You know what scares me? The last scene in The Night of the Living Dead. There's something about meathooks, especially meathooks carrying the carcass of the hero who gets thrown on a bonfire of zombie corpses like tossing another shrimp on the barbie.
THIS WAS THE VIEW of the sky shortly after dawn Friday morning right where the Blue Route meets the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Plymouth Meeting. True to the old nautical saying, this red sky was soon followed by clouds, rain and high winds that lashed the area all night Friday and Saturday morning.
IN YESTERDAYS COLUMN about Bobby Clarke, which will appear tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 27) on the Inquirer's op-ed page, I ended with the words "it made me believe I saw evidence of that missing angel in every happy, scarred and painted face I saw." This is what I was talking about. That's Bobby Clarke on the left, smiling at the reception he received from members of the James "Froggy" Carr comic brigade of the mummers parade when Clarke walked into Dirty Frank's bar on New Year's Day 2005.
THE FIRST TIME I met Bob Clarke, I didn't know who he was, but I couldn't take my eyes off him. He looked like an angel, an honest-to-God "Gloria in excelsis Deo" angel, his exquisitly calm beatific face framed by a natural halo of soft golden brown curls that gently flew backwards against his shoulders as he skated over to where I stood along the boards of an ice skating rink in Radnor Township.
THIS MUST BE WHAT RADIO was like in the olden days. . . .Charles Mingus, The Yardbirds, Captain Beefheart, Sir Douglas Quintet. . .For the last two weeks WXPN (88.5-FM) has been broadcasting its 885 Greatest Artists Countdown starting at Number 885 with Billy Idol singing "Rebel Yell" on Monday, Oct. 9 and picking up today from where it ended yesterday at Number 71 with The Police singing "Roxanne." "Message in a Bottle," and "King of Pain." . . .Buckwheat Zydeco, Animal Liberation Orchestra, Jesse Colin Young, Notorious B.I.G., Luciano Pavorotti. . .In between were some of the greatest, oddest, predictable, fantastic, quirky, un-freakin' believable combinations of performers and types of music selected by 'XPN listeners. . . .Mahalia Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, The Kingston Trio, The Ventures, John Phillip Sousa, Gnarls Barkley, The Lovin' Spoonful. . .
TALK ABOUT A TOUGH CROWD, the band Himalaya looks like it's about to be devoured by inflatable Tyranosaurus-Barneys during Saturday's Friends of Clark Park Volunteer Picnic and Celebration (and to think that this West Philly open air concert used to operate under annual titles like "Feast of the Drooling Love Dog.") Despite corporate sponsorship and three enormous -- 35 foot, 30 foot, and 25 foot father-son-holy-ghost dinosaurs -- and eight musical acts that performed from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m., the numbers of the audience at Clark Park barely exceeded that of daily dog walkers.
SOME TOUGH GUYS wear their love for their children on their sleeves. Some guys wear their love on their shoulder. James "Jimmy Doc" Dougherty of Fairmount is one of love lucky fathers to have a daughter named Molly (We few. We happy few. . .) and he showed me the special place Molly occupies not far from his heart.
GENTLEMEN, START YOUR windshield wipers. Weather-wise, this has been a Good Cop-Bad Cop week. Soaking rain one day, sunny and seventy the next. We haven't had an extended period of what I consider to be glorious October autumn days -- sweater weather under brilliant sunshine. So far the trees seem to be changing from green straight to brown. I'm waiting for the big Ka-BOOM of color. It'll happen. But not today.
THE LAST TIME the Phillies played in the World Series in October 1993 a blimp flew over Center City on a particularly colorful sunset. Back then, I thought I'd see skies as beautuful as this this as frequently as I'd see the Phillies in the championship game. Unfortunately, I was right. I haven't seen either since.
TWO OF THE national Democratic Party's brightest stars -- one rising, one a supernova -- came to Philadelphia last week to help a local congressman win his seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of the city of Philadelphia west of Broad Street, plus Cheltenham Township.
"HOW DO YOU CATCH A MONKEY?" asked Shaka, the great Zulu chief of South Africa to a British emissary in the early 1820's. It was a rhetorical question, and the Englishman answered correctly. "You take a gourd and secure it to a tree," he began. "The mouth of the goUrd should only be wide enough for the monkey's hand to fit through. Then you put something shiney inside the gourd, such as a seashell, something that will attract the monkey's attention. When the monkey reaches inside the gourd his hand becomes stuck because he won't let go of the shell." Shaka smiles and asks, "And why won't the monkey let go of the shell, even if it means he will be captured." The Englishman ponders the simian psychology for a moment, and then replies, "Well, I suppose it's because he's greedy."
AND WHAT IT LOOKS like is either Saturday night in a bathhouse off Spruce Street or an evenly contested lineout in a college rugby match between Kutztown University (in white) and host West Chester University rugby clubs Saturday afternoon. It would be as unfair to describe this photo as a bunch of young guys reaching for other young guys' private parts, as it would be to describe this match as "evenly contested."
I'M A PHILLY GUY. I like what I like and I can tell you why. To me this glass tower in West Philly is the best thing to happen to this city's skyline since Williiam Penn. If you look closely, you can see a heavenly Abraham Lincoln reflected on the glass on the western face of the CIra Centre shining above the darkness of 30th Street Station.
MAN AT WORK atop Symphony House at Broad and Pine.
FACE IT, WE LIVE in a beautiful city. A city where sometimes you can't see the skyline for the trees. This east-facing view of Center City was photographed from Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park Monday morning.
I'M SORRY but this picture of sadness makes me very happy. Very happy indeed. These are the faces of two Dallas fans at the Linc on Sunday late in the fourth quarter while the Eagles were driving the last nail into America's Team and T.O., America's Egotist, 38-24.. Two days later it still feels grand.
HERE'S A QUESTION for conservative Catholics followed by a question for conservative Republicans. For the Catholics: If the Pope decides that babies who die unbaptized do, indeed, go to heaven instead of limbo, do their souls go to heaven after the Pope signs the new church policy, or have they been in heaven all along?
WELCOME TO T.O. SUNDAY and boy did the crowds turn out for the free beer (yes, you heard that right!) and free popcorn that the Fox NFL pregame show provided for Eagles fans outside the Linc before today's Eagles-Cowboys game. The 4:15 p.m. start almost guarantees that the 700 level faithful will be a staggering mob by game time.
YOU CAN'T SAY that the University City District skimped on the sound system or the temporary stage for Thursday evening's free concert in Clark Park. The small but enthusiastic crowd of maybe 200 spread out on blankets and chairs on the east and west slopes of the natural bowl, while the Campbell Brothers band tore West Philly a new zip code.
THERE IS A SERPENT among us, even in the land of the Amish. There is evil in this world. There is trouble in Paradise. This is a photo I took of an uncle touching his neice. What creeped me out wasn't the snake, which is what made me want to take the picture in the first place. It was the hand, as slithery as a forked tongue.
WHAT DIFFERENCE can a "a" make? (Bare with me English teachers. I'm speaking to the people hear, and their not interested in good grammar, spelling or punxsutawneyation.) But you would think that the universal concepts of truth, common sense and history would require accuracy, if not proper syntax, of the first words spoken by a human being upon stepping on the surface of a celestial body. I would have said "moon" but then some Beavis or Butthead out there having this read to them would go "Heh-heh, heh-heh. He said 'Moon.' Heh-heh."
IN A MATCH between longtime rivals in the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union, Philadelphia-Whitemarsh rugby club defeated Blackthorn RFC 24-19 Saturday on a waterfront pitch next to the Delaware River in Northeast Philadelphia. P-W took a two try lead in the first half and then held on as Blackthorn powered back in the second half after dominating the lineouts the entire game.
