Two Icepacks ago, I sprung on you the sad surprise that Jen Karwoski — Valanni Quizzo Mistress Extraordinaire, Kinky Division — was leaving her post on Spruce Street near the end of June after nearly five years of dick jokes and figurative titty twisters. Going to Sweden for her sister’s wedding: check. Staying to clown the Swedes: check. But certainly the woman whose made Quizzo a naughtier game to play wouldn’t leave her friends high-n-dry without a wicked quizzstress. So on June 16 at 10:30 p.m., she and several judges — probably including me — will take all comers at Valanni (1229 Spruce St.) so that on June 23, she’ll crown the next host of Kinky Quizzo. (She’ll ask each prospective replacement three special questionsthree special questions she’ll wrangle for each participant.)

“Got a big mouth, a dirty mind?” asks Karwoski. “Are you quick witted, well-read? Always dreamed of talking Dirty Sanchezes and getting paid? Think you can handle the mic? I’ll be the judge of that. Bring it!  Compete to be the next Kinky Quizzo host at Valanni.â€�

Between now and then though, I insist that if you’re going to make your way to Jen’s hart, you should start with a few dirty letters of encouragement. If you’re feeling squirrelly, write us at clog@citypaper.net to tell us how Kinky Quizzo Hostess-like you really are.

When I Clogged the sad news that longtime World Café Live booker Karl Mullen was leaving his post for a myriad of reasons (health being the primary one), I mentioned too that the rumor going right-round was that WCL honcho Hal Real was going to nab either Laura Wilson (a one-time Upstairs at WCL booker) or Bill Taylor (WCL in Delaware) for the Philly job.

As of Thursday, June 4, Wilson returned from L.A. to take over the position of booker to both floors of WCL. “She handled most of the Upstairs bookings, but also partnered with Karl there and on Downstairs bookings, as well,” said Real. “She knows us, knows Philly and the regional scene and knows national agents, many managers and everything. All good.” Congrats.

It’s been a rough 2009 for World Cafe Live’s Karl Mullen. He’s been In Ireland, away from his Philly booking gig, dealing with the quickly degenerating health, then passing of his father. At the funeral of his dad, Karl fell ill, only to arrive home to find himself diagnosed with a life-threatening intestinal condition that’ll require him to get part of his colon removed.

Though recovering for the last month, as of Tuesday morning, Mullen – he’s booked WCL since its start – will be leaving WCL. There are health reasons to consider, certainly. We’ll tell you more about the situation as the day progresses after speaking with WCL honcho Hal Real. We’re heard rumors, before speaking with Mullen, that either Laura Wilson (a former Upstairs WCL booker) or Bill Taylor (who is taking care of WCL on Delaware) will take over in West Philly. Stay tuned.

Apparently, while at KB Consultants principal Kelly Boyd’s house for a Philadelphia Young Playwrights gathering, Metro publisher Eric Mayberry told the assembled lot that he was done being the publisher of the Philadelphia Metro — part of the l’international chain — and was instead starting SmartBoy Enterprises, a media and entertainment management company.

But he wasn’t leaving Metro high and dry, no no — things are most certainly amicable between Mayberry and the paper. He apparently plans to start a once-a-week column that’ll be featured in Metro’s Philadelphia and New York editions. And Metro would be one of his PR first clients at SmartBoy. “Eric was actually trying to purchase Metro Philadelphia, but when the offer fell through, the two parties decided to move forward in a completely different direction,” claims Laura Powers from KB Consultants, who represents both parties. Stay tuned.

Photo | Jim Parker

Levin performing in Mexico City

You know how when Rome burned, Nero fiddled? Philly’s best-known experimental emperor of the saxophone, Elliot Levin, isn’t a dictator. He has, though, been up to his neck in weird tragedy and made it out to tell the tale.

The swine flu virus epidemic has killed many in Mexico and one (so far) in America, and the World Health Organization has raised the pandemic alert to 5. Levin was in the thick of this dilemma while on tour with the West Philadelphia Orchestra in Mexico City this past weekend. (I first mentioned this in the latest Icepack.) He sent me a serious yet amusing e-mail about the problem:

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Here’s the Icepack where I told you that Philly’s Thomas Hine — former design and architecture critic for the Inquirer, author of the consumerist-hungry I Want That! and The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager — had a new book, The Great Funk, and is hanging out with Jay Schwartz for his Secret Cinema event at Moore tonight, April 24.

But what else, Thom?

City Paper: How does an architecture critic decide he wants to write fact- and data-driven versions of Absolute Beginners? Your work regarding teens and marketing and trends throughout the ages is stunning. Rise and Fall is my favorite book of yours.

Thomas Hine: Mine, too. Well, I was architecture critic at the Inquirer for 23 years, something that happened to me more or less by accident. I never wanted to be only an architecture critic, though. And if you look around, you see that our cities, and especially our suburbs, were shaped by consumption, which has probably been the overarching theme of my six books. We are what we buy. And we design things to sell. And some people — teenagers, for example — earn their place in the culture by the consumer choices we make.

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I started the conversation about Andrew “Dice” Clay and his Keswick show tonight (April 24) in this week’s Icepack. Dice? You might not want to like him. Hell, I know I don’t. But when the moment is right and his voice and frigging harsh comedic stylings come at you in the right light, you’ll laugh. Even if you’d rather not.

Hey, if nothing else, his is the “oh” voice sample in EMF’s “Unbelievable,” he got banned by MTV at the height of his fame, he put Sinéad O’Connor in her place (love THAT) and really, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane isn’t as bad as you thought it was. Sure, it’s bad. Don’t get me started how bad. But it ain’t THAT bad.

And even if you couldn’t stand him, Philly, you have to give it up for the fact that he made his bones here at the Comedy Factory Outlet, filmed his first HBO special, The Diceman Cometh, in town in 1989, held his “comeback” special for HBO at the TLA and nearly married a woman from Philly, according to the 2007 reality series Dice: Undisputed. “My ex-fiancée Eleanor is from Philly, and we’re like 5-year-olds having arguments over what’s better, Brooklyn or South Philly,” says Clay. “I’m born and bred in Brooklyn, so it has to be Brooklyn. But Philly is like a second home to me.â€�

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The ink is barely dry (or is that a mouth is barely dry?) from the press conference at World Café Live — here’s the 48th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival lineup, straight from Gene Shay and Artistic Directors from Point Entertainment, Richard Kardon and Jesse Lundy. It’s scheduled for August  14 to 16 in Schwenksville (like every year), and the stellar line-up features labelistas like Iron & Wine, elders like Tom Rush, and …

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Ryan Phillips | observer.com

Thanks to ex-Philadelphian Doree Shafrir for filling us in on the New York exploits of Salt Lake City’s “hipster grifter” Kari Ferrell, who’s wanted all around for bad checks, forgery and theft. You can read Shafrir’s entire twisted story on the New York Observer site. Here’s the one bit that caught my eye:

The Salt Lake City Police Department remains very, very interested in finding Ms. Ferrell. According to a police spokesperson, if Ms. Ferrell is indeed in New York—or Philadelphia, where several of her friends told me she visited often and talked frequently of moving to—the police are powerless to extradite her without an extradition order from the Salt Lake City District Attorney’s office.

But of course. Hey, where are my keys?

myspace.com/andreduza

At the bottom of last week’s Icepack, I ran this bit about the ongoing struggle between members of the Philly entertainment company Make U Famous LLC and one of its ex-partners, Mary Patel, who have a lawsuit going on.

One of the projects addressed in the suit is local author Andre Duza’s graphic novel Hollow-Eyed Mary. He was preparing to be unhappy as its publisher nearly used his real name on the cover (Andre Wilkinson), until his lawyer intervened and to made sure the nom de plume “Duza” appeared in print. With Wilkinson/Duze still supposedly waiting to get paid, I wound up getting a short statement from the writer pertaining to the story.

“I don’t think you could safely print exactly how pissed I am at these guys, who nearly destroyed a career that I’ve worked hard over the last 10 years to establish,” says Duza. “Aside from getting the rights to the graphic novel back, I wish I could erase any knowledge of their existence from my memory. But I just did an interview with the huge movie/comic news site, Ain’t It Cool News, that went into detail about the whole ordeal. The interview was posted this morning.â€�

Though it changes a few names to protect the guilty/innocent, it talks about a few of the things Patel’s lawyers chatted about with me, as well as a few other rumors (that Make U Famous was possibly going to pretend to be Duza at a ComicCon; that there were racist slurs slogged around) that we hadn’t gotten to yet.

Kids: Before you grab breakfast, grab your head shot and your acting résumé — House guest star (and occasional rapper) Mos Def will be in Philly this summer shooting Stringbean and Marcus, the film we started talking about years ago. That’s local director/screenwriter Tanya Hamilton’s Sundance Institute-aided flick about a ex-Black Panther (Def) coming home after being on the run for ages. Sophie Okonedo (Hotel Rwanda) is in the movie, too.

Mike Lemon Casting will hold an open call from 1 to 5 p.m. TODAY  at 413 N. Seventh St., Suite 602, for an African-American girl (ages 9 and 10) and two African-American/Hispanic/Asian boys (ages 8 to 11). No experience necessary; bring your photo.

Before I make it so that my source for a recent tip on Jimmy’s Milan —  ye old famously mobbed up restaurant fave on S. 19th St. — sleeps with the fishes, I hear him out so that you can hear me out.

1)  I offer, in my best Luca Brazi voice, my sincere apologies to Rick Nichols for not having caught his recent Table 31-steakhouse-gone-Italian story. We love us our Nichols but missed this one and hope his next child be a masculine child. I mention this because my tipster for a recent Icepack bit —

If you could, like we said last week, revive Chestnut Cabaret, why not Jimmy’s Milan? Apparently the formerly mobbed-up dining location on 19th St. might be getting an overhaul courtesy Joe Wolf, who co-founded Striped Bass (with Neil Stein) and heads up Georges Perrier and Chris Scarduzio’s restaurant ops

— may have had things jumbled.

Mr. Joe Wolf was part of Nichols’ story on Italian joints like the newly minted Table 31 who, though they serve a nize red gravy, also conjure up a good steak.

Wolf, though (so far), has nothing to do with an impending Milan revival and didn’t say so to me or my tipster. For this, I offer to Philly food-stuffs a laurel and hearty handshake. Yet, my source goes on to say that the whole Jimmy’s Milan revival may still be on (and have nothing to do with Wolf) because he, an old-school Manhattan bartender who mixes a mean fragrant sidecar, was part of a discussion of bringing that particular brand of decadent Jimmy’s dining back to Philly where my source may indeed relocate.

NYC, at present, is simply a harder sell for many a tony diner and drinker in his estimation and the Jimmy’s Milan brand — renowned for rich food from its pastas and veals to its salads — carries panache and continued possibilities in Philly. Or at least my tipster was told by some chooch who might have some money and the Milan ties to maybemaybeMAYBE to make it so. With that, I take the hit (NOT THAT KIND OF HIT) for listening to my source’s mash-up without checking it thrice. But I’m way curious to see if a new Jimmy’s Milan rears its head sooner than later.

(h/t Foobooz)

Sure, the Phillies’ Cole Hamels and wife Heidi got a Philly Style welcome into their Residences at Two Liberty Place condo on Monday. But you’d think that for $2.2 million-plus for three bedrooms and an ex-mayoral candidate (Tom Knox) as your neighbor, you’d have your air conditioners working properly (or perhaps just switched on) — I’m hearing the joint was super hot, with sweat beading off some swells like whores in a church pew. ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio, Chuck Peruto Jr., ex-Sixers GM Billy King, weather stud Doug Kammerer and 610 WIP’s Howard Eskin were eating chef Daniel Stern’s fare (he’s opening a restaurant on the high-rise condo’s 37th floor), as were Paul Rosen, Alycia Lane, John Bolaris, John Colabelli and Dan Gross. Lane being there with Gross? I can’t imagine she loved that.

Maybe she was over-taken still by another brand of troubling media. We did hear that Lane told guests that she was pretty shaken up a few weeks back when Law & Order ran a Lane-like tale of woe (co-anchor cyber-stalking) where her character was murdered — apparently it really dredged up some horror for her. I saw the show. I was pretty scared, too.

More of this stuff in Icepack’s continuing online adventures this Thursday.

If everything works out as planned — and mwahahaha to THAT — Del Frisco’s GM Shang Skipper and Philly CineFest’s Thom Cardwell will collaborate on a fabuuuuuuulous dinnah for this year’s Artistic Achievement Award recipient, Jeff Daniels, along with his wife Kathleen, the director of his Philly-shot film The Answer Man (John Hindman) and big-shot indie director — Goodbye Solo’s Ramin Bahrani — in the house. Figure like 5:30.

What’s neat about this (and here’s where you fans and happy hour drinkers should have cameras ready): Ed Rendell will be there too, and everybody’s expecting that Daniels and the guv will reenact some key scenes from Dumb & Dumber (or at least pose for some photos). This should make up for all the Connie Stevens hub bub. See Icepack on Thursday for THAT news.

And may I add my own two cents to this? Thanks. Tonight, with CineFest’s Scott Johnston, I’ll be curating a slate of films and performances at Old City’s National Mechanics as an after-party for Johnston’s Fest-Indies Enemy documentary shorts program at I-House. Johnston’ll be there. TLA’s Ray Murray’s pal Needles Jones will sing “Fame.”

Jeff Daniels? Mrs. Daniels? Ed Rendell? I know where you are. Now you know where I am. I dare you.

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The Monday Night Club @ National Mechanics Presents The Official After Party for Scott Johnston’s Fest Indies, Mon., March 30, 9 p.m., National Mechanics, 22 S. Third St.