Damn you, Liberty Place Saladworks, how you vex me so! Here is my problem: These mofos make one hell of a salad. The lettuce is green, the tomatoes succulent, the bacon bits crisp, and the cheese as fresh as if it had earlier emerged whole from a magic cow’s utters. Heck, you can even get a special one devised by some fancy chef who you've never heard of for less than $20! What's not... [continue]

When I entered the TLA on Wednesday night, I experienced a slight feeling of déjà vu. And it wasn’t even just that I had been there the night before to see Bloc Party. No, it was because I was there to see British retro-soul singer Duffy, whose sound harkens back to Dionne Warwick during the Burt Bacharach years, or Dusty Springfield, if you need me to compare her to a white person to restore the... [continue]

At the TLA on Tuesday night, the assembled crowd witnessed a band at the peak of their powers. Bloc Party, the British foursome with two solid albums to their credit (2005’s superior Silent Alarm and 2007’s solid A Weekend in the City) gave a transcendent, 16-song performance that earned the crowd’s raucous reaction and made their two encores totally acceptable (a bit ostentatious for a mid-weekend if you ask me, but what the heck?). They... [continue]

Fresh off a triumphant performance at last weekend’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, in which lead singer Kele Okereke sported a fetching Barack Obama T-shirt, English dance-rock foursome Bloc Party rolls into town tonight to play a sold-out show at the TLA, along with opening act Does It Offend You, Yeah? and its annoying, grammar-check-baffling moniker. This show should be anticipated for several reasons. First, there is the opportunity to see if Bloc Party’s sailor’s-knot-tight rhythms... [continue]

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. American Teen For people who have not gotten enough of teenagers’ vapid lives on TV comes this production from documentarian Nanette Burstein. She follows the nerd, the jock, the outcast and the popular girl around for a year and records the most likely heavily manipulated goings-on. This Phillyist can’t think of something he would want to see less, but it is getting decent reviews, including three-and-a-half... [continue]

What’s new and/or interesting in TV this week. Ocean of Fear: Worst Shark Attack Ever (Tue, 8PM-9PM, Discovery) It’s Shark Week on Discovery Channel, meaning that you can expect a lot of shows based upon people getting killed or nearly killed by Great White sharks. If this is your sort of thing, and you can only catch one show, this would have to be it. Remember in Jaws where the old sea captain tells the... [continue]

Ah, what a wonderful night for a concert! As I set out on the 40-minute drive from Norristown to Fishtown, where English power-pop duo The Ting Tings were playing Johnny Brenda’s with opening act Pattern Is Movement, the rains were absolutely torrential. There was pretty much zero visibility on the Schuylkill Expressway, where people continued to speed and generally drive like maniacs despite the treacherous conditions and half of the road being torn up. Upon... [continue]

English duo The Ting Tings have blasted onto the scene this year with an energetic brand of '80s-reminiscent dance-punk. Their debut album, We Started Nothing, debuted at Number 1 on the UK albums chart, while their song “That’s Not My Name” also reached the top spot on the trend-setting nation’s list of best-selling singles. However, the band should not be taken as an overnight sensation. Singer-guitarist Katie White was part of a defunct girl group... [continue]

Remember that advertising campaign that used to say that Philadelphia is more fun for tourists when they stay over? Unfortunately, a couple tourists from Missouri recently found out when Philadelphia isn’t so much fun. Namely when you get plowed over by a drunken South Philly douchebag when you are just trying to cross the street to see your hometown St. Louis Cardinals play the Phillies. One of the tourists, 53-year-old Cindy Grassi, died from her... [continue]

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend. Finding Amanda In this flick by Rescue Me creator Peter Tolan, Matthew Broderick plays a gambling addict who shuttles off to Las Vegas to save his beautiful niece (played by Brittany Snow of Hairspray), a prostitute masquerading as an “exotic dancer," who also happens to be suspected of drug dependency. Given that the movie features a young hottie like Snow playing a junkie hooker, we expect... [continue]

One question: Why do we always have to have the stupid airport? Seriously, it kills me that I can never get on a plane without knowing that the morons at Philadelphia International Airport are going to find a way to leave me with a bad taste in my mouth. Case in point: Sunday night, I returned from St. Louis, where I had gone to a bachelor party for a guy whose wedding I am in... [continue]

Eliot Spitzer was a tireless crusader for the cause of cleaning up Wall Street corruption. He also was a sex-crazed fiend who would spend the gross per capita of the average Third World country on a blow job. O.J. Simpson was one of the greatest running backs in the history of both college and professional football. He also enjoyed wasting away his spare time by nearly decapitating people who pissed him off. Barack Obama may... [continue]

Did you ever get with someone you hardly know to “If You Don’t Know Me By Now?” Ever satisfy your love jones to “Me and Mrs. Jones?” Have you ever gotten some ass to Teddy Pendergrass? No? Well, that is probably because you had me as a wing man. But, if you have, you need to head down to Macy’s Center City at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, March 7 and give some dap to the... [continue]

I have been suffering from an incredibly huge bout of writer's block lately. That means two things: another one of my fifteen ideas for television shows that "can write themselves" will have to remain unwritten and all of my fans at the Phillyist have been without reading material for too long. So since my wife and Mom steadfastly refuse to read the paper, I thought I just had to get something on the site.... [continue]

I’m filling in for Ross this week with Asshole of the Week, and the honorable fossilized simpleton from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, is my selection for this prestigious award. This camera-ready attention whore, who is so desperate for air time that he calls up 610-WIP every Monday morning and eagerly reveals how little he knows about Philadelphia sports while the majority of the hosts' mics are turned off in order to stifle their stupefied laughter,... [continue]

If you haven’t noticed, the Philadelphia sports climate is pretty bleak these days. The Sixers suck. The Eagles are golfing. The Flyers are irrelevant. And the Phillies are currently nickel-and-diming perhaps the greatest slugger in a generation, hoping that an arbitrator will make him play for a relative pittance. So there is pretty much no reason to go to an arena or stadium near you to watch our local pituitary cases compete in the... [continue]

UPDATE: Digg this, please! “Thanks for coming out to the movie tonight. If we catch you filming anything, we will pull you out of here and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law, so (Jack Benny-esque comedic pause) enjoy the movie.” With these words spoken by a suited, security officer before the screening of Sylvester Stallone’s new Rambo film, perhaps I should have been tipped off to the aggressive nature of the film... [continue]

If there is one thing I've learned from the recent writers' strike, it is this: Writers don't matter. So, in tribute to this brave, cavalier thinking on the part of the suits and moneymen in the Hollywood playground, I am going to do them one better. As of this writing, cinematographers, set designers, and editors don't matter either. That's why this, my incredibly long guide for winning your local Oscar pool, will focus only... [continue]

As a member of the Writers’ Guild of America, I am not really allowed to write posts for Phillyist, so you probably have noticed that there hasn’t been much from me on the site since the Philadelphia Eagles’ merciful demise. (By the way, this is all code for “I have been feeling really lazy” – Karl Rove’s words – lately and have been trying to do as little thinking as possible.) But something annoyed the... [continue]

And so it ends. A season which began with a momentum-providing loss to the Green Bay Packers due to the fact that the coach forgot to put a punt returner on the roster ends with a yawn-inducing 17-9 victory over the inept Buffalo Bills, a win that gives the Eagles three straight Ws to conclude this woe begotten campaign of 2007. Of course, that is not all that finishing 8-8 gives this organization. It gives... [continue]