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Ice Cubes
Friday the 13th was hardly unlucky when it came to the Variety Club, the Saturday Night Live legacy and New Jersey’s own Joe Piscopo. Piscopo (who spoke to me about the event in Icepack Illustrated last week) hosted and performed during the 2012 Red Heart Variety Show to benefit the Variety Club of Philadelphia. Cordial to all his guests, Piscopo hung around pre-show chatting with any and all who asked to be posed with him. “I love being in Philly anytime and every time, and I’m always here for the Variety Club” Piscopo told me right before the show. “I even brought my dog, Otis. I love that dog. We travel everywhere together.”
Two of Piscopo’s one-time companions also joined him and comedian/actor Jeff Norris (Boardwalk Empire) for the Variety Club benefit. Victoria Jackson, one of his many SNL cast mates, was the night’s long-announced entertainment for the event. When Piscopo introduced Jackson to me as a journalist, she asked if I was an “objective reporter,” probably due to the hell she’s received for her political leanings. I told her “objectionable, perhaps” and we called it even. The biggest surprise of the night, though, was that at the last minute, their SNL team mate Cheri Oteri — from Upper Darby — joined them as a special guest, performing as her “Barbara Walters” character, hard hair sprayed wig and all. While a sorta-kinda-seemingly nervous Oteri (at least in the green room) opened the show by doing a faux-talk show thing with Fran Naselli (President, Variety-The Children's Charity) Piscopo followed up, singing heartily in front of Philly’s City Rhythm Orchestra (“I love this band”) a slew of Sinatra faves. He mentioned his love of the Phillies and the Flyers but said his heart was with the New York City teams, which got him a few mock “boos” from the audience. He gave shout-outs to guests such as Mia Tinari, the Philadelphia lawyer with whom he’s working on a film project, Sound of Philly engineer and studio owner Joe Tarsia, myself and Square Pegs/Cuba Libre owner Barry Gutin (first time that Gutin and I ever got mentioned in the same speech and for the good yet). Jackson did her comedy routine with its conclusion being Piscopo joining her in swinging song during “All of Me” and the event, at last tally, raised $50,000.
Though he’s been in town for one week, I’ve been fairly mum on the subject of Colin Farrell's stay in 
town while readying to film Dead Man Down with Dominic Cooper (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, My Week with Marilyn) and Terrence Howard (Iron Man).
That said, I saw him for the first time on Thursday during a media dinner at Davio’s when I got a text saying “check out a.kitchen and aka Rittenhouse” that I forwarded to intrepid Icepack photographer Scott Weiner. Sadly our photog Weiner was busy photographing elsewhere and, though we spotted Farrell, my mini-cam wasn’t up to paparazzi snuff. It was funny though — at the same media dinner, Philly Chit Chat’s Hughe Dillion said he was getting his own tweets and went and grabbed a few cool blurry shots.
Since that time, it is you, yes you, Philly, who has had the best view of the not-at-all-reluctant-to-be-seen, scruffy Farrell, popping out of the Sporting Club, popping into Barclay Prime, strolling past Parc and generally running all around Rittenhouse Square. Stand around the Square for awhile and you’re sure to see him. This is so unlike the Smiths, Will and Jaden, who have been holed up apparently eating take out in their Villanova digs.
Weiner will be around to shoot Farrell and co. once they truly go into filming mode (as he did with National Treasure and the De Niro/Brad Cooper pairings that lensed in Philly) and we’ll throw up the funnest of photos. And thanks Philly for keeping an eye out until then. Keep me posted.
It’s a great week for Saturday Night Live fans even if Kristen Wiig winds up leaving. First comes news that the Not Ready For Prime Time Players’ history will be celebrated by Comics: Saturday Night Live, a four decade-long journey in comic form. Then we find out that Joe Piscopo is hosting the 2012 Red Heart Variety Show to benefits the Variety Club of Philadelphia. Victoria Jackson, one of his many castmates, is the entertainment for the event. Then, at the last minute, their SNL teammate and former Upper Darby resident Cheri Oteri (pictured) just got announced as a special guest.
Fri., April 13, 6 p.m., $100, Vie, 600 N. Broad St., 215-735-0803, varietyphila.org.
For the fourth annual Mütter Museum Ball at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the theme turned to Prohibition’s Roaring '20s and its celebration was geared to the medicine and electricity of the times. “We chose the 1920s, a banner decade for medicine, because during that time echocardiograms came into use,” says J. Nathan Bazzel, the school’s director of communication. “Penicillin was introduced and groundbreaking research and implementation in radiology took place.” That’s all well and good but the next thing you know J. Nathan was whisking me off to the floor of the Cat’s Meow dance party where cabaret chanteuse Jill Tracy was serenading the crowd in the VIP Speakeasy Lounge where Bar Mistress Meredith was whipping up healing waters from the fruits of a few flowers and pulling up bottles of Philly-made Bluecoat Gin from a tub just brimming with the stuff. Along with the gin and absinthe found in the lounge, VIPs were treated to molecular gastronomical dessert displays and large scale replicas of ancient found-in-Philly prescriptions pads for alcohol, the liquor cure once considered medicinal. Indeed, I played doctor and patient, having quite a bit of healing to do the next day.
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Sir Richard Branson didn’t just wake up, hit the morning show circuit (Fox’s Good Day with Mike Jerrick who got his head rubbed Three Stooges style by the British knight) and introduce his airplanes to the Philadelphia market. The first Virgin America flight from Los Angeles arrived Wednesday at Philadelphia International Airport as part of the inauguration of new daily nonstop service to the West Coast, which makes VA the first new airline in eight years to begin operations in Philly.
The shaggy-haired sun-kissed Branson was a guest of honor at Hotel Palomar’s Virgin America airlines party hailing that day’s launch. No, Overbrook-ian Will Smith wasn’t there as had been tweeted and rumored heatedly throughout the day. Nicki Minaj wasn't either (instead, she hit radio stations and FYE, see this week’s Icepack Illustrated). But Smith’s one-time DJ and buddy Jazzy Jeff spun tracks for a dancing Mayor Michael Nutter and his missus mayor Lisa at the hotel-motel-holiday-innnnn. And Smith’s After Earth collaborators were on board at the Palomar/Virgin bash — his director M. Night Shyamalan and co-star Zoe Kravitz, who was there but not posing with her beau, Penn Badgley from Gossip Girl.
I wouldn’t dare cheapen my Saturday night with Liza Minnelli and Fiona Apple at the Borgata — separate shows, separate venues within one casino — by calling it an evening of "divas". The word is rife with so many negative connotations that it doesn't do the performers justice. So I'll preface by saying two iconic singers — who happened to be women — rocked the Borgata to its core on Saturday night.
Minnelli sold out the Borgata’s Event Center. The daughter of the legendary Judy Garland and director 
Vincente Minnelli has long been both a product of her pedigree and an icon hell bound for individualism. It’s her dramatic, halting and shushing way with a song (to say nothing of a physicality currently blunted by a bum ankle broken not so long ago), the way she isolates each syllable that makes Liza with a "Z" iconic.
With a small big band of familiars behind her, Minnelli, 66, ran through her usual theatrical classics: the flashily quick paced likes of “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” and signature numbers such as “Cabaret” and “Say Liza” with gusto. Occasionally, Minnelli sounded rushed and out of breath on these faster tunes. “I think I swallowed a sequin,” she said during one rush preceding the grandly stammering “But the World Goes Round.” Those moments were good and necessary hits but luckily, Minnelli stuck to a klatch of slower, more simmering ballads that allowed her to use jazzier elements of her vocal inflection that some of her chosen Broadway standards wouldn’t. With longtime accompanist, pianist Billy Stritch, Minnelli played with “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” and turned the medley of “Here I'll Stay/Our Love Is Here to Stay” into romantic banter of the highest order. French composer Charles Aznavour’s daring “What Makes a Man a Man” (“After strip-teasing each night the men look so surprised / I change my sex before their eyes”) became a chattily icy tango complete with a seductive soprano sax whistling behind her. She waltzed ever-so-slowly through a heartbreakingly breathless (in a good way) “Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye” and an acapella “I’ll Be Seeing You” as her fanciful charmed finale. But her finest moment (other than that Aznavour song) came when she sang “Confessions,” the title track from the most intimately recorded album of 2010. Slow, bawdy and bluesy, Minnelli crawled playfully through the wiry witty track, from The Band Wagon musical, as only the best sort of interpretative singer could. Lines like "I never had a taste for wine, now isn't that a sin? / I never had a taste for wine, for wine can't compare with gin” and “I always go to bed at 10 — and then go home at 4” sounded both contemporary and continental in a fashion that would make Noel Coward smile.
Two events last Saturday night did their best to fund Philadelphia gay-related charities. In both cases, each did their damndest to out-glam and drag things up.
The AIDS Fund 13th annual Black-Tie GayBINGO event at the Crystal Tea Room featured GayBINGO hostess Miss Carlota Ttendent (Michael Byrne from Action AIDS) and her klatch of Bingo Verifying Divas (BVDs) in fabulous glittering gowns. Honorees for the evening included radio maven/community affairs director Loraine Ballard Morrill (Favorite Straight Person of the Year), William Way Community Center’s Chris Bartlett (The Founders’ Award Recipient) and Garry Stover and Steve Terrill (Volunteer Awards Recipients) for their tireless efforts regarding HIV reacted causes. “I’m happy to tell you that the funds raised were up 25 percent from last year, totaling $40,000” says event rep Cari Feiler Bender.
After that, I headed to Voyeur to the party benefiting Equality PA that starred songstress Erika Schiff, performance artiste Power Infiniti, hostess Sherry Vine, house-music crooner Kevin Avaince and Gunner, the Gunnerworld porn presence whose birthday was the main thrust of the evening. Dancing boys, high hair and trying to maneuver one’s way off the swing was the order of the night. No tally yet as to how much was raised for their charity but you can donate here, and be certain that Schiff and Gunner will be doing something similar very soon.
The first good thing about the VIP pre-party for this year’s Philadelphia International Flower Show: 
Hawaii: Islands of Aloha — no “Tiny Bubbles” theme music. This wasn’t going to be a cornball affair. In reality, March 3’s start of the flowery week to follow (March 4-11) was filled with the simplest, most elegant displays of nature, man-made (a giant waterfall dedicated to the goddess of volcanoes) and high-tech (the hovering projection screen-filled wave at the entrance).
Unlike last year’s Flower Show dedicated to Paris, with its underground and its stagey sets, Hawaii: Islands of Aloha relies wholly on decorative plant life, like the miniature pressed flower displays and those exhibitions inspired by the musical South Pacific. The show is surprisingly powerful stuff presented in a most giddy fashion. Even when it goes against its own grain with a tribute to machismo in its deigning of a "man cave" space of SugarHouse Casino-sponsored table games benefiting the PHS City Harvest program, it’s a sweet and swell affair. For those looking for swells of another kind, the opening Flower Show soiree had its biggest celeb visit yet. Clothing designer Tory Burch hit a Philly Style party in the Kula restaurant space to celebrate her appearance in the mag’s newest issue. Everyone left smelling like a rose.
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
Flower photo by Glamorosi
Slideshow photos by Scott Weiner
Alden, Pa.-raised, University of the Arts graduate Shane O'Neill is in for the fight of his life tonight. At the very least, it’s the fight of his tattoos' life as he is one of three challengers for the championship prize on this evening’s finale of Spike TV’s Ink Master series, which airs at 10 p.m.
O’Neill was set to be a cabinet maker before he got interested in tattooing and started working for his illustrator pal Jon Ellis. After striking out on his own, he opened two of his own tat parlors, the Tattoo Shop, in Willow Grove, Pa. and another in Middletown, Del.. Tonight’s prize of $100,000 will be given away by professional goatee and Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro.
Watch the video below to see O'Neill do his stuff before tonight's big-bang finale.
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
The Buyers Market of American Craft — an essential wholesale trade show connecting artisans with retail shops and galleries — rolled through the Pennsylvania Convention Center at the beginning of the week. Hundreds of participants from North America filled the hall for the event’s 30th year. Glassware, textiles, 2D arts, handmade clocks, leather goods, home furnishings and jewelry of all styles made a solid showing.
Two locally connected artists in particular caught my eye:
The folks at Hudson Beach Glass, a family business, do functional and decorative items at their locations in Beacon, New York, and Philly (on Strawberry Street across from City Paper’s offices). Not only did they show off some of their custom designs for Jose Garces’ restaurants (Chifa, Whiskey Village) and his appearances on the Food Network’s Iron Chef, they presented a glass piece named after Garces — the Jose Tray. (Hudson Beach Glass will have a booth at the Philadelphia Flower Show March 4-11.)
Then there’s Red Oak Crafts’ Marvin R. Schnoll. Presently Schnoll makes bandsaw wooden boxes, with his newest line featuring animals on the endangered species list including the African Elephant and Bengal Tiger. Though he uses some exotic woods, most are domestic, sourced from Indiana. Schnoll was most interesting to me not just because of his highly stylized work but because of his story — he was young kid who lived at Fourth and Reed, moved to West Philly, then worked as an engineer in San Juan, Puerto Rico, before he settled in Louisville, Kentucky. Schnoll was rug maker who, after being sidelined by a fused wrist, began making objects from wood. Cool stuff.
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