Last week was, understandably, a bit crazy. I didn’t get much of a chance to promote our last episode of Illadates. In fact, I completely forgot to cross-post it here. It’s one of my favorite episodes to date. Do have a watch!
One of my best friends, Sammy bought a house a couple years back in Fishtown, an up-and-coming neighborhood on the outskirts of downtown. He’s been rehabbing it, spending his blood, sweat and tears to build it out to something nice. Every so often, something jumps out and reminds him - he’s a pioneer here. Poverty and violence persist still in this area of town. It’s getting better. But then he emails me when something like this happens:
“monday night a dude tried to rob me, my neighbor beth, her friend maureen, and my buddy steve. we sit in beth’s livingroom with the front door open every night, drinking beers. black man around 40 165 lbs 5′11″ at 8 pm walked in and told us not to move and to give him our money. all four of us immediately stood up. i said ‘are you fucking kidding me’, to the reply ‘i’ve got a piece.’ dude obviously didn’t have a gun, but apparently had a small (brand new shitty little) knife. i cornered him in the doorway, as he wasn’t about to get any further in the house, and began to tell him ‘everything’s okay, i’ve got money right here, all the money, just calm down, you can take the money and leave, it all be over soon.’ i began counting out the $83 bucks i had in my pocket. he didn’t trust me, thought i was tricking him. the girls were leaving the room and calling the cops. dude didn’t take the money and wasn’t looking at me, seconds passed. Steve was directly behind me, ‘that’s it you have to leave right now’, pushes past me slamming the guy against the screen door.
Read more after the jump… (more…)
Up there, top floor. My loft. Good or bad, this sure looks like the future to me.
Behold, Illadates: Queen Village! Enjoy!
BTW, we’re showing you the version we uploaded to Viddler. I just wanted to give those nice fellas a quick shout out ‘cuz their player is dope (how cool is it that you can comment within the videos!) and they’re doing good work up in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, my old high school stomping grounds. Oh yeah, plus, they did us a sweet favor and featured us on their blog! Do yourself a favor and go upload some vids there!
Audrey and I brought our video camera along with us on some errands around town and decided to shoot a quick couple of vids for Lonely Planet TV, the new video site made by the fantastic travel book publishing company. They’ve got a contest up on the site asking for videos about places you feel at home. Obviously, that’s what Audrey and I love to do, so we had to enter. Here are our goofy creations. Goofy being an understatement. We’re nerds. Please forgive us in advance. But if you get a chance, click over to the site and rate them high for us! FTW!
Oh baby! Can you believe it? History, folks. That’s history. And now, I give you this… a video my friends and I made on opening day back in April… when everyone knew this was possible. When everyone thought it could happen. The vibe was right. It was in the air.
Congrats, Phils! You rule! Onward!
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about bike safety in the city lately. Recently, a bicyclist in my neighborhood, George Gonzalez, got crushed by a bus just two blocks from my house at a spot that I bike past dozens of times a month. And this morning, I’m reading about a popular blogger named Adam Finley of TV Squad who was killed last week by a bus in Minneapolis. What a bummer. Hearing about this just makes me so mad. Didn’t the bus see him? Wasn’t he riding safely? Even rock stars aren’t immune. Remember Mary Hanson of Stereolab?
If you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that I like to post about bikes and biking. I love my bike, it’s a sturdy ride. An old steel-framed Schwinn with a single speed on a freewheel hub. It’s got a weird LiveWrong sticker on the downtube that a previous owner slapped on the frame. He told me it was to raise awareness about bicyclists being hit by cars, but when I google it, all I get were stupid tounge-in-cheek references to another campaign.
I was thinking about covering the sticker over, but instead I am going to declare a new meaning. I want it to be about fighting the senseless carnage of road rage, careless driving and unsafe habits when bikes and cars collide. Literally. Those of us who ride around big cities on a daily basis make our best efforts to be safe (usually). I sure do. Let’s all remember to keep an extra eye out for those two wheelers while driving cars, okay? And I guess I’ll be making sure not to casually cruise through red lights anymore.
Lastly, I hate news like this because it discourages some people from getting in the saddle. We need more bikers, not less. Here are some resources and tips to help your make urban bike riding safer:
BikeSafe.com
Bike Safety Tips on Treehugger.com
Paul Dorn’s Bike Commuting Tips
Urban Cycling Resource Guide
Technorati Tags: Philly, adventure, bikes, cars, love, biking, NorthernLiberties, city life, death
We’ve been taking advantage of these late summer evenings by sitting out on our roof. See, the thing is, we’re lucky when it comes to roofs. Ours roof is better than most. It sits on top of four very tall stories. And nothing nearby is higher than us. Our building pokes right out the top of Northern Liberties. We have a 360′ panorama of the whole city. It’s pretty awesome.
One day, I’m going to bring my kids to this building and tell them stories about our rooftop parties we used have here, “back in the day.” It’ll go something like this:
“One time, we bought plastic water canons on an impulse at the supermarket for $2 and shot all these goofball drunkards at the huge, annoying dance club across the street.”
(”Doesn’t she look badass with that canon in her hand?”)
“And then got the rest of our friends to get crazy with the water guns because we all acted like 12 year-olds for an evening.”
“And we had all these fun parties!”
“And we used to sit and watch the sunsets together while we fell in love, your mother and I…”
Technorati Tags: sunsets, Philly, philadelphiazoo, parties, northernliberties, summer, people
During these hot, hot summer days, Audrey and I hole up in our one air conditioned room many evenings and settle in to watching the kickasstic flat panel TV I picked up earlier in the season for $300 on Craigslist. We don’t have cable, and I haven’t bought an Apple iTV yet (did anyone buy that thing?), but we’ve been tearing through some shows we’ve heard people talking about.
Deadwood, as many have told us, is our current obsession. Holy crap, that show is awesome! We’re halfway through Season Two and can’t get enough. Here’s hoping they continue the series! A couple nights ago, while our warehouse loft boiled away at a consistent 90-odd degrees, we cranked that lil’ window unit in our bedroom and watched four hour-long episodes in a row!
There is something so delectable, naughty even, about watching 4 straight hours of television. I have never owned my own TV and still won’t bother paying for cable, but I do now realize how nice it is to turn off one’s brain and get sucked into a South Dakota gold rush town in 1877. Yee ha!
BTW, how cute is Calamity Jane!?
My good friend David Kessler has a really great video series going called “Shadow World“. I love this show because it’s so different than other things you see online. It’s quiet. It’s edgy. It’s fresh. And it’s a great form of citizen journalism in a way that other mediums can’t possibly match.
Also, I love that David is making the best out of a bad situation. Shadow World all started because he got a super-low rent starving artist’s apartment on one of the poorest, hard scrabble corners in Philly and decided instead of sulking about it, he’d turn it into an art project. Inspired by his friend Zoe Strauss the famous South Philly photographer and his collaboration with her on the documentary film If You Break the Skin, he shows delicate and compassionate portraits of his neighbors.
He’s getting some good attention for the project, having been recently written up in the Philly Metro and he’s just telling me now that the Philadelphia Inquirer is working on (update: it’s up!) a longer story about the him and the project. wOOt!
NOTE: I clicked through to this NYTimes article because of it’s title, but then I realized it was written by one my best friends from college, Steve Kurutz, so now I HAVE to blog it!
I love freeganism. Though lately, I haven’t done much dumpster diving (mostly for lack of time, but lord knows I ain’t stopped ‘cuz of money). Nothing really beats getting stuff for free that’s in perfect condition. People love to say they’re saving the planet by buying organic food and driving a hybrid car, but I’ve said it before… it’s all a just a sham. Recycling cans won’t save the planet. Not buying them in the first place is a start.
Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.
I love that the topic gets its time in the New York Times. (Thanks, Steve!) Weird that it seems to be happening more often. Since when did the NYTimes get so fringe? Here’s another great quote from the article:
As people began to load plates of food, he leaned in and offered a few words of wisdom: “Opening that first bag of trash,” he said, “is the biggest step.”
Technorati Tags: free, NYTimes, freeganism, concept, recycling, povertyjetset, environment, stevekurutz, freedom
Technorati Tags: cheapdates, city life, coffee, people, Philly, restaurants, travel, uwishunu, video, videoblog
In Episode 4 of Cheap Dates, we finally got our chance to check out the Edgar Allen Poe House which is only a couple blocks from out house! Pretty crazy that he lived here in the neighborhood for a time.
Technorati Tags: philebrity, dating, uwishunu, Philly, travel, edgarallenpoe, video, videoblog, people, cheapdates, philadelphiazoo, philebrity
Audrey and I have been out of town for a week, and amazingly, I didn’t check my email or blog once! Whoa. But I did want you all to have a quick look at our video podcast that is alive and well, with two new episodes we made before we left.
The first is Episode 3 where we go check out the “Frankford Avenue Arts Corridor” on the border of Fishtown and Kensington. They were having a big arts festival to kick off the summer up there, including an awesome kinetic sculpture derby where people built crazy-ass bikes and rode them on a challenge course around the neighborhood. Check it out!
Technorati Tags: city life, philadelphiazoo, travel, philebrity, video, videoblog, povertyjetset, cheapdates, podcast, Philly, uwishunu
We’re already on to Episode 2 of the Cheap Dates Video Podcast.
Funny story: Episode 1 got screened in front of 400+ guests (whoa) at the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation’s annual gala the other night. Audrey and I show up fashionably late, totally clueless. We didn’t know anything about them showing it. So we’re all browsing the food and drink when we realize everyone is staring at us. Uh. Weird. Then sure enough, people start coming up to us and introducing themselves. “Hey! Love the video! Can’t wait to see more” etc, etc, etc. Very surreal. And of course awkward. Not to mention that true-to-form, we were way under-dressed.
But that’s what you can do when you’re the “arteests.”
Technorati Tags: uwishunu, povertyjetset, philadelphiazoo, videoblog, Philly, travel, video, cheapdates
[Noah and Sammy bustin' moves]
I go to see a lot of live music. A ton of live music. I usually take my video camera with me. So of course, I have tons of footage from live shows, and will likely shoot a crapload more. So, on a whim, I decided to start a whole new project: a Live Music Journal
I just went and saw Tussle, Professor Murder and Golden Ball at a great warehouse show here in Philly (the fantastically-named ‘Avant Gentlemen’s Lodge’). Everyone put on a seriously good show! And my, what projections! Awesome. I shot a little of each band’s set on my new, albeit slightly annoying and way over-hyped hybrid camcorder Sanyo Xacti HD2. *instert snarky British accent here* “the World’s Smallest High Definition Camera”
Here’s a taste of Tussle:
Tussle Live 5.13.07 from (( magdalenus )) on Vimeo
Technorati Tags: music, parties, povertyjetset, blogging, video, videoblog, Philly, tussle, vimeo, professor murder, goldenball
Just launched (after much blood, sweat and tears) the first episode of our new video podcast series about going on fun dates in Philly. What started as a lil’ nugget of an idea blossomed into this much larger project. We’re having a ton of fun making them and… what the hell? Right? We’re getting to explore every corner of the city! Sweet. They’ll be getting better, too, so stay tuned! Behold: Cheap Dates!
We’re sponsored by uwishunu and Philebrity TV! Thanks, guys. And just an extra shout-out to our good friend Adam from The War on Drugs who supplied the soundtrack!
Technorati Tags: pennsylvania, videoblog, people, cheapdates, travel, restaurants, povertyjetset, philadelphiazoo, philebrity, americana, Philly, uwishunu, food, video
Just had the pleasure of redeeming the NYTimes in my own mind after ranting about them the other day. They did it with a great piece about fixie bikes and urban bike culture. I can tell you this, riding a track bike is really one of the most beautiful things. The machine is so elegant, so simple. It’s almost an art. And the great thing is that fixies were around a lot longer than modern geared bikes.
Truth be told, I no longer ride a fixed-gear bike. I got my front wheel caught in a trolley track and did a front header into traffic a couple years ago. Scared the bejesus outa me. I ain’t got health insurance, after all. Luckily I wasn’t hurt, but I really like the idea of brakes (so does my mama). I sold that bike to my buddy Jay who promptly got plowed by a car and smashed up his face. He still rides it, though. For better or worse!
Now, my bike is only one step removed from fixie. Brakes and a freewheel hub. I might go back, though. It’s so tempting after watching an amazing video - truly sublime - about fixie riding in San Francisco like this [via BoingBoing]:
Technorati Tags: video, trends, bikes, NYTimes, boingboing, trackbike, povertyjetset, fixedgear, biking
Don’t get me wrong, I read the damn thing every single day, clicking on over in between work jams to check up on what the world is talking about (can we even call it ‘news’ anymore? or was ‘news’ always only what people were talking about?).
So today, they have this article that goes on and on about how antlers in fashion and design are the next big thing. God, this is a stupid article. They get various annoying New York designers and fashionistas to chime in and give their two cents on the symbolic nature of antlery and what it means about society at large. If that weren’t enough piss you off, because who can stand New York art elite telling us what’s hip in the first place? most of the people equate the trend to an off-shoot of the eco-chic groundswell.
Nature — or the appearance of embracing nature — is chic these days. Judging by the direction of fashion and home décor and of-the-moment restaurants and shops, you might mistake Manhattan for Montana.
Are you serious? Isn’t it obvious that dead megafauna hanging from the walls is more anti-eco than anything? And let me tell you, most New Yorkers do NOT know anything about Montana outside of Big Sky. If you’ve spent any time in a ski town like Telluride, for example, where I lived for four years, you’d see that antlers are exactly what megarich ski mansions THINK the West is about. Cutting down massive trees in old-growth forests, then bulldozing a few acres for their 15,000ft trophy homes they only come to for two weeks of the year and hanging a ‘cute‘ antler chandalier. So eco, baby! So rustic, Bob!
Okay, and for the record, the trendy antler thing, well, my best friend Norm started it all on Halloween of 2002 when he wore a 15-pointer on his friggin’ chest to a party. People were FREAKED OUT. They’d be giving him high-fives today cuz he’d be the hippest dude there. But, see, we’re past all that silliness. The only antlers you’ll see near us is on a can of good old workin’ class Schmidt’s Beer (so workingin’ class, they ain’t even got a web site!).
Technorati Tags: antlers, trends, fashion, sustainability, funny, schmidtsbeer, NYTimes, povertyjetset, philosophy
