April 2009 Archives

SAY HELLO TO TEAM AUSTRALIA. That's Neil to the left there and Edith to the right and I met them last night on the floor of the Spectrum before Bruce Springsteen's final concert (until his absolutely, positively last concert TBA) at Philadelphia's legendary losenge shaped concrete multipurpose sports/entertainment arena.

  Neil and Edith are in the middle of their "209 Chasing the Dream . . ." tour of Bruce Springsteen concerts that started on April 21 in Boston for two shows, then Hartford, then Philly for two, then Greensboro, Charlottesville, St. College, St. Paul and Chicago on May 12.  Neil and Edith are Australian government employees living in the capital city of Canberra, and this is their vacation. 

  This is the second time they've followed a Bruce tour.  They're starting to recognize others of their tribe, both foreign and domestic. "We've met people from Italy," Edith said. "Bruce is  global."  How do you explain to an Australian that Bruce Springsteen may be global but mostly he's from Jersey?   I tried to explain the whole "shore" dynamic and I eventually asked the Australians to explain where they connect to Springsteen's words and music. The values, aspirations, despair and integrity present in his stories.

   Edith gave an answer which I will paraphrase. "There's a lot of Nebraska in Australia."
  

 

THEY ARRIVED IN CENTER CITY  as defiant and self assured as the leading wave of the Taliban into Islamabad. Bold, mindless, confident of their ultimate success, true believers without a clue. A lot like that young dirt bike rider who ran down a Philadelphia cop with his motorcycle the other night. I speak of the hip hop wheelie making Visogoths that invaded South Broad last weekend, Saturday around dinner time.

   A group of ten to twelve "young black males" on loud motorcycles and four-wheeled "all terrain" vehicles roared up the middle of Broad Street from Pine to City Hall around 6:30 p.m. It was stunning. From an open window of a restaurant on the west side of Broad Street between Walnut and Locust I watched children no older than those dead pirates in Somalia mock authority by doing block-long wheelies. In Center City Philadelphia. In daylight on Broad Street at the dinner hour on a Satrurday evening.

It was appalling. I was embarrassed for my city. These kids are playing the cops like a violin because they know what the police know. They know that the cops won't chase them because when the cops do chase them, one of them, or someone else, tends to die.

   The kids, who can be as young as 12, will be doing 60 miles an hour on a motorized two-wheeled vehicle the size of a roller skate, but once a Philadelphia cop attempts to do what any of their parents should do -- stop the kids from doing it! -- the cops become the "cause" of the inevitable accident and the loss of life or bodily function when a kid on a roller skate travelling a mile a minute meets a brick wall.

 Or a little girl playing jump rope in front of her house.

 And no matter who gets hurt or how, the city gets sued. And where there are lawsuits there are lawyers who, in front of a jury, can turn Attilla the Honda into a panicked child in fear for his life from a pursuing cop car. "Think we should give chase, Whitey?" Harry the cop says to his partner, anticipating the answer, "Oh brother."

This has been going on for years every spring in the neighborhoods. Come warm weather kids on bottle rockets race through South, West and North Philadlphia streets. Unless the police have a net, a coordinated plan to round up these suicidal nitwits, cops know better than to pursue.

 But to see them zoom all scary and loud and obnoxiously bold into Center City was like, well, like watching outlaw bikers or drunken cowboys riding into Dodge City on a Saturday night without a marshall in sight..

THE LIBERTY BELL, OF COURSE. If you missed yesterday's photo, you can look at a detail of this human bell composed of 25.000 American soldiers at Ft. Dix, New Jersey in 1918. In the detail you can see the faces of the white-shirted men who form the crack in the bell..  This photo is on display in the Liberty Bell Center at 5th and Chestnut Sts.

 IF I GAVE YOU TEN guesses -- hell, if I gave you a hundred -- I doubt if you'd be able to identify what this picture shows.  This much I'll tell you: this photo was taken in 1918 at Ft. Dix, New Jersey, where 25,000 doughboys (as American soldiers were called during World War I) posed in formation to form a human "blank blank."  You fill in the blanks. 

  This is a detail from the larger photo, which I guarantee you will be able to identify by sight when I put it on the Daily DeLeon tomorrow.  I'll give you a hint: the photo is prominently displayed at a public federal building at 5th and Chestnut Sts. in Philadelphia.

What a week it's been. Just seven days ago Harry Kalas was still alive and all was right with the world. It seems so long ago. This has been a week of genuine grief -- not at his passing so much as what he meant to us and what we'll never have again. As I write this the Phillies have been on a three game losing streak at home against the San Diego freakin' Padres and I can't even register indignation. I feel like the fans at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday night who gave Brad Lidge a standing ovation when he was pulled from the game after he had blown his first save in 49 games and then lost the game outright by giving up four runs in the ninth inning. It just didn't seem important enough to get angry about. I'm too filled up with appreciation for the opportunity to have heard Harry all these years and, yes, to have been a Phillies fan all my life. It's weird the perspective that death gives life.

And almost on cue last week after Harry Kalas left us, there were a number of sudden deaths of famous sports figures, the clostest to Philadelphia, ironically, being a death that took place in Hawaii where the redoubtable voice of Les Keiter was silenced after 89 years. Most of you are too young to remember Les Keiter, who was the voice of the Big Five broadcasts back in the day when the Big Five was, well, bigger. This was the 1960's and Les Keiter was the man who labled what happened inside the Palestra during a Big Five double header as "pandemonium" which is a big word that everyone understands even though it doesn't have the je nais se qua of other more famous Keiterisms such as baskketball shots he refered to as "in again out again Finnigan" or a three-pointer before their was such a thing that Les called "a ring tailed howitzer."

I have no idea what that meant, but in it's time Keiter's "ring tailed howitzer" was as famous as Kalas's "Outta Here!" That they died within days of each other is another Philaelphia story that started or ended in Hawaii. Harry Kalas's early career included a stint as the broadcaster of the University of Hawaii's football team. He was rememebered on a Hawaiian TV news show last week as a diligent young broadcaster who learned to pronounce the difficult name of the local Hawaaian players as easily as he pronounced Shane Victorino. Les Keiter left Philadelphia to move to Hawaii in the early 1970's where he became the "voice" of island sports for the next three decades. Losing Kalas and Keiter on the same week six thousand miles apart seems. . . what's the word I'm looking for? I suppose "perfect" will have to do.

SPECIAL K HE WAS.  And some fan had the wit and grace to place a box of corn flakes among the myriad tribites and talimans left by those touched by Harry Halas in the growing memorial around the Michael Jack Schmidt statue in front of Citzens' Bank Park last night.

  On the news later I heard that Schmidty had compared Harry Kalas to William Penn and Rocky,  Or was it Benjamin Franklin?  Is Mike Schmidt clueless, or  was he speaking for you and me?

  Was Harry Kalas all that special?

I'm thinking about Harry Kalas right now and this is how it feels. Like I'm floating over the city of Philadelphia in a hot air balloon basket with my family and strangers, my daughter Emily and a pilot named Mario. There was also that wiry Irish photographer who paid Mario 20 bucks to get a ride in our basket and who took this picture. I feel like this all happened yesterday even though it was more than 20 years ago. This is how I feel when I think of Harry Kalas since his death in the Phillies broadcast booth on opening day in another city.

I feel nothing but cloudlike peaceful emotions. Joy and sunsets. Easy memories about how good it feels to know that I grew up listening to the best broadcaster voices Philadelphia offered to the world. John Facenda and Harry Kalas. It's like having the pope as your parish priest. Veteran newsman John Facenda's voice has been compared to God's so often that God filed a class action suit (joined by noone! ) citing copyright infringement. Harry Kalas's voice was a mere Jesus. And both father and son's voices graced this city's airwaves continuously since before the day I was born. Facenda started reading the Channel 10 TV nightly news in 1948, Harry the K arrived in Philadelphia in 1971. Until this week I've never known a Philadelphia without one or both of these voices reminding me how lucky my ears have been to know the sound of their voices all my life.

I see Harry floating over Philadelphia, happy to be going to heaven but reluctant to leave this earth we call home. In this picture I'm floating with Harry Kalas, and thinking about how much he loved Philadelphia and the Phillies and people and, what the hell, he loved everything and everyone. The testimonials have been relentless. Harry Kalas touched everyone's life in such a joyous genuine and positive way. And this from a guy who had to call mostly losing Phillies teams play-by-play for the last four decades.

He captured our joy and informed our despair. He was dependably, relentlessly Harry. His soothing voice never lost the dignity of the game or the moment. I can't tell you how much I will miss his reassuring baritone spoken with a half or three-quarters speed delivery. He always seemed to process the moment through a time lapse filter that allowed him to tell an accurate narrative about the events of a split second earlier.

I'm just floating with the memory of Harry Kalas as his spirit hovers over the city of Philadelphia. Thanks for the ride, Harry. It was not only wonderful, it was so real, so important to my memory of the last four decades. Harry was 73, same age as my dad when he passed. It all seems so right, Harry Kalas dying at the same age as my father.

Wait! I think I see someone running toward Harry as we float away. He's shouting something about Harry's "second" ring and doing mock "I am not worthy" bowing gestures. He's a trim white-haired man in a tartan vest and jeff cap. He's caught up to him and he's hugging Harry in greeting. Wait a minute, he's holding a smoking pipe in one hand!

Oh, brother.

FOR SOME REASON I thought of the ending of the movie The Last Samurai the day before Harry Kalas died.  Maybe it was the cherry blossoms floating off the trees in a sun swept April breeze Sunday afternoon.  I thought of Ken Watanabe, the actor who played Katsumoto, the last samurai of the title, who dies heroically in a cavalry charge with swords against modern warriors armed with cannon and gattling guns.  In life his final vision is of a battlefield with cherry blossom petals floating down.  He takes in the scene in  one tear-filled moment, and dies with the word "Perfect" on his lips.
 
  Harry Kalas was a warrior of many Philadelphia summers who died in the springtime on a battlefield in Washington D.C. where cherry blossoms were falling even as he prepared to do battle once again from the broadcast booth with his Fightin's .  And like the Gambler in the Kenny Rogers song, after almost 40 years of calling Phillies play-by-play, Harry Kalas "broke even."  His team was even on the year -- exactly .500 with three wins and three losses.  But unlike any other team, his Phillies are  world champions of baseball.  And somewhere in the darkness, Harry must have whispered, "Perfect." 

I AM A MIDDLE CLASS  middle aged white guy who has lived in Philadelphia his entire adult life. Almost by definition, I look upon cops as the good guys doing a tough and thankless job. As a young hippie-haired college student at Temple University in the early 1970's I looked upon Philadelphia cops with a combination of fear and distrust. If you were young or black or both in Philadelphia back during what were called the Rizzo years, the dozen years between 1967 and 1979 when Frank Rizzo was either Police Commissioner or Mayor of Philadelphia, it seemed like Philly cops could get away with anything. Shakedowns, beatings, intimidation, general rudeness. And they also seemed to be everywhere. It was fashionable to call Philadelphia a "police state" and to spell Rizzo with two swastikas instead of two z's. It was no more clever then than now, like spelling America with three K's, but those were signs of the times.

I have seen the inside of the Roundhouse from the wrong entrance. I've been locked up once or thrice. But it's been years since I suffered an outbreak of handcuffs. I say this only to establish familiarity with the process once the line has been crossed. And that line is determined by the police, not common sense. Ask State Rep. Jewell Williams. I tell you this because I'm beginning to notice a new aggressiveness among some Philadelphia police. I can offer only anecdotal evidence, but I want to tell you one story from last Wednesday evening, about six-thirty, right in front of my house.

I live in West Philadelphia, in the 18th Police District, which embraces the best and worst of what our city has to offer. I live on a "nice" block with "nice" people, black and white, living side by side since 1957. We all know each other. About 6:30 I noticed a police car across the street with dome lights flashing and a backup police car blocking any traffic up or down the street. From a third floor window I watched for about 20 minutes as nothing happened. There was something about the hypervigilance of the back-up police that made me anxious. What was this? A stolen car? Outstanding warrants? Elderly neighbors started to gather because they couldn't drive down the street and it was a neighbor's car that had been stopped. They were interested, no comments, no menace. Then a neighbor, an architect in his 60's, stepped into the street and approached the stopped neighbor's car to ask what was up, and a young female police officer ordered him back so sharply that he raised his hands in surrender before backing up. There was not a civilian who saw this who didn't think that the attitude of the police was incomprehensibly, unnecessarily, bewilderingly confrontational. There are no "routine" car stops but how often do back up officers who block traffic for half an hour write citations for an expired inspection sticker on another neighbor's legally parked car during a car stop? If this is part of operation "Pressure Point," believe me we get the point. And it feels strangely familiar.

photo by Linh Dinh

BUT WHO DON'T KNOW THAT? My sense of style has always been my strong suit. Rugby eclectic and ill fitting.  I routinely wear clothes that are 10 , maybe twelve years old.  I never buy new clothes unless under duress. I stapled the cuffs on my dress pants when the seam started showing that jaggedy scissors thing that goes on with the bottom of your pants when the seam thread breaks.

I feel very comfortable looking as bad as I do in nice clothes.  I'm always doing something wrong I don't understand.  Once (and only once) I bought a tuxedo, a Christian Dior tuxedo.  You could buy Chrysler with as much as it cost. Anyway, I walk into Dirty Frank's wearing this Christian Dior tuxedo feeling like a master of the universe visiting his common chudlings, and the first person I see sitting in the first barstool is my friend Thomas Jackson, also known as TJ.  TJ looks like Mr. T without the jewelry.  Dark as knight. Big smile thick arm bad ass.

TJ plays me like a violin.  "Well lookee here!  What we got?!"  I am showing off totally, unashamedly. That's why I walked into Dirty Franks wearing a tuxedo. TJ stands in front of me like a colonel inspecting his troop.  From my patent leather shiny shoes his eyes moved north taking in every subtle detail of my costume (the cufflinks didn't match -- ON PURPOSE!)

He said not a word in judgment.  His survey complete, he leaned over, lifted the bottom of my right trouser leg just enough to confirm his suspicion. "Wool socks," he smiled, triumphant.

What kind of sick shit it that?

This photo is actually flattering.  Thanks to an act of god in the background. I was taking pictures of the double rainbow last Friday when the owner of the camera I was using asked to use his camera for a minute and he took this picture. Linh Dinh is back in town.    

This is my Grantland Rice "Outlined against a steel gray October sky" photo that perfectly demonstrates that I'm no better dressed than the last time you saw me.       

 

  THEIR NAMES ARE UNIMPORTANT. (That's Jesse there with James.  Jesse is the guilty looking one.) They are typical looking customers at Dirty Frank's, where this Gabriel Tiberino  painting of typical looking customers hangs at the bar at 13th and Pine Sts. in Center City.  It is part of an art show featuring the works of West Philadelphia's Tiberino familt for the next two weeks.  I had the pleasure of describing  their home in the program notes of the art show:

Let me describe the Tiberino house. Those who know the house will gasp. Can anyone actually describe the Tiberino house? No, not completely without violating several understood levels of intimate description. Having said that there will be no mention of Gabe's Room. Joe's Room. Ellen's Floor. Or Raph's House. This is my attempt to describe what it feels like to walk into the Tiberino house. For one thing there's the mounted head of a buffalo on the wall immediately as you walk in the front door. To the left there is a Catholic chapel with an amazing collection of religiuos symbols displayed on the opposite side of a communion rail. You have to walk passed the chapel to get to the pisser. And you can hear people peeing from the bathroom downstairs in both the chapel and the livingroom. Padre Pio is in evidence throughout the icons. Joe's got this Padre Pio thing going on that I've never understood but always apprecisted. Then there are the statues. Everywhere the statues. The stone angels and bronze cowboys and the crap in between, like the mail or coffee cups. Because the Tiberinos live among their art.

The place I am describing is once you've gotten PASSED the overwhelming impact of the outside of the Tiberino house, which is (in the best way I can describe it), like the impression made on Hansel and Gretel upon finding the gingerbread house in the middle of the forest. Except this house is in the middle of West Philly, and instead of gingerbread this house is covered with art both outside and inside. By that I mean that the house is LITERALLY shingled from roof to doorstep with extraordinary artwork by members of this neighborly clan of accomplished Philadelphia artists. Unlike the Grimm Brothers fairytale house, there are no evil witches lurking within the Tiberino compound -- only clowns. The place is infested with clowns.

And that's all part of the indescribable truth about what I know about the Kingdom of Tiberino, the otherworldly realm of a family of artists living their dream in the place they call home.

  HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET TO SEE a rainbow, let alone a double rainbow, over Center City Philadelphia?  Answer: Not often enough.  This isn't the best vantage point from the corner of 13th and Pine Sts.during Happy Hour at Dirty Frank's around 5:30 p.m. Friday, April 3, but it gives you an idea of the arcs of color that captivated anyone who saw the city crowned with this wonder of nature after a day of heavy rain followed by brilliant sunshine.

  WHEN THE PHILADELPHIA ZOO celebrated its 150th birthday last month I had to scratch  my head.  If this is the zoo's sesquicentennial year, then what was that book I wrote in 1999 called America's First Zoostory: 125 years at the Philadelphia Zoo?  I know that time speeds up as you get older, but last I checked 1999 was ten years ago, not 25.

  Technically both dates are correct.  This is the 150th anniversary since the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was incorporated by an act of the Pennsylvania state legislature on March 21, 1859.  But in typical Philadelphia fashion, an actual zoological garden wouldn't exist for another 15 years when the Victorian style zoo we know and love first opened its gates on July 1, 1874.

 

  In fairness to the original Zoological Society members the construction of the zoo was delayed by a little thing called The Civil War.  But even early on the zoo's founder and first president, Dr. William Camac, found little civic interest in a modest garden smaller than a city block at the entrance to Fairmount Park where Pennsylvania Avenue meets 29th Street across the Parkway from what is now the Art Museum but in those years was the city reservoir.

 "There appeared  to be great apathy shown to the project," Camac wrote about the stifled yawn with which Philadelphianss greeted the idea of a zoo. "And but few persons seemed to understand the objects of the society or see the benefits to be derived."  Another Philadelphia dreamer busted by the city's characteristic stodginess.

  But like all true dreamers, Camac never gave up on his civic passion.  When the time was right -- and the looming Centennial Exhibition to be hosted by Philadlelphia in 1876 was the primary impetus -- the commercial appeal of a zoo on the outskirts of the Centennial grounds won over the doubts of deep-pocket donors.

  The zoo was an immediate hit and has been a Philadelphia institution ever since it opened 135 years ago. I'm sure there will be another sesquicentennial celebration in the year 2024.  But why not?  We can eat our cake and have it too in another decade and a half. 

 

  

 

 ON THE LAST DAWN OF MARCH I took this photo from Belmont Plateau in Fairmount Park on my way to school. I have photographed this scene a hundred times because I love it in every season, at dawn or dusk and in between. I can tell you the name of every tall building in the Center City skyline. But what is the name of that tree?