Icepack

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

by A.D. Amorosi

It's obvious to me, what with the real possibility New York City'll get its first casino at the Aqueduct with the help of the Shinnecock Indians, that Manhattan is finally afraid of us. They read Rolling Stone's "Hot Scene" and that we got it going on. Our rents our cheaper. Our artists are wackier. So they had to go and get American Indians to fight on a $1.4 billion gaming palace just to beat Philly (not even Philly — Chester!) at our newly minted cheeseball casino ca-ching game. Aces Diner gonna be pissed. Just because you owe them for stealing Manhattan, don't get the Shinnecock to fight your battles. Build your own Silk City. Make your own scrapple. Let us have our faces on the cover of the Rolling Stone (OK, like page 176). I only hope there's a Vince Fumo in your future.

► Bands keep playing Philly and we keep stealing their equipment. Does it scare the dark, dreamy Film School, one of the first of the thieved during the first felonious wave? No. The San Francisco treat just released Hideout (Beggars Banquet). Their epic, squealing new "Lectric" is about dragons. And as Film School play Johnny Brenda's Oct. 22, Krayg Burton says, "We had an invisible spell cast on the van. It won't be stolen because nobody can see it but us." Nice. What about comedians? When dry 'n' sexy stand-up Todd Barry wrote to ask me about the World Café Live he's playing Oct. 21 ("I don't know if they've ever done comedy there. I don't know if I will do comedy there"), I mentioned we're known as a town that'll steal your equipment. Todd's brave. He's opened for Howie Mandel. "I haven't had any experiences like that. I hope they don't steal my new travel steamer. I'd hate to have to use the hotel iron."

► The legendary Bobby Startup will soon leave Bar Noir due to i$$ue$ with management; this after several other BN stalwarts recently left or were ousted. I've a feeling Startup'll wind up somewhere great. Still, atzanogood. 

► Supper — the married Prenskys' new gold-leaf high-heeled-fooderie at 926 South St. — is on starting Oct. 19. You know Jen and chef Mitch from Global Dish Catering. I know 'em as lump crab 'n' sweet pea tartine-terrific.

► Oct. 23 marks the date La Cucaracha — the first studio CD from New Hope's Dean and Gene Ween — in four years. Be here (www.ween.com) on that date. Better than a solar eclipse. 

► Rich Hillen Jr. starts his busy season Oct. 22 at the Balcony with a free Halloweenie show of his new Hellside Wranglers with Clamfight (yum) and Bloody Wall of Gore on the side.

► G, the long-rumored lounge below Davio's, opens at November's end, catwalk 'n' all.

► WHOWHATWHERE: When Matt Nathanson did David Dye's World Café, he noshed at WCLive. No sooner did his waitress Kim Hall mention that she played accordion, Matt asked her to play with him at TLA. She was a smash. With every blogitty-blogger 'n' college-paper scribe quoting every word they said (Natalie Portman's ass, self-induced bad haircuts and The Mummers), Darjeeling Limited dandies Wes Anderson, Jason Schwartzman, Waris Ahluwalia and Roman Coppola supped at Striped Bass, Tony Luke's and Tinto (a mere 36 hours after Robert Redford) before leaving town. While Tinto looks like the new spot for visiting diggable dig-nitaries, never underestimate Mark Wahlberg's fave, the Saloon, which happens to be celebrating its 40th anniversary of garlicky good-gnocchi-ness Oct. 24 with a swanky spicy meatball bash. Speaking of such, Molly's Bookstore's just-started Friday film series shows Mean Streets Oct. 19. Get there before 7:30 p.m., though: "I will be opening with a reading of my Souphilly, mob-type poems," says Molly "I've never been compared to a bracciole before" Russakoff. 

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

► HEADLINE: "PNI image editor to marry the devil." Naw. Chris Gray marries not-so-spooky Don Faust this Saturday. Congratsmwahaha.

► Marc Brodzik's Woodshop Films goes live from Silk City starting Oct. 23. They'll commence shooting guests like the opening eve's Peek-A-Boo gals, Corn Mo and the creators of the the1secondfilm.com, whose producers include Stephen Colbert and Kevin Bacon.

► What do you get for free if you hit www.capitolyears.com? Not Radiohead's In Rainbows, schmuck. Philly's finicky-finest's first out-of-print CDs Meet Yr Acres and Pussyfootin!