The Daily DeLeon

Three Fingered Bill in all his Digital Glory

2010-07-16T21:29:48Z

I SHOULD KNOW BETTER THAN TO TELL THE TRUTH all of the time (OK, OK, most of the time. . . Not buying that?) I tell the truth a lot, is that fair?! And I was telling the truth about Three Fingered Bill in my last posting.

Little did I know that Three Fingered Bill would be so tickled by his newfound fame (actually he was drunk again, hadn't even read my column yet, when he got a hands tattoo last Saturday night.) Yet Bill displayed his new identity tattoo to me on Sunday. The "N" on his right hand is actually his thumb. (click on "view entry") That's what I meant about the creepy handshake.

I couldn't make up the people I meet everyday. Seriously. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Welcome to Philadelphia. You fuckin fuck

2010-07-07T12:46:15Z

The best stories are always true, so let me start this story with Three Fingered Bill. Bill is a career doorman at Dirty Franks and he has -- guess how many? -- fingers on his right hand. You'd never notice it. And the only reason I noticed his fingership is because his name is Three Fingered Bill. And damned if he don't have three fingers, one a thumb, and damned if they don't look like long tapering alien tentacles. Better that you get that "Three Fingered" Bill shit out of the way before the creepy handshake

The story starts with him because he was drunk, of course, of course, over most of the course of the July 4th weeekend where I met him Sunday afternoon at Dirty Frank's after I had finished a day doing walking tours of historic Philadelphia. That's what I do these days to make money. I show people Philadelphia. Is that a good career move? DUH-Uh! And I love it. I'm good at it. And I get to fuck with people. Including 3FB. The reason I mention that Bill was drunk was because he mentioned it loudly to everyone in the bar at least seven or eight times.

It's quite possible that I used the words "Fuck you, you fuckin'n fuck," in our conversation. Three Fingered Bill -- did I mention that he's got a beautiful five fingered daughter? -- had exactly the right prop at exactly the right moment What you see on my chest is my new tourism slogan: "Welcome to Philadelphia! You fuck"

I love being from Philadelphia. It is my ethnicity. I love this city like a religion I can't explain. But allow me to try. Philadelphians run deep. As many of the swells who have stubbed their big toe on a Philadelphia "FYYFF!" verdict can tell you. We can be your best friends, but we're always ready to go all al Queda on your sorry ass.

So I dress up in Colonial garb and I walk around Philadelphia like Ben Franklin in a toga. And I tell the truth as I know it, plus jokes. It's a lot of fun. Especially when it's not a hundred degrees. "Welcome to Philadelphia!" is my opening line. And it always works. FYYFF happens, but not while I'm around. Not on my tours. I just like the knowing. The "knowing" is the thrill. I know what we got. I was born in Pennsylvania Hospital, America's first hospital, founded by Benjamin Franklin, for chrissakes, and yet because I spent 15 years in Narberth between the ages of five and twenty, I am suspect. Am I a true Philadelphian?

Am I Philadelphia enough?

Only a Philadelphian would understand the neighborhood insult. Benjamin Franklin, after all, was a newbie on the lam from Boston. Challenging a Philadelphian about where he or she was born, bred, schooled "hopefully by the good sisters", went to college, "either St. Joes or Temple" is an exercise in open heart surgery. I wasn't smart enough to get into Penn; I bless myself while driving west on Lancaster Avenue before spitting as I pass Villanova. I don't eat at either Pat's or Geno's but I love them both. Three o'clock Saturday night turned Sunday morning. What an experience. Dawn breaks. Joey Vento hoses down the sidewalk. Clark DeLeon takes a photograph. Modified haiku, or what?

Haven't I been here before.

Always.

I know where I come from. I know what I know. My name is Clark DeLeon and I'm a Phila-fuckin'-delphia tour guide. Can you handle that? Contact me:

HAVE CLARK

WILL TRAVEL

deleonc.88@aol

Philadelphia USA

So you don't think that was a hurricaine?

2010-06-25T16:13:10Z

THIS IS ONE BIG mahuckin' tree that got knocked down in Clark Park (my park) in West Philadelphia during Thursday afternoon's half hour hurricaine. What's that, you say? It wasn't a hurricaine? Just a line of thunderstorms? Tell it to the sycamores. And the oaks. And the maples. And all the cars that got squished by those falling trees all over the area when this mini-Armageddon blew into town.

I was doing a walking tour in Old City when the rain and hail came screaming in on the backs of banshees. The sky had grown apocalyptically dark and I was hurrying the seven people on the tour (five from Ohio, two from Miami) towards safety in Christ Church when the storm trapped us on Cuthbert Street about a half block away from the church. We weren't moving anywhere in that raging storm. We plastered ourselves against a building trying not to get blown away -- literally. Then, deus-ex-machina style, a man called to us from an open door of an advertising/PR office at Mascher and Cuthbert and offered us shelter. Very classy Philaelphia thing to do.

On the way home I drove past devastated areas of South Philadelphia where walls of buildings had been blown down along with towering trees. It looked like a tornado had touched down in some areas like Stinger Square at 31st and Reed Sts It's just another reminder that life can turn on a dime from out of a darkening June sky.

The Saddest Day of My Life and Why I can never forget the children

2010-05-21T01:49:03Z

And Why It Matters to Tell The Awful Truth An American Memory of a Philadelphia Moment \as told by Clark DeLeon, born of these parts and a resident thereof, a printer of words by trade, a son of Benjamin (his father Harry's middle name), and a son of Franklin, a Philadelphia newspaperman of some note.

On May 13, 1985 I was witness as my city murdered five children burned alive in front of my own eyes as all of Philadelphia watched on live TV. Their ashes fell on my head as I stood in horror and watched the indescribable, a Biblical tower of flame rotating slowly right to left filling the sky above me where I stood in a bewildered crowd at 62nd and Walnut. I turned to a man to my right and shouted, "How can they do this?!" And he answered quietly, "That's my house." He was a Philadelphia police officer who lived on the 6200 block of Osage Avenue, his family lived in one of the 61 homes destroyed that night along with their lifetimes' worth of possessions, valuables, photographs and irreplacable memories.

Twenty-five years later the May 13 MOVE Confrontation is described as an incident that "seared itself into the city's memory." So searing, in fact, that many who lived through it have chosen to forget about it resulting in a younger generation of Philadelphians that has never heard of MOVE, much like the Baby Boom generation of German children who knew next to nothing about the evils perpetrated by their government before and during World War II.

I teach journalism at a local college and most of my 18-to-22 year old students had never heard of MOVE when I assigned them to interview five people between the ages of 20 and 70 about what they knew about that day, the bomb, the fire, the dead children and the 250 people left homeless by the reckless, incomprehensible and ultimately unpunished acts of city authorities from the mayor on down. What surprised me was not that these young people's friends had never heard of MOVE but rather the number of parents of these students who had only a vague or faulty memory of May 13th when "the police dropped a bomb on a house full of radicals and blew up the neighborhood," as one parent remembered.

If only it had been that simple. If only it had been a big boom rather than a slow burn after a decade of mounting tension between rational city authorities driven to insane action by the premeditated provocation by members of a cooly irrational and unexplainable cult called MOVE. The apocalyptic irony about May 13, 1985 is that everything that the crazy people predicted would happen, happened. MOVE predicted that the authorities would try to annihilate them, and as a consequence there would be a fiery confrontation the likes of which Philadelphia had never seen.

Let me describe May 13 in the shorthand I developed as a reporter and columnist watching the events unfold. A bunch of crazy people had taken five children hostage (none of the six MOVE adults were the biological parents of the children inside 6221 Osage Ave.) and the police went about freeing the hostages by firing 10,000 bullets into the house that held the children in the morning. Then firemen poured millions of gallons of water on the house the held the children during the 10 hour seige that followed. Then police dropped a bomb that started a fire on the house that held the children. Then firemen stood by for a full hour and allowed the fire to burn down the house that held the children and, incidentally, the homes of 60 neighbors.

So I ask you, who killed those children? All the crazy adults responsible died. But what about the crazy adults who dropped the bomb and let the fire burn? Not one person in charge that day lost a job or even a day's pay. The only guy to go to jail was the crooked out-of-state minority-by-demand contractor who started stealing faster than he rebuilt the shoddy new houses on Osage and Pine Sts.

The black mayor responsibile for the carnage, Wilson Goode, was reelected two years later by defeating Ed Rendell by a margin of 80 percent in majority black neighborhoods during the Democratic mayoral primary and then defeating Frank Rizzo in the general election by exactly the same 80 percent margin in black neighborhoods. And no sooner had Goode been reelected than Philadelphians, both black and white, turned their backs on the mayor that caused our shame and wished he'd go away.

Wilson Goode became a lame duck on May 13, 1985, but the racial reality of Philadelphia politics required that he serve another six years as mayor as if to punish the city and its citizens for their sins of silence. We had accepted the unacceptable. We had watched children burned alive and shrugged.

I spoke to former mayor Frank Rizzo on the phone three days after the MOVE confrontation. What Rizzo said that day has haunted me for 25 years. "Clark, everything we did in '78 was about saving the lives of the children," Rizzo said about the first MOVE Confrontation in Powellton in August 1978 where one police officer died when Rizzo was mayor. "This time everything they did was designed around saving the lives of policemen and firemen. And any policeman or fireman who's afraid to die in the line of duty oughta become a beautician."

The dirty little secret about MOVE is that there is no secret. We were all in on it. The mark of Cain is everywhere. Who can blame us if we pretend to forget the unforgivable? Which makes it our duty to remember and to teach our children the shame of a city. Not that they should feel shame but that they should know the awful truth.

Did Someone Mention Airborne Fellatio? It's a Tiberino Thing

2010-05-06T19:26:24Z

Raphael Tiberino's art comes gliding up next to you as subtley as a West Philly motorcycle gang at a red light under the el, where you are stopped with the car windows down because the air conditioning doesn't work. The ungodly rumble announces itself beside you at the driver's side window and you try to fake cool. You stare straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel, but not too tightly. You must find the courage to turn and look, you must, you must -- and you do. And when you do you are greeted by this strangely serene smile that should creep you out but doesn't. It's mayhem, his art, all wings and swords and sacrifice, pre-fall-of-Lucifer, post-homicide-of-Christ, a universe where everyone gets it in the end. Because, well, because maybe they all had it coming.

Yet always in the artist's images there is that razor sharp grin somewhere, that beatific or Beelzabubic display of teeth in a mouth that could have eaten you whole if it wanted to. (Maybe not you, maybe not just yet. But soon.) The timeless pearly teeth of Tiberino's heroes and fallen angels appear oddly patient and at peace, like the yearbook smiles of high school kids who shared a lunch table with a skeletal sophomore transfer student named Gary Reaper -- Death wearing a hoodie. .

What does that have to do with airborne fellatio, you might ask? To be honest with you that question is so 1999. But a fair question, since in this book of disturbing images the motorcyle gang of Raphael's art has stopped at the intersection of Nineteen-Ninety-Ninth and Tiberino, an alternative reality where ice fishing for mermaids with sharp sticks is sport and vampires bite booty because they have a choice.

I do not pretend to understand the apocalyptic narrative that drives his art, and Raphael Tiberino isn't telling, but I have seen glimpses of his eternal struggle. We all must choose the wings we wish to wear for eternity, the feathery white or the leathery black. Owners of such wings have beckoned and grinned back at us at stop lights all our lives, challenging us to chose -- their smiles as amused as outlaw bikers on thumping Harleys nodding us toward the traffic light that just turned green under the el.

Raphael Tiberino's work will be displayed from May 7 through June 4 at Salon Joose, 601 N.3rd St. in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia USA. Opening Reception First Friday 7 p.m. until 2 a.m.

They were warriors once. And still are.

2010-04-25T13:09:04Z

I CALL THIS PICTURE "SICK PUPS." And this isn't the half of it. There are 15 sick pups playing on any given rugby team. Two teams to a game, that's 30 sick pups playing at the same time. Then there are three matches of 30 men playing on sides called A, B and C that routinely take place on a Saturday afternoon during rugby season in the spring and fall. That's 90 sick pups, only half of whom are potty trained, mauling each other for the sport of it.

And into this frisky doomed puppy mill walks a single man -- the referee-- who must litagate the canine contest as if they were human beings.

Sick pup is a compliment where I come from. It means you're off the leash of duty and expectations. It means you will engage your passion on your terms. Some people call it rugby.

I was surrounded by sick pups when I was coaching Temple University's men's rugby club 20 years ago. The photo above shows some of the sickest, with the presumably adult coach (me) on the right. Not a pup among this crew would argue with Coach's call on this: The sickest of them all was Fonz (not his real name) who is standing as far away from me as anyone in this photo can stand. Look at that grin. Here's this blonde haired blue eyed Aryan assassion and the nickname he got stuck with by his Temple rugby teammates was "The Fonz."

Ayyy!

Another young life changed through the irresistible power of rugby. He was sick before Temple rugby; being the Fonz made him sicker. Then there's Mutt. Can you pick the kid nicknamed Mutt out of this litter? Hint: pick the anti-Mutt. Yeah, that's him. Next, see if you can find the young man whose face looks like the map of Ireland. His name is Finn and he's standing next to me, or as he calls me, Coach.

Twenty years. I remember when 20 years was a long time ago, a lifetime. To realize that this picture was 20 years ago makes me laugh. I haven't changed a bit. And neither have my sick pups. I don't mean physically. I'm thicker through the middle and so are they, but not so much. Except for Fonz, of course, but then he was carrying a double load for being confused with a TV dago. All and all --- and I'm not being gay here -- my guys look pretty good at the age of 40. Even Spanky and Hasbro.

This, of course, makes me 20 years older than my sick pups now grown to honorable manhood. "No freakin' way, Coach!" (That was Fonz.) No, I'm officially old, I admit it. The way I see it , being the age I am now gives me, what, 40 more years of surprising people.

"We're the boys from Temple U, we live in caves and ditches. We bang our cocks on jagged rocks, we're rugged sons of bitches." I heard that post-game cheer a hundred times, seriously, before I heard all the words. The message was, "We're the boys from Temple U we're rugged sons of bitches." So who don't know that. Admidst the husky shout the banging of "cocks on jagged rocks" somehow floats past without denting the conciousness. It wasn't until I included the team cheer in a piece that aired on a local TV news feature about rugby that I understood the consequences of being the person responsible for airing such explicit language on TV.

Nothing. Nothing happened, no one noticed. Thousands and thousands of Philadelphia TVs were tuned to KYW-TV when my piece ended with a hoarse shout of "We're the boys from Temple U we live in caves and ditches. We bang our cocks on jagged rocks we're rugged sons of bitches."

And do you know why no one noticed?!

Because you boys did not "e-NUN-ci-ate !!!"

Oh, by the way, next Saturday Temple University RFC is playing for a national collegiate championship (Div. II: We'll talk about that later) in California.

But for now we should talk about winning. How do we do it? I fear the only advice I have is what you've already divined in your hearts and souls. The only way Temple wins is if they are tougher than the rest.

So simple. So huge. Be tougher than the next guy.

It's not rocket science, my sick pup Owls. It's elemental. "Win, Rocky. Win" Do justice to that urgency, everything else falls into place. Go Temple!.

The Great White Lady Goes on the Auction Block

2010-04-23T17:24:33Z

SOME OF YOU REMEMBER when I worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer, the grand white lady on North Broad Street, the ivory "Tower of Truth" (we Inky true believers used to call it with tongue on cheek) that still competes with City Hall as a unique spire in the city's historical skyline. Well, sir and ma'am, that building goes up for auction Tuesday in New York, along with the rest of the holdings of the company that owns the Inquirer and the Daily News and the Philly.com website.

I worked for 23 years in the fifth floor newsroom of this venerable building built in 1922. As I still tell people about why I left the best job I ever had 15 years ago, "I was the canary in the coal mine. I could sense the oxygen leaving the room."

So much has happened to The Inquirer and to newspapers in general since I left, my complaints or reasons for leaving seem almost quaint when compared with the survival issues facing print journalism. What once seemed unthinkable -- like the Knight-Ridder Newspaper Corporation selling off all its newspapers, including it's flagships, the Inquirer and Miami Herald -- is now a distant betrayal.

Bankruptcy of the new ownership? That is so 2009. A public auction for the body and soul of Philadelphia's most storied journalistic enterprise? Tain't nothin' but the latest flaming hoop the Inquirer must leap through to survive.

It's no longer shocking. It's become the newspaper business as usual in the 21st Century. And it totally sucks.

Kill Them All! And boy did they ever

2010-04-19T03:42:02Z

THE LONG AWAITED (AND DREADED) season one finale of Spartacus: Blood and Sand aired over the weekend on the Starz cable network. That's the bad news. The worse news is that season two of Spartacus is on indefinite hold because the title character -- Welsh born Austrailian actor Andy Whitfield -- has been diagnosed with a treatable form of cancer.

To give you an idea of what this means, imagine Kirk Douglas being replaced as the star midway through the 1960 epic film Spartacus. It couldn't be done then and it can't be done now. Whitfield, who I had never seen before, owns the role of Spartacus, the Thracian slave who led a revolt of gladiators in 73 A.D. that became a slave army of 70,000 that caused the might of the Roman empire to tremble. The season one finale ended with the beginning of the gladiator revolt, and it's title "Kill Them All" barely begins to describe the carnage.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the finale leaves very few loose ends alive. This is the best written original period piece since HBO's Rome and Deadwood. It's a shame for Starz that season two is in doubt, because frankly I never watched the Starz network before Spartacus.

As reminiscent as the early episodes of Spartacus seemed like the extended slo-mo bloodbath of 300, Andy Whitfield's portrayal of Spartacus is much more nuanced and carefully developed than Gerard Butler's Spartan king Leonides in 300. Butler's hero started as a king and ended as a martyr who uttered such great lines as, "TONIGHT WE DINE IN HELL." Spartacus as portrayed by Whitfield was a free warriar from Thrace turned Roman ally turned fugitive and slave. His descent into submission and gratitude is equalled only by his cold fury at his betrayal, not to mention his rise as a champion gladiator.

I'm sure this series will gain viewers as well as legend the longer it is available on demand.

How do you like my opening day shoes for the Phillies threepeat season?

2010-04-12T17:59:01Z

HOW DO YOU LIKE MY OPENING DAY SHOES? I decided to splurge a little on some retro Phillies gear, even though these shoes look more like retro gear from the Philadelphia Stars of the Negro Leagues. I'll be wearing them tonight when Cole Hamels takes the mound for the first place Phillies as they celebarte their 2010 home opener.

I have an op-ed piece in today's (April 12) Inquirer about great Phillies names. Here's the "director's cut" version:

Name a Phillie, any Phillie, from the deep bench of wonderful player names during the 127 year history of the Philadelphia Phillies Baseball Club. Chances are you chose the name of a great Phillies player: Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Chuck Klein, Scott Rolen, or Bob Boone. But did you choose a great player with a great Phillies name? I submit that there is a difference between the two. Steve Carlton is the name of a great Phillies pitcher. Robin Roberts is a great Phillies name. From Blondie Purcell in that inaugural year of 1883 to Raul Ibanez in 2010, the Phillies have had memorable names. Tug McGraw is a great Phillies name. Larry Bowa is a great Phillies name. Grover Cleveland Alexander is not a great Phillies name because it's a pain in the butt to say out loud. Wayne Twitchell is a great Phillies name.

So what makes a great Phillies name? Not greatness, certainly. It's the sump'em sump'em, the sound the name makes in your mind and when its spoken out loud. Del Unser is a great Phillies name. It just sounds right. Sometimes great Phillies names rise like hope on a muffin out of the boredom of losing seasons. Mickey Morandini. Tell me you don't want to say that name out loud right now. Mickey Morandini. What an irresisitibly great Phillies name. Growing up in Philadelphia gives you an ear for such morsels. I was born too late to actually see a Phillies infield featuring Granny Hamner, Putsy Caballero and Puddin' Head Jones, but how could a double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance possibly be more immortal in baseball lore than Granny to Putsy to Puddin' Head? Clay Dalrymple is a great Phillies name. Willie Montenez is a great Phillies name. It's all personal, of course. It depends on your age and heart condition, when you started caring, when you stopped. When you stopped again. When you absolutely positively stopped caring about the Phillies. Cookie Rojas, Kiko Garcia and Reuben Amaro are great Phillies names.. .

Ivan DeJesus is a great Phillies name because when you say it twice real fast it sounds like the Woody Woodpecker song. "I-van-de-JEE-sus. I-van-de-JEE-sus! Ha-ha-ha-ha-hah!" Lance Parrish should have been a great Phillies name, but it's not, because he sucked. Then there's John Wockenfuss, the Smuckers brand of great Phillies names. With a name like Wockenfuss he'd better be. . . he wasn't. Wockenfuss teams in the mid-1980's inspired a Philadelphia fan version of the Wiffenpoof song"We are poor little fans who have gone astray. Boo, boo, boo." In 1915 a Phillies outfielder named Bud Weiser batted .244. for the National League pennant winning team. In 1939 the Phillies traded to get Boom Boom Beck, a pitcher (William Walter Beck) who earlier earned his nickname pitchiing against Philadlephia in Baker Bowl. The Phils called him "boom boom" for the sound of their line drives hitting the tin coated wall in right field. And we traded for this guy. Probably because he had such a great name.

The current defending National League champions are well stocked with great Phillies names, two of which (Chase Utley and Shane Victorino) could make the all-franchise name list. The acquisition last year of Ben Francisco (I'll he's got a cousin named Sam Diego) deepened the bench of great pinch hitter names. Any lovers of great Phillies names are keeping their fingers crossed that relief pitcher Antonio Bastardo latches on with the big club. What Phillies fan wouldn't want to have a custom player jersey with the big letters spelling BASTARDO across the back? Some names were made for Phillies pitchers. Some names were made for Philadelphia -- Pretzels Pezzullo? Pickles Dilhoffer? Stuffy McInness? Casey Stengel, who played outfield for the Phillies in 1920, would be a great Phillies name if he hadn't gone over to the dark side later in his career. Greasy Neale, who joined the club in 1921, would be a great Phillies name but the Eagles get first dibs on the name because Greasey later coached the Eagles to two consecutive NFL championships. Pitcher Jose DeLeon doesn't have a great Phillies name, but he does have mine, so he makes the list. There's nothing more personal than a player with your name. .

Harry Kalas (talk about a Phillies name) could transform a basic two syllable Anglo-Saxon name into an epic home run call that hung in the air as long as the ball itself: "MICHEAL JACK SCHMIDT. . ." And to hear what Harry the K did with the pronunciation of the Irish-Italian union that resulted in the name Mi-ckey Mor-an-DI-ni is to taste what five-star chefs do in the kitchen.

From the very beginning, Phillies players have had great names. Imagine what Harry could do with the sound of Phillies names from the very beginning. Harry Henderson and Blondie Purcell played that first season. Cyclone Miller and Shadow Pyle joined the team the next year, 1884, and before long there was Cannonball Titcomb, Kid Gleason, Pop Schriver, Woody Wagenhort, Piggy Ward, Kid Carsey, Dummy Stephenson, Billy Sunday and Phenomenal Smith. Yes, THAT Billy Sunday who did a little pitchen' while perfecting his preachin'. Billy Sunday's teammate that 1890 season was Phenomenal Smith., born John Francis Gammon in Philadelphia on the last day of 1864. Turns out ole Phenomenal was a bit of a dick. Alienated his teammates Probably something to do with his nickname.

Phenomenal sucked, incidently.

What is this, an April Fool's joke?

2010-03-31T21:15:47Z

MARCH CAME IN LIKE A LIAR and went out like a loveable little dog that had just bitten your ankles for 30 days straight. Wet, wet, wet, nasty, windy March was supposed to be a respite from wet, wet, wet, windy, snowy February. March must not have gotten the memo.

Between the two of them, February-March 2010 set all kinds of records for precipitation, both of the hexagonal flakey variety and the moist teardrop-shaped variety. This was Philadelphia's wettest late winter/early spring since official weather records started being kept by the city in 1873. It was also one of the warmest months of March on record.

Every time we felt spring whispering "yes, yes, yes" March would counter with "nine! nine! nine!" inches of rain (OK, it was only 7.23 inches, but it's still the third wettest March in recorded history. February had pruney fingers too by the end of the month. When all that snowfall melted, it added up to 5.76 inches (a foot of snow equals one inch of rain).

The final day of March saw people come creeping out of shelters like cavemen blinking at the brightness outside. This pooch and his iPod listening master were among the late afternoon arivals at Clark Park in West Philadelphia to enjoy the sunshine that emerged around midday and is supposed to hang around all weekend.

Sing hallelujah, come on, get April.

Me and My Big Mouth. It runs in the family.

2010-03-20T21:59:40Z

LIKE GRANDFATHER LIKE GRANDDAUGHTER. This is Lucy, my almost-two-year-old granddaughter at dinner Friday night, demonstrating a DeLeon family trait. We like to bite off more than we can chew. Lucy chomped on my Italian hoagie because it looked better than her peas and chicken dinner. Kind of the same way I took a chomp on Cornell before Big Red dismantled Temple in the first round of the NCAA tournament that afternoon.

Ouch!

Lucy, of course, finished the hoagie. Much like Cornell finished the Owls season.

T for Temple U. You gotta problem with that?

2010-03-18T05:41:08Z

IT WENT DOWN LIKE BUDDAH. . . with the Atlantic Ten championship game on the line Sunday in Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall, with Temple clinging to a one-point lead over the University of Richmond with 22 seconds left, a young man from my high school alma mater (Lower Merion) and my childhood hometown (Narberth) stepped to the foul line. Temple senior Ryan Brooks drove a stake through the heart of Richmond's desperate and scary final minutes comeback from ten points down by swishing two of the sweetest free throws any Narb has ever launched. Mr. Draper would have been proud.

Brooks' silky foul shots under testicle-clamping pressure (I'm talking about mine) proved the difference in the 56-52 final score that gave Temple its threepeat in the A-Ten tourney championship and set up the showdown Friday afternoon against Cornell in the first round of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.

Be afraid, Temple fans. Be very afraid.

If Villanova fans feel that the source of Temple fans' antipathy toward the Wildcats is result of -- as quoted in a letter published Wednesday by Inquirer sports columnist John Gonzalez -- "We ('Nova fans) don't tip them (Temple fans) enough when they mow our lawns", just imagine what those Ivy League Cornell fans think.

Two words leap to mind. The the first starts with the letter "F" and the second is " 'em."

Sure the Cornell campus in idylic Ithaca, N.Y. has its gorgeous gorges, but so does Temple's campus in the heart of North Philly. Except that our practical gorge has train tracks that run all the way to the Navy Yard. Sure Cornell's 27-4 Ivy League Championship team has a Bigfoote weapon -- seven-foot center Jeff Foote -- known affectionately by Cornell fans as "the seven-foot-tall white guy." The first seven-footer to play on the hallowed basketball courts of Temple's Ryan Brooks' hometown Narberth playground was a limber young lad from Overbrook High School named Wilton Chamberlain, "Dippy" for short.

I'm not saying that Cornell's biggest win of the season over South Dakota, 71-65, shouldn't be compared favorably with Temple's biggest win of the season over Number Two tournament seed Villanova (mow this, Main Line frat boy) 75-65. Nor am I saying that Cornell's worst loss of the season, to Penn by 15 points, should be compared in any way to Temple's 15 point victory over the same Penn team.

All I'm saying is nothing you haven't already read in the good book. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. But that's the way to bet.

An old man's gotta do what an old man's gotta do

2010-03-11T03:12:08Z

SPANKING PRETTY GIRLS ON PINE STREET is pretty much what Joe Tiberino lives for. The West Philadelphia artist, and curator of the Ellen Powell Tiberino Museum of Contemporary Art in Powellton Village, has been waiting patiently for the better part of his 70 years for some dazzling young lady in a green high school junior prom dress to insist that Joe sit right down on a marble stoop, bend her over his knee and spank her pale white bottom until it was as pink as his sick twisted old man fantasies.

Now I ask you to look at that face on Joe Tiberino with his "What me worry?" Alfred E. Neuman grin and tell me that the man doesn't know that dreams were meant to come true. If I hadn't been there to exhaustively document with photographes Mr. Tiberino's afternoon paddywhack on the 1200 block of Pine Street Wednesday, I do believe that I'd believe that I'd suspect that the old codger made the whole story. But I was there when photographer Lauren Enfield picked old Joe out of all the hunk'a hunk'a burnin' manhood lining the horsehoe shaped bar at Dirty Frank's and asked him to play the mean daddy in this bad-girl-gets-hers scenario.

Joe was only too willing to oblige, and being the quick study he's always been in matters pornopossible , he performed his duties as though he was to the paddle born. His comely lapmate is May Duffner, a magnificently endowed model who played the role of naughty so nicely you'd think she'd been practicing.

It's all in day's work, loyal readers. I'm just glad I was there to document another "You think I make this stuff up?" moment.

Incidentally, Joe invited Lauren and May to the spring season grand opening of The Ellen (tiberinomuseum.org) on Saturday, April 17 from 2 p.m.until dawn or thereabouts. You're invited too.

March Madness? Spring is here? Tell it to the snow sphinx

2010-03-09T07:18:43Z

WE KNOW IT CAN ONLY GET WORSE, and yet we can't help but notice how nice these last couple of days have been. A long sunny weekend in early March, an almost warm Monday. The sense of spring, not in abstract or memory, but to feel it in the air like sex in the wind. I can smell Spring around here!

But it's a tease, not even a lie. March is a month only a mother could love. Such a disappointment. Not allowed to be still winter, not supposed to be spring. Acting out all the time.

I see no lamb in March. A lion certainly, but not roaring necessarily. I see an inscrutable lionlike presence in the month of March. Like that snow sphinx above. March is patient. March has seen it all.

Our Long National Nightmare is Over

2010-02-28T04:10:49Z

CAN YOU IMAGINE? It's been sixty-two years since we felt this good. Sixty two years since a really really fat American won a gold medal in the Olympic Games.

Like yours, my eyes moistened last night when I saw the American gold medal winning bobsled team jump into that souped up NASCAR entry called "The Night Train." It was like watching them boys from the Dukes of Hazard jump into the General Lee. Yee haaa, who's gonna beat this lead sled down the hill?!?

No one in the world, as it turned out.

At least the skipper of the Night Train looked like a mechanic -- a short, fat, bald mechanic. Steve Holcomb, driver/skipper of the USA's gold medal winning four-man bobsled team, is one of those guys that spandex wasn't made for. During beefy Team USA's final run Saturday one of the NBC announcers marvelled, " Look how low these athletes get in this sled."

I'm sorry, that was just plain funny.

And to think that the United States has been denied this moment of national joy and accomplishment since 1948.