St. Paul Chapel Baptist Church Special Service!

The Actors Lounge interviews Harry Cook

Join host Tony Lankford as The Actors Lounge interviews founder and CEO of the hottest social video sharing website, Philly1.com!

Johnnie Hobbs Jr. at The Arden Theater starring in BLUE DOOR.

Interview with Johnnie Hobbs Jr. by Tony Lankford on The Actors Lounge.

The Real Praise TV show

Join host Nanette Lankford.
"Real life testimonies from everyday people"

'Avatar,' 'The Hurt Locker' lead Oscar nominations

The science-fiction sensation "Avatar" and the war-on-terror thriller "The Hurt Locker" lead the Academy Awards with nine nominations each, including best picture and director for former spouses James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow.

For the first time since 1943 the Oscars feature 10 best-picture contenders instead of the usual five.

Also nominated for best-picture Tuesday: "District 9"; the animated comedy "Up"; the World War II saga "Inglourious Basterds"; the football drama "The Blind Side"; t…

Jackson's doctor arrives in Los Angeles

Michael Jackson's physician has arrived in Los Angeles in anticipation of a decision from the district attorney's office on whether to charge him for the singer's death, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

Dr. Conrad Murray, who practices in Houston, arrived in Los Angeles last weekend and one of his lawyers, Edward Chernoff, plans to join him, spokeswoman Miranda Sevcik said.

"Dr. Murray is in Los Angeles for a dual purpose - on family business and to be available for law enforcement," Sevcik said. "…

Obama budget, jobs plan get early tests on Hill

President Barack Obama's proposed budget, stuffed with initiatives to spark jobs and the economy, is getting an early test with lawmakers weary of record deficits, wary of his tax ideas and nervous about winning re-election in November.

Obama's proposed 5,000-per-job tax credit for companies that hire more workers could come up for a vote in the Senate as early as the end of the week - if senators can work out the details.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Obama's budget director, Peter Orsz…

Silence wasn't golden when Grammys bleeped lyrics

Did anybody notice that, late in Sunday's telecast of the Grammy Awards show, the sound went on the fritz?

The mikes went dead for seconds on end, over and over, like some kind of short circuit no one could fix.

This apparent technical snafu seemed to crop up during the big production number with rap artists Eminem, Lil Wayne and Drake, who ended up miming as much as singing for the TV audience.

More than coincidence?

Not to any of the 25 million viewers wondering why certain recording stars…

Traffic Alert: John McCain In Town To Speak At Union League With Other Guys Whose Default Facial Expression Is This One

That’s right: As we speak, the Oppressor class is welcoming none other than that senile failure John McCain to the Union League on Broad between Sansom and Walnut. He will be accompanied by a dinner of liver and onions, not a single joke about tea bagging and a nagging sense that if he hadn’t picked [...]

This Evening: Soldiers Of Love

Yes, it’s true: Sade’s first album in nearly 10 years comes out tomorrow. And yes, it is also true: We are oddly psyched. We’ve been checking it out for about a week now, and so far, so good. “Soldier of Love” is the lead single, and there is also this song called “Babyfather” that rules, [...]

N.J. Senate panel approves two Christie appointees

TRENTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday approved the first two of Gov. Christie's cabinet nominees to come for interviews.

Cape May braces for Mother Nature's follow-up shot

CAPE MAY - Still struggling to recover from the weekend nor'easter, weary Jersey Shore emergency officials yesterday were ramping up for a second severe storm that could bring sleet, high winds, and up to 18 more inches of snow to some coastal areas by tomorrow night.

Rep. John Murtha - Brady's mentor - dies

U.S. Rep. Bob Brady had just been sworn in to office in the U.S. House 12 years ago when he learned two important lessons:

EXERCISING HER RIGHTS? Jailed for night in bike dispute

CARROL SHANNON had the simplest of intentions when she walked into the South Philadelphia Bally Total Fitness on Feb. 1.

Review the Reviews

BY Michael Alan Goldberg / HYPERLINK "mailto:feedback@philadelphiaweekly.com" feedback@philadelphiaweekly.com

Ben Kweller

Singer-guitarist Ben Kweller, now 27, is a music biz veteran, having released albums both with his old band Radish and as a solo artist since he was 13. He's been a punk rocker, indie rocker, power-popster, and balladeer, and for his fourth solo LP, Changing Horses, he dives headfirst into much rootsier fare. We hit an upbeat Kweller up for a session of Review the Reviews, wherein we read excerpts from recent reviews and get the reaction of the reviewed.

"Changing Horses, his self-produced fourth LP, isn't quite the country & western crossover most would have you believe, more like the dirt road connecting his previous paths. (Austin Chronicle)

"Right! I mean, the album's way more Jackson Browne than Merle Haggard. Country music and roots music has always been one of the side roads that I take once in a while, and for this album I wanted to make it the main road."

"He's nodded to his Texas roots before, but on this collection meant to play up his twangy side, he seems scared of edging too far into the darkness of country music's long, rich tradition." (Paste)

"Hmm. Whatever. They don't know me. I mean, I opened the album with a whore and ended it with a junkie. I don't need to explain too much. I don't need to prove anything to anybody."

" ... the best is 'On Her Own,' a number in praise of female self-determination with a precise, pedal-steel-driven chorus that would fit nicely on a Faith Hill or Brad Paisley album." (Rolling Stone)

"That's really cool that they would even reference that shit because it's so far from ... I'm obviously not a Nashville pop-country guy. But the whole thing about this album is that all of a sudden there are people in the country side of the business that are finding out about me for the very first time. So for Rolling Stone to even say something like that, I'm psyched. I'm over the whole indie-hip--I just feel like I paid my dues for so fuckin' long in the indie-rock world that if my stuff took off in country, that'd be really exciting and refreshing."

ESSAY: The Thinner Blue Line

BY Daniel McQuade / HYPERLINK "mailto:dmcquade@philadelphiaweekly.com" dmcquade@philadelphiaweekly.com

Saying goodbye to Officer John Pawlowski.

Watch Jeff Fusco's slideshow from the funeral.

It was a fearfully cold day, and thousands of police officers marched past the memorial squad car for yet another fallen officer. They shared the same small steps, the same grave looks, the same stiff backs. They marched into the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul past a sea of fellow well-wishers who stood outside, cheeks red and cold in the wind. They marched inside until the Basilica was nearly filled with people; those left outside stood solemnly during the Catholic funeral of Officer John Pawlowski.

After the service, the officers marched out, same as before, then police cars zoomed off in an endless line. The hearse carrying Officer Pawlowski was followed by a phalanx of motorcycles and sparkling white cars from the Police Department. The motorcade went up I-95, toward the neighborhoods where the grid system breaks down, where so many of the police officers live in stout postwar houses near the Delaware. (Pawlowski still lived where he grew up, in Parkwood Manor, a stone's throw from the suburbs.)

The procession swept past officers and firefighters on overpasses, past officers paying their respects in solemn roadside salutes. It went into the suburbs and by the schools and strip malls on Street Road. It went through fire-truck arches and past bikers holding American flags in the brisk February winds. Finally, it went through the gates of Resurrection Cemetery.

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Seven police officers have died in the line of duty since May 2006. This was after nearly 10 years without any shooting deaths of police officers. But things feel commonplace when they cluster this way. The local TV stations didn't interrupt programming for the funeral of Officer Pawlowski, and the crowd in the plaza outside the Basilica was smaller than in the past.

Yet the number of police officers who memorialize their fallen brother or sister seems to grow each time. The services, the procession, the officers at the cemetery--it all seems like more this time. Even actor David Morse, the guy who played a former Philadelphia cop in the TV show Hack, stands against a light pole outside the church. With each loss, the department grows stronger.

Enormous groups of police personnel gathered in John Pawlowski's memory last week. They lined the pews at St. Anselm's in Parkwood on Monday night. They marched down Academy Road on Thursday at dusk to the funeral home for the wake. They processed in and out of the Basilica and stood still at the cemetery as the cold wind swept across the hillsides lined with headstones. The fierce, consistent presence is an impressive show of unity. It shuts down streets; it silences cities.

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Police officers hold an immense amount of power, both individually and as a group, and that power is public. They are imposing when they walk down the street. Their contract talks are daily news. They are frequent topics of household debate.

They are feared and comforting, loathed and respected. They are always late and always on time. They inspire strong emotions.

So it's fitting the police funeral has become such a spectacle. Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey came here from Chicago, where police funerals almost stop time. He felt Philly needed more pomp and circumstance. He wanted to march with the mayor to the funeral home for the wake; he wanted police recruits to dot the road to the gravesite; he wanted the horse-drawn carriages and the symbolic reminders that one good man is missing.

At the cemetery, helicopters flew overhead in a missing-man formation. Police officers from the 35th District signed off Officer John Pawlowski for the last time: "From members of the 35th District and your entire police family, we thank you for a job well done."

The words of the service, the procession of cars, the final words at the cemetery are ritual and tradition, done the same way many times over the last few months.

But they are done with a precision that shows great care. The pallbearers practiced in the days leading up to Pawlowski's funeral by carrying a casket stuffed with dumbbells. When the time came, they marched despite the cold weather. The spectacle of it all is maybe the most uplifting thing the police department does. They just do it right.

Who Polices the Philadelphia Police?

Evan M. Lopez

Fifteen months later, after accusations and denials, testimonies and counter-testimonies from police and witnesses, trials and the rumblings of more trials to come, the only consensus to come out of the whole incident is that Michael Foley was acting like an asshole. He was an asshole who'd had way too much to drink — he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.335, more than four times the legal driving limit — and was looking for a fight, and in a different scenario with different characters and different magnitudes, Foley may have deserved a fraction of what ended up coming to him.

But it would have been only a fraction, and it wouldn't have been doled out by a cop.

By 5:50 p.m. on Oct. 31, 2008, the day of the city-sanctioned celebration of the Phillies' world championship, Foley, a lanky 25-year-old with light brown shaggy hair, had already been kicked out of the Khyber — a bar on Second and Chestnut streets, across the street from City Paper's offices — and may have had a black eye from a previous, unspecified altercation, according to police records. Sloppy and aggressive, he stood outside the bar trying to start fights with whoever was around. His own lawyer would later call his behavior "obnoxious."

Philadelphia police officers Kevin Corcoran and Shawn Hagan, who usually patrol Grays Ferry, were assigned to Old City that day. Corcoran approached Foley; they talked for a couple of minutes. Court and police records would later record two versions of the conversation: Foley claimed he made a snide remark about Corcoran being a "public servant." Corcoran recalled Foley telling him, "Fuck you, faggot, suck my dick."

There are conflicting versions of the ensuing altercation, too. Corcoran, Hagan and other police officers would later testify in court and in statement to the department's Internal Affairs investigators th...

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Philagrafika 2010

Duke Riley's magnum opus is only an infinitesimal part of Philagrafika 2010, a 10-week printmaking festival as large and potent as Live Arts and Philly Fringe. It'll bring in more than 300 artists, involve more than 80 local venues, and be the culmination of more than five years of work from a staff of about 10. Like Live Arts/Fringe, Philagrafika is split into a few different parts: "The Graphic Unconscious" is the core exhibit, featuring mostly international artists in big-dog venues like the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Print Center; "Independent Projects" takes place in small-scale galleries about town; and "Out of Print" pairs five artists, including Riley, with five Philly historical centers.

Riley isn't the only Philagrafika artist who pushes printmaking's boundaries. "Since it's a triennial, it's important that it's not a tightly curated show. It needed to be experimental, and add to the understanding of the currency of print," says artistic director José Roca. "I'd say that most of the artists involved wouldn't call themselves printmakers."

Look below for a few of our favorite artists, all of whom are exhibiting until April 11 unless otherwise noted. Check out philagrafika2010.org for many more.

Pepón Osorio

One of the few locals who managed to squeeze his way into the highly competitive "Graphic Unconscious" show, this Temple University Tyler School of Art professor created a bedazzling memento mori (pictured) on the floors of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His X-ray image of a skull is printed not on paper, blocks of wood or even linoleum— but on black and gold confetti. PAFA, Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, 128 N. Broad St., 215-972-7600, pafa.org.

Sue Coe

Though most of Sue...

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