I had a nice little roll going with the Friday Five until everything went to hell in March. I think it’s time to bring it back. Here’s what I’m doing, reading, and where I’m eating these days.

• We got named Philly’s Best Podcast by Philly Mag in their latest edition! Pretty heady stuff. It’s been a labor of love for the past two years and I’m really, really proud of what we’ve created. If you haven’t listened, you should. Our interview with Terrill Haigler, aka _yafavtrashman last week was terrific. And legendary lawyer Chuck Peruto was really good too. Be sure to follow us on Instgram and Facebook.

• Bought The Regulars a few weeks ago, and oh man is it awesome. It’s by Sarah Stolfa, who was a bartender at Philly’s legendary dive bar McGlinchey’s. She decided to take photos of the regulars as they sat at the bar. The pictures are beautiful, and the writing is terrific too.

• In the old days, you had brunch at your favorite bar on the weekends. Nowadays, it’s all about grabbing a picnic lunch and heading to Fairmount. As for the lunch, we’ve been going to Woodrow’s for our hoagies lately, and they never disappoint. I’ve become a vegetarian for the most part, so I no longer get their Italian, which is awesome, but the shrimp Po Boy is fantastic. As for where to sit and eat? It’s REALLY tough to beat the view at Lemon Hill (below).

• Been really into Missing in Alaska podcast. Crazy story I had never heard before. In 1972, two Congressmen boarded a Cessna in Alaksa and were never seen again. It was believed that the plane went down in bad weather. But there’s a twist: a mobster would marry one of the men’s widows a year later. And in the 1990s, that mobster would state that the plane had been bombed. So the podcast tries to figure out what the truth is. I haven’t quite reached the end yet, and it drags a bit at times because it’s sooooo comprehensive, but it’s really interesting. You can read more about the case here.

• Reading a book about about William Dampier. One of the coolest people ever. Scientist, philosopher, oh yeah and pirate. He circumnavigated the globe three times, was court martialed, marooned, and introduced the words barbecue, avocado, and chopsticks to the english language. This is the book. Really good.

Alright, see ya next week. In the meantime, be sure to follow JGT Quizzo on Facebook.

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.

Where I’m Drinking: Congrats to Fergie, who just opened the GOAT on 19th and Sansom. I went by last night for Opening Night and it’s what Fergie does so well: no “concept”, just a place where people like to drink and talk. There wasn’t a huge crowd by the time I got there at 11 after Bards quizzo, but here’s the thing I found fascinating: people weren’t on their phones. Everybody in there was talking to someone else. And Fergie’s is the same way. In a world where we all walk around like zombies with a screen n front of our eyes, it’s no small feat.

It’s located in the same location as a notoriously bizarre bar that was there forever. I told Fergie, “It’s nice but it’s no Oh! Shea’s.” Without missing a beat, he said, “And you’re nice but you’re no Irish John.”

If you’ve never heard our interview with Fergie on the Blunt, do yourself a favor and listen now.

What I’m Listening To: Speaking of the Blunt, most of you know that Reef the Lost Cauze is my partner on that podcast, but he’s also one the best rappers in Philly. He recently released a new song, and it’s fantastic. He’s also appearing on stage on Sunday with Blackalicious at Ardmore Music Hall in what’s going to be a hell of a show. If you’ve never heard their song Alphabet Aerobics, do so now. It’s one of the most amazing rap songs ever made. I saw them at the TLA 15 years ago, and they were incredible.

If you wanna hear more from Reef, he earlier this week sat down on another podcast and talked about why he’s stopped touring, how having a daughter has changed him, and the inspiration he took from our recent Blunt interview with Joan Myers Brown. Good stuff.

Where I’m Grabbing Coffee: The Italian Market is my favorite neighborhood in the city. It really is the best of who we are: the energy, the diversity, rough around the edges but a lot of heart. My favorite Italian restaurant in the city (Villa Di Roma) and my favorite Mexican restaurant (Blue Corn) are side by side. You can delicious cheese from DiBruno’s and delicious gravy from Superior Ravioli. And it also has two of the best coffee shops in the city. Gleaners is the funkier of the two, and has one of the best people watching windows in the city. Anthony’s is a bit cleaner cut, but that’s not a dig at all. And I love the history: it’s a 4th generation family business.

What Weird Statue I Like: That bike robot one in front of Johnny Brendas.

Where My Favorite Mannequin Is: Meglio Furs. South Broad. God I freaking love that window. I don’t know what it is, I just love a window display that looks the same as it did when the place closed like 20 years ago. Some Twilight Zone shit.

What I’m Reading: I read this piece by a guy currently in Philly who was a member of Robert E Lee’s fraternity. Interesting piece. There is certainly a cult of personality around Lee in Virginia. I was taught all that nonsense: what a gentleman he was, all these absurd fables about how kind he was to blacks and sweet to the ladies.

What I’m Listening To: Been playing around with playlists on Spotify. Created this one for quizzo this week: All Philly performers.

What I’m Eating: A couple of weeks ago, some folks from Small Oven came by the quiz at Dock Street. TBH, I didn’t even know the place existed before that. But it’s a shared space with Porco’s and I was there at lunch so I tried the Spicy Porker. Nice space, very good sandwich. Great addition to the Washington Ave corridor.

Where I’m Drinking: Went with the fam to The Post last weekend. It seems to be more of a college hangout, but I got to say, it was an awesome place to take my kid. They’ve got Pop a Shot, they’ve got Skeeball, they’ve got air hockey. And really good Happy Hour specials. (It’s also the place we interviewed John Bolaris a few months ago. If you haven’t heard that one, you have to. Him talking about what happened in Miami is incredible.)

Where I’m Taking in the View: Don’t have to go far for this one. Finally made it up to Cira Green. Beautiful. Already talking to them about possibly doing some events there this spring.

Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to join me on twitter and be sure to listen to Philly’s best podcast, the Philly Blunt. For more great places to eat, drink, and visit in the area, check out previous Friday Fives here.

COOL AS HELL THING WE DID THIS WEEK:

Took my kid to iFly in King of Prussia. Awesome! Just unreal seeing your kid flying.

WHAT I’M READING: This article on “shit-life syndrome” and how the Dems are completely oblivious to it. Desperate people want answers to their problems, they could give a shit about Russia or the Ukraine or any of the things that twitter obsesses over on any given day. The Dems (other than Bernie) continue to base their campaign on assuaging the hurt feelings of middle class coastal whites while ignoring people who need help.

Shit-life syndrome is not another fictitious illness conjured up by the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industrial complex to sell psychotropic drugs. It is a reality created by corporatist rulers and their lackey politicians—pretending to care about their minimum-wage-slave constituents, who are trying to survive on 99¢ boxed macaroni and cheese prepared in carcinogenic water, courtesy of DuPont or some other such low-life leviathan.

The thing that the article gets wrong is that Bernie fans gave up on him because he backed Clinton in 2016. That’s absurd. Nobody but the most radical leftists dropped off the Bernie train because he did that.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO: Some of the hottest rappers out right now (not including pop mumble bullshit) are from, of all places, Buffalo. Griselda is a group and a record company that was signed by Eminem’s Shady records. As Stereogum says: This music is firmly and proudly out of step with right-now rap music. Reminds me quite a bit of 90s era Wu Tang, and this video was directed by another 90s legend, Hype Williams. NSFW. I also really dig this song they did with the legendary DJ Premier.

WHERE I’M EATING:

Two places: Loco Pez recently opened in my hood at 20th and Bainbridge. Good food, good drink, and love the interior. They also have a great happy hour deal: half off nachos, and they’ve got damn good nachos…even better, that happy hour extends to the weekend, as they have a 1 to 3 pm happy hour on weekends. Also, Banh Mi Cali on the corner or 9th and Arch. No frills, no thrills, just a damn good banh mi.

COOL QUIZ I HOSTED THIS WEEK:

Did one for the Phillies front office in the Diamond Club at CBP. Pretty sweet. If you dig the Friday Five, be sure to follow me on twitter. Thanks!

Best Way to See Christmas Lights: Did the Founding Footsteps Christmas Lights show this past Sunday, and oh man was it great. A BYO trip through Philly with live Christmas music, it’s a great way to look at the city in a whole different way. There’s a fun Christmas pop-up bar to start off. Then it’s all aboard, and you head to South Smedley Street to see the lights there. Off to the Miracle on 13th Street, past the City Hall lights, and over to the Art Museum, where you get to check out the enormous tree. Just a really fun tour, and the guy who runs it, Tim, is an awesome dude. This isn’t some big corporate monolith going through the motions. This is a Philly owned and operated business sharing their love of the city, and it comes through in the tour. Highly recommend. You can get tickets here.

Where I’m grabbing pizza: Is it my favorite pizza in town? No. Is it always service with a smile? No. But there’s still something special about Lorenzo’s. The comically large slices, the number of people there with bloodshot eyes, the communal sense of everyone eating around the same counter. When I first moved here, I was a regular…I was dead broke, and $2 was a good price for a meal. The price has gone all the way up to $4.50 over the past 18 years, but it’s still a good deal.

Underrated Christmas Lights: The old Lit Brothers building on Market street has one of the most underrated light shows in town.

What I’m Listening To: Slow Burn, a podcast by Slate. They did a great one about Watergate a couple of years ago. They came back this year with a solid one on Biggie and Tupac.

What Local Legend I Got to Hang Out This Week: The Geator with the Heater, the Boss With the Hot Sauce. Jerry Blavat sat down with the Philly Blunt on Thursday night (if you don’t know who he is, you should read this excellent 2008 Philly Mag piece on him). Oh man, it was so much fun. His stories about Chuck Berry, Sammy Davis, and Angelo Bruno were incredible. Episode drops next week. In the meantime, be sure to listen to our interview with DJ Rich Medina.

What I’m enjoying: Maploco. Stumbled across this website this week. It lets you post every state you’ve ever visited. My rules for visiting: must have had a meal there and either shopped or seen a cultural attraction. Zooming through at 65 MPH doesn’t count (I’ve driven through Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas, but have never “visited”.) I’ve been lucky enough to take two cross country trips in my life (humblebrag), which certainly helped knock a lot of states off the list. Of states I’ve enjoyed visiting the most, I think I’d have to say Colorado, California, and Maine. Well besides Hawaii, which is pretty much 50x better than any other state in the country.

What I’m watching: Like everyone else on earth, I’m watching the Irishman. I enjoyed it. The epilogue didn’t need to be 50 minutes, but otherwise I thought it was very good. If you’re like most people and don’t have 3.5 hours to sit down and watch a movie, I found the above breakdown quite useful. I’ve also thought Pacino was a bit overrated, but I have to say that I really enjoyed him as Hoffa. I thought Sheeran should have been played by someone younger than DeNiro but it didn’t bother me too much. And I thought Scorcese was great. This is when he’s at his best, telling a slow, sprawling story. The details were a ton of fun. You could look at the screen and tell by the fashion, furniture, etc. what year it was. That was really a highlight of the film. If you enjoyed the movie, you should ABSOLUTELY listen to our interview with George Anastasia.

What I’m reading: Read a couple of awesome long reads this week. This GQ article about conditions atop Mount Everest is absolutely nuts. Basically anybody with a few bucks can climb to the top, no questions asked. Meanwhile, this NJ.com article about a 1990 high school football game that devastated a coach and the star QB is absolutely terrific…and involves the Eagles offensive coordinator. The video above is also by NJ.com and accompanies the piece.

What I’m Listening to: The Dropout, a podcast about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, is absolutely riveting. I watched a documentary about this, and it was actually kind of boring. But this podcast by ABC News is terrific. Just amazing what a huge scam she was running, and how many people got duped because they wanted to believe in it. In the words of Public Enemy, Don’t Believe the Hype, and it was all hype. An insane amount of it. But no product.

Random Thing I Really Like: The “upcoming shows” bulletin board at Franky Bradley’s. Just walked by it on my way to the store the other day, and really enjoyed looking at it. A well done, colorful and sexy collage.

See ya next week. In the meantime, follow me on twitter.