Icepack

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

by A.D. Amorosi

If Joe Paterno can come back year after year like a death phoenix in a Krass Bros. sports jacket, surely you could love this city’s favorite sports-theater-comedy The Philly Fan again. When actor Tom McCarthy, director Joe Canuso and playwright Bruce Graham bring TPF to the Kimmel Sept. 23 (until Halloween), it’s a freshened-up Fan rather than a sequel. “People keep asking about Philly Fan II but I don’t feel like writing it and I know Tommy doesn’t feel like memorizing it,” says Graham. “Sometimes I think I put in the new stuff just to keep Tom, Joe and me from getting bored. It took me years to realize I didn’t have one Andy Reid joke. What the hell was I thinking?” Seeing as how the one-man play that premièred during 2004’s Live Arts/Fringe Fest still takes place the night before the Super Bowl, Graham claims he’s careful about what he puts in. “A lot of the time I have Tom go and make stupid predictions. I managed a couple McNabb jokes, Vick, the Taser incident, Halladay’s perfect game and a few others. I also cut a few jokes that people just don’t get anymore. Does anybody really remember the NHL strike? God, this town’s full of material.” You’re telling me. Ask burly storytelling, rustic soul singing/songwriter Thom McCarthy — no relation to Graham’s Fan. Still, he’ll host a theatrical country-billy night of his own at National Mechanics Sept. 27 with married man Joshua Park, Jonah Delso and ScrewJack joining him. Yee. Haw.

➤ Jose Garces’ JG Domestic has its soft opening lunch Oct. 4 and its soft dinner (how psychedelic sounding!) on Oct. 15. The old Deux Cheminées, which was going to become the very-gay-porn-sounding Ulysses Voyage after Deux got done, is now the home of chef Chris Painter/Stephen Starr’s Il Pittore — the Italian concept that was supposed to fill the old Ansill this autumn. Step lightly: The Brussels-based café Le Pain Quotidien should rise on the 1400 block of Walnut by October’s end.

➤ The first hand and face that graced the screen during HBO’s Boardwalk Empire was that of Pearce Bunting, Philly’s Barrymore-winning actor, as “Bill McCoy,” the gent selling Canadian Club hooch to Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson. Bunting’s last big-screen role was in 2006’s Superhero Excelsior, the Felix Diaz/Scott Johnston comix-flick. Oh, Johnston can currently be found filming crowd scenes and more for Brat Productions’ October-due Carrie as well as lensing his Necronomicomedie, a horror-fantasy feature collection of tales “rooted in comic-devilry and a love of cult cinema.” It’ll star Beth Kellner, Jess Conda and The Legendary WID. “It’s my best film and cast ever, probably because I’m not in it.”

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)