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.

Supreme Court Justice Thinks It’s 2000

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke at Rutgers yesterday and talked about a ton of things, I’m sure, but the Associated Press picked up that he bashed The Sopranos, and so that’s what every news story says.

Yes, The Sopranos! The show that everyone liked ’til it cut to black during the final episode last year is apparently still a hot topic for spaghetti-eating mafia members Italians, because Alito says it’s offensive. Apparently, he was so excited about people calling Ed Rendell racist for saying some white people won’t vote for a black person, he wanted to hop on the offensiveness train, too.

During a visit to Rutgers University, Alito complained the hit HBO television drama “The Sopranos” not only associated Italian-Americans with the Mafia, but New Jerseyans as well.

“You have a trifecta — gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey — wedded in the popular American imagination,” Alito said at an event sponsored by the university’s Italian studies program. Alito lived for nearly two decades in a West Caldwell home in the same area of New Jersey where the fictional Tony Soprano was supposed to live. Alito told the gathering of about 100 people that a friend in California once sent him a map of Sopranos-related locations. “He wanted me to put down where my house was on the map,” Alito said to laughs.

Later, Alito talked about how offensive The Untouchables was.

Alito takes on ‘Sopranos’ during visit to Rutgers [AP/Courier-Post]

Snider: Somebody Please Go To The 76ers

The 76ers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies last night for their fifth straight win, moving the team to 23-30 (and the eighth playoff spot) right before the All-Star break. Only problem is, despite it being Mr. Potato Head Night, fans showing up 10 minutes before gametime were still getting a Potato Head, meaning they were among the first 5,000. Officially, 12,026 people showed up at the Wachovia Center last night, which is a bit of a generous figure.

Sixers Prez Ed Snider is not happy about this. The 76ers are 27th out of 30 NBA teams in attendance. One might think Snider should just be happy his baby, the Flyers, played to 99 percent of capacity last year despite winning only 22 games. But, no, he’d rather complain that you’re too dumb to realize how exciting the 76ers are:

“Our kids play hard every single game, every single minute,” Snider said. “You can see them getting better right before your eyes. I would hope they deserve more recognition and support from our fans. I think those fans who come to the games are enjoying immensely what they are seeing.”

Snider said he had a better feeling about the Sixers at the start of the season than reporters who almost universally picked them to finish last in the Eastern Conference…. “I feel the prognosticators wrote us off before the season began,” Snider said. “And that’s why people have taken a show-me attitude.”

You’re right, Ed! It’s the media’s fault. It’s not that Comcast charges over a 50 percent surcharge on the cheapest ticket. It’s not that the team is headed into the All-Star Break without any all-stars. It’s not that the team has been run into the ground since the 2001 Finals on your watch. (Aaron McKie is being paid $7 million by the Sixers this year, the last year of his contract. Who the hell thought McKie would be contributing to the team in 2008?) It’s not that, uh, attendance is down around the NBA and the Sixers are still one of the NBA’s lesser teams. It’s the media predicting the 76ers wouldn’t be very good.

Jesus, Ed. Can’t you just go back to doing non-destructive things, like supporting sending American troops to their death? Oh, crap. Maybe you just better stick to overpaying basketball players.

Snider unhappy Sixers aren’t drawing more [Daily News]

Breaking: Residents Of Neighborhood Complain

We all know politicians hate college kids. One, college kids don’t vote, and two, old people hate kids, and politicians are old. And so when City Council — one day after hearing testimony about public urination in Manayunk — holds a hearing about rowdy college-age kids in Manayunk, one might expect it to be another day of college-kid bashing.

Not so! You see, college-age kids also spend money in Manayunk, so nobody wants them to leave altogether. So what can you do? Find somebody else to blame: absentee landlords!

“A lot of times an absentee landlord will buy a home and make it a triplex or duplex without proper permits,” said Patty-Pat Kozlowski, an aide to Councilwoman Joan Krajewski. “A lot of people complain about trash violations, animal violations, overcrowding.”

For the past two years, Krajewski’s office has investigated nuisance renters in Philadelphia and found that absentee landlords who live out-of-area are a major problem. Their solution is to require landlords from outside of Philadelphia to have a “local agent” to be held accountable for L&I violations and quality of life issues.

And then the head of the Manayunk Development Corporation said all the kids need to be watched over by an authority figure, because that is something that all the twentysomethings in Manayunk really want.

Animal houses targeted [Metro]
Yesterday: Old Manayunk Residents Have Pissing Contest With Twentysomething Manayunk Residents

You give love a bad name

As you’re probably aware by now — either because you’re trying to figure out what you’re going to buy tonight or because you’ve been dreading this day for weeks — tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. Indeed, the most fantastic, loving day of the year is just one day away! And, even if you’re not looking forward to celebrating it, that’s okay: Come Wednesday, there’s a full year ahead until the next V-Day! Yay!

Valentine’s Day is, of course, the holiday named in honor of St. Valentine. During his life. St. Valentine was known for converting many heretics with his unique brand of gifts: greeting cards, paper hearts, chocolate candy and stuffed puppy dogs. We honor the this tradition still.

Yesterday, the Inquirer, in celebration of this great holiday, published a column written by a guy who has a billion little complaints about women. (They also published the word “wigger.”) Complaining is fine, of course — every fullblooded American loves to complain — but when your first complaint of “She fixates on how ‘fat’ she is” eliminates about 100 percent of the dating pool, I think you’ve gone a little too far. (This would also, of course, eliminate yours truly from any dating pool that had that requirement.)

The list is pretty much what you’d expect: She’s daddy’s little girl, she’s a hipster, she dresses too black or white (whatever), she shops too much, &c. Strange that all his horrible dates are straight out of sitcom clichés, but who am I to ask about dating? (Answer: I am not one to seriously question anyone about anything, especially dating.)

My list of rules for dating disqualification would be a little more esoteric and specific, as in “Must laugh at my jokes,” “Can’t be an ex of mine who is married now” or “Must be able to withstand at least one viewing of Mystery Science 3000 every three months” or whatever. The strangest thing, though, about the article is how it just ends. After the list of reasons girls are undateable in the eyes of one Matthew P. Blanchard, there’s no denouement — the climax was clearly the quirk “She’s crazy Joan Crawford,” which should tell you what kind of age bracket this story was aimed at, and it certainly wasn’t 18-34 — and the list sort of sits on its own.

I must say that Mr. Blanchard missed the clincher that would have made this article much more enjoyable to read. Just this simple final line would have saved it! It’s like somebody tossed Blanchard a batting practice fastball and you didn’t even swing.

The line: “But, of course, this shouldn’t stop you from trying to sleep with all of them.”

Those quirks have to go [Inky]