Yeah, OK, maybe I need to give up the ghost. I just can’t find the time on Fridays to do this jawn. So maybe it’s best I move it to Saturday. Regardless, some good stuff in here.

Where I’m Eating: I did a pizza contest in 2006, and concluded that Tony’s Pizza was top 3 in the city. It had probably been a decade since I had been there last, so when I was in the neighborhood last weekend, I thought it would be a good move to swing by and grab a pie. I gotta say that the pizza is just as terrific as I remembered. Sauce on top of the cheese, perfect crust, crispy pepperoni. Only drawback was a picture of Trump on the wall. Ugh. But that’s just how good Tony’s is; most places I would just write off after seeing Trump on the wall, but at Tony’s I really have to consider my options.

Where I Hate But My Kid Loves: Ok, so I don’t hate it, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled to hit up the Insectarium last weekend. My kid is a die hard fan of snakes, spiders, and scorpions and I gotta say they’re pretty much my three least favorite things on earth. So being in a room surrounded by them all was his version of heaven and my version of hell. But if you like that kind of thing, then the Insectarium is great. And the butterfly sanctuary was more my speed. Really cool, and they occasionally have a beer garden in there, which sounds cool.

What I’m listening to: I’m a fan of Philly rapper Vinnie Paz, so needless to say, I’m listening to his new album. It’s pretty solid. I especially loved the song Spilled Milk, which is about how his father didn’t stop smoking when the doctors told him to, and ended up dying when Vinnie was young. This is when he’s at his best, when he’s talking about the heartbreak he’s been through.

10 years old they told me my father dead

What the f**k was going through my father’s head

He ain’t think his youngins need his father

Had 10 million chances to change but didn’t bother

It’s like he didn’t love me enough to live

Or too selfish to make an adjustment for his kids

And you ain’t think you dyin’ would divide us

And you ain’t think a 10 year old boy needed guidance

Ain’t nobody talkin’ just bottle it up inside us

And shit can turn ugly when there’s no-one there to guide us

It’s all good, I still love you, I forgive you

But that ain’t gonna be something my son is gonna live through

He ain’t gonna lose me the way that I lost you

Because doing that to him is just something I couldn’t do

What Legend I got to Meet This Week: On Monday, the Philly Blunt crew sat down with Cornbread the Legend. For those who don’t know, Cornbread is credited as the first graffiti artist of the modern era. We talked about him tagging an elephant, how hip hop culture started in Philly, and how he was able to end his drug addiction after over 15 years. Great interview…drops on Monday.

What Ridiculous Project I Worked on this Week: Put together this ridiculous video with Reef the Lost Cauze for Shibe Sports. Pretty funny.

Yes, I’m a day late. Couldn’t get it into yesterday’s schedule. But better late than never, here’s the Friday Five:

Where I’m Watching Basketball: At the Cathedral of College Basketball, of course. We are beyond blessed to live in a city that has a venue like the Palestra. Most field houses like this one have long since passed on for cookie cutter “modern” arenas, but this architectural marvel lives on. I watched Penn-Harvard there last week. Not a bad seat in the house.

Family Tradition I Love: At Super Bowl III, my dad and his roommate Ron decided to bet a 6-pack on the Super Bowl (my dad took the Colts, and lost to Broadway Joe). The next year, they did it again. And then, after college, they decided to travel to each others homes for the Super Bowl. Then the two got married and had kids, but decided even then to keep getting together for the Super Bowl, despite living 4 hours apart. So it became a part of our childhood, knowing that the Super Bowl was as much a holiday as Christmas or Thanksgiving. And on and on its gone, through their kids becoming adults, getting married, through tragedy and triumph. This past weekend we did it all again. What a wonderful tradition and what a wonderful weekend.

Where I’m Grabbing a Beer: Is there a better place to be on a Friday than Bob n Barbara’s? The lineup of the Crowd Pleasers has changed over the years, but the music still sounds as funky as ever and it puts everyone in there in a good mood. Just a magical, magical place.

What I’m Listening To: Kind of digging this new joint from G. Love and Special Sauce.

What I’m Reading: Like many, I’ve struggled to come to grips with the death of Kobe Bryant (I actually met he and Vanessa many years ago, and like everyone else, am just overwhelmed when I think about what she’s going through). I am still working on writing something about it. But I also struggle to come to grips with his legacy in light of what happened in Colorado. I think this article does a really fair job of talking about it.

Cool Thing I Did This Week: I’m going to be hosting a podcast with Billy Penn twice a month, and we recorded our first one on Thursday at WHYY studios. A lot of fun and great to meet their writers. Pretty cool! Should launch on Monday. Be sure to sign up for their newsletter. Not only is it a great recap of everything happening locally, it will also contain the podcast on Monday.

Podcast I’m Listening To: I’m a bit late to the party, but Chip Chantry turned me onto this one: S-town, about the bizarre goings on in a small town in Alabama. A reporter goes down there to investigate a murder, and ends up being a part of something else. I like it not only because it’s so well done, but because it reminds me a bit of where I grew up. A small town in the middle of nowhere, with enough interesting characters to make Twin Peaks look like Ozzie and Harriet.

What I’m Watching: Don Montrey, a member of Comedy Sportz who performed at our World Cafe Live Seinfeld quiz, posted this and I was kind of amazed by it. It’s called an Ames window, and it’s a hell of an optical illusion. It reminds us that what we see isn’t always what’s actually happening, and that sometimes our expectations guide our brains more than our eyes do.

Music I’m Listening To: I love this song by Brother Ali so much. It’s an impossibly beautiful song about a topic that we very rarely hear in music: love for self. Brother Ali is a rarity in hip-hop: an albino Muslim who is legally blind. In the song, he talks about reasons that he should be bitter, but instead is joyous. It’s wonderful.

Ayo, dependin’ on the day, and dependin’ on what I ate

I’m anywhere from twenty to thirty-five pounds overweight

I got red eyes and one of them’s lazy

And they both squint when the sun shines so I look crazy

I’m albino, man, I know I’m pink and pale

And I’m hairy as hell, everywhere but fingernails

I shave a cranium that ain’t quite shaped right

Face type, shiny, I stay up and write late nights

My wardrobe is jeans and faded shirts

A mixture of what I like and what I wear to work

I’m not mean and got a neck full of razor bumps

I’m not the classic profile of what the ladies want

You might think I’m depressed as can be

But when I look in the mirror I see sexy-ass me

And if that’s somethin that you can’t respect then that’s peace

My life’s better without you, actually

To everyone out there, who’s a little different

I say damn a magazine, these is God’s fingerprints

You can call me ugly but can’t take nothing from me

I am what I am, doctor, you ain’t gotta love me

Cool Thing That Happened This Week: Not only was Bowlizzo a huge success (we sold out all eight lanes and had a ton of fun), but something kind of cool happened. 15 years ago, I joined the Big Brothers program. On Sunday my little brother, now a graduate of Temple, brought his friends out for the event. It was his first ever quizzo. Pretty neat.