The staff at 2B Groomed

The Jan/Feb issue of Playboy — the one with devil-eyed Tara Reid falling out of her top on the cover of the mag’s, natch, “massive double issue” — has a feature on grooming: “A Cut Above: Playboy’s ultimate real man’s guide to grooming 2010. Enter the new decade with your best face forward.”

The spread includes a piece on straight razors, a rogues gallery of famous mustaches (Billy Dee, Sam Elliott, Daniel Plainview), the history of the dopp kit, a defense of the man-spa and a piece on the barbershop revival: “In these economically addled times … with men looking for ways to cut back, hot towels, straight-razor shaves and classic cuts (with a complimentary Guinness or scotch) are increasingly in demand.”

The barbershop piece runs with a list of Playboy’s top-10 barbershops in America, and checking in at No. 5 is Philly’s own 2B Groomed Studios (270 S. 11th Street, 215-925-3505, 2bgroomed.com, appointments encouraged), run by the super-dapper Jahmal Rhaney (above), who stopped by this morning to drop off a copy of his tonsorial star turn.

A couple years back, Trey Popp chronicled his straight-edge conversion in CP’s pages:

The straight-edge specialists I used to frequent in India didn’t sport twirling poles either, but considering what they charged for their services, such adornment was a cost better avoided. The going price for a smooth face ten years ago ranged from two American dimes to a quarter. After getting past high-strung nerves and an overdeveloped fainting reflex my first time in the chair, I was hooked. Why hunt for imported disposable cartridges when a man with 30 or 40 years of experience would shave me for a song? I threw away my lathering gel.

Given the scraggly state of my now-traditional winter beard, I may follow suit and pop down to 2B Groomed for one of their spruce ups and beard trims. Stay tuned.

Just wanted to say … forgive me, mine employer … thanks to Philebrity.

Last night’s Philebrity Awards Show at the Trocadero & Xmas Pageant was awesome – everything about it, but especially getting a chance to meet some of the faces behind the names. (Free Library Director Siobhan Reardon shook. my. hand.)

In one of those “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice” moments, host Joey Sweeney even uttered the words “City Paper,” before releasing a dove into the night sky.

But if you made it out, you already know how awesome it was, and if you didn’t, you probably don’t care to hear it now. So I’ll leave it at that.

But yes, thanks, Philebrity. Good on ya.

I’m Isaiah Thompson, and I approve this message

We threatened to shoot this kitten if you didn’t vote for Isaiah Thompson, and you responded.

Come see Isaiah accept his award tonight at the Trocadero, 10th and Arch, 8 p.m.

I can hear him working on his speech right now, and it’s a doozie.

Isaiah thanks you all for your votes.

Isaiah Thompson, who is just one man, is engaged in a tight race with Team Illadelph in the Philebrity Award for General Excellence in Writing for a City Publication.

Let’s take a look at what Thompson wrote for today’s paper:

First, in the Naked City lead, Isaiah takes a look at the federal stimulus funds being allocated for homeless programs and how the efforts are just not doing much to address the issue of chronic homelessness.

When the economy cratered in November 2008, Mayor Michael Nutter forced city departments to make deep cuts — and the Office of Supportive Housing (OSH), which administers the city’s homeless programs, was no exception. Loath to eliminate beds, OSH directed its shelters to cut even more resident services — including what was left of case management —instead.

But with the stimulus, things were looking up. The city was awarded about $21 million in stimulus money over three years — a little less than $7 million a year. That’s hardly chump change. OSH’s total annual budget is $100 million, about $38 million of which comes from the city. In October, the money began flowing in.

It was with some surprise, then, that most shelter operators learned they wouldn’t be getting much of that assistance — and neither would many, if not most, of the shelters’ residents.

It’s a thoughtful look at a problem that doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

And then, in his wildly popular Man Overboard! column, “167 Seconds,” Isaiah takes on the bike/car battle (another problem that also doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon

I’m getting all lawful lately. Not that I was some terror of the streets before, but suddenly I find myself sitting at empty intersections, on my bicycle, waiting for every single light. Like I’m a car. It hurts, but not much — waiting at every light costs me 167 seconds of my 20-minute commute to work. And you can have those seconds, Philadelphia drivers. But only if you stop acting crazy.

And “crazy” is the word for it. Following two recent deaths of pedestrians at the hands of bicyclists, long-simmering anti-bike sentiments exploded, taking shape in the form of aggressive laws proposed by Councilmen Jim Kenney and Frank DiCicco, which include such reasonable measures as a fine for wearing headphones that’s nearly three times that of blowing a red — in a car! If only there were such a thing as double-italics!

The councilmen say they’re just starting a “conversation.” Good idea, but don’t start by spitting. The past two weeks have seen much foamy-mouthed anti-bike whining, embodied by the Daily News‘ Stu Bykofsky, who — apparently because his own commute utilizes Pine and Spruce streets, which now host the only two east-west bike lanes in Center City — seems hell-bent on getting revenge for cars having to share the road with bikes. If anyone deserves revenge, it ain’t drivers. In the last five years, 174 people, including 18 cyclists, have been killed by cars in Philly, according to the Bicycle Coalition. The number of pedestrians killed by bikes over the same period? Three.

Thompson’s reporting the shit out of the city. He’s taken on bikes, homelessness, casinos, soccer stadiums, union heads, library funding and scrap collectors, for starters. We think you should give him your vote.

Our very own Man Overboard! Isaiah Thompson has received a nom for a Philebrity award in the category of General Excellence in Writing for a City Publication.

Who’s the competition? It’s stiff!

So get on over to Philebs and vote early and often for Isaiah. Polls close on Wed., Dec. 9, for the award ceremony on Dec. 10 at the Trocadero featuring BC Camplight, Secret Pants and Blood Feathers, with the pay-what-you-can admission benefiting the Free Library Foundation.

The winners of the Internet Baseball Awards — essentially the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie and Manger of the Year awards as chosen by stathead fans — were announced of the last two days.

More than 1,200 ballots were cast in this year’s installment. The hometown nine  fared well in the National League though, much like this year’s post-season, nobody took home any hardware:

MVP:

Chase Utley and Ryan Howard finished 4th and 10th respectively in the MVP voting.
Jayson Werth (20),  Raul Ibanez (24) and Cliff Lee (28) also made showings

Cy Young:

Cliff Lee finished 9th in the balloting, which is not bad considering he put in less than a half season of work in the red pinstripes. J.A. Happ placed 16th with Cole Hamels clocking in at 19th.

Rookie of the Year:

This was a nailbiter, as J.A. Happ finished 2nd to the Braves’ Tommy Hanson in a photo finish. Happ racked up 5,473 points to Hanson’s 5,487. To my knowledge, no other Phils rookies received votes.

Manager of the Year:

Charlie Manuel finished 4th, behind Jim Tracy (whose miraculous reversal of the Rockies season was deserving of praise even if his handling of the NLDS was not), Joe Torre (who’s kind of coasting on reputation at this point) and Tony LaRussa (see Joe Torre).

Photo | J. J. Tiziou

The Champ

For her “Parallel You” performance with Headlong’s David Brick, Nichole Canuso of Nichole Canuso Dance Company took home the $10,000 grand prize — beating out Jenn Rose of Loose Screws Contemporary Tap Company and Braham Logan Crane — as the winner of  the controversial A.W.A.R.D. Show at this year’s Live Arts Festival. Big ups to Canuso, dancer, choreographer and CP fashion plate.

Super-innovative Philly GIS software company Avencia — whose maps you’ve seen in our paper; who created this fun political mapping toy research tool; and are knee-deep in the always fascinating phillyhistory.org — were ranked number 13 in the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC)’s /Business Week Small Biz magazine’s 2009 Inner City 100, a ranking of the fastest-growing inner city businesses in the country. Congrats!

Also repping Philly on the IC100 are:

Amuneal Manufacturing Corporation (51) who, as per their web site, do everything “from building shielding components for space shuttle missions to designing and manufacturing retail and architectural environments.” Who knew?

Stroll (62), a self-improvement audiobook e-commerce company that “scour(s) the world each day for products containing powerful ideas capable of transforming lives.” Yes you can!

and Perryman Building and Construction Services (94) , the 2008 Regional Minority Construction Firm of the Year. Solid!

See all the winners here.

Isaiah Thompson

Back in October, Isaiah Thompson wrote about what he dubbed the “Fishtown Effect”: The phenomenon of white voters expressing unabashedly racist sentiments, and yet still saying they were considering voting for Obama (it was sort of the opposite of the much-ballyhooed Bradley Effect). It was a really, really good story, it turned out to be prescient, and the “Fishtown Effect” coinage even made its way on to Wikipedia.

Now comes the news that Isaiah’s story has won First Place for Political Reporting from the Philadelphia chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (the full awards aren’t posted online yet, but the chapter’s website is here). Much-deserved.

Check out some of Isaiah’s other hits here. I highly recommend this story on how nobody cares how bad slot machines are going to be, this one from inauguration day, and this one about professional metal scrappers.

pigiron.org

james and the giant honor

We can barely contain our theater-geek glee over at the CP headquarters: James Sugg, reigning soundmaster of Pig Iron Theatre Co., has won a 2009 OBIE Award for his performance in Chekhov Lizardbrain.

Sugg accepted his Village Voice-sponsored OBIE — think of it as an off-Broadway Tony Award — last night at Webster Hall in New York City, with his Pig Iron compatriots by his side. This is big news for the Philly theater community, who is far more used to hearing Sugg than seeing him onstage.

The opera-trained sound designer who hails from Tennessee was hired by Pig Iron back in 1997 as musical director/sound effects specialist for Gentlemen Volunteers, for which he won his first Barrymore for Outstanding Sound Design. (He’s stacked up three more in the ensuing decade.) Sugg’s secured his all-star status in this city, writing original music — for 1812 Productions’ Cherry Bomb, most recently — and developing superb acting chops.

Here’s what Mark Cofta had to say about Chekhov Lizardbrain, which premiered here in 2007 and went on to the Ohio Theatre in NYC in 2008:

We’re told that Chekhov Lizardbrain was created through improvisation by director Dan Rothenberg and performers Quinn Bauriedel, Dito van Reigersberg, Geoff Sobell and James Sugg. We’re told, also, that it’s based on Paul D. MacLean’s “Three Brain” theory (our heads contain what resemble the brains of lizards and dogs as well as the uniquely human neocortex) with inspiration from Anton Chekhov (a doctor as well as a writer) and autistic author Temple Grandin.

What emerges is distinctly Pig Iron — physical and funny, moments of startling visual clarity and emotional intensity, not much linear story — yet very different from their previous creations. Chekhov Lizardbrain is narrated by a character of the same name, played dourly by Sugg (imagine Garrison Keillor on downers), a pitchman who promises to “shock, awe and arouse” us, to “put the human condition onstage and make it dance.”

That Garrison-Keillor-on-downers performance impressed The New York Times, too: “The superlative actor James Sugg played a man locked in the echoing chambers of his mind,” writes Charles Isherwood, “endlessly recalling his encounters with a trio of brothers he yearns to connect with.”

Chekhov Lizardbrain’s kaput in Philly for now, but pay attention to the 2009 Live Arts/Philly Fringe Web site in the coming months, because Sugg and Pig Iron’s Welcome to Yuba City is debuting, and tickets are going to sell out. Like, Bruce Springsteen fast.

Nathaniel Popkin’s been doing some damn fine work in the pages of City Paper for a few years now. The writer-in-residence at PhilaU/PhillySkyline.com contrib/ The Possible City author, has taken CP readers deep inside the designing mind of Philly’s Josh Owen, regaled us about his travels in Nicaragua and Turkey, and shed light on countless forgotten/overlooked nooks of the city where culture/ingenuity/determination blossom unexpectedly and undeterred.

Popkin has been granted a 2009 PA Council on the Arts Fellowship in non-fiction literature (PDF), which means that we’re not the only ones who appreciate what he’s been doing.

 

 

AP:

PHILADELPHIA – A University of Pennsylvania student who organized an exhibit about Lenape Indians living quietly in the state is among this year’s winners of Rhodes Scholarships.

Abigail P. Seldin, of Tierra Verde, Fla., curated the exhibit “Fulfilling a Prophecy: The Past and Present of the Lenape in Pennsylvania,” which opened at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in September.

… Florida State University safety Myron Rolle, who had to miss part of Saturday’s game against Maryland because he was being interviewed for the scholarship.

Myron Rolle’s mentor is FSU alum/Baltimore cornerback Samari Rolle, who had three tackles and an interception in the Ravens’ 36-7 defeat of the Eagles yesterday afternoon. (SI’s Stewart Mandel says the two are not related, but S.L. Price’s amazing piece on the Rolle clan alludes to the belief that all Rolles are “cousins, however distant.”)

Randy Alexander with Brian Wilson

myspace.com/randexpr

If you call Randy Alexander or his Randex Communications this week, you won’t get him. (Yes, that includes you, BRE Presents and Philly International Records.) Alexander isn’t out fishing — not for trout, not for new clients. The Philly/Jersey PR flack got nominated for “Publicity Firm of the Year” by the New Music Awards, sponsored by the radio trade New Music Weekly. The ceremony is Nov. 22 at the Avalon Theatre in Hollywood.

“My boutique agency is up against some of the biggest entertainment publicity firms — Rogers & Cowan, Big Hassle in New York and L.A.  — and honestly, I don’t know how we were nominated,” says Alexander, who was responsible for campaigns involving the aforementioned PIR and BRE along with the Steve Miller Band, Smashing Pumpkins, Philadelphia Music Alliance, NARAS Philly and the return of the School of Rock.

“Go figure,” he adds.

HULK SMASH POLITICS

Actor Edward Norton, most recently of The Incredible Hulk reboot and family cop blech Pride and Glory, has got some foresight on him. In 2006, Norton commissioned his production company, Class 5 Films, to make a doc about Barack Obama’s then-nascent campaign for president. Even though Obama seems like a natural choice as a main character (one of the more charismatic and viable candidates in the primary field for both parties), it’s still lucky for directors Amy Rice and Alicia Sams Obama went all the way. Look out how sweet this thing is going to be, according to Variety:

Rice brought the idea to Edward Norton and his Class 5 Films banner in 2006. Norton secured cooperation with Obama and has had cameras rolling ever since, capturing his 2006 trip to Africa and his 2007 presidential announcement. The production has had close access to Obama as well as his family, friends, campaign staff and volunteers.

This is an unprecedented look at political superstar on a “near-flawless” campaign. No doubt HBO will make back the low seven figures they paid for the TV rights to the doc.

Alicia Sams is no stranger to politics, working on the Katy Chevigny’s Election Day, which dispatched cameras to various polling places throughout the country for the 2004 presidential election, and Tanner on Tanner, the update of Robert Altman and Gary Trudeau’s faux politico Tanner ‘88. In the editing room will be Sam Pollard, who works with Spike Lee on his documentaries, most recently the excellent When the Levees Broke (he is also a professor at my alma mater and one of the few film studies lecturers who didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out with something dull). Filming will continue through Obama’s inauguration in January and the doc will premiere sometime after that. Get pumped.