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Ice Cubes
Last October, my father and I hung out at the Philly Style sponsored Kimmel Center screening event for the world premiere of The Mighty Macs, local director/writer/producer Tim Chambers’ film based on hard charging coach Cathy Rush and the true story of the 1971-72 Immaculata College girls’ basketball team. We sat in the theater with a bunch of nuns from Immaculata and, I have to say, never was such drunken revelry more apparent — Flyers and Mummers drunk, I’m talking. OK, I kid, sisters. More like Philadelphia-soul boozy.
Still I couldn’t help but wait patiently for the DVD release party for The Mighty Macs and that happened at The Independence Seaport Museum at Penn’s Landing on Tuesday night. Chambers met with guests ranging from Philly film-and-cheesesteak king Tony Luke Jr. and his Concrete Blonde pal, Top Chef Jen Carroll, and film org maven Sharon Pinkenson and a klatch of local television news-ters. That doesn’t sound half as drunked-up as the first Mighty Macs party, but, then again, I’m guessing a lot of liquor-loving nuns might have sat this one out.
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
Photos by Scott Weiner
One time Philadelphian Scott Storch likes trouble. The Roots keyboardist turned producer has worked with the bad (Snoop Dogg) and the beautiful (Beyoncé). He famously spent three lifetime fortunes on drugs and has been in rehab since the mid 2000s. But TMZ just caught wind (and a mug shot) of Storch after getting arrested for holding a decent amount of cocaine in Vegas at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. How’d the cops find out he had the blow? Storch tried to skip out on paying his bill and a Cosmopolitan employee ratted him out.
I spent Saturday night on Broad Street, bouncing between the 155th anniversary of the Academy Ball and Concert at the Academy of Music and Jerry Blavat’s tenth anniversary of performing at the Kimmel Center.
It was, as always, fascinating to see the transformation of the Academy from hallowed hall to party ball. This year, rather than make partygoers leave after the concert, the Ball was extended until 1 a.m. They lowered the grand old chandelier in the main room, turned the orchestra’s rehearsal hall at the Academy House into a dark makeshift disco and let her rip. Yo-Yo Ma, Diana Krall, David Morse, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin were there, but the performers almost seemed secondary to the party itself. Before the Ball, there were smaller fêtes, like the one at R2L for the Young Friends of the Academy Ball, as well as the Pre-Party Reception for the Academy Ball, hosted at Tiffany & Co. and held by The Central Committee for The Philadelphia Orchestra. The latter event is the one where guests were invited to purchase one or more Tiffany Crystal Atlas Bowls for $200 each, with one winning Bowl holding a Tiffany diamond pendant (Dr. Janice Gordon won that joint)
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There are a few things to note after this morning’s announcement about the Bruce Springsteen E 
Street Band tour for his ragged and radically diverse (lots of loops, bits of hip-hop inspiration) album, Wrecking Ball, which is out March 6. After the tour’s March 18 start in Atlanta, The Boss will play two Philly dates, on March 28 and March 29 at the Wells Fargo Center (tix on sale Jan. 28) before going on to an April 3 date at East Rutherford, N.J.’s Izod Center (on sale Jan. 27).
Not-so-new news is that the E Street Band's members include Springsteen vets Roy Bittan (piano, synthesizer) Nils Lofgren (guitar) Garry Tallent (bass) Silivio Stevie Van Zandt (guitar, schmatah) and Max Weinberg (drums). Newer E-Street-er Soozie Tyrell is on board playing violin and guitar as is even newer member Charlie Giordano, playing keyboards. The biggest surprises come with the announcement that Patti Scialfa (guitar, vocals) is back, absent as Mrs. Springsteen was for most of the last E Street Band tour. And with the 2011 passing of Springsteen’s long-time sideman/saxophonist/brother-in-arms Clarence Clemons, rumors swirled about a possible replacement by nephew Jake Clemons, an able-bodied sax man who played last year with Eddie Vedder during the Pearl Jam-ers solo tour. This morning’s press notice said zip about Jake. Shame. Hope it changes.
"We Take Care Of Our Own," the album's first single, can be streamed at the same dot net where you can pre-order Wrecking Ball — brucespringsteen.net. Tickets will be available through all the usual Wells Fargo Center webs.
On Sunday night, ?uestlove appeared on the debut of Bravo VP and talk show host Andy Cohen’s now 
five-times-a-week gab fest, Watch What Happens Live, and kinda-sorta dissed one of Philly’s own, Tina Fey. Fey just happens to work for the same NBC//Universal/Comcast/Kabletown network as The Roots and ?uestlove do. Still ?uest was pissed that any time the 30 Rock-er appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, she never gave a shout to her home-slice Roots. “Fellow Philadelphians, we bond with each other and it's been hard to bond with her" said ?uesto.
He knew, like Fallon did, that Fey would appear on last night’s show. Another misspeak or just good publicity for all concerned? Anyway, last night on Fallon’s late show, Fey mentioned the Q-dig, said she had considered keying ?uestlove’s car, only to face an apologetic but still wounded-by-the-brush-off drummer. So the two Philly natives hugged it out — or ate it out — over a foot-long hoagie. Ah, if only the Archdiocese and its potentially closing high schools could just get some sandwiches ...
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
Photo from latenightiwthjimmyfallon.com
Give Damon Feldman credit for two things: making lemonade from lemons and having a sense of humor about it. The odd-lot Philly boxing promoter — who's legally restricted from promoting real boxing events in Pennsylvania after being convicted of promoting fights without a license (even though most of them happened with overstuffed giant gloves the size of watermelons) — is behind the new Pillow Fighting League (PFL). And face it: Pillow fighting is not regulated by the state as of yet (For the record, Tom Corbett — before he was governor — really went after Feldman for allowing cats like Danny Bonaduce to pummel bozos such as Jose Canseco. Me? I’d give Feldman a medal.
Speaking of giving Feldman a hero's welcome — the debut event of the PFL happens tonight at 8:30 p.m. at The Deck (101 Taylor Ave., 267-803-1999) in Essington. James James’ tattooed love-goof Michelle “Bombshell” McGee (pictured right, photo by Scott Weiner) will fight Rita Rampage, amongst other battle royals to be held. Are the girls allowed to smother with pillows? Or make the opponent eat tweety feathers? I don’t know the rules of the PFL. Maybe I should’ve asked last night when the downy combatants held a news conference at Legendary Dobbs on South Street. That’s where Feldman said the goofiest thing: “They can’t arrest me for pillow fighting, right?” Hey Tom Corbett, you’ve got nothing better to do with that Penn State trial on tap. $15 gets you girls and pillows.
Director David O. Russell (The Fighter, Flirting with Disaster) left Philly a few weeks ago after wrapping the comic The Silver Linings Playbook. But there’s nothing funny about Bradley Cooper’s auteur pal’s next move. According to entertainment websites The Smoking Gun and The Wrap, there’s a police report claiming that Russell fondled the private parts of his transsexual, 19-year-old nephew Nicolas (also known as “Nicole”) Peloquin, the son of Russell's adoptive sister, Barbara Jane Peloquin. Nicole told a Broward County Sheriff's Office deputy that the assault happened in a Florida gym. Russell, who, in a police report called his nephew "dramatic," claims the touching incident was motivated by the nephew and was more of a hey-is-this-breast-larger-than-the-other sort of thing. Oy.
Want pre-New Year’s Eve local celebrity blabbing that doesn’t involve Arlen Specter’s standup comedy 
routine at Helium last night? How about this: Word just hit the sleepy but pricey community of Lancaster County, Pa that Lady Gaga was rumored to be looking for a large property to purchase. CBS21 (WHP-TV) claims that Gaga looked at a $1.7-million, 6,000-square-foot house in the gated Bent Creek Community in Manheim Township. She’s visited restaurants in the area and was rumored to have dragged her native Lancaster-ian beau Taylor Kinney of Vampire Diaries renown.
For Gaga this will surely mean an Amish influence to everything she does going forward. Look for mutza suits made out of meat, sparkler-shooting cone bras to be forged from Triblend denim and yokes. Lots of yokes.
Oooh, her new neighbors will love her first present to them — a Born This Way outtake titled “Stuck on Fucking You.” Perhaps it’s just Gaga’s way of expressing her desire to move to this exclusive community.
Last year, Philly couldn’t get enough of Jersey Boys, the quirky Tony Award-winning musical about the life, songs, times and crimes of the Four Seasons. The Forrest Theater had some of the biggest numbers throughout its 2010 run. So with nothing spelling success like more success, the second national tour of Jersey Boys pulled into the same theater last weekend with a new cast featuring a Philly-area native Brandon Andrus (as Nick Massi), a Jersey-born new Frank Valli in Brad Weinstock, Colby Foytik (Tommy DeVito) who joined the Second National Tour after a 10-month run in the show's Las Vegas production, and Jason Kappus (Bob Gaudio), who starred on Broadway in American Idiot. Better still, for the opening night, last Friday night’s audiences got treated to a performance-ending bow (and an after party at Smokin’ Betty’s) starring the real salt-and-pepper haired Gaudio, book co-writers Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice, director Des McAnuff and choreographer Sergio Trujillo.
When Q102’s Jingle Ball 2011 unfurled at Wells Fargo Center last week, it was surprising how un-holiday-ish it was. Not a tree or menorah in sight. No seasonal songs save for Kelly Clarkson’s slow country-ish take on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” The only balls to be hung were the ones sticking out of LMFAO’s trunks when its dance crew stripped to its skivvies. Oh well. The Jersey Shore crew’s Sammi Sweetheart and Deana, and Jo-Jo and Nick Jonas showed up to introduce sets. And Joe Jonas, who appeared as one of the Jingle Ball acts, stopped at the Wells Fargo’s Lexus Club to present a check for $15,000-plus dollars on behalf of the Ryan Seacrest Foundation to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Voice Program. A buck from each ticket to the Jingle Ball contributed to that donation (for those who don’t recall, Seacrest’s Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to using interactive multimedia platforms — like in-hospital radio shows — to enhance the quality of life for seriously ill and injured children).
(a_amorosi@citypaper.net) (@ADAmorosi)
Photos by Scott Weiner
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