"Soooo ... you come here often?"

planetware.com

Last night, at approximately 11 p.m. (I recreated the following events with the accurate help of my phone), I got a text message. It said: "Dahlak?"

I figured it was a friend of mine, whose number I just keep forgetting to save, inviting me to the West Philly Ethiopian bar/restaurant for a beer. 

I saved the number — or so it seemed. "Hey, not home yet," I wrote back. "You be there a bit?"

No response. Twenty minutes later, I popped into the Dahlak, but didn't see my friend.

"Shoot," I texted. "Looks like I missed you."

It wasn't until about midnight that I realized I had saved the wrong number. I had been texting someone else all night.

"Crap," I wrote the mystery number. "Sorry about the msgs. I got a number screwed up somewhere ... very confusing!"

So whom had I been accosting all night? I stared at the number, mystified, until I recognized the first three digits: 686. City Hall.

I had been texting City Hall.

Specifically, I had been texting my late-night whereabouts to the office of Rob Dubow, Director of Finance for the City of Philadelphia. We had been talking that afternoon (more on that later).

I don't think City Hall phone numbers get text messages. But if they do, sorry Rob. Don't get the wrong idea.

From today's Daily News, Michael Smerconish pontificates on how the kids aren't going on dates anymore, bemoans how no one "goes steady," and wonders if Facebook, texting and and IMs have thwarted proper courtship. Yes, he does take the POV that women are not pleased with technologies that make it easy for men to be less communicative, and that's, y'know, a progressive stance for Smerc, thinking of the ladies and all. But he inevitably comes off sounding a bit Andy Rooney-esque... if you can get past the lede which immediately makes you picture Michael Smerconish getting laid.

Running Press, 480 pp., $14.95

Today is December 18 (happy birthday, Grandma!), which means Christmas is exactly one week away. Fuck.

You may remember our Holiday Gift Guide, where we wisely warned you — weeks ago, even! — to get your ass in gear and buy awesome, cheap presents for your loved ones. Polaroid-loving intern Dianca Potts compiled an excellent list of books to give to all your literate friends and family members, The Best of Sexology included:

The Best of Sexology dives headfirst into articles on hush-hushed fetishes, oddities and sexual rituals of the 1930s. From "Humans with Tails" to the mysteries of phantom pregnancy, Sexology reminds us that sex is, and always has been, alive, well and hella kinky.

In the spirit of Christmas, we're giving away a copy to the first Clog reader who can correctly answer these seven YES OR NO questions in Sexology's "What is your Sex Quotient?" quiz. E-mail your answers right quick to carolyn.huckabay@citypaper.net for a chance to win. (DO NOT LEAVE THE ANSWERS AS A COMMENT.)

Ready?

1. Does breast feeding cause cancer of the breast?

2. Can a man with one testicle be fertile?

3. Does variety in sexual relations heighten sex stimulation?

4. Are birth control measures needed several years after a woman has reached the menopause?

5. Are aphrodisiacs recommended in cases of lack of sex desire in females?

6. Is curvature of the male genital organ to the side unusual?

7. Could a male with a short organ have satisfactory marital relations?

After the first Philly DJ Day several months ago, lots of unofficial photos with the faces of Cash Money, Jazzy Jeff, ?uestlove, and many more past and present turntable junkies have been floating around the web. But tonight photographer and co-organizer Jonene Taddei will make it official.

On Nov. 14, she, along with friend and fellow photo phenom Snapkracker, were set to display some of their work at the Arts Garage. Surprisingly (not really), the Arts Garage got shut down that week (again). So Taddei scrambled for another venue and another date.

Tonight from 8 to 10 p.m. at Q-Ba (1176 N. Third St., Third and Girard), her Philly DJ Day pics, as well as some other shots she's taken around the musical world, will be on exhibit for all to see. Snapkracker will also be showcasing his pictures of local personalities.

If you're feeling inspired to shake your ass after seeing all the fly DJs featured (more than 200 were captured that day), stay a little later (9 p.m.-2 a.m.) and get down, get down to the sounds of Brendan BringEm. Cover is $5.

Official flyer after the jump.

Click For More »

Photo by Michael T. Regan

Our buddy Brian is going to be making the trip today from the Trauma stepdown unit of Cooper Hospital to Magee Rehab in Center City. This is good news both in terms of Brian's impressive recovery (he's been communicating a bit with an alphabet chart) and for his wife, Angie, who's been having to make constant hauls from their home in East Falls to Camden for what were limited visiting hours at Cooper. Keep it up, Bri.

We previewed Cansei de Ser Sexy's Friday night TLA gig in this week's music section. Now comes this note from Dave P:

THE MAKING TIME $2 BILL HOLIDAY FREAKOUT!!! FRIDAY DECEMBER 19th, 2008

AND TO MAKE THIS HOLIDAY PARTY THE RADDEST HOLIDAY PARTY EVER WE HAVE ADDED VERY SPECIAL LIVE GUESTS....CSS

YES!!! CSS has decided to move their show from the TLA this Friday so that they can play the Making Time $2 Bill Holiday Freakout. This Holiday party will surely be a total RAGER!!! And YES!!! It's still just $2!!!

9pm-3:30am @ Transit (600 Spring Garden St.)

Rest of the latest Making Time lineup after the jump.

Click For More »

This is a really interesting story, by Dana DiFillipo, in the Daily News. Police pursuits (like, when a police officer chases a fleeing suspect) apparently often do more harm than good, in terms of causing traffic accidents vs. apprehending criminals who, in many cases, aren't wanted for serious crimes. Check out the back-and-forth. Writes DiFillipo:

Nationally, an average of a person a day — 368 last year — dies of injuries suffered in police pursuits, according to the federal Fatal Analysis Reporting System. The advocacy group Pursuit Watch.org estimates that 4,000 people are injured annually in police pursuits.

However, police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore argues that there's a preventative rationale for chasing suspects:

"If people run and we just let them go, nobody's going to stop for us," Vanore said.

DiFillipo quotes an expert who calls this a "myth":

"Police say: 'If we don't chase, everybody's going to run.' That's just not true. Most people do stop," said Geoffrey Alpert, a criminal-justice professor at the University of South Carolina who co-authored the book "Pursuit Driving: What We Know."

To me, this sounds a little wide-eyed: Isn't it possible most people stop because they know the police will chase them? Still, there's a pretty persuasive case to be made here that police, in Philly in particular, chase suspects too often, given the respective damage done by, say, someone having drugs in a car, and a serious motor vehicle accident.

This one's got a lot of good anecdotes and numbers, so I'll link again.

But he also mighta had a few drinks. He's not making a ton of sense, except he totally is. Topics discussed:

• How quickly 500 tables can get their orders of hot wings.
• How Philadelphians need to stick together.
• Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Gilly.
• How nobody has a good situation.

 

Because the next man on the moon will be Chinese.

Hop on the R5 tonight for a screening of homegrown filmmaker Dave Herman's 9/11 conspiracy flick Able Danger. Here's the plot from the Village Voice's review of Herman's flick, which came out in September in NYC but hasn't had a wide release:

Thomas Flynn (Adam Nee) runs the Vox Pop café in deepest hipster Brooklyn, and either too much coffee or too few customers have led him to pen a book claiming that Mohamed Atta was a government patsy. The publicity for his book draws in a mysterious Eurobabe (Elina Löwensohn) who claims she has proof of CIA involvement in 9/11. Bodies begin dropping around her almost immediately—the first being that of Thomas's friend—and a torrent of G-men, Germans, Arabs, Tasers, text messages, tech nerds, and messenger bags is unleashed.

Herman will be on hand to introduce and discuss the film. Check out the trailer below:

Able Danger, Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898

The MGM Store has put their line of official Rocky robes on sale, so you too can emulate the fashion sense of neanderthalish Kensington boxer. It's a Christmas miracle! My personal fave is the Rocky iV Red White Blue Robe (pictured). (The site says it's the ring robe that both Apollo and Rocky wore before fighting ultimate-commie-turned-champion-of-capitalism Ivan Drago, but they really just wear the same awesome America, Fuck Yeah!-themed shorts. Pish.)

In short, please buy me this.

 

h/t Cinematical

This week, the Soul-Searing Spotlight of Shame falls on Heath and Deborah Campbell of Holland Township, PA. Not so much for their decision to purchase their son’s birthday cake from ShopRite (is their any thought more appetizing than that of a ShopRite cake?), and not so much for their anger at the staff of their local ShopRite’s pastry department for refusing to write the name of the Campbell’s three-year-old son on the on the cake. No, the Campbell’s find themselves seated side by side on the Love Seat of Dumb for their decision to name their son... …wait for it… …Adolf Hitler Campbell. Fortunately (or not), a nearby Wal-Mart was kind enough to inscribe little Adolf’s name on the cake. The Campbell’s also have two other children, JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell, and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell (the jury is still out on whether or not this name is a tribute to Heinrich Himmler), which forces us all to ponder what names Heath and Deborah rejected.

[Insert "Jet Li's balls!" joke here]

I've got a deluxe copy of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which came out DVD yesterday, as well as a pictorial moviebook from the production, burning holes in my sarcophagus. (Mummy scholars such as myself technically refer to this third installment as "the one with the Asians.")

You want them? All you have to do is be the first person to e-mail drew.lazor@citypaper.net with the correct answers to the following trivia questions (DO NOT LEAVE THE ANSWERS AS A COMMENT):

1.What is the name of Jet Li's love interest in the 1991 classic Once Upon a Time in China?

2. Encino Man — the greatest Brendan Fraser movie to date — featured a performance from a now-defunct '90s band that contained members of Suicidal Tendencies, Jane's Addiction and Metallica. Name that band!

3. Mummy star/Philly native Maria Bello is BFFs with which actress, an object of intense nerd lust?

Good luck!

UPDATE [1:39 p.m.]: Congrats to our winner, Clog reader Adrienne. Read the answers after the jump.

Click For More »

Mark B. Cohen

Yeah, I haven't had any time to interrogate this, figure out if it's possible, etc., but State Representative Mark B. Cohen has just put up a blog post over at Young Philly Politics claiming that the city's budget projections just got a whole lot better:

For the first five months of the current fiscal year, buoyed by a strong showing in November, wage tax revenues are $24,404,000 OVER projections. Assuming the $4,881,000 per month surplus over expectations continues through the remaining seven months of the fiscal year, the city would wind up with a $58,571,000 surplus above expectations in wage tax revenue for the fiscal year.

Cohen's theory:

Many people are so consumed by economic anxiety that they are accepting all overtime offered and accepting job offers they previously would have rejected.

Either this is big news or a State Rep. has some basic fiscal misunderstandings, which is smaller news, but news still.

Also: Check out Isaiah Thompson's audio interview with Cohen from last week.

Film archivists behind the worldwide-celebrated Home Movie Day and the dedicated folks over at the Philadelphia Independent Film and Video Association (PIFVA) are teaming up for a holiday film fest, with some mixing, mingling and even a little karaoke.

"We’re featuring artist/VJ Rich Wexler, aka Large Marge, who since 2000 has been using avant-garde footage, commercials, stop-motion animation, '70s and '80s videos, found films, old slides [and] manipulated Super 8 film that he has colored, bleached and scratched," says Caroline Savage, experimental filmmaker and PIFVA development consultant.

This is where you come in: Bring in your old home movies (Super 8, Regular 8, 16 mm and DVD), at no more than 5 minutes long, and Large Marge will help you add your own live sound and/or narration. Improvisation is highly encouraged: "It allows for a spontaneous live experience that does not happen in front of the TV or at a programmed screening,” says Savage. "It leaves room for personal involvement and adds an element of surprise. Everyone becomes a curator.”

But it's not just about rehashing the old — the Movie Mash-Up and Holiday Party just might inspire. "The idea of this kind of presentation form opens the door for a new way to see and hear, beyond the ordinary or usual way," says Savage. "Everyone becomes a part of the story."

---

Movie Mash-Up and Holiday Party with PIFVA & Home Movie Day | Wed., Dec. 17, 6:30 p.m.-mid., $5 (free admission with a home movie to share), Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford Ave., 215-382-2579, pifva.org