Icepack

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats.

by A.D. Amorosi

Did you get shot in the leg in a trashy Old City club like that chick at Cebu? Did you trudge Antarctica with frozen giblets like La Todd Colombe Carmichael? Did you shop City Paper/TLA's flea market only to find a "My Parents Shopped the City Paper/TLA trunk show and all I got was this lousy T-shirt" T-shirt? Yay. You survived Thanksgiving, the big booze-y night before (not this year, I hear from many a barkeep, sheesh) and the Black Friday that followed. Now if you can jussst get through City Hall's Christmas tree lighting without throwing rotten fruit at NutterButter for ruining this and every holiday in the foreseeable future, you're nearly to 2009. Steady.

► If you don't catch Philly's rambling shambling Armchairs with their swinging Zombies-meets-Of Montreal-meets-Deerhoof sound at The Fire Dec. 6, you're wrong. No. You. Are.

► Want fun facts about Del Frisco's just-open carved-tableside meat haus? The waiter/waitress uniforms were designed by Distante's men shop. David Howard, who GM-ed at Stephen Starr's steak house Barclay Prime, is a bigwig at Del Frisco's. (Another ex-Barclay-ite, chef Amos Pedersen, just got a gig at The Sidecar). What else? Someone at DelFrisco's dropped a 16-ounce bone-in filet mignon on my toe and that chunk o' steak broke my hefty digit.

► DJ Frosty Spiker and ex-Live Arts marketer Heidi Duffey had a baby they named Sadie and gave a blog to before she could walk. Oughta be a law about early-birth blogging. Congrats nonetheless.

► I've heard rumors it was selling but is this (from a realty brokers' site) an apt description of O.N.E. (the Mansion)? "Mantled fireplaces," "copper-top bar" "walnut window ledges," "stained-glass windows" and a "C-class liquor license" for drinking until 3 a.m.

► Forget Milk, honey. When TLA Releasing debuts its DVD of Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild for the gay-ish holiday market, it does so with a pre-release bang/bash at National Mechanics Dec. 8 starring the film's decidedly straight soundtrack-ers TV Sound, an equally hetero Stephen Bluhm-I-presume and very-nearly-butch The Booklets. TLA welcomes AGS: GGW cameo celebs Paris Hilton and RuPaul if they're around.

► WHOWHATWHERE: If you were browsing reggae records at Nick Devlin's Long in the Tooth shop on Sansom Street and thought it was Doug Benson you banged into on the way out, you weren't stoned. Rather, I wasn't. The weed-y Best Week Ever comedian played shows next door at Helium. Couture designer Zac Posen was spied supping nearby at Rouge. If you were a club and got a call last Monday from Akon's people, you weren't alone. Two wishing-to-remain-anonymous bar owners said they spoke to reps for Akon after his private Wired 96.5 FM/World Café Live gig. The reps reportedly wanted to know would the owners pay thousand$ for bragging rights to having Akon visit their venue. As the price went down and no money seemed forthcoming, reps focused on how much comping could be had for Akon and his posse. Not much, apparently. Rumor has it that not only did the venue owners say "nah" to payola, one owner wouldn't even comp Akon and crew more than one bottle of champagne. That same Monday, guys saying they were in OneRepublic visited Silk City's Back2Basics the night before their Electric Factory gig. No way you'd tell somebody you were in OneRepublic if you weren't. And It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney hit Dirty Frank's for a drink. Hmm.

Hot Hands Studio: $50 for $25 Massage, Skin Care & Body Treatments | Curves | Cafe Nola | Paddy Whacks Irish Sports Pub: Plastic Debit Cards | Philadelphia Orchestra: Four Tickets for April 8, 2010 | Philadelphia Orchestra: Four Tickets for June 3, 2010 | Skirmish Paintball | Swanky Bubbles | Gillian's ticket | Mango Moon

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

► There're rockers doing art this First Friday. Angels of Decay leader Jon Canady does double duty by opening a show at Germ Books and showing with bassist Kevin Kernan at the "Grand Small Works" show at FUEL (1,000 items no larger than 20 by 20 inches each). But rock-photog Scott Weiner goes one weirder at Glam, Dec. 5, for "Home & Away." The flappy snapper who usually documents spangled onstage comings 'n' goings for Retna here debuts shots of celebs he shot in Philly (Travolta, Ahhnold, Bam) along with pictures from desert travels through Utah and Arizona. Weiner requests visitors say "hullllo" in a low voice. Remember: Anyone who shows will be hitting the Cosenza Bros' Glam weeks before it changes its name/décor to The Mug — the Ugly Mug that is. Plus rock-climbing snowboarder/local artist Nik Greenblatt starts his bi-monthy "Don't Call it a Comeback" installation — one piece, one artist, one window on street level — at his graphic design firm's 2one5 (44 S. Third) gallery, home to his Living Proof magazine.

► While the trio at Tria hunker down and hammer out location three at an ex-M.A.B. paint location at 21st and South, I'm hearing that a new Jolly's Piano Bar is at 2006 Chestnut, but a spit-take away from the Wawa. Blocks away on 18th, we see Avram Hornik's long-rumored unloading of the Bar Noir space may've occurred as an orange sign tagged by "Ruby D LLC" (Michael Welsh, ex-bartender at Tír Na Nóg, is listed as operating partner at Ruby) is on Noir's windows. Hornik also dropped his proposal to turn Front and Girard's Global Thrift/Jumbo Theater into a glittering music hall.

► I wish CP's former managing ed and my fellow curmudgeon Brian Hickey a speedy recovery after getting hit-and-run in Collingswood on Friday.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)