"It's the Beach, Boys"
"Some Implanted Cheese Thing"
"Everybody Fa-CHUNG! Tonight"

I know. They don't read funny. But if only you could hear them …

Sadly, my publisher stubbornly refuses to let us sink company money into newspaper sound chip technology. So we've come up with the next best thing: Local Support, the official City Paper podcast. Instead of tortured puns, it'll use the wonders of podcast technology the way God intended: giving you a chance to hear the local music we write about every week.

"Don't be scared," says music editor Patrick Rapa. "A podcast is really just a big friendly MP3, your own private radio show with all of the convenience of a TiVo. It plays well with iTunes, and pops up wee pictures of albums for each track."

Starting today, we'll be uploading a new Local Support episode every two weeks. Download it at www.citypaper.net/podcast, or even better, subscribe. "That way," says Pat, "a fresh hour-and-a-half show will automatically appear in your player."

Curating Local Support will be Jon Solomon, longtime DJ at 103.3 WPRB. "I really think this could end up being the best thing I've ever done," says Jon. "I don't mean to hyperbolize, but if bands keep sending me material and if I'm able to pull from a wide cross section of current and past area artists, I think this could be special."

Our special projects editor (and former music editor) Brian Howard, who's known Jon for years, can't think of a better guy to sit behind the soundboard. "Jon's the … well, the John Peel of the tri-state area. He's the premier curator of on-air local music in Philly and its environs. Between his show and the live sets, nobody's been doing this as well as or for as long as he has, and it's not even close."

In the first episode, Jon's cued up Adam Arcuragi, Jane Anchor, D.B.L.I.T.Y., National Eye, Audible, Man Man, Pink Skull, The Teeth and Excelsior. They're mostly new and all local, but Pat adds: "Jon likes a good curveball. D.B.L.I.T.Y. is a Lehigh Valley band from the 1970s."

Going forward, Jon promises cuts from "bands you already know and love, bands you've heard of but still don't know what they sound like and bands that only have demos/CD-Rs out now." According to Brian, Jon's tastes run from "rock to hip-hop to Japanese screech-core to Afro-beat. He's got an ear for 'good music' regardless of the genre."

Want to turn Jon on to something? E-mail him at jon.solomon@citypaper.net.

If you're anywhere near a computer right now — or reading this online — go ahead, stop reading, download the first Local Support and enjoy. And in the meantime, pray for the advent of in-newsprint sound chip technology to become affordable. This list in the back of my Bible is only getting longer.

I was going to write an entire editor's letter about the Nick Sylvester/Village Voice thing, especially considering that Nick used to contribute short items to us now and again. (For those of you who missed this, Nick was suspended from the Voice for inventing an entire scene in a recent cover story about Neil Strauss' book, The Game.)

But what can I say that hasn't already been said about writers like Sylvester, Frey, Blair and Glass? Maybe it's a matter of volume. In that case:

YOU IDIOTS NEED TO STOP MAKING SHIT UP.

YOU ARE CORRODING THE PROFESSION.

STOP IT NOW.

Want to write a brilliant scene about something that never happened? There's this wonderful thing, been around forever, called FICTION. Want to write about things that actually happened, and want people to believe the things you write? Then enter into the sacred trust of NONFICTION. Which means you're promising people you won't make shit up. Don't blur the two. Get a little peanut butter (fiction) in your chocolate (nonfiction), and it's fucking FICTION.

Hope this clears things up.