Regular Friday Mystery Column

This my third stab at a recap of the week and, oh my, what a week it's been. 

Aftermath of Celebrity Dying Spree I found it cathartic all the talk of death this week. My greatest motivating influence in life is to either escape or accept my inevitable death. Since I don't think I will find a way to live forever, I think it's best to work on the acceptance thing. I think the discourse around Michael Jackson's death was flimsy although I enjoyed dancing to his music quite a bit this week. However, the tributes to Philadelphia Weekly writer Steven Wells got me crying while reading on the R5. 

Everybody Needs a Job I recently hired a friend to help me with cleaning and writing tasks and have a running list of 5 friends looking for work. I would start an employment service, but unfortunately I don't have any decent job leads at the moment. According to the news, the employment rate will likely rise to 10%. Every day, I am grateful that I am employed. 

Like Mark Sanford, I Got Something on the Side This week I started my own blog, but that didn't mean that I stopped blogging here at One Find Philly. Although I haven't quite sorted out my identity yet. I think my private blog, Planet Caroline,will be more personal and less about parties and Philly events. I think the blog will evolve over time, but I don't plan on letting it distract me from this blog. I love writing on a group blog and appreciate the collaboration with some awesome people (some of whom I've met and some I haven't).

I'm going to cut this blog piece short. I have a day off today and it's time for my nap.

Regular Unnamed Friday Column

I'll remember this week as an explosion of excess akin to the Monty Python sketch of the man at the restaurant. Too much of everything. Even the good stuff seemed more than I could handle. Here's a rundown.

RIP. This was a week full of celebrity deaths. We all know about most of them, so I don't need to explain the roll call here. Steven Wells, Gary Papa (pictured), Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson. With the Philly deaths, Steven Wells hit me harder than Gary Papa. I think that's because I read Wells' Philly Weekly columns about his cancer. Here is his last Philly Weekly column. On @PhillyWeekly Twitter, there have been some great tributes like this one being posted up.

Social Overload. Social media is leading to socializing overload. The event invitations on my Facebook are piling up. I received at least 20 social invitations (including personal invites from friends for coffee or lunch) this week. Highlights this week included: Casino Free Philly circus, Philly Tweetup at McGillans, Derrick May at Arts Garage (Saturday), Jake Henry's record release party at Vango (Friday- tonight!).

Best Week Ever...Not...Week 2!

I almost forgot that Fridays were going to be a wrap up of...borrowing someone else's catch phrase... The Week That Was. I still don't have a name for this weekly segment because I'm a grantwriter by trade, not a copywriter. Nothing gives me chills more than writing for brevity and impact. I like my writing to obfuscate not clear stuff up.

So here are my impressions of week:

Seeing Green, Hearing Green, and now Feeling Green. Of course, I am referring to the Iran elections although I couldn't help but think of my Irish heritage this week. I had a nerdgasm over the use of social media with promoting democracy. That blog post I put up this past Tuesday got a fair amount traffic. On Wednesday, I went to a demo in Rittenhouse Square that was organized by an Iran students association. I passed along the messages of people based in Iran and now that a few days have gone by I would say I am no longer in the social media underground. Now that election candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi is on Twitter and has a Facebook page, I am seeing tons of tweets (Twitter posts) referring us his official Facebook for information. The honeymoon is definitely over in terms of using Twitter for the latest info...I am back to relying on my regularly visited news sources for useful info (and verified) info.

SEPTA as Gender Police Wednesday was a big day for me with being out and about and active. I started following a story that I think would appeal to anyone who uses SEPTA. And that is the plight of transgendered people who are getting harrassed by bus drivers and train conductors questioning the M or F on their passes. The idea of being denied transportation because of your gender is discriminatory and wrong. The group SEPTA RAGE is working on this issue & join their Facebook page to stay informed. They have 564 as of this moment, which is a pretty huge group. Not only do they have a Facebook page, they do stuff. On Wednesday, they had a happy hour, meet and greet event at Stir. It was very well attended with people talking about the initiatives to make Pennsylvania a state that truly doesn't discriminate on the basis of gender. The Philadelphia Weekly had a nice piece about this issue titled Transpassing Prohibited. Carline Arcila, who was featured by the PW was at the Stir event and told her story to all of us gathered.

If Only I Could Clone Myself The summer of insane fun continues with another weekend of activities. Too bad, I'm not like the Citypaper or Philly Weekly and give you a heads up of happenings in advance. Instead I find out about things at the last minute. Usually on Monday I have nothing to do on the weekend and by Friday, I am bursting with way too much to do. Here's my schedule. Probably won't make everything but I'll try:

Friday June 19, 2009:
-Party in West Philly to say bye to Dave who will be in Montreal painting murals for summer.
-Free concert at Electric Factory with Major Lazer featuring Diplo and Drop the Lime.

Saturday June 20, 2009:
-2nd Street Music & Popped Festival sponsored by Philebrity from 2 pm - 9 pm from 2nd & Poplar and north toward Girard.
-Summer Solstice event at Kimmel Center- This party goes from 3pm - 6 am. A true all nighter. I'm a little nervous about their talk about a drum circle at 5 am, but I'm thinking of checking it out.
-Medusa Lounge has some good music on Saturday. Might swing by for a while.

Sunday June 21, 2009: Don't tell me about stuff going on for Sunday because I'm not listening- La, la, la, la. I need a day of rest.

Best Week Ever...Not

In a freshly-minted, savory, semi-regular Friday column, I will try to string together too many adjectives and give some highlights of the week. What I mean by semi-regularly is that I will do it once today and IF I receive positive feedack (ie. one measly undulating comment), I will do this item again.

Say It Ain't So VH1. This first item is dedicated in honor of Best Week Ever, which was too good to let live. There is a movement to save Paul F. Tompkins (Not sure if this factoid is worth printing: @PFTompkins has pointedly been mum on this topic in public and on Twitter). Best Week Ever even living in the shadow of being murdered, ahem being cancelled, covered the great Philadelphia in the it's June 12th blog entry. But Philly peeps you ned to read the Citypaper version of the story in the clog so click right here. I had a Phillygasm reading this item as you can see by the comment I made. Jennaphr Fredericks AND Danny DeVito together are pure comic gold.

Massive Party Weekend in Philly. Where were you this past weekend (June 5-7) was the question everyone was asking on Monday. Me personally, I hit the Roots Picnic, Belle & Sebastian tribute party hosted by Philebrity at National Mechanics and saw Stinking Lizaveta outside Dock Street on Sunday. I'm disappointed that I didn't make it to Art Brut, Picnic afterparty at Fluid, NIN/JA (funny acronyms, ftw), or Sundae. The shore looked fun too with electronic legend Paul Oakenfold playing at the Taj Mahal. I know people slag Oakey for weak, drug addled mixing (Cokenfold as he's affectionately called), but I had a blast a few years ago when he showcased at the now defunct Emerald City in Philly.

I'm most dissapointed I missed Sundae. Questlove made an appearance there and it looked fun. But no worries, Sundae is a weekly party at the newly opened Schmidt's (hope I spelled that right- too lazy to spell check right now) Piazza at 2nd in Germantown in Fishtown. (P.S. Don't care that I missed Phish, even with it's Philly style spelling)

Self-congratulatory item. Thanks for the feedback on my blog I got this week on my SubwayDance Party piece. It resulted in some misunderstandings, controversy, and some fuck-the-Canucks tweets. The 18 year old Nick apologized to me on Twitter, which I should have used to fuel a foofaraw that Philebrity would cover. But instead I told him I hearted him and wished our feud to be over. But it also enhanced understanding between Toronto and Philadelphia. A subway dance party with wiz coming soon. Stay tuned.

It's (Not) Always Sunny in Philadelphia. "Hey anybody look out a window lately?" Har har. This popular (and thankfully still running) FX program was riffed on as the hilarious joke of the week around here. Oy gevalt, the weather.

That's it for my first installment of the un-named column that comes out on Friday about the week in Philly. Tips, comments, and insults always welcome.