The Friday Five

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.

Seinfeld Guest Stars

With our big Festivus party coming up on the 23rd, I thought I’d post some rounds from some past Seinfeld quizzes. Answers are below.

Seinfeld Guest stars

1. Who played “Dentist to the Stars” Tim Whatley?

2. Peter Krause and Lauren Graham both appeared on the show. Later they starred together on what critically acclaimed but little viewed drama?

3. What actresses boobs were real…and they’re spectacular?

4. Before starring on Entourage, he played George in the Pilot. Who was he?

5. Before starring in The Shield and the Fantastic Four, he starred as Mr Pocadillo, who lived way out on Long Island.

6. Before he wrote and starred in a cult classic mid 90s film, he appeared as Eric the Clown on Seinfeld. 

7. Just a few months after appearing on the famous episode The Yada Yada as a closet racist, she starred in her own incredibly popular sitcom. Who was she, and what was the sitcom?

8. Who starred as Meryl, Jerry’s faux wife?

ANSWERS:

  1. Bryan Cranston
  2. Parenthood
  3. Teri Hatcher
  4. Jeremy Piven
  5. Michael Chiklis
  6. Jon Favreau
  7. Debra Messing, Will and Grace
  8. Courtney Cox

Our Annual Christmas Toy Drive is Live!

Hey there guys, it’s time for our annual Shibe Sports toy drive. It works pretty simply: you go to this sheet and you type your name next to the kid you’re going to buy and ship a toy to for Christmas. (If you also sign your email, we’ll send you a 30% off code at Shibe Sports). Once the toy is purchased, please mail it to:

PPEHRC

1505 W. Allegheny Ave.

Philadelphia, PA 19132

If you’d rather drop a toy off, you can do so at Shibe Vintage Sports at 137 South 13th Street. Thank you so much for your consideration! For many of these kids, this will be the only Christmas gift they get, so please know that you’re making a huge difference.

If you’d like to know more about PPEHRC, click here. If you’d like to know more about it’s founder, Cheri Honkala, who is quite possibly the biggest badass in the city of Philadelphia, be sure to check out this interview with her.

Seinfeld Quizzo and Festivus Party on December 23rd!

Festivus pole? Check.

Feats of strength? Check.

Money for people? Check.

Hosting a very special Seinfeld quiz in a couple of weeks…on Festivus night, December 23rd. We’re going to have a ton of fun, with all Seinfeld questions, snacks such as Junior Mints and pretzels, and the guys from ComedySportz doing a Festivus improv between rounds. This is going to be the most fun holiday party you attend this year, guaranteed. For more info, go to the Facebook page. To buy tickets, click here.

The Friday Five for December 6th

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.

The Friday Five

What I’m Listening To: Philly artist Son Little has been on my radar for a little while now, and I’m thinking about checking him out next week at the World Cafe Live. Not even sure how to categorize his music. Sort of an indie/soul/R&B/ rock mix. Mostly originals (check out Alice and O Mother), but his occasional covers show off the breadth of his influences. Check out his Zeppelin cover here, and a Drake cover here. Great stuff, great voice. Been listening to it all morning.

Piping hot steamed dumpings at Chinese Restaurant.

Where I’m Eating: I tried out Chinese Restaurant (Tai Jiang) this week, and it may be the least pretentious restaurant in Philadelphia. It’s basically three small tables and a handful of stools in front of a tiny counter. The menu is a piece of paper taped to the wall. The only sound in the room was the iphone of the guy sitting behind me watching a show in Chinese. I ordered the steamed dumplings, and in literally 5 seconds they were in front of me, piping hot. And really good. Got a piping hot bowl of wonton soup too. All for $6.50. The cuisine served is from the Fujian province, and the tiny spot is reminiscent (apparently) of restaurants in Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian. I then watched this vid and learned more about Fuzhou, a place I had never known existed until this week. This is not just a “Chinese Restaurant”, it’s a portal into a place I’ll probably never get to visit. But thanks to the people running this restaurant, I’ll get to try to cuisine every bit as authentic as that served in Fuzhou. For a mere $6.50. How awesome is that?

Where I’m Shopping: Last week the fam and I took a short road trip to Media. Fun little spot to hang out in for a few hours. One of the highlights was a walk through Deals, a large general store on West State Street. Took me back to being a kid and hanging out at Connie’s Corner, the old general store in Nassawadox that shut down in the early 80s. The creaky floor, the overwhelming size of the place, the old school toys all took me back to a time when I was my son’s age. He decided to get a ball that you could mold into different shapes but which when you were done would also resort back into being a ball. He had a lot of fun with until it exploded in the car. But even the exploding ball couldn’t spoil the trip down memory lane I got by walking through Deals. Neat place.

My wife and what was left of the exploding ball.
Photo courtesy of Billy Penn.

Where I’m drinking: My son had a karate demonstration in Mount Airy last weekend, and as a fan of historic taverns, afterwards we just had to grab a quick drink down the street at McMenamin’s. (Well, my wife and I did. My son didn’t. He’s 6.) It is a refreshingly diverse bar, just as Mount Airy is a refreshingly diverse neighborhood. And the area is just far enough away from the city to lose a little bit of the city’s edge. You can feel it…people let their guard down a bit out there. Conversation spilled from table to table. Just a really warm, friendly place. I suspect it also has that homey, comfortable feel because it’s been owned by the same family since 1936. I came away feeling the same way that Danya Henninger did about the place a couple of years ago: I left McMenamin’s not just happy that I grabbed a beer, but thinking about what life would be like out there permanently.

Where I’m Eating, Part 2: This place hardly needs any more hype, everybody know how insanely good it is, but my God: the roast pork sandwich with provolone and broccoli rabe at DiNic’s at Reading Terminal might be what I’d want for my last meal. I had one this week and it truly made my day. Warren Zevon famously said, “Enjoy every sandwich”, so follow his advice and go to Dinic’s. Perfection.

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