Icepack

Amorosi on the news, nightlife, gossip and bitchiness beats.

by A.D. Amorosi

Here's a press release Icepack Central Office high atop the construction peak at Suzanne Roberts theater complex received before last weekend. "The Iggletini is tasty and some even say that it's good luck," said Chris Mullins, co-owner, McGillin's Olde Ale House. "While we can't verify that, we're not taking any chances. We'll be serving Iggletinis throughout the playoffs ... and refusing to wash our lucky socks." Fuck you, Chris. How's that leftover creme de menthe mix holding up against the smell of crusty socks? With McGillin's frigging Iggletinis all that remains of our hopes, let's move quickly to something new. Because we're bruised. And the past makes us hurt more. And we can't belieeeeve we lined up outside Forman Mills to check Jeff Garcia when we probably could've just maybe seen him dancing at Pure. So we marvel at U-of-P's Melissa Lamb and local folkie Leah Kauffman for dropping "My Box in a Box" on MyYouSpaceTube and getting $1,525 from eBay and we wonder: What else can we shove in a box for cash? And where's our next media thing? Me? I'm planning an OnDemand buyout for my satellite-broadcast version of Suddenly, Last Summer. But you? Smerconish and a camera crew hung around Hard Rock Cafe doing interviews. Is he webbing? CNN-ing? Can we veto a pilot before one's announced? Maybe mustache-waxed Wang Newton's Wang's No. 1 Show with Marc Brodzik (of In the Basement with Darrin fame) is da future. Or selling new artists with vids already intact like producer Mike Braxton's doing with his all-local/all-female rap DVD Welcome to tha Block, Live from Philly with unsigned Phillees Lady Merk, Housewife, Ki-Mo and Ms. Aprop-8. Really, it's just a matter of time before Dave Pianka becomes Philly's Web-TV-ed Mr. Science and Tony Bonnett our nu-Chef Tell.

► Rumor: What club recently lost one of its manager/booker types — not through firing but through he/she quitting due to the fact he/she got tired of hiding from its owners that one of its co-owners was hanging out at said club past close-time with lots of ladies doing lots of drugs and drinking lots of the club's most expensive champagne?

► We think of poet Samantha Barrow as a serious young woman. So when we got this — Sam teaches bad poetry in a tent at the ICA — mah curiositah was piqued. "We'll practice the crappy rhymes, overwrought metaphor and confessional cliche," says Barrow of the Fine Art of Writing Bad Poetry class she'll spearhead at her mobile Sundown Schoolhouse geodesic tent outside ICA on Jan. 24. I'm already halfway there

► Sure David "Hot Club" Carroll is readying his own new Rittenhouse Square boite. But that won't stop him from helping Five Spot find a new tenant. And Cafe Habana too. The lovely restaubar/DJ/live music space on S. 21st is losing owner Juan Carlos Fernandez to a move to Miami's clubland. But he'll lease Habana. Carroll already got bites from one new guy who discussed doubling the 5,500-square-foot space.

► Men with beards: Sax man Elliott Levin is kicking off 2007's Poets and Prophets at Voices and Visions in The Bourse on Jan. 18. But you can also hear one of his rarest recordings when ESP-Disk restarts label ops and drops Levin's Live Upstairs at Nick's from his New Ghost quartet. ESP-Disk gots the only live recording of Yma Sumac from 1961 in Bucharest and Germantown composer/spaceman Sun Ra to follow. And if you loved last week's CP mention of Charles Cohen, you'll love what he's doing with Yanni Papadopoulos. The Stinking Lizaveta guitarist, before finishing SL's Scream of the Iron Iconoclast, formed Planet Y with Cohen (www.publicguilt.com/press/planety.php), and they got their debut show at Bar Noir Jan. 25 with another bearded wonder, Matt H.E.A.H.D. from Radio Eris (who have their own Monkey Island CD ready soon), opening. If Planet Y's like Yanni's guitar/dumbek CD Yajna, expect to accept the spooky into your life.

► If R. Crumb hits UArts for his "My True Inner Self" Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery show Jan. 26, I'll wax his Yarrowstalks.

► Sure, R5's Sean Agnew had to apologize by mass e-mail to under-21 constituents for having all those old-head shows at Johnny Brenda's, where the elderly drink Schlitz and use denture gum. But he's making it up to the kids by selling all-ages show tix at South Street's Relapse records. And talking 'bout punk rock and Philly, isn't the Vagrant label sniffing 'round our decidedly un-punk A-Sides' new Silver Storms rekkid?

► How did big DJ star Eddie Biaz wind up spinning at Robbie Tronco/Steve Riot's Thursday night at the Mansion off RitRow? "Eddie stopped by when he was in A.C.," says DJ Riot. "He loved our vibe so much, he asked if he could play." The trio is doing an early open bar Jan. 18 for their Biaz bash. Know who else makes a surprise appearance that night? Sandra Bernhard. After opening her rocking four-night-stand Everything Bad & Beautiful at the Prince, Bernhard and Brittany Lynn do Pure so to benefit the Mazzoni Center. $5 please

► Sad this: Lele Tran, co-owner (with her hubbie) of the couture Lele Design, is closing her 13th Street shop in February. "We really don't retail," says Tran. But it's not too bad. "We'll be operating from home in Cherry Hill for all of our custom customers." Dig: www.lelecustomdresses.com.

► On sadder notes still: While y'all missed the news that the South Jersey rocker bar Pirates Den at Broadway and Essex streets in Gloucester City burned down in December, the recent deaths of PGN's first photographer, Harry Eberlin, former hospitality editor of Philadelphia Business Journal/former CP contributor John McCalla and local-by-marriage jazz lioness Alice Coltrane break our hearts and warrant our commiseration.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)