. [The 700 Level]

• Albert Yee is running for district committeman or somesuch just south of the Gayborhood. He’s looking to lock up the crucial “Foodery cat” endorsement any day now. [dragonballyee]

Blogicized: Flipping the bird

• Post-post-modern art? Here’s a look at the fine artwork of custom tail lights and grills, all hotrodded out. Now if only the Clothespin at 15th and Market could actually be used to hang your clothes up to dry. [artblog]

• And you thought you had nothing to do this weekend: You gotta count birds, man. Everybody’s doing it. [Crossing the Delaware]

• Will Bunch goes all, “I know who created the Dick Cheney quail hunt game!” And I’m like, “Great! What’s the Dick Cheney quail hunt game?” And then he goes all TV news on us, saying, “But you gotta listen to the podcast to learn!” [Attytood]

• And, finally, a band in Northeast Philly covering Good Charlotte. [Philebrity]