Icepack

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

by A.D. Amorosi

Wise men who believe in karma say the manner in which one starts a year is predictive of how the rest of it will transpire. So how did 2009 kick off? Geno's Joey Vento threw rolls at Mummers from a float and Brasserie Perrier closed due to high rental prices (I told you eons ago that those rents'd kill 'em off). Man, am I scared. Fuck it. Stay classy. Welcome to 2009. My resolutions for this year are to turn my four-pack into a five-pack at the very least; find and grind the strongest espresso ever; and be meaner and leaner and lovelier in every way. OK. Do the stroll.

► While trolling the Ital Market for speck and asiago, I spied an orange sticker on the side window of DiBruno Pronto — Emilio Mignucci's to-go gourmet joint on Ninth — applying for a liquor license. Atza nize.

► While you were gone (li'l bit before that, actually) Roxborough's Coyle's Café introduced the Blinkin Lincoln. This has nothing to do with the Rosenbach Museum's "21st Century Abe" exhib in February. Ridge Ave.'s B-Linc is a 75-plus-capacity live-gig room that so far booked/hosted the usual songwritery local likes of Joe Parsons, Ben Arnold and a Bricklin. Hmm. Before I get mad, though, B-Linc's next six-week sched is filled with guys like Wareika Hill, Gemini Wolf, Mia Johnson, Andrew Lipke and a Maggi, Pierce and EJ CD release jawn. Why, I'd be churlish to dis the B-Linc. What I will dis is Doron Segal's Huffamoose reunion at World Café Live. I blacked it out on my calendar, so I can't even give you the date. Ugh. Every bad '90s moment I ever had — that includes personal ones like me having a long Lester Bowie-in-Ministry goatee and dancing THAT ONE TIME to "Informer" while on Ecstasy — just rushed through my skull seeing that announcement. Never liked Segal, never dug the 'Moose's limpid-pool pop-puerile-jazz junk. All is lost. Either we or they must perish. Whoa is me. B-Linc: Don't book these Moosey guys. It'll just piss me off.

► In my search of nice news to soothe my scraped-up-scar-tissue-ridden soul, South Philly's most rocking couple, Beretta 76's Pete Rydberg and Camille Escobedo, got engaged on New Year's Eve. Bravo and va. The same congrats goes to area filmmaker and ex-RuffNationer Rich Murray. The boss of Attention Films also did an NYE engagement to Juliana Walker, clinical director for Home First (Horizon House), for a May wedding. DJ Evan Gusz beat both to the punch. The ex-RuffHouse PR dude got engaged to translator Jackie Samschick on Christmas Eve. Mah zel toooov.

► Anton Shuford, Danny Ozark and Chip Chantry will stand up during WHYY's Monday Night Club (Jan. 12) at a National Mechanics event celebrating the premier of PBS' Make 'Em Laugh:The Funny Business of America. What else is funny? Chantry's monthly One Man Show starts at Khyber earlier the same eve. And Ozark's past is all over da History of Howard Stern doc on Sirius/XM courtesy his call-in to Stern in 1986. "Sadly my grandparents will never hear it," says Ozark. "They don't have satellite radio. They don't even have that special converter box that'll let them keep watching Jeopardy after Feb. 17."

► Thick thick soupy rumors have South Street realtors talking with restaurateur Neil Stein (hey, wasn't Bebe Neuwirth at Rouge the other day?) making him cool offers to open a swank restuabar or two. No rumor: Stephen Starr wants to reopen Chestnut St.'s L'Ange Bleu this spring. 

► I've seen him do A Midsummer Night's Dream and Death of a Salesman. But when I think of Tony Braithwaite I think of comedic theater with an edge — 1812's This Is The Week That Is; Let's Pretend We're Married! (May), a Burns & Allen routine with Jen Childs; and Double Down with Scott Greer. So what the hay is he doing directing the strangely traditional première of Give My Regards to Broadway, Philly producer Howard Perloff's Kimmel Center musical (Jan. 9 -Feb. 1)? "While funny's been my bent of late, I've always had a love for the good ol' standards — my parents instilled that in me at an early age," says Braithwaite. Though it's chock-full o' corn, expect Braithwaite's oddball laughs to show through. "I think we've infused humor into them with this revue." Look for Braithwaite in June doing Fully Committed at Montgomery Theater — "I play the reservations clerk at a posh NYC restaurant, as well as all of the callers who want a table," he says of a total of 47 characters.

► Magnet's Eric Miller writes to remind me that a) I have a story due on Ghost; b) that his cherished local indie-rock mag just turned 15; c) that its got a new Web site (magnetmagazine.com) with a Facebook group thing to boot; and d) that Miller's dog/Magnet's mascot, Higgins, is more than mere dog. Higgins is an icon, a point on which I concur. Woof.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)