August 06, 2008

The Best Headline You'll See All Year

This is on the front page of this week's Center City Weekly Press. I'm not sure if this is as good as the time the paper ran a Super Bowl preview from the game three years earlier, but it's certainly close.

Larger scan of the front page after the jump.

Continue reading "The Best Headline You'll See All Year"

Posted by D-Mac at 02:29 PM | Comments (4)

August 29, 2007

For Better And For Worse

The Center City Weekly Press redesigned its website. The edgy 1998-style logo is probably modeled on the artwork of Trent Reznor or the World Wrestling Federation, and the site is infinitely easier to read.

But the site also features a talking female robot/fake newsbabe, perhaps the cousin of Irresistible Ella, making it infinitely worse to visit. I'm not sure what happens when to infinities collide, but best not to think about it if it tears the universe apart or something.

Weekly Press
Archives: Irresistible Ella

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February 07, 2007

Super Letdown

A correction from this week's Center City Weekly Press:

Yes, clearly, that was the story in last week's paper that needed a correction.

Saturday: Weekly Press: Powerhouse University Of Pennsylvania Takes On Galloping Ghost Red Grange

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February 05, 2007

Clip Art Offers Belated Picks For Big Game

I didn't know this before Saturday, but apparently blogs can be updated on the weekends! (I thought it was a limitation of the format that no weekend posts could be made.) And so, when I saw the Weekly Press' Super Bowl preview and found out I could update on the weekends, I sprung into action.

If you didn't see it, either go and read the Saturday post or just read this summary: The Weekly Press ran a Super Bowl preview from 2003 (Panthers-Patriots) in the current issue. This is one of those rare media mistakes where you don't really laugh -- okay, you do -- and you just wonder how in the hell it actually happened. (I cannot wait for the correction.) Anyway, while it's still in the print copy, obviously, online the 2003 story has been removed. Here's what it's been replaced with:

To be fair, that clip art did preview the Super Bowl pretty well.

Page 10 [Center City Weekly Press]
Saturday: Weekly Press: Powerhouse University Of Pennsylvania Takes On Galloping Ghost Red Grange

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February 03, 2007

Weekly Press: Powerhouse University Of Pennsylvania Takes On Galloping Ghost Red Grange

Only one day 'til the big game! (The Puppy Bowl, that is.) Well, okay, there's also the Super Bowl tomorrow, and the Center City Weekly Press syndicates a preview from the Christian Science Monitor in this week's edition.

Here's a scan (click to enlarge):

Just in case you can't see or click for the bigger version, here's two paragraphs from the story:

They are a bunch of relatively anonymous guys who might look just as natural playing on the local playground as they will in Houston two weeks from now, under a spotlight staged as much for the glamorous as the gritty.

The Super Bowl meeting between the New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers summons no memories of historic individual matchups. No two players will fill the roles of Achilles and Hector, carrying the fate of the conflict on their own shoulders.

First off: Gah, what torturous sportswriting. Second off: The preview is from 2004. It's a preview of Super Bowl XXXVIII, which was played Feb. 1, 2004 and featured not only a 32-29 Patriots win but also a wardrobe malfunction.

Yes, the Weekly Press managed to run a preview from a Super Bowl played over three years ago. (And not even fix the sentences so it didn't say "two weeks from now." Also, there's at last one instance of "Panther's." Sigh.) How would anyone even still have access to this preview? How did no one notice the story mentioned Ricky Manning intercepting three Donovan McNabb passes the week before?

And, most importantly, does this make the Weekly Press the funniest newspaper in Philadelphia? Why, yes. Yes, I think it does. Just wait until next week, when the Press reveals that Notre Dame won one for the Gipper and the Philadelphia National League Base Ball Club has been founded.

Editor's Note: See, you aren't just entertained on this website; you learn obscure sports history, too! The game referenced in the headline is real; Grange accounted for 363 yards in a 24-2 upset of Penn.

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July 21, 2006

Letter: Does The 'Weekly Press' Hate The Pope?

When they're not fawning over women's boobs, the Weekly Press is running anti-Catholic cartoons. Well, that's according to one letter in this week's Weekly Press:

The photo in the article, Who Would Jesus Bomb?(page 5), (7/05/06 -Weekly Press/UC Review) of the Pope being cast into hell by demons (Editor's Note: That's it over there.) -- is an anti-Catholic propaganda piece which has been used throughout history in one form or another by American Protestant groups who have traditionally viewed the Roman Catholic church as the AntiChrist or the Scarlet Woman of Babylon from the book of Revelation. This would be quaint except for the fact that there still exists a lively strain of anti-Catholicism in the American character as is evident by the outrageous charges of millenia-long conspiracies by Dan Brown in the “The DaVinci Code.” ... Some hold that if the Church doesn’t agree 100 percent with their positions then they deserve the vilification and venom of their constituency. In any case, the Church is the Big Guy and should be able to take it, right? (a Limbaugh-esque rationalization if I ever heard one.) [...]

While the left would find it abhorrent to be against immigrants, yet it is acceptable, even fashionable, to be anti-Catholic, which has traditionally been an immigrant church and, even today, advocates for the immigrant in the face of a xenophobic bourgeois culture. Since the writer appears to be a Muslim, I doubt whether she realizes the significance of the photo.

Though I would expect your editorial staff to be more critical in its use of obvious derogatory depictions.

Ohmigod! I just can't wait for the new line of anti-Catholic propaganda to come out this year! It's just so fashionable to wear. The new "Papist" handbags are just so cute!

After the jump, the Weekly Press' response, where they claim to be a bunch of know nothings! (Ho ho! Get it!)

Continue reading "Letter: Does The 'Weekly Press' Hate The Pope?"

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July 14, 2006

Even The Gays Love Big Boobs

For the past, oh, three hours or so, we've been trying to figure out what's the best part of Thom Nickels' story in the Weekly Press this week about his trip to a press junket at the Borgata. (It's the story in the bottom corner. WP articles don't let you link to them directly anymore. Argh!)

Was it the part where he talked about gamblers jumping off roofs of casinos? Was it the part where he hit on one of the members of the group The 5 Browns? Was it the part where he wonders about why there weren't any beautiful men at the junket?

No, kiddies, the best part, we think, is this two-paragraph look into cleavage:

What is a sure guarantee is that all the public relations women who set up the tour or even public relations women on board as “writers” on the junket will have the demeanor and look of New York fashion models. The trend these days is for women in PR to look like the celebrities they represent. The PR women on my junket were all beautiful and slender, and quite of few of them showed ample cleavage.

As a gay man I enjoy looking at cleavage but probably because I am gay I don’t think twice about letting my gaze linger. Cleavage to me is symbolic of the fall harvest, a bountiful spring, or ripe melons in an organic supermarket. Even as a boy I was fascinated by this part of the female anatomy. As a toddler, I once told my great-aunt that the woman we had just encountered in a bikini on the Ocean City boardwalk “had two bottoms." My great-aunt then had to correct me and say that the second bottom was really cleavage. I’ve been hooked platonically ever since.

We're pretty impressed, actually. From male full frontal to obsessing over cleavage in just over a month!

The Weekly Press
June 12: Nude As The News

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June 22, 2006

'Weekly Press' Moment Of The Week

An editor's note this week in the Weekly Press:

Gee, I didn't notice.

Philly1.com

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June 12, 2006

Nude As The News

Oh, if you have not seenthe current edition of the Center City Weekly Press, you are missing out. Why, you might ask? Well, if you don't live downtown, you can click that photo above to enlarge the cover. Or, you can just read this: Penis on the cover!

Okay, it's not that large of a photo and the resolution sucks, but it's still two naked men standing next to each other on the cover of a non-pornographic newspaper. Woo hoo! It's good to see nudity making it into our weekly papers. The Daily News is sure to follow any day now.

The reason for the above cover photo is this week's lead story -- written by, who else, Thom Nickles -- is about a recent nudist gathering hosted by Philadelphia Area Naked Guys (or PANG). I'm sure you're looking for a money paragraph, and I'll grant your request:

I made my bed, disrobed, and then covered myself in sun block. They say that nudism inspires body confidence as well as helping you to accept your “flaws.” In a nudist camp you very quickly find out that everybody has some sort of body flaw, even the so-called “perfect people.” A Tom Cruise look-a-like, for instance, may have pottery barn love handles or a protruding beer belly; a handsome weight lifter may have spotty skin or an unseemly large mole on his buttocks. An otherwise attractive man may have thick “fossilized” toenails, Anorexia thin legs, or a severe case of Rosacea.

Yep. I'm sure the attendees at the camp all felt better about their body image until their flaws were pointed out in the newspaper.

Weekly Press

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June 01, 2006

'Weekly Press' Gets Punk'd

Have you gotten the Ashley Flores email yet? Oh, come on. Really? Okay, here's the deal: Since sometime early last month, an email was circulated that said 13-year-old Ashley Flores was missing. It included a heartwrenching quote from her mother, a description of her father's job (an Acme deli manager) and a photo of the girl.

Only problem, of course, is that it's a hoax. No such girl has been reported missing in Philadelphia. Why someone starts such a lame chain letter -- it doesn't even include a "if you don't forward this to 15 people in the next two days you will die!" -- we can only speculate. But, we can hope that people check things out, don't forward along emails and certainly don't send them to newspapers. But, of course, we can also hope that the newspapers would check the story first, with at least a quick Google search or hopefully a call to the police, or.... oh.

Well, at least the paper can't be accused of trying to hide the error. You can get a larger scan, plus another letter the Press ran, by clicking here.

Front Page [Weekly Press]
Ashley Flores [Snopes]

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May 03, 2006

Mocking The Homeless In Print For Fun And Profit: A Guide

The lead story in this week's edition of The Weekly Press, the Center City newsweekly, is about how SEPTA's service is poor, its stations aren't well-designed, it's messy and so forth. I know: Stop the presses and all that.

The author, Richard Carreño, has a Wikipedia entry about him -- "Holy shit!," I said, when I found it -- that notes he used to be from London. (Hence all the comparisons to the Tube.)

The article's a little weird, though, and not just for the mysterious "move over Inga Saffron?" line halfway through it. Let's take a look at some of the earlier paragraphs:

Everyone has a pet SEPTA horror story. How about the Hooverville-like encampments by bums in some Center City subway-surface (Green Line) stops? The malodorous wafting of urine stain that pervades the Broad Street (Orange Line) subway? The pimped-up, teenaged thugs who harass fellow passengers on the El (Blue Line) each school day? Police? Forgetaboutit.

A female Center City friend, who works at Penn, tells me that there isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t get the heebie jeebies when at Penn’s Green Line station. That’s the stop, as thousands of commuters know, inhabited by Penn’s version of Quasimodo, an unfortunate who has all the good looks of his doppelganger from Notre Dame, as well as being blessed with the laser-like visual acuity of Charlie Manson.

Ha ha! Isn't making fun of the homeless fun! I can't wait until his next article comparing wheelchair-bound people to characters from Beauty and the Beast.

SEPTA Fie! Semper infidelis [Weekly Press]
Richard Carreño [Wikipedia]
Photo by surplusparts

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March 30, 2006

And The Neighborhood Shortening Continues

Yesterday, Graduate Hospital becomes G-Ho. Today, Bella Vista becomes:

Hmm. I guess that's fine, but that's not really that much shorter, now, is it?

The Weekly Press

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February 10, 2006

Namedropping: It works for professional writers and it can work for you

Clearly, Philadelphia-area writer Thom Nickels knows how to churn out the words. He's the author of, I think, eight books (but it could be as many as 81). And he writes columns for the Weekly Press and Metro, &c.

He's developed many a writing trick in his years as a writer, and in the cover story for the Weekly Press this week -- it's about the glorified bus stop art project at around 40th and Walnut -- he shows us the fine art of namedropping:

Oh, what a witty bon mot, and OH Susan Sontag! Whoo! You met Susan Sontag! I'm totally reading 'til the end now.

The Weekly Press [Philly1.com]

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January 11, 2006

Grizzly man

Wow. It's only January 11 and we already have entry No. 2 in the "most overwritten lead of the year" contest. (I might want to come up with a better title than that.) Like our first entry, this involves animals. Also like our first entry, it's not normal bad prose that makes this lead bad, it's just the metaphor it uses.

It comes from the Weekly Press, the Center City community newspaper. They've been big proponents of saving a group of four rowhouses on 18th Street dubbed "Rindelaub's Row." This weekend, demolition of the four houses started, and Press contributing editor Thom Nickels begins his story like this:

Residents of the 18th Street Rittenhouse Square area woke up Saturday morning to the sound of crowbars and wrecking balls. What normally would have been a quiet dawn was awash in crashing sounds.

Rindelaub's Row was coming down, or at least the face of it was. Demolition crews made sure to hit the façades of each of the four buildings facing 18th Street, marking their territory in the style of Alaskan grizzly bears.

I know it's sad when something you're fighting for doesn't work out. But Alaskan grizzly bears? That metaphor came flying out of nowhere.

Demolition destroys Rindelaub's Row [Center City Weekly Press]
Tuesday: Demolition, man
Photo taken from Changing Skyline, taken by Inga Saffron's daughter, Sky Kalfus

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December 08, 2005

This post is philarious

Not to get too meta/inside baseball for you here, but I noticed a sentence in this Weekly Press story about the opening of Cira Centre that caught my eye:

On stage for the ceremonial grand opening, Mayor Street made a few light remarks, as did Joey Sweeney, chief CEO for Brandywine.

Holy shit! The editor of Philebrity is CEO of Brandywine Realty Trust? Was that your birthday present? Geeze, you think you know someone...

Cira "Left of" Centre Skyscraper [Weekly Press]
Boyfriend - Joey Sweeney [BewitchedBy]
Profile - Jerry Sweeney, CEO [Brandywine Realty Trust]

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