One Year in Philadelphia

And people ask me where I get my story ideas.

by Duane Swierczynski

And people ask me where I get my story ideas.

December: A television anchor (allegedly) assaults a female member of the NYPD and calls her a "dyke bitch." The media is captivated by the sweater hamsters of a small-time con artist. Nothing else happens the entire month.

November: The nerd vanquishes the guy nobody's ever heard of in the mayoral election, then starts to appoint other nerds to key city positions. The police commissioner, who has presided over the bloodiest months in recent city history, announces he'll resign by year's end.

October: A television anchor blames fuller lips on a crustacean allergy. A cop in a doughnut shop is shot in the head and killed. A nearby town is repeatedly told to boil its drinking water. Bail is set for two local funeral directors who are accused of stealing, then selling, body parts from 244 corpses.

September: A longshoreman is found guilty of squishing 189 seagulls with a motor vehicle. Two neighborhood groups who want/don't want a casino nearby start a rumble. The mayor institutes a take-no-prisoners tax collection program; later he's found to owe $5,000 in back taxes.

August: Police catch a man who's been sticking up businesses with a butcher knife. The collapse of a bridge in another state prompts worry about bridges here. A national talent competition comes to town; nearly 20,000 talentless people show up. The city's airport is ranked close to worst in the country for on-time departures.

July: A city health inspector steals $1,200 from a restaurant he's inspecting. Police pump 85 bullets into a man one hot Sunday evening.

June: The mayor ditches work to wait in line for a fancy new cell phone. The city proposes regulating, licensing and testing historic tour guides. Local scientists worry that a potentially harmful crustacean lurks in local waterways. Alligators are found in a local creek. A radio comedian rifles through the underwear drawer of a TV reporter. A man finds a snake head in a can of vegetables. Two hobos kill someone on a rooftop.

May: The city raids the shops of fortune tellers and psychics. The city is ranked as the second worst city for asthma sufferers. Two gunmen knock over the campaign headquarters of the rich dude who's running for mayor, steal $550. But in the end, the nerd beats the union guy, the rich dude, the congressman, the state senator and a guy named Jesus in the mayoral primary.

April: A student newspaper at a Catholic university calls the Cardinal "gay" in an April Fools' issue. A Main Line socialite is sentenced to probation for beating her housekeeper with a bag of vegetables. Eight hundred pounds of small-arms ammunition are found in a room at City Hall. The mayor of devastated New Orleans calls this city dirtier than his "by a long shot." Eleven city residents are murdered in one weekend.

March: A city employee is accused of erasing parking tickets in exchange for Prince tickets. A private education company is given $1.64 million to teach students who don't exist. The city's top cop offers to spend one night a week patrolling a high-crime neighborhood. The mayor's brother — who says he's running for mayor — sings to a small crowd outside City Hall while clutching an empty coffin.

February: City Council passes a ban of trans fats. An indicted state senator shows an interest in a TV news reporter. British royalty visits the city. Meanwhile, the city is plagued by bandits who throw hot chocolate in the faces of convenience store employees before robbing them.

January: A beloved horse is euthanized; city mourns. Two mayoral candidates, in an effort to garner street cred, brag about being shot before. The sitting mayor blames much of the city violence in the city on a "lack of love." Everywhere, residents of Philadelphia wake up on New Year's Day and have no fucking idea what's ahead of them.

(duane@citypaper.net)