Icepack

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

by A.D. Amorosi

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Published: Feb 2, 2010

Icepack isn't the sporting type. Save for boxing and fencing (yes, fencing), sports are too dull, corporate or meatheaded for me to care about. But when football mattered and its broadcasting was still fun, Tom Brookshier was in on the huddle. At a time when CBS was 10 on the dial, the ex-Eagles All-Pro was as convivial as he was informative, yet never dumbed it down. OK, he might've made a lame move starting 610 WIP's sports talk format and hiring Angelo Cataldi — sike — but the late Brookshier was part of this city's complex fabric when it had weight and humor. He's missed.

► 'Member a month ago I said Tori's on South'd become a steakhaus? It's Black Angus and will feature meat and jazz, in that order.

► Leonore Annenberg would've wanted it this way: 2011's Kimmel Center-based Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (April 7- May 1) is all up on the Paris 1910 theme, The Roots collaborating with a chanteuse or chanteur (make it Aznavour! Even Gainsbourg!) and the first-ever major teaming between Philadelphia Orchestra and Pennsylvania Ballet.

► Kaki Burns is a Royal Harlot, a Big Mess Orchestra-tor and now she's headlining Patou's Drugbunny First Friday open-bar-art soiree with Drums Like Machine Guns and Seizure 17, Feb. 5.

► Weeks back I was set to include Philly art-poppers Papertrigger on my 2010 music-predictions list. They had an album ready (Snake Sale) and member Brian Dwyer's film on Philly's competitive eating scene (Swallow Your Pride) being discussed with Landmark Theatres. But the band disintegrated as did the film's distribution/screening deals (they blame a local lawyer for the bungle but ask that his name stay unspoken). Now Dwyer has primal funk outfit Endless Joy with Chris "Pow Pow" Powell, with whom Dwyer also plays in Whales 'n' Cops. Joy's debut CD, Delicious Earth, should be tasty. Plus Dwyer'll screen his Pride with appearances from Atom & His Package and several Wing Bowl-ers sooner than you can say "Super Squibb."

► Lake Butterscotch manager/florist Paul Whelan got Philly's Univox and Nashville's Bad Cop signed to ROIR. Yay. With the punk-pop Cop having so many area pals, they're doing a three-week Monday residency at National Mechanics starting Feb. 8. Look for U-vox, the now-recording Yeah Clementines, Invincible Gods, Personae, Tongue Sculptors and an open-mic co-hosting gig with Dani+Danny and Great Vibration before Feb.'s end.

► Just 'cuz a SEPTA bus crashed into Del Frisco's don't mean the party's over: Justin, Jason and the Premier Hospitality Group's swank Saturdays in the Vault — my winter weekend fave — resumes this week. Go.

►BET/Power 99 DJ Diamond Kuts is now the official DJ of the Philadelphia 76ers. Request that she makes it so the frickin’ ballers win some games.

➤ Food fight: Food Network’s 24 Hour Restaurant Battle wants you. There’s an open casting call Feb. 5 at Loews Hotel at 10 a.m. Bring something sticky to toss. Food flight: Matthew Levin, who once did this all-mushroom-meal thing as exec chef at Lacroix that I’ll never forget, is taking that Coquette space at Fifth and Bainbridge that seemed to just sorta evaporate one day. Food delight: My old pal David Ansill, a dee-lish bartender at the Bank (back when Stephen Starr liked dance music more than he did foie gras) who turned to cooking at Lucy’s and then his own swellegant restaurants, will wind up at Ladder 15 by March. Yay, we missed him after he closed the esoteric Ansill on Bainbridge. Will he bring his famous mussels to the Ladder? We can hope.

➤ The Kimmel Center’s PR engine (hi, Dafni D. Comerota) lost a cog when Alex Podmaska left last week. But that’s swell news for the National Constitution Center, as that’s where APod went.

➤ Moviemaker Magazine ranked Philadelphia among the top 10 places to make films in the U.S. According to the story, some of the criteria for the ranking were all about our cost of living, our state and city financial incentives, access to talent (really? SIIIIIIIIIIIKE), the size and closeness of the local movie-making community (are you sure?), ease of shooting and movie-related vendors (which means, very possibly, its relation to actor/food purveyor Tony Luke Jr. and his frozed-up cheesesteaks).

➤ Which reminds me: A bunch of Philly folk back from Sundance Film Fest report that Tanya Hamilton’s locally lensed Night Catches Us (starring Kerry Washington and Fallon show vocalist Tariq Trotter) got a lot of interest. The soundtrack from The Roots probably helped. Plus the Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams romance Blue Valentine (shot in Brooklyn and King of Prussia, among other places) got bought by Harvey Weinstein Co. So yay.

➤ Speaking of: The band King of Prussia might not be from this neck of the woods, but I’m always compelled to write about the Southern gothic roots rockers due to their localized name. This month, they gots a country-western EP called The Time of Great Forgetting out on Kindercore. Y’all come home now, y’hear?

➤ Rockabilly Philly filly Jenny Cross lost during the season finale of Worst Cooks in America the other night — $25,000 down the drain. Shame. But she looked good doing it.

➤ WHOWHATWHERE: If you see what looks like Isabella Rossellini at Tangerine tonight (Thursday), don’t yell for her to sing “Blue Velvet.” She’s doing a private event/screening for the Sundance Channel of Big Night, the flick she co-starred in with Stanley Tucci. Hey, Sting. You was spied at the Kimmel, the Ritz Carlton — even, one time noshing on some special dishes prepped by Jen Carroll (Top Chef) at the hotel’s 10 Arts — and watching a soccer game at Fado when you weren’t crooning at the Academy of Music’s 153rd Anniversary gig. Did you see Ozzy Osbourne, in town to sign I am Ozzy at Borders, who was also spotted at the Ritz-Carlton? That’s just good sighting there. And you know, I thought I saw Emma Watson, from the Harry Potter films, at POD after I hit the Soweto Gospel Choir show in U-City. Then again, you know, one fluffy martini too many and I might’ve seen Golem. Then there’s the newest of all mawkish but magical sites, Tony Danza’s YouTube live from the Piazza at Schmidts (youtube.com/user/thedailydanza), that will only make you question how it is you lived without Danza next door to you for so long.

➤ Do you dance? I mean well? Want to be in JJ Tizou’s big-ass photographic mural, How Philly Moves, at the Philadelphia International Airport’s parking garage? Do the photo shoot March 5-7. Sign up by Feb. 19. And don’t embarrass me, either.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

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