Mayor Proposes Charity Concert To Raise Money For Cash-Strapped City

Remember how well Live 8 went off? I mean, I don’t know if it achieved whatever it was supposed to achieve. Actually, I don’t remember what it was supposed to achieve. Dropping the debt? Helping feed African children? Making people wear white wristbands for a week or two? Hmm. I think it was about awareness, maybe. And, boy, am I ever aware of Africa!

Anyway: Live 8 in Philadelphia went off very well. The concert was (amazingly) pretty enjoyable, there weren’t any huge riots where people destroyed everything around them, etc. But, really, should we push our luck with another huge concert idea?

The mayor thinks so. In fact, today he said talk is underway for a FarmAid-style concert to raise money for the city! Catherine Lucey calls it “PhilAid,” and I don’t think we’re going to do any better than that. Somebody register philaid.org, quick! Crap, too late!

“I was in a conversation where it was suggested that there are tons of stars, some from Philly, some might come to Philadelphia,” Nutter said today. “It entails a whole lot of work and effort and is not necessarily something you can build a budget around. Whatever you would generate would be a onetime thing.”

I guess if this is supposed to raise money, it can’t be out on the Parkway. So, ah… the Linc and its horrible sound? Or maybe they could charge a ton for tickets and hold it at the Kimmel Center? Or how about the Robin Hood Dell East, that concert hall the newspapers are always writing about!

Mayor Nutter says the discussions are very, very preliminary (read: it’s not going to happen). That’s probably a good thing, because you know they’d organize this thing and then it’d eventually lose money.

Could a PhilAid concert come our way? [Clout]

Photo by Lucius Kwok used under a Creative Commons license

Did Mayor Nutter Just Tell PETA To Shove It?

At the Phillies Rally earlier today, Mayor Nutter announced he would be raffling off a few pairs of tickets for games 3, 4 and 5 of the World Series. And all you have to do is email the answer to a trivia question to philliesticketraffle@gmail.com.

Looks like the mayor is doing some Sarah Palin-esque official business on unofficial computers! Or, as my friend suggested, 400,000 emails an hour might crash the city’s severs. Hell, you can’t even get to phila.gov without typing in the www.

“I know all Philadelphians share my excitement about the World Series and I want to give everyone a chance to watch the games with me,” Mayor Nutter said was quoted as saying in his release. “Head to your local library, send me an email with the correct answer, and come Saturday night you might be watching the game from the Mayor’s Box.”

Here’s where it gets fun. The question, written in huge letters in the release, is:

WHAT IS THE MAIN INGREDIENT TO SHANE VICTORINO’S FAVORITE DISH?

Everybody who’s been paying attention already knows the answer, of course: PETA recently asked Victorino to stop eating the meat in his favorite dish as part of their ongoing “stupid publicity stunt” campaign. “We suspect that the cruelty in every can of Spam will infuriate Shane more than a high Hiroki Kuroda fastball,” PETA Assistant Director Dan Shannon said in a statement. Yes, a PR person actually put that quote down, thought about it and decided, “Yeah. This is what I was going for.” Little do they know Shane Victorino hates animals!

Everybody only knows the Spam answer because of PETA’s protest. I don’t really see how it’s a shot at PETA — oh no, he referenced meat! — but it’s just too perfect. Literally three people I talked with online agreed it had to be. Three!

Anyway, go mail the answer and your address and phone to that email address by Thursday at noon. Or just do it now. And CC: PETA.

Update: Fixed the email address (for the record, I had it right in the mailto:). Also: This photo is excellent. But we all know the Phanatic will hobnob with any politician.

Ben Franklin, Mayor Put Heads Together

Hip, hip, hooray! The power brokers in this town (Mayor Nutter, Ben Franklin) are finally doing something about the homeless problem. Yes, it’s “OMG THERE ARE HOMELESS PEOPLE IN RITTENHOUSE” day on Philly.com. I’m not writing about it yet because I’m willing to wait to see where they go next. It should be amazing.

Providing housing for Phila. homeless is slow going [Inquirer]