September 2006 Archives

OUTLINED AGAINST against a cloud blue Septemeber sky, the high-iron carpenters pour concrete into one of the wooden molds that form the upper floors of the Academy House apartments and condominiums at Broad and Pine Streets. I've been watching these guys build this project for almost a year and I've gotten to know a few of them when they stop at Dirty Frank's for a beer after work. They've been in a sour mood of late. Two weeks ago one of their younger union members died when he fell six floors and was impaled on a steel rod.

THIS IS THE S.S. UNITED STATES, the fastest luxury liner ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, wresting that title from the Queen Mary in 1952 when the United States sped from England to America in less than three-and-a-half days what was advertised as "a long weekend to Europe". For more than a decade this famous ship has been rusting quietly on a pier along the Delaware River in South Philadelphia.

WHAT CAN I SAY? I see things I find interesting as I drive or walk around town and I take a picture. This one, for instance, I saw during a rare walk across the University Avenue Bridge toward Grays Ferry Avenue where my car was being repaired. I've seen the billboard many times, but there is something about razor wire that makes a simple statement seem, I don't know, cutting

NEITHER RAIN NOR SLEET nor gloom of night shall stop smokers from getting their fix o' nic, so what do you think is going to stop cigarette smokers on a picture perfect fall day? Monday was the first day of the city's ban on smoking in bars, and patrons at Dirty Frank's in Center City complied with the new regulations by stepping outside and blowing smoke on innocent passersby. The cloud of smoke from Peter Hurd's lungs almost matches the white blossom tree scene on the mural behind him at 13th and Pine.

LET'S RECAP, SHALL WE. Last week three world leaders took the podium of the United Nations General Assembly: One called the president of the United States "el diablo" and said the smell of sulfur still lingered in the air. Another, who had called for the extermination of Israel, asked the UN to support his nation's efforts to become a nuclear power -- and trust him he won't use it to develop weapons grade uranium to exterminate Israel. The third world leader to address the assembled nations had just made a speech to his homeland asking citizens to support his efforts to legalize torture.

THIS IS OUR CITY at dawn on the day before autumn. The view of Center City if from Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park. I've always thought that this view is the epitome the success of William Penn's pledge to make his holy experiment, his new city of Philadelphia, a "green countrie towne."

OK, OK, SO I DON'T know marketing. So I don't have an MBA from Wharton. What I do know is that I went to my local CVS drugstore at 43rd and Locust Sts. in West Philadelphia looking for Tums. I went to the aisle I usually go to, but it was all different. I looked at the overhead signs identifying what you can find on each side of each aisle, and everything had been changed.

BEFORE BLING, before shizzle, even before jiggy, there was a hip urban code word that enjoyed its 15 minutes of cultural fame -- boss. Boss meant bad or dope or def or stupid or whatever means cool in any given decade. And in Philadelphia during the 1960's nobody was hipper, tighter, downer or dopier than the "boss jocks" of "Famous 56 WFIL" Despite sounding like a cruel clique of high school athletes, the boss jocks were actually deejays -- disc jockeys -- on Philadelphia's 50,000-watt powerhouse AM music radio station that burst (literally) on the scene in 1966 billing itself as "The Pop Explosion." And what a bang the boss jocks made, blowing away the still legendary and then-top-rated Wibbage (WIBG-AM) in a single ratings period. Of course, it didn't hurt that WFIL leaped out of the box with music, music, music and no commercials for the first two months.

EXCUSE ME while I pull this big samurai sword out of my guts. The Eagles just lost a game in a way I've never seen them lose before. And I've seen them lose in ways that are hard to make up. They were on cruise control looking as dominant and competent as I've ever seen an Eagles team look. Up 24-7 over the feckless Giants going into the fourth quarter in a game where the Eagles defense sacked the opposing quarterback eight times, seemingly at will.

BRANDYWINE RUGBY CLUB was in the middle of season-opening 50-0 romp over Philadelphia-Whitemarsh Rugby when a bad day turned worse for the home side. P-W's Mike Kelly went down and stayed down early in the second half at Memorial Hall field in Fairmount Park. I didn't see the hit, but apparently Kelly was injured trying to block a Brandywine kick near midfield. He laid on his back not moving.

IS IT WET? Is it Saturday? Is it rugby season? It looks like we're in for the trifecta.

SING HALLELUJAH, Come On, get happy.. Sonny Tufts left Philadelphia alive and carrying his own bags. I'm not saying the man's got baggage. I'm just saying I saw Sonny carrying his own bags. And he looked great.

MEET MARLO. . . THE NEW LORD OF BALTIMORE

What a fine piece of work that first episode of the new HBO season of The Wire was Sunday night. From the first scene with the girl (I thought it was a young boy, but my wife said, "That's a girl" and, indeed, in the last scene I saw that it was, in fact, a girl) handing the Home Depot guy $800 for "selling the shit" out of a nail gun that the salesman called "the Cadillac" of large caliber, semi-automatic nail guns -- I knew that the show had taken a sharp turn, as it often has, toward the truth. Or reality. Or reality seeking the truth.

Five years ago today was a Tuesday. Remember how impossibly blue the sky was? If there is such a thing as a perfect fall day, Sept. 11, 2001 was one. I knew that that week would be momentous for me personally. I was scheduled for surgery that Thursday at Pennsylvania Hospital. After years of grunting and bearing it, I was about to have both my knees replaced. All those years of late nights and rugby matches had finally caught up to me. My father had warned me years before, "You keep playing that game and you'll be on crutches by the time you're 50." He wasn't off by much. My knees hurt so much that only my pride prevented me from riding around in a Rascal like those peppy old folks on TV commercials. So I guess you could say I was preoccupied with my own two legs when the Twin Towers fell.

AMONG THE THOUSANDS who crammed into the green leafy area on the north side of the front steps of the Art Museum Friday evening, dodging rush hour traffic to see and hear Sylvester Stallone speak at the unveiling of the Rocky statue, I must have heard five foreign langages spoken by those who eagerly sought to get a glimpse.

Kids on their way to the Washington Elementary School at 44th and Aspen Sts. in West Philadelphia passed this boarded up block on June Street near Brown on their first day of school. The spray painted grafitti message is recent, just in time for the new school year. These three hateful syllables may be the first words some of the younger kids from the neighborhood learn to read.

DURING THE SAME holiday weekend we heard the news that Steve Irwin, the famous TV crocodile hunter, got stung in the heart by a sting ray and died in the waters off Australia's Great Barrier Reef, we also heard the news that six children had died in a Chicago house fire on Saturday night.

After watching the debate on Meet the Press Sunday morning between Rick Santorum and his Democratic rival for the United States Senate, I'm convinced that whatever smegma-like substance Santorum's name is supposed to be synonymous with, Bob Casey Jr. proved himself to be a brand name cure for insomnia: Casey-Doze.

AMONG THE MANY kind and thoughtful letters and emails I have received since my brother Bill's death, I received one from Mike McCardell, older brother of Mary Lou, who was Sara's maid of honor at our wedding 35 years ago. Mike wrote:

WHY DO WE CARE? That is the question? 'Tis not about outrageous fortune, or slings and arrows. It's about the Phillies. Our Phillies. Our team.

Alas, poor Yorick. I know them well. And they have cut out my heart and stomped on it so many times, I scant believe I have a heart left. What should be a flat spent bladder of blood still beats. And yet why? How?