The Daily DeLeon

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.

When snow gets ugly: Come and get me coppers!

2010-02-23T21:46:17Z

WHEN SNOW GETS UGLY, which is right about now for those keeping score at home, it tends to mountain up in dirty piles ten feet tall. When snow gets ugly, it's lost its charm and even its menace. It's just there. It no longer everywhere. It's no longer unavoidable. It's like a week's worth of trash that hasn't been picked up for two weeks.

This pile on Montgomery Avenue in Narberth is more than a week old, and even then it was decorated by a hopeful message in red "(Spring is Coming!") plus the black logo of the Main Line Bicycle store (those are supposed to be bicycle chain links, although to me it looks more like the word "grog") where the pile takes up one of its parking spaces.

I haven't seen this much snow hang around Philadelphia this long since the Winter of '77. That's the winter of Nineteen Seventy-Seven -- Dag Nabbit!! -- the coldest winter anyone in these parts can remember.. With another snow storm on its way Thursday and Friday, our already record-breaking winter snowfall may actually become the equivalen of the epic "Snows of Yesteryear" we used to hear about from our grandparents.

South Broad Street's Got the Blues and Lookin' Good

2010-02-17T23:30:15Z

LITTLE BY LITTLE over the last couple of years the stone facades of buildings along South Broad Street on the blocks below City Hall have been highlighted with a blueish hue, making the Avenue of the Arts look positively bluesy at night. It's a striking look and it's been slowing creeping south, building by building, until now it's beginning make the predominent first impression.

For some reason, Broad Street has always seemed dark to me at night. More than just dark, Broad Street seemed to be the place where light went to die. Even with crowded sidewalks and the majesty of City Hall looming ahead, South Broad Street, the heart if Center City Philadelphia, always looked gloomy in years past.

These blue lights highlight Broad Street's architechture, the "beetling gibraltars of concrete", which is how Public Ledger columnist Christopher Morley described the same stretch of South Broad in the early 1920's..

Winter of Our Discontent: Casper Meets the Indians

2010-02-14T21:40:22Z

THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH a guy can do to document the snowiest Philadelphia winter in any living person's lifetime. I've taken hundreds of photos so far to document the depth and breadth of our record-breaking snowfalls of February 2010 (with more due tomorrow) and I can only show one at a time. So here's the one I've chosen for today.

That's Casper the Friendly Snowman sitting smack dab in the middle of the Swann Fountain at Logan Circle in Center City. Casper's eyes seem to have been concocted out of someone's woolen gloves (voluntarily surrendered, perhaps?).

Casper joins the three other permanent Philadelphia presences in the fountain -- the Delaware, the Schuylkill and the Wissahickon, which is what the the three human Indian figures (sculpted by Alexander Sterling Calder, son the City Hall master sculptor -- including the 37-foot-tall bronze of William Penn -- Alexander Milne Calder) symbolically represent.

How permanent Casper remains depends on how cruel the Winter of 'Ten continues.

So it is written. So shall it be done. Count me in, yeah, sorta.

2010-02-08T06:12:33Z

I JUST STOLE THIS OFF THE INTERNET. Just like that. A friend sent this to me and now I share it with you. This is funny on any level you want to argue. It's like seeing the Di Brothers do Sammy. -- live --!!! There are some things you have to be there -- have been there -- to have a clue. This is not a code.

The Grim Reaper below decks

2010-01-25T03:36:37Z

THE BATTLESHIP NEW JERSEY'S 16-inch guns are aimed at the Ben Franklin Bridge from its anchorage in Camden, and when I'm doing my bus tours of Philadelphia near Penn's Landing I like to point that out. And I add, "If war ever breaks out between Pennsylvania and New Jersey those guns will take out the bridge to prevent an invasion."

That's a joke, of course, But if you've ever been on a tour belowdecks of the New Jersey there's a telling mural in the powder magazine where those 16-inch mega-cannon are loaded for firing. On one wall is a painting of the Grim Reaper holding his scythe with his skeletal hand above the words, "Those who oppose will meet me. DEMOCRACY AT ANY COST."

Now since we're all for Islam, I mean, Democracy, such a sentiment among warriors seems almost reasonable. Unless you consider that the American military is one of the least Democratic institutions in the nation.

I, for one, believe in Democracy. But I've seen my country do more wrong in Democracy's name than Christianity and Islam have done in the name of Jesus and Muhammed..

Does Television Suck? Or is It Just Me?

2010-01-16T03:06:28Z

I was about to write the words, "Nothing shocks me on television anymore" when I realized that if that was true I wouldn't be writing this. Incrementally over the years, like a lobster placed in a pot of cool water that doesn't notice the increasing temperature from the stove, we haven't leaped or clawed our way out of the pot as much as simmered drowsily in its deadening heat. We've accepted without protest the most recent public spectacle of network TV's treatment of Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, two richly rewarded good guys in a sea of counterfeit crap peddlers, who have been forced to cannibalize each other publicly. Try to imagine Johnny Carson in a similar position.

And this is what television does to its multi-million dollar stars. But I'm not talking about the business of television -- the insipid reality shows, the mind numbing repetitious local news programs that seemingly have less to say the more hours they are permitted each day to broadcast weather, traffic reports and recent crime. I'm talking abot the whole package. The effect it's having on the way we think, or perhaps the way we once thought we thought.

For instance, imagine how many advertisements we see everyday for patent medicines in which the bulk of the commercial warns of us of the possible side effects -- up to and including "in rare instances" death -- while showing happy people enjoying fulfilling lives, sometimes in seperate bathtubs, with the same happy theme music playing in the background throughout. We've become lobsters who don't even notice our bathtubs are side by side and outdoors. Who can believe a word these commercials utter? Who cares?

Evidently they work because television does not reward failure. Or, for the matter, successful past performance (see Jay, Conan, above). What television does reward, apprently, is dead performance. Months after loud-talking bearded huckster Billy Mays' death, he's still shouting about miracle products that rub, rub, voila! Scratches gone, stains gone, life gone. Who cares? Only the Sham Wow Guy knows.

So in the midst of such daily dreck what could have captured my attention to have me declare that I was "shocked" by what I saw? What gave me that Extra push? It was the obscene juxtaposition of Haiti's devastation and Heidie's reconstruction, a full hour of intense coverage of the Port Au Prince corpeses by a sunburned and genuinily bewildered Brian Williams, a guy whose eyes you take to be your own, and to see that look in Brian Williams eyes was to see George Orwell eying Burma and the elephant. Followed immediately by an Extra Extra report about the cosmetic surgery visited upon Heidie's boobs bust belly naval nip tuck what the luck.

Somehow I found it obscene in a great gulp of shame that this is what television is capable of. To follow the devastation of Haiti seamlessly with a report on excessive elective surgery options executed by the most beautiful women on earth who can't stand the sight of herself.

Oh Haiti. Heidie, Heidie, Heidie. . .

Conversation: About those grown up kids of ours

2010-01-10T22:35:27Z

Jim,

Empty Nest? Are you referring to what I call "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!" Our youngest just started her freshman year in college in Boston last September so, yes, I am familiar with the concept of empty nest if not the angst.

Let me wax unkind for a moment: for the sake of a common reference let's compare parents with empty nest anxiety with that room full of nervous Nellies you observed at that awards presentation. Instead of beaming with parental pride in the accomplishments of their children they communicated a desperate unease so palpable you identified it. These are the empty nest cohort of the future and for the very same reason you described. They never took the simple pleasure of enjoying their children during a million moments, each one worthy of savoring. A child is not a stock portfolio to be judged on its short term and long term performance. You didn't buy or invest in this person; you created this person. Enjoy the magic as it unfolds. You have a front row seat to the greatest show on earth. If you can't handle the clowns, don't join the circus.

Have you noticed that empty nest anxiety is a one-way emotion. Do you think kids suffer from lost nest anxiety? Of course they do, it's called growing up. How did their parents get to this age without experiencing the benefit of the maturity they expect their children to achieve by the age of 23.

I keep forgetting. If there weren't fucked up people in the world, you wouldn't have a job. Nor would plastic surgeons and prison guards.

In my completely unfair and ill informed judgement, the kind of people you're talking about are going to suffer career transition anxiety, life fulfillment anxiety, better front lawn anxiety, where are my grandchildren anxiety and "Is that all there is?" anxiety. What are we to do? What are we to do?

When I think of my own father, I have to laugh at the men of my generation. My father was a black hole of resentment who never understood his own emotions. He revealed himself in silence and explosions, which is to say he never revealed himself to his family or himself. Eight years after he died I discovered through letters he wrote to his sister from Okinawa in October 1945 that when we dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki my dad was on a ship off the coast of Japan awaiting the invasion. He was 36 years old with two children at home in Philadelphia. If we hadn't dropped the bomb, if Sgt. Harry DeLeon had been one of the estimated 250,000 American casualties in that invasion, well, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we? Now ask me my political opinion of the morality of America's decision to use an atomic weapon. I must admit it's become more personal. Even in death my father is having conversations with me he never would have in life.

Here's a thought: a question you can ask your over anxious parents. "Can you think of a time when your son or daughter unexpectedly filled your heart with pride." Don't let them get away with academic, athletic or organized activity achievements. "No, I mean something personal that only you noticed. Something that made you realize what a terrific kid you've raised."

And if they still don't get it, offer this as an example of what you mean. It was a Saturday and my son, Danny, and I were out doing Saturday afternoon errands. He was maybe 12. We stopped at a McDonalds on Chestnut Street in West Philadelphia for lunch and when we walked out I saw a panhandler, a haggard gray haired bag lady, begging for change. This was at the peak of the aggressive homeless panhandling "issue" during the depressing Mayor Wilson Goode years.

I deliberately set my jaw and strode manfully past the old lady, her "Please sir. . ." entreaty barely reaching my ears as I hurried beyond her voice. Maybe ten paces later I noticed that Danny wasn't beside me. I turned and saw the bag lady had stopped him. "Son, I was trying to show you how to effectively ignore these people," I thought as I watched her work him for what seemed like a long time, maybe 30 seconds. At 12 he was already a head taller than this sad old lady. I felt more sorry for him than her. "Come on, boy. Walk away. You can't stop for every panhandler you see. You'll learn," I thought as I watched him reach into his pants pocket and hand her all the money he had -- a crumpled dollar bill.

The bag lady reacted like some Dickensian character, "Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you." calling after him as he walked away, clearly embarrassed, especially when he saw that I had witnessed the entire scene. He walked up to me with downcast eyes and said quietly, "I quess you think I'm a sucker."

I turned away quickly so he couldn't see the sudden misting in my eyes. "I don't think you're a sucker," I said as we walked. "Son, I think your a man."

Clark DeLeon

This thing of ours we call the Mummers

2010-01-03T18:17:33Z

YOU HAVE TO "GET" THE MUMMERS to get Philadelphia. I don't mean you have to "like" the Mummers or "enjoy" the Mummers or even "approve" of the Mummers. You just have to understand the reason why there's a Mummers Parade in Philadelphia every New Year's Day rather than in any other city on earth. The Mummers are like a magic act you've seen a thousand times and yet you can't explain the trick. It's a sleight of hand with both hands in plain sight . There is no artful deception; the crafty illusion of the Mummers Parade lies in its utter sincerity. You couldn't make this stuff up. And if someone tried it would come off as falsely fanciful and make believe as a Disney or a Six Flags or a Starbucks on Two Street.

Philadelphia's Mummers Parade isn't an ancient solstice festival or a defiant ethnic rite of celebration or a tourist-friendly civic marketing opportunity so much as this city's historically predictable obsessive compulsive disorder. Mummers. Where did these guys come from? The centuries of fat and lean years have changed their traditional chant, "Give us whiskey, give us gin, give us Broad Street, let us in. Give us millions or if not, we'll strut and dance for free nonstop." If the NFL Players Association operated like the Mummers, the Superbowl would be aired on public television. Like the internet, nobody has discovered how to make money on the Mummers. The days of local TV stations offering million dollar contracts to air the parade are long gone.

Think of it. In the year 2010 the Mummers had to pay $150,000 to march in the city of Philadelphia on New Year's Day. We all know why; the recession, police overtime, yadda-yadda-yadda. We all know that the "prize money" awarded by the city to the winning clubs over the years has been a gesture compared to the actual financial cost, both to the individual and the organization, of being a Mummer. Well, boo-freakin'-hoo, Mr. and Mrs. Mummer (and as I write those words I think of a string band captain in Port Richmond decades ago named Richard, whose nickname was "Big Dick", which was printed on the back of his club jacket as he sat on a barstool in the clubhouse next to his wife, who wore a mummers' club jacket identifying her as "Mrs. Big Dick."). The Mummers have survived worse times than these -- world wars, the Great Depression, Wilson Goode -- and they continue to be "this thing of ours", Philadelphia's "la cosa nostra," a New Year's parade you can't refuse.

You shoulda seen that snow pile before the Frogs got at it

2010-01-02T05:21:51Z

PUBLIC ART IN PHILADELPHIA comes in many shapes and many mediums. Frequently liquid. Especially on a cold New year's morning after a long march up Broad Street with frequent hydration stops along the way. By Broad and Lombard and that great mural on the side of the kwiki-mart parking lot some, of the comics from Froggy Carr (in sombreros and sarapes) joined their wench brigade mates from the Saints for a snow removal effort.

Only a mummer could make pissing look like art. Bad art but colorfully bad.

You shoulda seen that snow pile before the Frogs got at it

2010-01-02T05:21:51Z

PUBLIC ART IN PHILADELPHIA comes in many shapes and many mediums. Frequently liquid. Especially on a cold New year's morning after a long march up Broad Street with frequent hydration stops along the way. By Broad and Lombard and that great mural on the side of the kwiki-mart parking lot some, of the wenches from Froggy Carr (in sombreros and sarapes) joined their bridage mates from the Saints for a snow removal effort.

Only a mummer could make pissing look like art. Bad art but colorfully bad.

Why Do You Think They're called Philadelphia Lawyers?

2009-12-30T19:48:01Z

IN THE MIDST OF LAST WEEK'S snow and ice assault throughout the region, one of the most outstanding efforts to warn passing pedestrians of dangers overhead was found on a step ladder placed almost defiantly in the middle of the sidewalk on S. 13th Street between Pine and Spruce. No one can accuse this law firm of not demonstrating due diligence in warning passersby that the sky, quite literally, might be falling.

Lower Merion High School feels the burn

2009-12-20T18:53:10Z

ON THIS WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS let us reflect on the stunning chant shouted by a vocal minority of fans at Upper Darby High School last Tuesday during a boy's basketball game versus Lower Merion. "Warm up the ovens," they chanted. "Warm up the ovens." Don't get it? It's about all those Jews at Lower Merion High School. You didn't know Lower Merion was Jewish? Neither did I. And I spent four years at Lower Merion High School after eight years at St. Margaret's in Narberth, where I never met a Jew. Or a Protestant. Or, quite frankly, a black person.

It was a wonderful time to grow up. For the love of God we hated everybody and everybody hated us right back. We felt sorry for those pagan babies we Catholic school kids "ransomed" -- and named -- for five bucks a pop, but most of us didn't want to live next door to grown up pagan babies, many of whom had changed their names from Mary or Joseph to Viet and Cong. I look back in wonder at those innocent racist times and I wonder all these years later how I became Jewish in the minds of those Upper Darby idiots whose chanted "Warm up the ovens!" and shouted "We'll write you letters when you're in Auschwitz." at a boy's basketball game. Ironically, Lower Merion High School has about as many Jewish members on its basketball team as Notre Dame has Irish. But just imagine how big this story would have been if those chants had been lynching references ("Get a rope!") aimed at the African American players. As it is the anti-semetic shouts resulted in a formal apology from Upper Darby Schools Superintendent Louis DeVlieger to "all those people from Lower Merion who are effected by this." (Statistically, Lower Merion Township breaks down to 90 percent white, 4.5 percent African American and the remainder a variety of racial or ethnic identities. Of those Lower Merion residents who have religious affiliations, 35 percent are Catholic, 21 percent Protestant and eight percent Jewish).

I'm proud to say that the players on my high school's basketball team responded the only appropriate way by spanking Upper Darby on the scoreboard, 51-27. When the two teams play again next month at Lower Merion, don't be surprised if you see a lot of fans, black and white, Christian and agnostic, wearing yellow Stars of David on their Lower Merion jackets.