Philly POV

You know the concept of local has penetrated the Philadelphia...

Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:57:00 -0400

You know the concept of local has penetrated the Philadelphia zeitgeist when this happens, a local sweetened veal stick. It was ground just a hop and a skip from here, blended lip-sweet, then smoke-dried into a tender and engaging meat snack. The final product is individually wrapped by hand for elegance of presentation and an authentic, locally crafted feel. Available now at your convenience store checkout.

Some time back my headphones busted and I needed a new pair. My...

Mon, 03 Oct 2011 20:00:00 -0400

Some time back my headphones busted and I needed a new pair. My flight was leaving in mere hours and I was left with the choice of going bare or breaking every personal rule and buying from Radio Shack.

So I broke my rules, but also my ear drums, because according to the research and development team at Radio Shack, the human ear canal is shaped like a giant round coin (or maybe a marble) requiring an ear bud similarly giant and round. It featured a slicing sharp plastic-y edge where the mold should have sealed in the bubbling plastic, but did not. P.S. I completed my air journey without being able to listen to my Britney Spears collection because it was literally too painful to do so, and that’s saying a lot.

Now if you asked me, what’s the oenological equivalent of Radio Shack? (Comes up all the time) I would without skipping a beat shine an exacting and unsentimental light on our state liquor stores. Technically they carry wine, but if you’ve ever tried to drink any of it, you’re bound to Bonnie Bell yourself into a flavor situation like our wine label above:

Two Vines Merlot features aromas of cola, cream soda and caramel leading into expressions of vanilla and strawberry jam on the smooth palate. Flavors of spice round out the silky finish.

As the label makes clear it’s a product of Washington state. We can claim no role in its production. But perhaps in its inception? Because while I have yet to see this particular configuration anywhere in the Pacific Northwest, it and similar fare seem to have a comfortable, rooted hold here in PA.

The label wraps with this summation: “Complex without being complicated.” You might even say that describes the Philly esprit de corps as well. For Monday, October 3, that’s the Philly POV.

The Pain Center. It even looks painful. The font alone is...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 20:45:52 -0400

The Pain Center. It even looks painful. The font alone is excruciating. Perhaps you go there to receive pain? After you …

30th Street Station. Gateway to the City of Brotherly Love. If...

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:22:00 -0400

30th Street Station. Gateway to the City of Brotherly Love. If you smell something stinking. As part of your warm welcome to the City of Ill-adelphia (spelling theirs), you get all this. High fashion, people-positive messaging, sensible nutrition and dazzling retail design, offered in a clean, inviting setting, with busker-sellers who catcall and harass with the volume, presumptuousness, passion and tone-deaf relentlessness of the feistiest Watchtower worker blended with the hungriest Hollywood paparrazi. It’s our very best foot forward, all nestled against concrete the color of reflected dirt and a generous length of busted prison fence. Enjoy your stay.

Submitted without commnet.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:04:04 -0400

Submitted without commnet.

Make no mistake. Philadelphians are serious about their pork....

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 23:49:13 -0400

Make no mistake. Philadelphians are serious about their pork. Hence this visual at today’s local sandwich joint. Note the ominous tones. The deep fried panic in those baked charcoal eyes. This little piggy did not go down without a fight. Now perhaps if it knew its final destination, it would have seen things from our point of view and let up a little. To wit: a piping hot cheesesteak tucked into Sarcone’s sesame, lathered with peanut butter, bacon, and garlicky sriracha. Wash that mess down with a Triaminic cherry soda and you’ll go wee wee wee, all the way home.

I’d been doing side work for someone the past several days...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 00:07:00 -0400

I’d been doing side work for someone the past several days whose ass persona had the power to drain the color out of beautiful and bring unhappiness and pain to all in their wake.

So initially when I found myself with actual ass pain I wrote it off as nothing more than a bad contact high. It too shall pass! I hoped, though as I was reminded, hope alone rarely cures anything. (See: current presidency.)

Several nights running the seconds became minutes, then hours, with me wide awake in bed straining for comfort against this growing … force between my thighs. I threw my legs straight in the air, then reorganized into loose scissors, probably did something called a reverse cowboy and whatever else one does at midnight when overheated, alone, and armed with a three-set of oversized purple linen pillows.

Nothing stamped the pain out. Not ibuprofen, not teasing open the freezer and eating the special occasion dessert spares. So I phoned a friend, a doctor, who said she felt pretty sure that whatever it was, it probably wasn’t the prolapse of my feminine sleeve, which was somewhat relieving.

Doctor friend number two, having the advantage of being local, very generously offered to come over and get all Murder She Wrote excavation with mirrors, lights and a show, and of course I said thank you but Please God, No. How do you go out for dessert with your friend after that? You and he, teaspoons primed, opposite ends of a melting brownie sundae. Too much downside.

Fortunately he got me into a clinic and next day I went. It was not an easy trip over there. I was breaking into sweats and chills and my walk was just a shuffle. Also I could not sit down. I managed to greet the fresh-faced medical student handling my case (Hi, Justin!) ass first. I can only hope this did not make me appear cheap or easy.

He popped onto a low swivel chair and began taking my medical history. Each answer I gave was earnestly keyed into the dumb terminal. With every item answered I felt somehow more accomplished, if not healed, and maybe almost cooler, because here we were all getting on and I was doing so well. Just two handsome guys having a friendly chat, me with a choice of hospital gowns. And then, he popped the question:

“Any sexual activity?”

You’d think this might be one of those times you’re relieved that the truth is no. “You mean this Tuskegee Experiment? Absolutely not. I’m a lady!” Or however it might come out, but I would have at least liked the option to pin it on something other than a gathering of cobwebs and the passage of time.

“None,” I said.

I’m not even sure that was a valid answer for the system because it took him an extra second to key it in and move to the next item.

After getting amazing care (thank you to an incredible Jefferson doctor. If you’re reading this, you know who you are) I was sent off to treat an abscess the size of Gibraltar with a medical cocktail potent enough to knock out an elephant and blow a hole to China all in one breath.

Then there were the … other items on my shopping list. Always Maxi pads (heavy flow, no wings.) And a donut.

Not a delicious baked donut, sugar, cinnamon, jellied or creamed. Rather an inflatable donut-shaped cushion you put in the bathtub when your ass is no longer a commodity, it’s a project, and it has to sit there (sitz there?) while the warm water whirls around and does what it likes to do.

In childhood I loved my big red India rubber ball. And now I was to be reunited with the very same item that brought so much joy, just reshaped into something saggier and flatter.

I thought I’d missed the medical supply store when overhead I spotted a most Philly piece of graffiti, and that’s what you’re seeing in the photo now. A spray-painted line drawing of a wheelchair. Further described by a talk bubble that says WHEEL CHAIRS.

This is not the graffiti of pain and redemption. It doesn’t acknowledge and it doesn’t heal. It doesn’t convey anything at all. It simply announces what’s there.

For Sunday, Sept. 11, that’s the Philly POV.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 21:51:31 -0400

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.:

“Three girls and nine boys ages 12 to 17 surrounded an 81-year-old at 9 p.m., punched and kicked the senior until he fell to the ground.”

As our newspapers attest: Philly is never one to back down from...

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:55:23 -0400

As our newspapers attest: Philly is never one to back down from a fight.

Today, from the brilliant merchandisers at Rite Aid. What...

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:47:00 -0400

Today, from the brilliant merchandisers at Rite Aid. What everyone shops for in a hurricane.

Emergency Preparedness, Irene-Style

Fri, 26 Aug 2011 22:24:08 -0400

Irene’s a-coming and she’s looking to tear it up. The responsible thing to do would be to check your disaster supplies and replenish as needed. You know, things such as: food, water, extra batteries, an emergency blanket, toiletries, and something they call (without further description) a “multipurpose tool.”

Taking this list as inspiration this evening I threw myself headlong into the shopping fray.

Giving the appearance of a regular Friday in the former Soviet Union, supermarket shelves were bare of bread — completely.

No one had batteries save the teensy type for teeny-tiny electronics so small they’re yet to be invented but when they arrive we’ll be ready to power them.

As shelf after supermarket shelf cleared itself of increasingly questionable necessities I encountered several huffy shoppers who loudly exclaimed their discontent with the state of their lack.

Think about it, we’re expecting to face a significant scare, our friends and families nearby are evacuating for plains unknown, and at the Whole Foods these are but two of the most pressing concerns:

At the coffee bar: ”Excuse me, (clerk), you appear to be out of decaf.”

At the chip aisle: “So annoying. All they have is multigrain.”

Meantime, knowing that my windows could collapse inward, my electricity could vanish, and my water supply could be tainted, and bearing in mind the mantra “easy to prepare foods”, I walked away with four bags of the following “necessities”:

One (1) container Queso Chip Dip

Three (3) slices pepperoni pizza

Two (2) pints Ben & Jerry’s ice cream

One (1) sack raw potatoes

One (1) container vegan hot and sour soup ?!

Six (6) cans unsweetened coconut juice (GROSS and $10)

One (1) package Organic Chocolate Chip Cookies

One (1) container Milk Choc Malted Balls

One (1) small jar taramosalata

Two (2) wedges Grilled Sesame Tofu

One (1) pound raw ground lamb

One (1) pound Emmentaler cheese

One (1) giant, wet yellow onion

One (1) Cut Fresh In House! “Orange Cup”

Twelve (12) vegetarian fried mini egg rolls

One (1) container prepared vegetable medley

And …

One (1) entire chocolate buttercream birthday cake

This constitutes the most asinine shopping bounty ever. I swear the scarcity mentality made me do it. I’m most perplexed by the cake purchase. No one I know is having a birthday.

Unless it’s for Irene.

Where flowers come from. Roxborough, Philadelphia.

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 07:18:51 -0400

Where flowers come from. Roxborough, Philadelphia.

I could fill the entire internet with all the ways I love Philly...

Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:00:05 -0400

I could fill the entire internet with all the ways I love Philly but this is just one post so I’ll keep it to one topic.

And that topic is “keeping it real.”

Here I am walking down some Wash West street with a Twenty-Naughties sense of self when a local shop window takes my image of now and hurls back an entirely different and earlier calendar era.

What drives this window choice? Irony? Nostalgia?

A time warp. Perhaps this 1990 snapshot is not a snapshot at all but instead a living, breathing picture of Philly gay today.

Based on current styles these dolls are bonafide ridiculous. But back in the day they were absolute must-haves, gay Ken dolls, and they were a declaration of pride. Our moussed pomps, scooped necklines, and bodacious bulges were our idealized selves, poured hairlessly smooth into the literal mainstream mold. Assimilation achieved. We’d arrived.

Now it’s 20+ years later. Gays don’t just pose mainstream. We ARE mainstream. And while times certainly have changed, here we are, standing in front of some contemporary upscale hair salon, where the product they sell is the future. Yet THIS krazy throwback is the picture Philly wants you to see.

It’s almost as if Philly says, change all you like, but you are who you are.

Gandhi says, “Be the change.” Philly replies, “Change is vanity.”

For Thursday, Aug 18th, that’s the Philly POV.

Now normally I’m not one to look upon the city’s...

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 09:27:00 -0400

Now normally I’m not one to look upon the city’s injustices to kick, gripe and moan, That Outta Be Illegal! or That’s Just Not Right. (As Perez Hilton brilliantly advises: Think it, don’t say it.) But today I’m breaking rank with my shut mouth because there’s a trend out there and it needs to be put to a cold, hard stop.

The trend of outdoor soft sculpture.

Most recently seen choking out a tree outside Philly AIDS Thrift, we’ve got an entire universe of misfit toys attached uncomfortably and unwillingly to branch and bark. Not only ugly and wrong, it’s also saggy, smelly and gross with the recent heavy rains.

I can already imagine what’s next. Importing the art of yarn bombing via Portland, then Brooklyn. All the chain link fence and razor wire lining our many barren lots and stretches of empty: gaily decorated in a poly-cotton blend of rust reds, burnt oranges, faded ochres, yarny glitter and old gold.

Mix in dirt and rain and a complete lack of biodegradability and there you have it: a new layer of neglect and ruin.

As a POV though it’s funny to note:

In Portland this would be an exercise in aesthetic wonder, a sort of Amelie
In NYC it would need to “mean something”
In Philly, it would just be some stuffed animals in a tree.

Philly doesn’t represent, signify or mean. It’s not the game we play. We embrace the absolutely literal. Black or white. My way or no way.

Whenever a Philly friend of mine hears the phrase “it is what it is,” he will comment: “Is it ever what it’s not?

For Weds, August 17th, that’s the Philly POV.

When you think of live music you think energy excitement...

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:39:00 -0400

When you think of live music you think energy excitement originality passion or at least some of that. The one thing you probably don’t think about is musack.

Here’s the test: try to visualize a live musack band. Who’s in it, what are the instruments and WHAT’S GOING ON? I know, it’s impossible.

So it baffles and amazes that live musack bands even exist. But they do. Last year I encountered one at the Farmers’ Market in Collingswood and another this past weekend at Rittenhouse Square.

They were different bands so that means there are at least two.

Relatedly amazing is how they don’t just phone it in. These musicians (musackans?) are busting a nut really feeling the vibe of their tunes. It’s equal parts awkward and magical and if you don’t know what I mean by that just look at this photo, and realize they’re playing THIS.

On occasion I remember there’s this thing called...

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 23:46:00 -0400

On occasion I remember there’s this thing called “going out” and so I do. While out invariably I’m confronted by a countervailing force called “freaking out” and then I remember why nights on the town happen as infrequently as they do.

Take for instance the other evening. I’m in a bar painted 12 shades of dark dirt with a few Christmas lights as a touch of unrefreshing rainbow dazzle.

I’m tending a wet bottle of beer and shunting between a grab bag of haunted faces, drawn shadow, and the inevitable brush with a stray forearm or heated body hair. Up the dark reaches I climb to the next floor, the very creaky-stair-top of Meth Mountain, and then! In a corner! Wild eyed and insane! The pure grotesquery that is the image I present to you today.

I don’t know what it is, how it is, or why it is. Question me not. I just document and share.

If you’re in the suburbs, stay in the suburbs. If you’re in the country, shack up with a church mouse or watch the wind blow.

For the rest of us, though, we People of The City … oh, you know what I’m going to say.

Perhaps it will do nothing for you but this Rittenhouse visual...

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:00:05 -0400

Perhaps it will do nothing for you but this Rittenhouse visual stopped me dead in my tracks.

It’s as if you were to make a quilt in some quilting class and the assignment was, replicate Philadelphia. Find some fabric and get to work.

Here are the literal scraps. You’ve got:

* A row of lean-to trinities

* A facing wall of non-windows

* Eleventeen types of street surfacing, each maintained by a different faction

* Weeds-as-greenery

* Plastic chairs, curbside, which absolutely get used

* An institutional giant dead-ending the scene through inert giantness.

And yet if you look closely, it’s not completely disparate. Something about the cube-y pattern everywhere … it all ties together.

It’s a “don’t bother me/we won’t bother you” co-existence, the kind of thing at which Philly excels.

London + Guns = Philadelphia

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:57:00 -0400

London + Guns = Philadelphia:

Philly.com: “32 people shot in 3 days of Philly violence” … and all the news links that flow from there.

Perhaps an entry for Armistead Maupin’s never-to-be-released...

Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:08:39 -0400

Perhaps an entry for Armistead Maupin’s never-to-be-released “Even MORE Tales of the City,” this tall tale (long tale?) is the thing of urban legend — nothing more, nothing less. Unless when it is less. As in, a lot less.

Let’s save those woes for another day ….

Photo

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:00:06 -0400