Really. This image might top the dream I had about my friend Dominic booking a concert with Steely Dan, Jandek, and Robyn.

I gotta give a small shout-out to the Gdowiks — without these people, Philadelphia wouldn’t be half as fun as it can be at times. My amazing friend Trishy, has entered the blog world again with Cities In Pixie Dust. As she puts it, “This project aims to be a visual storybook documenting cities — and the lifeforce and people who make them alive. The agony and the ecstasy. The beautiful, the mundane, the silly and the bizarre.” You might remember her old site, Groovelingo, which was one of the first sites in town covering music & arts in a quasi-blog form.

Trishy’s brother, Steve, runs Too Drunk To Blog, and it’s just as fun as the Dead Kennedys tune it references. Wii! Karaoke! Who needs to drink when you can do it vicariously through Steve?

This is a top notch post. Note to self: I need to post my interview with Sharkey and Chuck Meehan The Legend on here, like, tonight.

I think people are getting really stressed out about their “Best of 2007″ lists. Totally understandable — how exactly do you ordinate a year’s worth of experience? (If you’re anything like me and thought this year was a total wash, then it’s more difficult.) So I give you two choices to de-stress: WPRB DJ Jon Solomon’s “Enter Snowman” column or Crystal Vibrations. Both are win-win.

When I look at these, the first thing to spring into my mind is the Evolution Control Committee’s infamous “Rocked By Rape”.

From my pal Herbie (of Brown Recluse Sings):

vote here!

this is seriously one of the most hilarious things the internet hath produced recently. greenpeace put up a voting thing on their site to name a whale. and all the names are lame like ‘means “fighting warrior” in japanese’. the OBVIOUS choice is mister splashy pants.

please post this around! it’s already been on all the msgboards i post on … get it out there some more!

VOTE OR DIE, BITCHES. PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRAZY.

If Philadelphia’s as bad as we make it sound, why weren’t we placed higher in the new “Most Dangerous City” rankings? This what happens when questionable data is made available….

Experts say ‘most dangerous city’ rankings twist numbers

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) — In another blow to the Motor City’s tarnished image, Detroit pushed past St. Louis to become the
nation’s most dangerous city, according to a private research group’s controversial analysis, released Sunday, of annual FBI crime statistics.

The study drew harsh criticism even before it came out. The American Society of Criminology launched a pre-emptive strike Friday, issuing a statement attacking it as “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data.

The 14th annual “City Crime Rankings: Crime in Metropolitan America” was published by CQ Press, a unit of Congressional
Quarterly Inc. It is based on the FBI’s September 24 crime statistics report.

The report looked at 378 cities with at least 75,000 people and their per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft. Each crime category was considered separately and weighted based on its seriousness, CQ Press said.

[…]

“Every year this organization sends out a press release with big, bold lettering that labels a certain city as Most Dangerous, USA,” Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said in the release.

“It really makes you wonder if the organization is truly concerned with evaluating crime or increasing their profit,” said Bully-Cummings, who noted the complete report is available only by purchase. “With crime experts across the country routinely denouncing the findings, I believe the answer is clear.”

The mayor of 30th-ranked Rochester, New York — an ex-police chief himself — said the study’s authors should consider the harm that the report causes.

“What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities,” said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The rankings “do groundless harm to many communities,” said Michael Tonry, president of the American Society of Criminology.

“They also work against a key goal of our society, which is a better understanding of crime-related issues by both scientists and the public,” Tonry said.

Critics also complain that numbers don’t tell the whole story because of differences among cities.

“You’re not comparing apples and oranges; you’re comparing watermelons and grapes,” said Rob Casey, who heads the FBI
section that puts out the Uniform Crime Report that provides the data for the Quitno report.

The FBI posted a statement on its Web site criticizing such use of its statistics.

“These rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, or region,” the FBI said. “Consequently, they lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents.”

Read on for the whole article, as well as CQ’s defense of their report. Additionally, I’m just terribly amused that there’s a city police chief with the name “bully” — that must make for some hilarious local headlines.

Thanks to Idolator, I was tipped off to the NYT article on “No Music Day”, which occurs this Wednesday, 11/21. I already participated in Shutdown Day 2007, so I think I’ll give it a shot.

while you were chilling
and going to dance parties,
guess what has happened?

THERE IS A BREW PUB
YOGA STUDIO, AND A
COFFEE SHOP! HELLO!

brew pub’s been open
for weeks and nobody’s smashed
the damn windows yet

like when trader joes
got a garbage compactor
and no one broke it

and what’s up with the
snot-nosed hipster fucks coming,
like they think they’re cool?

organization -
it’s not like rocket science,
it’s really easy!

get political,
take charge of the neighborhood,
or move the fuck out.

I’m still bummed no one has taken this to the next level with other poetic formats. I tried a cinquain!

OMG John is so young and cute in this video. Thanks for putting this up guys.