Philadelphia City Paper, May 7th, 2015

Inside: Five new songs worth your playlist P H I L A D E L P H I A

COMIC CON SEE S SE E P. 24

MAY M MA AY A Y 7 - MAY MA M AY A Y 13, 13 1 3 , 2015 2 015 ISSUE ISS IIS SS S SU UE E# #1 #15 #1562 15 1 56 62 2

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By Emily Gue

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AD WA VAN G C MA ERI ED Y 1 NG 5!

PREAKNESS STAKES AT

SATURDAY, MAY 16 GATES OPEN 10AM • 1ST POST 12:55PM FRIDAY, MAY 8 5PM Undercover Band 9PM Fish Out of Water 10PM DJ Paul Desisto

And they’re off…join us for a day of racing, excitement & free family fun!

SATURDAY, MAY 9 5PM The Dirty Mac 9PM The Juliano Brothers 10PM DJ Eric Vanderslice

FRIDAY, MAY 15 5PM Final Vinyl 9PM Don’t Call Me Francis 10PM DJ Sev One

SATURDAY, MAY 16 5PM Tuesday’s Gone 9PM Shot of Southern 10PM DJ Eric Vanderslice

FRIDAY, MAY 22 5PM Big Whiskey 9PM The BSTREETBAND 10PM DJ Sev One Visit parxcasino.com/calendar for full schedule.

WITH MARC SUMMERS!

SIR ROD LIVE! SUNDAY, MAY 17 5PM – 8PM “Some guys have all the luck”… and now you do too!

A tribute show to Rod Stewart through the years.

Tickets on sale now; $10 per person.

Visit parxcasino.com/events.

SATURDAY, MAY 30 • 3PM This is your chance to be a contestant on a fun & wild game show hosted by the one and only Marc Summers!

Visit parxcasino.com/ParxChallenge for details & tickets.

PARXCASINO.COM • MANAGEMENT RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CHANGE OR CANCEL THESE PROMOTIONS AT ANY TIME. MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN. VISIT XCLUB FOR ADDITIONAL DETAILS, RULES AND REGULATIONS. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1.800.GAMBLER

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IN THIS ISSUE ‌ 20

Philadelphia’s Beer Authority OVER 500 AMERICAN CRAFTS AND 500 IMPORTS

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THE PHILLY BIKE SCARE IT’S ALMOST TIME for the annual Kinetic Sculpture Derby, that colorful parade of people-powered vehicles (aka sculptures) that roll through Kensington streets, raising human ingenuity to new heights. This year, organizers put the derby and the Trenton Avenue arts festival under one title, and picked up a big-name sponsor. Read about it in PHL and dial up your quirky for the May 16 event.

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Contributing Photographers Jessica Kourkounis, Charles Mostoller, Hillary Petrozziello, Maria Pouchnikova, Neal Santos, Mark Stehle U.S. Circulation Director Joseph Lauletta (ext. 239) Account Managers Nick Cavanaugh (ext. 260), Amanda Gambier (ext. 228), Sharon MacWilliams (ext. 262), Susanna Simon (ext. 250) Classified Account Manager Jennifer Fisher (215-717-2681) Editor Emeritus Bruce Schimmel founded City Paper in a Germantown storefront in November 1981. Local philanthropist Milton L. Rock purchased the paper in 1996 and published it until August 2014 when Metro US became the paper’s third owner.

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THE BELL CURVE

THIS WEEK ’S TOTAL: -1 // THE YEAR SO FAR: +10

OUR WEEKLY QUALITY-OF-LIFE-O-METER

QUICK PICKS

more picks on p. 34 HEAVEN ADORES YOU While Kurt Cobain enjoys yet another cinematic (re)incarnation, let’s not forget another ’90s rock icon who also left us too soon. The music and life of Elliott Smith, the breathy voiced troubadour who laid bare his inner demons until his apparent suicide in 2003, propel Nickolas Dylan Rossi’s meditative, Kickstarted documentary.

5/7, Trocadero, thetroc.com.

—Patrick Rapa

-2

The Nutter administration says it will block the Parking Authority’s plan to let people pay for street parking with an app because it will lead to fewer tickets and reduced funding for Philly schools.

“So I said that out loud?” wonders Nutter.

0

Despite early indications that the Inquirer would endorse Jim Kenney for mayor, the paper endorses Anthony Williams, who has received campaign money from Inky publisher Gerry Lenfest. But then somebody makes a big ad sale and it’s Steak ’Em Up for mayor!

0

Philly Mag endorses Kenney. Or as they put it, “the white one.”

+3

Hundreds gather for a “Philly Is Baltimore” rally at City Hall and march through the streets in protest of police violence. Although we have since reverted to our old maxim, “Philly Is Baltimore Except Bigger and Nicer But We Gotta Admit We Like Their Waterfront and Their What Do You Call It? Fish Zoo. No. That Doesn’t Sound Right. But You Know What We Mean.”

-1

Several arrests are made when “Philly Is Baltimore” demonstrators attempt to march onto the Vine Street Expressway at Broad and Vine. Fuck the police!*

*Except in this instance because honestly that would have been a bloodbath.

-1

In a recent interview, the cast of 2005’s Real World Philadelphia recalls being harassed and antagonized frequently while walking around town. And things only got worse when we found out who they were.

TYSHAWN SOREY TRIO As the drummer of choice for higher-level jazz thinkers like Steve Lehman, Vijay Iyer and Steve Coleman, Tyshawn Sorey is a cerebral powerhouse, seeming to erect complex polyrhythmic structures just to maneuver his way through them.

But curiously, as a leader, he’s fallen under the sway of composers like Morton Feldman, who conjure maximalist effect from minimalist elements. His trio culls stunning effects from slight gestures and additive textures, jazz as action painting. 5/9, Philadelphia Art Alliance, arsnovaworkshop.com. —Shaun Brady

BETH SHAPIRO/ THOMAS PIERCE In her globe-trotting best-seller, How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction (Princeton University Press), Shapiro deals in fact that looks like fiction: the re-creating of long-dead animals. Meanwhile Thomas Pierce, in his debut short story collection, Hall of Small Mammals (Riverhead Books), is turning heads for fiction that feels real. There’s a cloned mammoth in his book, too. 5/7, Free Library, Central Branch, freelibrary.org. —Patrick Rapa

K E IT H A L

L IS O N

0

Allen Iverson denies a claim made by a former teammate that he occasionally spent $40,000 at a strip club when he was a 76er.

“First of all it was like $9,000 at most and there were never any strippers at the TGI Friday’s on City Line,” says Iverson. “Unless I brought them. Sometimes I brought a bunch.

And I supposed in those cases, yes, the bill could get up to 40K because they didn’t have the Endless Appetizers thing back then.”

Vexx

PISSED JEANS/ VEXX Well, hell, yeah, you need to see the main attraction — Sub Pop’s Pissed Jeans do loud rock ’n’ roll chaos as well as anybody in this town. But get there for the undercard: Vexx, from Olympia, Wash., makes glorious, hellacious, agile-riffed punk spurred on by Maryjane Dunphe’s short-fuse vocals.

Mish Way from White Lung is a fan. So are you, you just don’t know it yet. 5/8, Johnny Brenda’s, johnnybrendas.com.

—Patrick Rapa

JAZZ ORCHESTRA OF PHILADELPHIA Terell Stafford formed the Jazz Orchestra of Philadelphia to honor the city’s jazz giants, but some names loom too large to be confined by place.

This weekend, the big band will celebrate the centennial of pioneering composer and Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn, who Stafford honored with his 2011 CD This Side of Strayhorn. Closer to home, Philly-born tenor great Benny Golson will guest on some of his own iconic charts. 5/9, Kimmel Center, kimmelcenter.org.

—Shaun Brady

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THENAKEDCITY

NEWS // OPINION // POLITICS

WEED BATTED IN: N.A. Poe (left) was joined by Mike Whiter (center) and Rich Russell outside the Phillies’ ballpark on Opening Day in support of veterans getting access to medical marijuana.

RACHAEL FRIEDMAN

POT POLITICS

BY A.D. AMOROSI

A NEW CAMPAIGN ROOTED IN SMOKING WEED

A high-profile advocate for marijuana use lights up at famous Philly spots in a new video series that supports social activism.

RICHARD TAMACCIO, 35, is a pothead who played an active role in support of last year’s decriminalization of marijuana in Philly. Now, the Philadelphia-based standup comedian and activist better known as N.A. Poe, is off on another venture, a YouTube video series called #SMOKEDOWNPHILLY. There is no doubt that Poe has had his share of local fame. He was arrested for sparking up at a May 2013 pot-legalization rally in Independence Hall National Historic Park. One year later, while on probation for charges stemming from that bust, he ran as a Libertarian candidate for Philadelphia City Council in a special election for the at-large seat vacated when Bill Green became chair of the School Reform Commission.

Poe lost that election, but he never lost his taste for social activism — when it comes to weed. That’s especially true now that Philadelphia has decriminalized the carrying or use of small amounts of marijuana by reducing penalties for possession and public use to minor fines and community service. City Council passed that bill last fall, based on his work and that of other local advocates.

Now, Poe has started the web video series “#SMOKEDOWNPHILLY, in which he smokes pot in famous Philadelphia locales.

His aim is to raise awareness about weed-

related issues, including the racial disparity of marijuana citations and arrests in Philly, and the campaign to allow veterans legal access to marijuana to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“I never really wanted to win the City Council seat,” Poe says about what was, at first, an attempt at an Andy Kauffman public-comedy bit. It’s not that he isn’t committed to career politics. In fact, he’s exploring a run for the state Senate next year.

“The City Council thing, though — I’ve suffered through their sessions and was bored stiff. Two months into the job and I would’ve been vaporizing hash oil in chambers and playing Angry Birds on my phone whenever … Kenyatta Johnson was speaking.”

Besides, Poe proved his point: To run on a platform of weed decriminalization (“it happened”) and to show how fed up some Philadelphians are with politics-as-usual.

The result was that “4,200 people voted for a high-school-educated comic on federal probation,” Poe says with a laugh. “That’s a win.”

It also didn’t hurt Poe’s public profile.

The same guy who once called a tent at City Hall’s Occupy Philly encampment his home is now running his own videoproduction company to produce content for pot-focused outlets. (He was returning from two weeks in Denver when we spoke.)

Along with planning to host former Flyers

The City Council thing ... I’ve suffered through their sessions and was bored stiff.

left wing Riley Cote’s Hemp Heals music event (July 31, Penn’s Landing’s Festival Pier), Poe is considered respectable enough to hold a fundraiser for mayoral candidate Jim Kenney (5-8 p.m. Thursday upstairs at Franky Bradley’s).

The one thing that didn’t really happen during his City Council run was his wish to re-engage “his generation to take the [political] power back.” Marijuana decriminalization was a start, but what about the city police stop-and-frisk policy that leads to greater racial disparity in arrests of AfricanAmericans for holding weed?

“So what can I do, as a white person?” Poe wondered.

His #SMOKEDOWNPHILLY video series is one answer. It started on April 6 in the most public of places: Geno’s and Pat’s cheesesteak shops in the Italian Market. In the video, Poe walks the cheesesteak triangle, smoking marijuana in full view of diners (even offering several patrons a toke) without getting stopped by police.

Poe’s theory? If he were Black or Latino, he would have been arrested on the spot.

In the next several episodes of “#SMOKEDOWNPHILLY, there’s Poe with Jay Lassiter, a marijuana-rights activist who has AIDS, toking up in front of the 12th Street Gym to protest

continued on p. 7

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continued f rom p. 6

A NEW CAMPAIGN ROOTED IN SMOKING WEED

JOIN ME? N.A. Poe at a smoke-out in Trenton last month.

RACHAEL FRIEDMAN

HIV/AIDS being excluded from the Pennsylvania medical marijuana bill SB3 as it currently reads. (The Senate State Government Committee passed a version of the bill in April that reinstated HIV/AIDS and glaucoma as permitted medical marijuana uses. It is expected to go to the full Senate soon.)

Then, there’s a #SMOKEDOWNPHILLY with Ricardo Rivera of Camden, a veteran whose daughter has a rare form of epilepsy. She uses cannabis oil to quell her seizures. “It would have been illegal in Pennsylvania, so we did it at Camden’s waterfront,” says Poe. Another video involved military veteran and fellow pot activist Mike Whiter smoking with Poe outside Citizens Bank Park on April 6 at the Phillies home opener. Their gripe: better access to medical marijuana for the treatment of PTSD, a mental-health issue Whiter knows well from his own perspective and that of his fellow soldiers.

A group called Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access argues that that marijuana is an exceptional tool to treat anxiety related to PTSD. Though there is currently a bill in the U.S. Senate that would give vets access to medical marijuana (theVeterans Equal Access Act), they have long been denied this.

“The thing about Poe is he’s fearless,” says Whiter, who started Pennsylvania Veterans for Medical Marijuana about two years ago. “He knows that Senate Bill 3 narrows down the conditions for medical marijuana for veterans with PTSD. You can’t smoke it. You can’t eat it.

The only way you can take it in is through a nebulizer, which is tough to do and expensive to buy.”

Whiter adds, “Pennsylvania is the strictest bill of 50 states. Having Poe on your side? You can’t have an activist who is afraid of retribution. His aim with #SMOKEDOWNPHILLY is to show that smoking pot doesn’t hurt anyone.”

His first video posted on YouTube, at Pat’s and Geno’s, had 1,279 views as of Tuesday. His trip to the ballpark has 444.

Poe has declined to say what adventures lay ahead for him and #SMOKEDOWNPHILLY, though he does hint that the Philadelphia School District should expect some sweet smells any day now. (editorial@citypaper.net)

The thing about Poe is he’s fearless.

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Drawn by Daryl Seitchik

PARODY

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phia. PPA executive director Vince Fenerty Jr. said in a statement: “UberX and competitor Lyft are both illegal taxi services that use an app to connect people looking for rides with private citizens willing to use their own vehicle as a commercial taxi. Unlike the 1,600 licensed medallion cabs in the city, there is no guarantee these cars are clean, safe, inspected or insured. Their drivers have no training and have not gone through extensive driving or criminal background checks.

Drivers providing illegal taxi service in Philadelphia will be fined $1,000, as well as having their cars impounded and be required to pay all associated towing, storage and court costs. Drivers are also committing a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of $2,500 and/or a one-year jail sentence.”

Despite this, in late January, City Council unanimously approved a resolution supporting UberX and Lyft in Philly.

Uber often defends itself against angry regulators by protesting that it’s creating good-paying jobs. They made a much-circulated and now-debunked claim that the median UberX driver in New York City made $90,000 a year, but I couldn’t find a trustworthy number for how much UberX drivers actually took home, in Philly or anywhere else.

Until the week this article published, the only numbers Uber would discuss were gross fares — that’s the total amount drivers bring in, not the lower amount they end up with after expenses and Uber takes its percentage. On top of that, Uber employs different rates in different areas. Taking an UberX in the Hamptons is vastly more expensive than in the lowest-rate areas like Nashville, Providence and L.A. Philly started out on the higher end of the rates spectrum in October. But as the PPA stings died off and more drivers felt safe picking up passengers within the city limits, fares were cut in January to somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Uber spokeswoman Kaitlin Durkosh declined to discuss how the Philly rate cuts affected driver take-home

MY LIFE AS AN UBER DRIVER Nearly peeing my pants for $9 an hour.

T

BY EMILY GUENDELSBERGER

wo good-looking young strangers are having an amazing conversation in the backseat of my car. I’m eavesdropping so hard I nearly run a red light.

Her: Then don’t make me sign it. Ugh, it’s like you’re planning for this not to work.

Him (stammering): No, I just think that, the idea is that …

Her: I mean, what’s the benefit for me in signing one?

Him (after a long pause): I mean, that you’re still going to be able to get married.

(A chilly silence.)

Him: I’m just saying there’s options.

(An even chillier silence.)

Her: I just don’t understand … like. (I can practically hear her laser glare as the light turns green.) How do I benefit from signing it, aside from the fact that I’m married?

God, sometimes I really, really love Uber.

Not always, though.

ON JAN. 25, Uber cut its rates for Philly nearly in half, a couple weeks after they’d done the same in dozens of U.S. cities, claiming the move would actually increase driver profits. But the records of a couple of Philly UberX drivers reflected a $5/hr drop in take-home pay after the cuts. Uber’s profits per driver fell slightly, but when you factor in the 47 percent increase in demand they cited and corresponding increase in new drivers, Uber’s profits per hour would have increased from $6.22 to around $8.

That’s a small sample, true — but out of the 20-odd drivers I spoke to for this project, none said they were making more money after the fare cuts. And I, driving after the cuts, made even less.

PER HOUR

PRE CUTS PER HOUR

AFTER CUTS

U

ber’s been impossible to avoid in Philly news since October, when it debuted its UberX service, staffed by drivers without commercial licenses, against the direct requests and then angry protests of everyone involved in local taxi and limousine regulation. This is how it’s gone in many of the 240 cities in 40 countries that have gotten UberX — the cheaper, unlicensed spinoff of Uber’s original licensed black-car limo service — since it debuted in San Francisco in 2012.

Uber’s refusal to obey state regulations or a cease-anddesist order prompted a member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) to request that Uber “abandon its anarchist ways,” even as the PUC approved UberX to operate in every county but Philadelphia.

Philly was one of the last big U.S. cities to get UberX, likely because of the Philadelphia Parking Authority’s (PPA) ferocious reputation. Even though it’s popular and widespread, UberX is still not legal in Philadel-

UBER profit

driver expenses

driver’s net profit

$6.22

$4.05

$15.62

UBER profit

driver expenses

driver’s net profit

$5.43

$4.56

$10.53

TOTAL FARES

$25.89

TOTAL FARES

$20.52

UBER XPLAINED 0

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pay — well, she didn’t decline, exactly, she just answered a different question: “What we’ve seen from lower UberX prices in Philly, is that there is greater demand for rides. In the four weeks since the price cut, weekly request [sic] are up 47 percent.”

I talked to lots of drivers. But few kept a meticulous enough log of hours worked, miles driven and expenses paid that I felt comfortable using their data alone. Many drivers worried about getting in trouble, too — Uber can “deactivate” a driver for any reason. I needed someone on the record, someone whose data I knew I could trust.

So, in January, I applied to be an UberX driver myself.

I honestly didn’t expect to be approved. The ethics of doing something like this are clear: You can’t lie about who you are. And Uber knew who I was. Earlier, I’d posted on Twitter trying to dig up some Philly-area UberX drivers; spookily, within a couple of hours, Durkosh emailed asking how she could be involved. But nobody noticed my distinctive last name, and nobody asked for my job history — the application was just uploading my car’s information, banking details and my Social Security number for a background check.

A couple weeks later, I got a text: I was in.

M

y new-driver orientation consists of a 13-minute YouTube video starring a driver in a crisp suit. We don’t see his face, but we do see his name in the app. It is Flavio.

Flavio gets in his sleek black Mercedes and turns on the Uber partner app. He immediately gets a ping, a popup showing the first name, rating, location and estimated distance in minutes of a customer who wants a ride.

He accepts, drives, stops, opens the rear door to let his rider in, then hits another button to officially start the trip. (I find out later that this is the moment when the driver starts getting paid.)

“The driver and the rider have a chance to leave a rating for each other,” says the narrator as the trip concludes. It’s on a scale of one to five stars, with optional

THE

LONG & SHORT OF IT: How 5 short rides stack up against 1 long ride, over the course of the two hours I drove.

feedback. Someone types, 5 stars! He opened the door and had bottled water! “If a client offers a tip, please remind them that tipping is not necessary,” in case they’re new and don’t know better, says the narrator.

“Uber is very selective about the drivers we partner with. If your rating falls below rider expectations” — onscreen the five stars dwindle to a single star — “you may lose access to the Uber application. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to make sure you remain a fivestar driver!”

“If you open the door for a rider, provide cold water or have extra phone chargers on hand,” you’re more likely to get a five-star rating. “There’s no formal dress code, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about your appearance.” Flavio is shown selecting one of four expensive ties in a gorgeous San Francisco condo.

“Your acceptance rate is important,” says the narrator.

When you turn down a ride, the request pings over to the next-closest driver, and it’ll take him longer to arrive, resulting in a “poor experience.”

As the video ends, I’m struck by how little concrete information there was. Will I get in trouble if I turn down rides? How late can a rider be before I can give up and leave? What’s the deal with surge, when high demand increases fare pricing? And how low can my rating go before I get kicked out — three stars? Four stars?

But whatever. This’ll be cake.

I head out to my car, start it and cue up a driving singalong playlist on my phone. Music: Check. Pepper spray

HOW LOW CAN MY RATING GO BEFORE I GET KICKED OUT — THREE STARS? FOUR STARS? DRIVER’S TAKE-HOME PAY: How much the Uber driver gets to keep after expenses.

my boss insisted on: Check. Digital recorder for making voice memos between passengers: Check.

I take a deep breath, and open the Uber driver app.

My music immediately dies. Womp, womp.

I log back out and search for a driver tech-support line, but there isn’t one — weirdly, the only way drivers can get in touch with Uber is by email. So I email saying that I think the app kills my stereo, sigh, and flip on the radio.

M

y first rider’s only a couple of blocks away, but the app takes me on a weird route. I cannot seem to get it to provide turn-by-turn directions aloud, which I feel sure is somehow linked to the stereo problem, so I keep having to look down at my phone more often than feels safe. I swear I am a fairly tech-competent person, but over more than 100 rides in the next month, I can only get the audio turn-by-turn directions to work about half the time. Over my time driving for Uber, I find looking at my phone while I’m actually driving — something I almost never normally do — to be an essential part of success, whether I’m keeping an eye on directions so I don’t miss turns or checking the constantly updating “heat maps” showing where the surge-price fares are.

Once I make it to my first passenger, though, he’s a delight. He’s an older union guy who’s lived within three blocks of me in our Fishtown neighborhood for his whole life. “Wow, I’ve never gotten a woman driver before!” he says. My neighbor says he loves Uber because, even now, you can never get a cab up here. He tells me stuff about Fishtown in the ’60s. As I let him off at 30th Street Station, he waves goodbye and thanks me, and says he’s rating me five stars. The fare pops up on my phone: $10.85. The price of almost two beers for 15 minutes of driving! And if my neighbor had taken a cab, with tip, it would have been an even $20.

Busy 30th Street Station seems like a promising location. No email reply about my stereo problem yet, so I decide to camp here for a while and try to Google a fix.

continued on p. 12

DRIVER’S EXPENSES: Gas, depreciation, repairs, etc.

$16.73

$13.64

UBER’S CUT: 20 percent of the total fare.

$2.36

$4

$1

$25

$1 $1 $1 $1

$25

$4.82

$2.54

$1

SAFE RIDES FEE: A $1 fee Uber charges on each ride.

FA R E

FA R E

11

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continued from p. 11

UBER ALLEYS: The writer in front of the Philadelphia Uber offices at 1225 Sansom St. PHOTO BY JESSICA KOURKOUNIS

on-willful failure to answer my actual question about my stereo makes me wonder whether the PR lady is pulling double-duty.

ONE OF MY BACKSEAT PASSENGERS

I’ve been using Uber since it started, and the service is good. Um. But. When I start to get, like, you know, these guys that don’t speak English really well? I start to feel like I might as well take a regular cab.

I

I find Uberpeople.net, a big online forum for drivers, where the general consensus is that knocking out Bluetooth is a side effect of some deal with Spotify to let the riders be “the DJ of the car.” Intrigued, I look for newbie advice. Half of what I find is along these lines: My advice is to find a better job and don’t ruin your car and waste your time this gig is over and they are screwing drivers. Read around this forum and see what others are saying.

And: How stupid are Philly drivers? it doesn’t Matter how desperate you are to put food on the table driving $5 locals in Philly is just plain stupid. it’s a losing proposition. I understand some drivers are desperate and need the money but only a absolute idiot would take a $5.00 local in downtown Philly. drivers

are losing money do you get it they’re not making money destroying their cars in the process.

The Uberpeople forum exists in a state of quivering rage I usually associate with cable-news talk shows.

Drivers are furious about everything. Spoiled passengers. Fare cuts. Living in fear of arbitrary ratings. A bunch of drivers are even using the forum as a home base to try to unionize in several cities.

But I also find some useful numbers to fill in the vagaries of the training video. For example, I’m surprised to learn that Uber’s cutoff for driver ratings “below rider expectations” is generally agreed to be only 4.6 stars. I finally get another ping, though, so I resolve to read more later.

A couple of hours later, I get an email reply from an Uber driver services person; her cheerful-verging-

maintain a perfect five-star rating for my first few days, of which I’m weirdly proud. I do get the idea, though, that I’m benefiting from my novelty value as a female driver, natural chattiness and, most important, being from the same social caste as most of my passengers. Several mention their relief at getting a driver who’s a native English-speaker, saying Uber has been going downhill lately.

These days, cab drivers and Uber drivers look a lot alike.

My earlier attempts to determine how much drivers get paid involved just taking UberX rides everywhere.

I talked to maybe 20 randomly hailed UberX and Lyft drivers between November and March. All but one were male immigrants, primarily from Africa, South Asia and the Middle East, and most spoke heavily accented English. It’s a completely different group from the drivers I’m able to get in touch with through Uberpeople. net, the demographics of which I’d call “Reddit-ish.”

All the immigrant drivers who spoke to me took a lot of pride in providing excellent service. Few had been Uber drivers for more than a month or two. Many were helping support multiple family members, most had at least one other job and all worked hours that would reduce me to a weeping wreck in a month.

UBERX DRIVER

City Paper: So you have how many other jobs?

1: Two. CP: How many hours a week would you say you work total?

1: More than 100.

CP: Jesus! What do you do with it all?

1: Money? I’m a transgender. Female to male. So I spend money on that. … My dad, he is in Pakistan, my brother, he is in Pakistan. But they will be here before Christmas.

CP: Are they staying with you?

1: Oh yeah. We live as a, what you call — even we have a small house, we can fit in it. continued on p. 14

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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continued from p. 12

I

’ve had a perfect rating for almost a week when I get a ride that I can tell is going to screw it up. I pull up, blocking a one-way street, and throw on my blinkers.

After waiting the requisite few minutes, I text the guy.

He opens the front door, makes a “one minute!” gesture, then shuts it again. Several more minutes tick by. I finally call, and the guy picks up, giggling. “We’ll be right out!”

When the couple finally gets in, nearly 10 unpaid minutes after I showed up, a cloud of weed stank follows them into my car. I try to hide my irritation. They’re headed to a restaurant in Chinatown I’ve been to a bunch of times, so we chat about that as I drive. Despite this, the stoned guy insists on giving me inefficient directions. When he directs me to turn the wrong way down a one-way street, I tell him not to worry, I’ve got this, and just drive them to the restaurant. The guy sulks.

The next day, my five-star rating has updated to a 4.8.

Infuriatingly, there’s no way to tell whether it was the stoned guy or not — unless it’s serious, you don’t get specific feedback, much less a chance to protest.

W

hatever my reservations about Uber as a driver, it really, really is better for riders.

I’m actually a staunch defender of Philly cabbies — I’ve never met a bad one, though many vocal people have. But Uber is just … better. The current medallion system sucks. Without getting too into the regulatory weeds, it creates an environment that screws over drivers and has no financial incentive to provide a pleasant experience for passengers. Uber can provide better service at cheaper prices with UberX because, by refusing to work within the medallion system, it has far fewer costs than a regulated taxi company — the cost of medallions, owning and maintaining a fleet of cars and paying for full commercial insurance.

It’s not surprising that taxi medallion systems in cities all over the world are losing customers to Uber like crazy.

I speak with cabbies who say they try to only do airport runs now — they can’t make a profit anywhere else.

CAB DRIVER

City Paper: How many hours do you drive a cab a week?

1: I work like 12 hours a day for six day.

CP: How much do you pay to lease a taxi medallion for a week?

1: Medallion, it’s, like, depend on the person who lease.

Sometimes they make it 420 for you, sometimes make it, like, 450, 460.

CP: What do you think of Uber?

1: Uber, I think it is a good business. For them. I don’t know. I heard they do good because the most driver, the Uber, they was taxi driver before. The taxi business, it’s going down — probably, maybe 50 percent the last six

month? The taxi business now busy only the weekend.

The rest of the days, we don’t make too much money.

O

ne way Uber has fewer costs than the taxi companies is that its drivers use their personal insurance policies as their primary coverage. Uber assures drivers that their personal insurance policies are sufficient, but many big insurance companies have been very clear that they disagree.

“Private passenger auto policy isn’t intended to cover livery services,” Nicole Mahrt Ganley, a spokeswoman for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, told the San Francisco Chronicle in November. “There is little question that engaging in livery services is a material change in the nature of the risk being insured, and most states would allow companies to cancel coverage.”

Uber reassures drivers that they’ve got them covered, but their vaunted $1 million policy is secondary for collision — that is, drivers must try to get their own insurance companies to pay the claims first. If the claim is rejected because the insurer figures out it’s Uber-related, then Uber’s policy kicks in — but the driver’s almost certainly going to have his personal insurance policy cancelled, and in some cases be investigated for fraud.

On top of that, there’s periods where it’s unclear if anyone’s insuring the driver.

“Technically, Uber’s insurance covers you from the time you pick your passenger up until the time you drop them off,” says Jason Fidishun of Yardley-based Fidishun Insurance, an independent agency representing Progressive, which he says offers the only hybrid personalcommercial policy available in Pennsylvania developed with Uber and Lyft drivers in mind. The driver’s personal insurance, according to Uber, covers him when he doesn’t have a passenger in the car. “The problem is some insurance companies are saying, ‘As soon as you log on with your app, you’re using your car commercially’” — that is, if you’re hurrying to pick someone up but don’t have a passenger yet, there’s a possibility that the driver will be covered by neither policy in an accident.

LYFT DRIVER

City Paper: You know people who bought new cars to drive UberX?

WOW, A WOMAN WHO SPEAKS ENGLISH! THAT, LIKE, DOUBLE NEVER HAPPENS.

1: I did! I’m one of them. This is 2015, zero mileage from the dealer. … I bought it because I want to provide good presentation, because I take my life seriously, and how you present yourself, that’s how the customer welcome you in the market. So I went and bought the car, and after a couple weeks, they dropped the price, and then I was going home almost empty pocket. So. This is why I switch.

I gonna pass your card for the people I know, but unfortunate, most of those guys, I guess they are kind of afraid from something? Probably they will be worried about Uber sue them. Because I don’t think anybody went through that terms and conditions when you sign with partner Uber? So I guess there is some point where if the driver he does something or says something about corporate, they can, like, go after him?

CP: Oh, serious? OK, a lot of conversations I’ve had with drivers just started making a lot more sense.

PASSENGER

1: Wow, a woman who speaks English! That, like, double never happens.

City Paper: Yup. 1: So what’s Uber like? I hear you can make a ton of money!

CP: Yeah, not really — when they take UberX into a new market like Philly, they start off by paying drivers a lot. So in the beginning, you get a lot of drivers who look like the drivers in Uber ads, like, suits and bottled water and no accents. And everyone gets the idea that Uber drivers have suits and make a ton of money. Then after a while, usually when a competitor comes in — you know Lyft just started up a couple weeks ago, right?

1: Yeah …

CP: So then Uber cuts fares down by, like, a lot. Like, here, they just cut fares almost in half. So most of those initial drivers quit and are replaced by people willing to work for the lower amount, who are the same people who used to drive cabs. They’re just doing it for a new boss, for less money and no tips, and they’re carrying most of the liability themselves. But most riders never change that first impression that drivers make a lot of money.

1: … Oh, uh, OK.

U

nwittingly, I’d started driving just days after Uber cut fare rates in Philly to what they still are. It had done the same thing in a bunch of cities earlier in January, reassuring drivers, “With the increased demand, drivers’ income goes up as well.”

Posts from Philly Uberpeople suggested drivers weren’t buying it: Just received the new Philly rates. Probably will stop driving. There is no (honest and accurate) way to crunch the numbers to make this worthwhile anymore. base fare: 3.00 to 1.25 continued on p. 16

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

continued from p. 14

PER HOUR

EMILY’S FARE BREAKDOWN

UBER profit

driver expenses

driver’s net profit

$4.93

$3.27

$9.34

mileage: 2.25 to 1.10 time: 0.30 per min. to 0.18 per minute minimum fare: 7.00 to 5.00 cancellation fee: 10.00 to 5.00 One driver observed, “The sad thing is those rates are still high compared to other cities that recently got slashed from about $1.10 to between 70 and 90 cents a mile,” like L.A. and Nashville. “Still higher than plenty of other markets. Lots of room for future rate reductions,” posted another. “Stay tuned.” Uber currently offers Philly drivers hourly guarantees during busy times, but based on what’s happened in other cities, those are likely to be phased out.

I run into one driver, “Muhammad,” who bought a new car to drive for UberX nine months ago and understands the math behind the cuts perfectly. He says it’s still worth it to him to drive on weekends when there’s surge pricing, but not at other, non-surge times.

MUHAMMAD, UBERX DRIVER

Uber, the concept is very, very good. But the people who are running the show is very greedy. (Laughs.) If you really analyze what Uber has done in last six months, to make more and more profit, they have killed the drivers.

I give you a practical example: If there’s a $10 ride, $1 Uber will keep it, for insurance or safety or whatever they want to call it. [This dollar is technically called the “safe rides fee,” but yeah.] And then from $9, they will take 20 percent, that would be $1.80.

So after, the driver will take home $7.20.

If they cut the rate in half, the same ride is now $5.

Just example, OK? So Uber takes $1, and then out of $4, Uber takes 80 cents, so the driver will make $3.20. And if the demand is double, then another driver will also make $3.20. So the total driver pay is $6.40 vs. $7.20 before, but customer paid same $10 — means Uber’s taking extra money.

Overall, demand has increased. But as a human being, we can only drive maybe three trips in one hour. If you give me 300 trips, that won’t do me any good. That demand is for other people, not for me. So cutting the rate is increasing the total business, but the driver is worse off than before.

I

n my own data (see infographic on p. 10-11), I find two comparable hours from my first week: In the first, I spent nearly the whole hour driving one

passenger a long way. In the second, I drove five very short-distance trips. The total fares were almost the same amount total — $25. But Uber itself only made $5.82 off my one long trip, compared to $9 total from the five short trips.

With the lower fares, drivers need to drive more to make the same amount. Anybody at any job would be pissed if their boss declared that they would now be working longer hours for no extra money. But for Uber drivers, who bear the entire cost of maintaining the cars, more driving also means more expenses.

This is often overlooked, because driving a car you own feels like it has no cost. But it’s not free — there’s gas, but also the less visible cost of just owning a car and driving it to death. I’m surprised to find, after running the numbers (you can check my math online), that the cost of driving my car for Uber came to a surprising 51 cents per paid mile. My expenses and depreciation ate 19 percent of my take-home pay.

And I was significantly better off than most of the drivers who shared their data. For example, one driver’s new Camry hybrid got great gas mileage, but his high lease payments took his expenses up to 70 cents per paid mile. Another had reasonable car payments but bad gas mileage, and was also at 70 cents.

Expenses ate about 20 percent of each’s take-home pay, which was news to them — both said they didn’t really keep track of their expenses aside from gas.

So it’s no wonder the taxi industry is having so much trouble competing with Uber — taxi companies have to pay to maintain, acquire and insure all the cars in a taxi fleet. Uber’s drivers shoulder that burden themselves, with expenses eating around 20 percent of total gross fares. And Uber’s gross fares, according to a Business Insider tipster, are expected to hit $10 billion in 2015.

And it makes complete sense for Uber to continue cutting fares to as cheap as possible while flooding the

TO MAKE MORE AND MORE PROFIT, THEY HAVE KILLED THE DRIVERS.

TOTAL FARES

$17.54

At this rate, to make that famous $90,000 a year, I’d need to drive 27 hours a day, 365 days a year.

market with more and more drivers and encouraging people to use Uber for shorter and shorter distances — all of which correlate with reduced take-home pay for each individual driver.

Analyzing my data and others, I learned that, despite Uber’s assurances that more business would mean more money for drivers, the average hourly take-home pay for Philly drivers fell from $15.62 to $10.53 after the fare cut. Uber’s average hourly take, if you factor in the 47 percent increase in business they cited, rose slightly.

Uber responded to these numbers by providing their own that reflected higher pay: $15.31 per hour in driver take-home pay before expenses in March for Philly Uber drivers on average versus $12 an hour in December. If you use my hybrid’s low-end expenses — 20 percent of gross fares, or $4.19 an hour in this case — that would leave the average March driver with $11.12 per hour. Better than I did, but in the range of the veteran drivers who gave me their information. Asked whether December was an appropriate comparison, given that the holidays would probably affect business, Uber declined to respond on the record or provide similar numbers for February.

B

ut I already said that I didn’t like the idea of using other people’s data — all that was secondary to my own. And after 100 rides, I felt like I had enough to work with. Over that duration, during which I maintained a 4.83 adjusted rating, high enough to qualify me for Uber’s VIP program, Uber would say I “earned” $17 an hour in gross fares.

But subtract the 28 percent that went to Uber and the 19 percent that went to expenses, and I actually made … … $9.34 an hour (plus a grand total of $16 in tips, $10 of which were for meeting up with a guy who left his Porsche keys in my backseat).

UberX isn’t the worst-paying job I’ve ever had. I made less scooping ice cream as a 15-year-old, if you don’t adjust for inflation. If I worked 10 hours a day, six days a week with one week off, I’d net almost $30,000 a year before taxes.

But if I wanted to net that $90,000 a year figure that so many passengers asked about, I would only have to work, let’s see … 27 hours a day, 365 days a year. continued on p. 18

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

continued from p. 16

SCREENSHOTS: The Uber passenger app from shortly after UberX debuted in October 2014 (left) and after the January 2015 fare cuts.

A

s far as I can tell, most of Uber’s “seasonal fare cuts” have become permanent.

Pittsburgh is one of few exceptions, where rates are now the same as at the service’s 2014 debut there and where Mayor Bill Peduto was a leading proponent of ride-hailing services in last summer’s statewide Uber debate, raging against “unaccountable bureaucrats” and “a Jurassic Age of transportation options.”

Six months later, in February, TechCrunch broke the news that Uber was building a huge robotics lab in Pittsburgh, partnering with Carnegie Mellon University to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development,” according to a company source.

Travis Kalanick, the CEO and founder of Uber, said at a conference last year that he’d replace human Uber drivers with a fleet of self-driving cars in a second.

“You’re not just paying for the car — you’re paying for the other dude in the car,” he said. “When there’s no other dude in the car, the cost of taking an Uber anywhere becomes cheaper than owning a vehicle.”

That, he said, will “bring the cost below the cost of ownership for everybody, and then car ownership goes away.”

Which may explain why Uber appears to care so little about keeping its drivers happy.

D

ata in hand, I finally arrived at the part of this project I’d most been looking forward to — finding out what it takes to drop your rating so low that you get deactivated. Several people volunteer to sit silent shotgun in a Sweetums Muppet costume. An opera singer is excited to serenade passengers at obnoxiously high volumes. Others suggest the Fifty Shades of Grey book on tape, offering complimentary soup from a thermos, pretending I’m filming a Cash Cab-like TV show, or insisting on communicating via sock puppet.

But then my husband is suddenly hospitalized, and I don’t have time for Uber for a while.

Late one snowy night, I leave Temple University Hospital at Broad and Ontario on foot. I’d popped a tire on a huge pothole the previous day — eventual cost, $100. I’d taken the train over, but don’t feel great

+ MORE ONLINE Silly stories from the backseat. citypaper.net/uber

about chilling at Broad and Erie alone after midnight.

Even Broad Street is deserted and unplowed this far north, and the snow is still really coming down; in the unlikely event that a cabbie is willing to drive up here, it’ll take forever. I check Uber, and the closest car is in Bala Cynwyd, more than 20 minutes away on clear roads. My heart sinks — no sensible driver would travel this far for a pickup.

I try anyway: “No cars available.” I try a second, third, and fourth time, contemplating my options.

Amazingly, the driver in Bala Cynwyd finally accepts.

Half an hour later, I’m on my way home.

My driver is a man in his 20s with a heavy African accent; I’ll call him Morake. We’ve been driving for UberX for about the same amount of time. I thank him fervently for picking me up. I tell him I’m a driver myself, and I probably would have left me stranded.

Morake says he doesn’t usually accept requests more than 10 minutes away, because customers tend to get impatient and cancel when he’s halfway there. He finally accepted mine because it was coming from a hospital and seemed desperate. “So it called one time, two times, three times — I said, ‘Maybe this person don’t have nobody else.’”

The contrast is so striking — Morake, who accepted a ride against his own best interests out of human kindness, and Uber, which treats him and so many other drivers as utterly disposable numbers in an equation.

Morake is happy to chat about the annoyances of being an Uber driver — his rating is near the cutoff for being deactivated, which he thinks might be because he recently refused to drive a late-night pickup to New York. “It’s good though — because with Uber, if you drive 12 hours, 16 hours a day, you make good money!” He is heartbreakingly sincere. If he didn’t have another job, Morake says, he’d work for Uber 16 hours a day. I think of my effortlessly excellent rating, and my plans to torpedo it for a punchline, and I’m suddenly, cripplingly ashamed.

Twenty chatty minutes and a couple scary wheelspinning moments later, Morake drops me off. When I try to tip him, he demurs, following Uber’s rules to the letter. He says it was fun just talking to another driver.

He finally accepts a thoroughly deserved 10 bucks.

As Morake drives off through the snow, I check my phone. Even though it was a surge fare, after expenses, Morake will only net about $10 for about an hour of dangerous driving. I rate the dude in the car five stars.

And then I quit Uber. (emilyg@citypaper.net, @emilygee)

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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KENSINGTON

neighborhood news GETTING READY TO ROLL: At le�, architect Joel Spivak in his South Philly workshop, a�aches pinwheels to this year’s derby entry. Below, Dana Pavlichko (le�) and Stephanie Davis, who began work on their custom designs in January.

Photos by Hillary Petrozziello

popular, concurrent Trenton Avenue Arts Festival, a project of the East Kensington Neighbors Association.

They also have a new title sponsor, which is reflected in the new name, “Philadelphia Federal Credit Union Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby & Arts Festival.”

Maybe the most important decision, though, was to host a series of workshops on sculpture design and mechanics throughout the spring. In one of the more hands-on workshops, at Point Breeze’s NextFab workshop space, about two dozen attendees learned the physics behind welding — a skill set that, the NKCDC hopes, will inspire new sculptures that will make the derby even more vibrant.

And what of those sculptures? These homemade testaments to human achievement, careening every year through Kensington streets filled with obstacles like a mud pit and cobblestones, run the gamut from bike-based minimalist architecture to facsimiles of actual motor vehicles. Last year’s People’s Choice award winner, “Game of Cones,” featured a medieval-style wagon bed attached to what looked like an ice cream truck.

But this doesn’t fully answer why people keep coming back to the derby, year after year.

Perhaps the best way to explain it is through the eyes of those who elect to participate. Varying in age, ethnicity and gender, they embody the complex tapestry of modern Kensington in all its nuance — even when they’re not from the neighborhood.

For Joel Spivak, the derby is a testament to how an eccentric public spectacle can create sustainable change in an area. The 75-year-old South Philly resident is a pioneer of modern regional street

WHY DO WE LOVE THE KINETIC SCULPTURE DERBY SO MUCH?

By Sameer Rao Few public spectacles in Philadelphia match the awe and fascination generated by the Kinetic Sculpture Derby, scheduled this year for May 16. Elaborately designed, conceptually guided and human-powered, the vehicles that take part attest to something impressively willful or perseverant in the spirit of our city. The folks at the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC), which has organized the event for just shy of a decade — along with other community-driven efforts aimed at revitalizing the long-beleaguered neighborhood — certainly agree.

“We’re a city that supports itself, a very D.I.Y. city. You can’t find that anywhere else,” says Karina Ambartsoumian, NKCDC’s communications coordinator.

This assessment of the city and the neighborhood is part of why the NKCDC took a few notable steps to bridge the derby with the rest of the city this year. For starters, they now have “arts festival” in their official name, acknowledging the derby’s long-standing collaboration with the

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fairs, having helped create festivals on South Street in the ’60s and ’70s and having been involved with the junk artist community ever since.

“I knew about the original kinetic sculpture race out in California, many years ago,” he says.

Spivak was among the first people to enter the local derby, and he’s used his 75-year-old bike in all but two derbies since the first.

For Dana Pavlichko, Claire Folkman, and Stephanie Davis (only Davis is a Kensington resident), their four-year-running participation in the derby is about mixing spectacle with statement. “Our inspiration each year comes from taking the ‘all pilots must wear helmets’ rule very seriously,” says Pavlichko, a graphic designer. “We build each costume by starting with an exaggerated whimsical helmet, adding in a drag queen theme, and going from there.

“For our second year, we wanted to become glamazons and referenced dragons, creating green glittering scales over black biketards,” adds Davis.

“Our shoes were kind of like the armadillo shoes created by Alexander McQueen for Lady Gaga in ‘Bad Romance,’ but more bulbous, dark and with claws.”

So what can we expect at this year’s derby? It’s difficult to say, since the teams keep their designs under lock-and-key until their grand unveiling. But with all the changes that the NKCDC has put into place, you can expect it to grow even bigger and crazier. (editorial@citypaper.net)

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C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

ARTS&ENTERTAINMENT

GET ALONG: Hop Along’s world domination plan is in effect.

PLAYLIST

BY PATRICK RAPA

D.I.Y. MIXTAPE

Five songs you should be listening to right now.

HOP ALONG, “I SAW MY TWIN” Back in 2012, we put Hop Along on the cover of City Paper (twice) and crowned them the best local band of the year. Now that Painted Shut is on the shelves — released earlier this week on Saddle Creek Records — that old accolade feels like it falls a bit short. Who’s to say this isn’t one of the best bands out there, like, anywhere?

This record is amazing.

Frances Quinlan’s voice, in particular, is spellbinding: rough and bright as fish-tank gravel, always tumbling and soaring, pushing the melodies and carrying the choruses when it’s not swaying to its own current.

When she really feels the spirit, Quinlan can belt it out like some indie-soul Janis Joplin. Beneath her, the drums and guitars match her taste for heartache, nostalgia and drunken drama.

For a catchily coarse rock band like Hop Along, “I Saw My Twin” is almost a pop song.

In the beginning, it’s got this upbeat beat and some sweet ooh-ooh-oohs. Then the guitars get grungy in a catchy sort of way.

And Quinlan’s strange/gorgeous patchwork lyrical style is on full display, and you find yourself singing along to some curious phrases — “the first birds of morning cackled from the graveyard,” “her full hands leapt like fleas on a dog” (I think?) — but never quite grasping the bigger picture.

They play Union Transfer on Saturday.

ILLINOIS, “WARM SUNGLASSES” After 2009’s ambitious and acclaimed The Adventures of Kid Catastrophe — a 20-track opus and accompanying short film — this Philly band has gone exploring, adding (pop hooks) and subtracting (hip-hop scratches) and coming up with a sound that’s catchy and soulful but never too easy on the ears.

Released back in March, Shine could be called a paranoid summer record, a fitting

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ARTS // MUSIC // THEATER // BOOKS

soundtrack for a vacation on the verge of disaster. On “Warm Sunglasses,” Chris Archibald’s pleasantly nasal vocals are the sand in the sunblock, spreading uneasiness despite the nearly funky, almost R&B-ish backdrop. “We counted all our lollipop licks,” he murmurs.

“Can’t trust you from further away.” If you dig this song you’ll dig this album.

BC CAMPLIGHT, “WHY DOESN’T ANYBODY FALL IN LOVE ANYMORE” Philly expat Brian Christinzio has always captivated with his contradictions. He’s a fighter and a lover, a big man with a high voice, a tortured soul whose gruffest musical moments still qualify as tender and gorgeous. His latest record, How to Die In the North is already wowing London, his adopted hometown, so he’s taking the show on the road. We’ll probably do something bigger on him when he and his band, BC Camplight, play Union Transfer on June 9, but for now I want to put a bug in your ear. “Why Doesn’t Anybody Fall In Love Anymore” is a romantic charmer, mostly just a man, a piano and a broken heart. Christinzio’s soaring falsetto really sells it as a lost lounge standard.

CASSENDRE XAVIER, “JUST BE GOOD TO ME” On Cassendre Xavier’s latest record, Hope — released in February, her first record in seven years — love is a cloudy, shapeless thing. She opens soul-folk ballad “A Little Bit of Love”

with a demand: “All that I ask is that you be true to me,” but wavers on the very next track.

“Just Be Good To Me” is no less passionate, but the R&B tss-tss beat and the gently spanked guitar (Xavier’s a nimble-fingered goddess on the acoustic) tell us: maybe a little lovin’-sanslove is on the table. “You have many others,” she croons like some world-weary angel. “But I know when you are with me you are all mine.”

THE REPLACEMENTS, “HERE COMES A REGULAR” What the hell, let’s put the ’Mats on here because I cannot believe Saturday’s show at Festival Pier isn’t sold out. The Replacements are one of those legendary bands that could re-retire if they got a buck from every band

Quinlan can belt it out like some indie-soul Janis Joplin. who cited them as an influence. Been giving myself a little refresher course on their catalog this weekend and I keep coming back to this pretty, grizzled slow number from 1985’s Tim. I love the defeat in PaulWesterberg’s voice when he sings “Summer’s passed, it’s too late to cut the grass.” This is drinkin’ alone music. (@mission2denmark, pat@citypaper.net)

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COLLAGE FESTIVAL’S “QUEER SCHOOL” LGBTQ/FESTS // Queer School, organizers say, “cele-

brates the outcast, the freaks, the weirdos, and the ones who aren’t so easily defined.” It’s the theme of this year’s fifth annual COLLAGE festival, which aims to present diverse styles of art together in one venue. Founded by Joy Mariama Smith and Philip Moore (aka Toby Celery), the fest boasts a slew of events, like a She-Ra/He-Man panel discussion, a drag demonstration, a Family Feudstyle game show and a zine-making workshop, plus featured art installations throughout, yoga, readings, dance, film and plenty of other activities with a schoollike (there’s a pep rally and graduation) slant. May 7-9, 7 p.m., $5, Headlong Performance Institute, 1170 S. Broad St., collagefestival.com.

“OH, MOTHER” BY TONGUE & GROOVE SPONTANEOUS THEATER // Celebrate Mother’s Day a little early (it’s

Sun., May 10, you guys, call your moms) with T&G’s put-’em-on-the-spot show — the audience anonymously submits anecdotes about anything “a maternal figure” has done or said: “funny, sweet, courageous, ridiculous — any mothering moment will do.” Then the ensemble’s got to perform scenes based on the submissions right then and there. We simply can’t imagine how this could be anything other than uproarious, and if you bring your mother andT&G ends up performing a scene about her, well, you’re the kid of the century … maybe.

It depends. Fri., May 8, 8 p.m., $8-$15, PlayGround at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., tongue-groove.com.

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VISUAL ART // If you’re up for a bit of a jaunt for a free show (and a meal, since you’re there), pop into the Malelani Café in Mount Airy, where West’s exhibition features more than 20 pieces of his pop art, “skewing contemporary society” style of work, with a focus on religious movements, popular culture and recent protests. “As a fellow unarmed black male, I wanted to show the world that we don’t have to just be statistics,” West writes. “We can be amazing artists, designers and productive members of society.” Through June 6, Maleani Café Mt. Airy, 6734 Germantown Ave., 267-766-2396, larrywestproductions.com. (@notjameson)

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DEAR FANS: Welcome to another exciting Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. We are thrilled to be celebrating our 15th event in this great city.

And here it is. Whether it’s meeting a favorite celebrity, getting that long-desired photo op, enjoying one of our 100+ programming panels, �nding that keepsake souvenir at an exhibitor booth, dressing up in costume, or all of the above, we want you to know that Wizard World’s mantra is to create a great experience for you fans.

We want you to go home after a fun, ful�lling weekend feeling like you can’t wait to come back next year.

We are so appreciative of how the entire city of Philadelphia has embraced us all these years at one of our �agship events. We hope you enjoy this year’s show, and we look forward to making Wizard World Philadelphia an experience that you won’t soon forget.

Sincerely, John Macaluso Wizard World CEO

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M. Night Shyamalan, Stephen Amell, Burt Reynolds, Karl Urban Q&As Highlight Programming at Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia, Friday through Sunday 1 !äSESSIONSäWITHä3TEPHENä!MELLä h!RROWv ä"URTä2EYNOLDSä 3MOKEYäANDäTHEä"ANDIT ä $ELIVERANCE ä+ARLä5RBANä 3TARä4REK ä4HEä,ORDäOFäTHEä2INGS ä-ICHAELä2OOKERä 'UARDIANSä OFäTHEä'ALAXY ä&RANKIEä-UNIZä h-ALCOMäINäTHEä-IDDLE vä!GENTä#ODYä"ANKS ä$ANNYä 4REJOä -ACHETE ä&ROMä$USKä4ILLä$AWN ä+ATIEä#ASSIDYä h'OSSIPä'IRL väh!RROW ä#ARYä %LWESä 4HEä0RINCESSä"RIDE ä2OBINä(OOD ä-ENäINä4IGHTS ä0ENNä"ADGLEYä h'OSSIPä'IRLv ä ANDäOTHERäTOPäCELEBRITIES äAäSCREENINGäOFäTHEä- ä.IGHTä3HYAMALANäTHRILLERäh7AYWARDä 0INES väAäCONCERTäBYäVIDEOGAMEäTRIBUTEäBANDäh#RITICALä(IT väCOSTUMEäCONTESTS äANDä MOREäAREäAMONGäTHEäPROGRAMMINGäPANELSäSCHEDULEDäATä7IZARDä7ORLDä#OMICä#ONä 0HILADELPHIA ä&RIDAYäTHROUGHä3UNDAYäATäTHEä0ENNSYLVANIAä#ONVENTIONä#ENTER ä-OSTä PROGRAMMINGäISäINCLUDEDäASäPARTäOFäTHEäSTANDARDäEVENTäADMISSION ä

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www.wizardworld.com/programming-philadelphia.html.

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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Meet M. Night Shyamalan Screenwriter, director and producer M. Night Shyamalan has captured the attention of audiences around the world for almost two decades, creating �lms that have amassed more than $2 billion worldwide.

Up next, Shyamalan will release “The Visit,” an original thriller he wrote and directed, slated for September 2015. “The Visit focuses on a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a weeklong trip. Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they realize their chances of getting back home are growing smaller every day.

Shyamalan began making �lms at a young age in his hometown near Philadelphia. By the age of 16, he had completed 45 short �lms. Upon �nishing high school, he attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts to study �lmmaking. During his �nal year at NYU, Shyamalan wrote “Praying with Anger,” a semiautobiographical screenplay about a student from the U.S. who goes to India and �nds himself a stranger in his homeland, which was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. In the years that followed, Shyamalan wrote “Stuart Little” and completed his �rst mainstream feature, “Wide Awake.”

In 1999, “The Sixth Sense,” starring Bruce Willis, catapulted Shyamalan into stardom and he became one of the most sought-after young �lmmakers in Hollywood. One of the highest grossing �lms of all time, “The Sixth Sense” received a total of six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Shyamalan collaborated with Willis again in 2000 on the �lm “Unbreakable,” also starring Samuel L. Jackson. Shyamalan once again explored the idea of a man questioning his faith in the 2002 �lm “Signs,” starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix.

Shyamalan is currently writing his next original thriller and resides in Pennsylvania.

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'The Walking Dead,' 'Guardians of the Galaxy' Star Michael Rooker Talks Movies,

Comic Cons Many Wizard World fans probably think first of "The Walking Dead" when they see the outsized personality of Michael Rooker holding court at his celebrity booth, the line of well-wishers and autograph seekers spilling into the aisle. But with more than 100 television and film roles to his credit, notably Cliffhanger and Henry, and the Marvel feature Guardians of the Galaxy becoming the blockbuster hit of 2014 (and a sequel on the way!), Rooker has shown that his resume is quite diverse.

Rooker took a few minutes in advance of his return to Wizard World Comic Con Philadelphia to talk about his famous roles, how filming went for Guardians and how he prepared for the role of Yondu.

City Paper:You are one of the most popular guests at Wizard World shows.What do you like about attending the events?

Michael Rooker: The big answer, of course, is meeting all the fans that come out. First off, some have made a tremendous effort to get to these events. Meeting the fans is just the most interesting aspect of these shows.

CP: Besides 'The Walking Dead,' which roles do fans most want to talk to you about?

MR: It's by far 'The Walking Dead,' but now 'Guardians of the Galaxy,' because of the huge success it was last year, is of course more of a topic people are asking about. Also, a lot of people from the world of gaming ask about 'Black Ops' and 'Black Ops 2.'

CP: What did you enjoy about filming 'Guardians?'

MR: I have discovered that it's actually OK to be sitting in the makeup chair for hours (laughs). I never used makeup in my regular acting, hardly ever used any whatsoever, unless it was a scar or prosthetic work. But for Guardians it was five to six hours from arriving to being set ready, including makeup and wardrobe. I found that the whole process of preparing what you look like and makeup has been a very interesting thing for me. I got to do my internal prep work, getting myself ready while all the make up and wardrobe was being applied. Once we were ready for the camera, I stayed prepared throughout the day.

CP: Was there a particular challenge in the role of Yondu? Did you review some of the comics? Is it a copy of that character or more of yourself?

MR: Definitely more of myself to it, because it was written that way. James Gunn wrote the role with me in mind: my aggressiveness, my humor is all over the role. So I did some research in regard to Yondu, but I was informed that I shouldn't do too much, because we didn't stay completely with the status quo with what Yondu is about in the comics.

We departed a bit, and I think people appreciated the direction we took it.

CP: How was the preparation different than for other roles?

MR: My preparation is a little different from most; all actors have their own personal way of getting ready, preparing, getting into the role, it's all up to the individual. I really truly enjoyed that whole process.

CP:Yondu is a bow hunter. How is your real-life marksmanship?

MR: Dude, I made 50 yard hits with my bow. And, well, I made a little wager with my buddy at the range, there's a mockup version of a grizzly 150 yard away, and he said there's no way I could hit it, but I knew I would hit it square. I asked what he wanted to wager, because I didn't want to take his money, so we wagered a double tall mocha latte. First shot, bam! One hundred fifty yard away with a Mathews bow. It's a simple short bow.

CP: So who is a better marksman, you or Jennifer Lawrence?

MR: Me, for sure (laughs). It's two different types of bows. I'm pretty good with the natural bow, recure longbows. I'm pretty good at hitting targets in general. When I see the target I can hit it. Slingshots, shooting pistols, rifles. Anything with a target I like.

CP: What can you tell us about your next upcoming film, Bolden!?

It's about the birthing of jazz, the mythical story of Buddy Bolden, who was considered the first King of Jazz. It's a period piece, around 1905, and I play a fellow by the name of Pat, the go-between between the lobbyists and the politicians, a pretty shady character.

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

MOVIESHORTS

FILMS ARE GRADED BY CIT Y PAPER CRITICS A-F.

DRAMA

FASHION FORWARD: It’s style over substance when David Nicholls takes on Thomas Hardy.

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

/ C+ / A fashion shoot in search of a film, Thomas Vinterberg’s take on Thomas Hardy is stunning to look at but a chore to watch. As adapted by David Nicholls, who also transferred Dickens’ Great Expectations to the screen for Mike Newell in 2012, Far From the Madding Crowd plays as a collection of generally well-staged scenes that never link up. It’s as if pages were ripped straight out of Hardy’s novel with no regard for the connections between them, let alone the meaning underneath.

Carey Mulligan plays the educated but penniless Bathsheba Everdene, a self-proclaimed independent woman who rebuffs offers of marriage and pianos from a series of suitors in 1870s Dorset. Among them areWilliam

Boldwood (Michael Sheen), a well-off but awkward landowner who’s progressed into middle age without ever taking a wife, and Francis Troy (Tom Sturridge), a dashing but deceitful military officer. But none measures up to the appropriately strapping Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), whose fortunes fall as Bathsheba’s rise.

Even before a wealthy uncle dies and leaves the orphaned Bathsheba his farm, Mulligan constantly acts like she’s harboring a private joke. Her performance is the opposite of lived-in, constantly commenting on itself as if she’s in one of Vinterberg’s former Dogme colleague Lars von Trier’s Brechtian meta-plays. To an extent, it fits the character’s sense of superiority, and it could have made for a fertile contrast with Schoenaerts’ earthen brooding, but it’s emblematic of how this Madding Crowd holds itself above the fray. The movie is about nothing, believes in nothing. When Gabriel advises Bathsheba at a critical moment to “do what is right,” there’s no telling what that might mean.

Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s cinematography turns natural light to great advantage, and Janet Patterson’s costumes, particularly the checked dresses she uses to make Bathsheba stand apart from the bustle of black-clad men, are a constant thrill. But when you’re more involved in the clothes than the characters inside them, a movie has truly lost you.

— Sam Adams (Ritz Five)

Film events and special screenings.

REPERTORY FILM

BY DREW LAZOR

ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES

1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., 215-299-1000, ansp.org.

Jurassic Park Movie Marathon Ahead of this summer’s highly anticipated Jurassic World, the Academy will screen the three previous Jurassic films back-to-back-to-back. Sat., May 9, 10 a.m., free (with museum admission).

BRYN MAWR FILM INSTITUTE

824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 610-527-9898, brynmawrfilm.org. Tri-Co Film Festival Featuring work from the student filmmakers of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore. Thu., May 7, 7 p.m., $12. Le Comte Ory (2014, Switzerland, 140 min.): Theatercast of Gioachino Rossini’s 19th-century comic opera, this time set in 1960s France, performed at the Zurich Opera House. Sun., May 10, 1 p.m., $20. Machuca (2004, Chile, 121 min.): Two young Chilean students from different economic backgrounds are forced to reassess their friendship in the shadow of Pinochet’s coup. Part of the film course “Coming of Age in Latin American Cinema.” Mon., May 11, 7:15 p.m., $12.

Every Secret Thing (2015, U.S., 103 min.): A New York Film Critics Series advance screening, Amy Berg’s new thriller chronicles a small New York town’s complicated relationship with a horrific crime. Starring Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks and Dakota Fanning. Tue., May 12, 7:30 p.m, $15. A View from the Bridge (2015, U.K., 115 min.): A theatercast from the Young Vic in London, Ivo van Hove directs Mark Strong in this re-imagining of Arthur Miller’s tragic family tale set in 1950s Brooklyn. Wed., May 13, 7 p.m., $20.

PFS THEATER AT THE ROXY

2023 Sansom St., 267-639-9508, filmadelphia.org/roxy.

West Side Story (1961, U.S., 152 min.): Oscar-winning classic that introduced the world to the subtle art of highly choreographed jazz dance fighting. Thu., May 7, 2 p.m., $7. Fresh Dressed (2015, U.S., 90 min.): Tracking the evolution of hip-hop music and culture through the lens of fashion. Director Sacha Jenkins will participate in a post-screening Q&A. Thu., May 7, 7:30 p.m., $10. Friday the 13th (1980 U.S., 95 min.): “His name was Jason.” Fri., May 8, midnight and Sat., May 9, midnight, $10. Song of the Sea (2014, Belgium, 93 min.): Tomm Moore’s Oscarnominated animated feature, a fantastical tale based on Celtic lore. Sun., May 10, 11 a.m., $10. A Star is Born (1954, U.S., 154 min.): Judy gives good Garland in this musical adaptation of the 1937 original about an ambitious starlet on the rise. Mon., May 11, 2 p.m., and Wed., May 13, 2 p.m., $8. Vessel (2014, U.S., 88 min.): A documentary on Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, whose Women of Waves org provides abortions in offshore waters to women living in countries where the procedure is illegal. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Diane Whitten.

Tue., May 12, 7:30 p.m., $12. Benvenuto Cellini (2014, U.K., 190 min.) Terry Gilliam takes on opera in this lush tale of Cellini, the acclaimed 16th-century artist. Wed., May 13, 7 p.m., $13.

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

NEW ABOUT ELLY // B+

The first feature by A Separation and The Past’s Asghar Farhadi has taken six years to win Stateside release, and in some ways, that’s a good thing.

Having been well versed in Farhadi’s deftness at burying social and political critique of his native Iran in domestic strife makes it easier to interpret About Elly’s first shot of ballots being stuffed into a voting box. It bears no overt connection to the story of a group of friends spending a week at a dingy seaside villa.

But without that allegorical preamble, the film would only play out as a steady unraveling of the social order in microcosm; with it, it’s a parable of direct democracy gone awry. The missteps seem small at first: Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) convenes a group of former college classmates, their spouses and young children — plus one recently divorced man and her child’s kindergarten teacher, Elly (Taranah Alidoosti) — without telling them their usual vacation spot has already been booked. They’ll figure something out, she promises, and if she’d told them, they wouldn’t have come. It’s only the first in a series of lies, some mundane, some substantial, that come to light as a narrowly averted tragedy and subsequent disappear-

ance throw the group’s casual order into disarray. Farhadi traces the currents between characters with slow deliberation, sometimes too slow; his straight-ahead visual style adds little to the prosaic exchanges he uses to establish his world.

But the cumulative effect is powerful, and his grasp of how small transgressions can have major consequences is both unsparing and fair. —Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse)

hosting her own Oprah-style talk show, on a flailing QVClike station run by two battling brothers (James Marsden and Wes Bentley). In her “narrative infomercials,” which see her re-enacting (but never resolving) painful moments from her past, she reveals how much pain her condition has caused her, slandering private citizens and infuriating management and her family along the way.

What’s so disconcerting about Wiig’s performance, or at least the material designed for her by screenwriter Eliot Laurence, is its willingness to be cavalier with psychological symptoms in the name of unclear narrative goals. Alice is at once sexually empowered and infantilistic, despondent and manic, insightful and literally illiterate. While most of these traits could be connected to her diagnosis, they’re run through irresponsibly, whether it’s for empty laughs or for character development that doesn’t stick. If they were going for mere irreverence, they nailed it, but working actual mental illness into the equation comes with its own set of responsibilities. —Drew Lazor (Roxy)

WELCOME TO ME // C+

Kristen Wiig has already proven she’s capable of more than comedy. Now it’s on the former SNL standout, who’s graduated from the funny voices and twitchy faces portion of her career, to prove she has the taste to pick the right non-jokey roles. Shira Piven’s Welcome to Me does feature a few opportunities for the actress to open up, but its weak foundation, coupled with a tone that shoots for surreal but more often hits insensitive, stunts any real sense of growth.

Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, Alice (Wiig) operates in a small circle, with her beat-down best friend (Linda Cardellini) and now-gay ex-husband (Alan Tudyk) tagging in every time she has a breakdown.

When her compulsive lottoticket habit results in an $86 million payout, she takes it as a sign to pursue what she perceives as her destiny:

ADO

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

DANCE

EVENTS

: MAY 7 - MAY 13 :

GET OUT THERE

PILOBOLUS

The ever-inventive Pilobolus is known for collaborations with artists of many stripes that break down barriers between disciplines and challenge the way we view dance.

The upcoming show at the Annenberg Center kicks that up a notch, when the company presents three local premieres plus as an old fave. New stuff for us includes [esc], an homage to the great escape artist Harry Houdini, co-created with the comedy-magicillusionists Penn & Teller. Untitled is a collaboration with the Olivier Award-winning Venezuelan choreographer Javier De Frutos that traverses through the meandering mind of a woman as she confronts lost love. This gymnastic work makes ample use of props to challenge you intellectually and emotionally, which pretty much sums up what Pilobolus is generally all about. —Deni Kasrel

5.7

PHILADELPHIA INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL $10 // Through May 9, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900, annenbergcenter.org.

THEATER Theater, dance, music, circus arts, film and the “outdoor fun zone” are all included in this annual festival. Shows include Pilobolus Dance Theater; the Catherine Wheels Theatre

EOIN CAREY

Company’s Lifeboat (pictured, and based on a true story about teenage girls stranded at sea during World War II), rock violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Orchestra

of Life, acrobatic comedians Playing By Air, Jean Saucier and Patrick Cote’s Circo Comedia and locally produced film Watermelon Magic, by Spring Garden Pictures. The fun zone includes interactive performances and activities for kids of all ages.

—Mark Cofta

SAN FERMIN $15 // Thu., May 7, 8 p.m., with Natalie Prass, Union Transfer, 1026 Spring Garden St., 215-232-2100, utphilly.com.

ART-ROCK/CHAMBER POP

Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s postcollegiate composition project-turned-unlikely touring juggernaut returns with a sophomore record that streamlines some of its artier impulses and hones

DENNY RENSHAW

thursday

FIT TO BE TIED: $30-$75 // Through May 10, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900, annenbergcenter.org.

GRANT HALVERSON/ADF

in on melody and groove.

San Fermin’s Jackrabbit (Downtown) is more immediate but certainly no less dramatic (bombastic, even — it’s the second indie opus of 2015 to offer a delicatelywrought reminder that “we’re all gonna die”) and beautifully orchestrated.

—K. Ross Hoffman

DON QUIXOTE

$15-$34 // Through June 7, Hedgerow Theatre, 64 Rose Valley Rd., Rose Valley, 610565-4211, hedgerowtheatre.org.

THEATER Brian McCann — continuing his great season after the Arden’s Great Expectations and Curio’s Othello — plays the titular tilter at windmills in Keith Dewhurst’s adaptation of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s 1615 novel. Zoran Kovcic plays his sidekick Sancho Panza. The two fill multiple roles in director Jared Reed’s production, and also serve as puppeteers. Hedgerow’s production, says Reed, focuses on Cervantes’ theme, “What is a life well lived?” —Mark Cofta

PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA

$46-$156 // Thu., May 7 and Sat., May 9, 8 p.m.; Fri., May 8, 2 p.m.; Kimmel Center, 300 S. Broad St., 215-893-1999, kimmelcenter.org.

CLASSICAL This springtime concert includes no blockbusters, but instead presents a quartet of delightful and unpretentious works, including Beethoven’s bright, brilliant first symphony, a pair of 20th-century Romanian rhapsodies from a pair of iconoclastic masters, Ligeti and Enescu, and finally, the enchanting Dvorák Violin Concerto. The soloist for that piece will be Phillyborn Sarah Chang, who has been a distinguished guest of this band since she

debuted here in 1991 at age 10. —Peter Burwasser

f riday

5.8

LOVERS LEAGUE

$10 // Fri., May 8, 8:30 p.m., with Levee Drivers and Vilebred, Boot and Saddle, 1131 S. Broad, pfs.org, bootandsaddlephilly.com.

FOLK First off, the duets on the new Lovers League 2 suggest a new George and Tammy — the harmonies are just that close — but without the home-life drama. Reverend TJ McGlinchey and Dani Mari’s accessible writing style comes closer to greening the memory of Felice and

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

saturday

5.9

NATURAL CHILD

Boudleaux (“Love Hurts”) Bryant. A little roots and a lot of pop and some sweet devotion give the duo an audible edge. Vilebred and the Levee Drivers will join the happy couple at this CD launch party. —Mary Armstrong

DUG PINNICK AND COREY GLOVER

$29.50-$45 // Fri., May 8, 8 p.m., Sellersville Theater 1894, 24 W. Temple Ave., Sellersville, 215-257-5808, st94.com.

METAL As someone who

filled countless VHS tapes with recordings of Headbanger’s Ball, I can attest to the fact that MTV’s metal show was almost entirely populated by white faces. dUg Pinnick and Corey Glover helped change that, Pinnick as the frontman of prog-metal trio King’s X and Glover for Black Rock Coalition-spawned funk-metallers Living Colour.

While both maintain on-andoff ties with their respective bands, they’ll share this bill as solo artists. —Shaun Brady

$10 // Sat., May 9, 8 p.m., with Faux Ferocious, Brother JT and The Company Corvette, Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org.

ROCK Nashville’s Natural Child met one day through their mutual friend, bong, and they’ve hit it off ever since. They make stoner Southern rock that’s hard to diagnose as “Southern rock” because it’s not all crowded with Americana bells and whistles. Even “Firewater Liquor,” with its murmuring bassline and twangy, toiletbowl vocals, has an air of Stooges-style grime.

—Nikki Volpicelli

monday

5.11

ALL-FEMALE READING OF THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

$10 // Mon., May 11, 7 p.m., Revolution Shakespeare at the Painted Bride, 230 Vine St., RevolutionShakespeare.org.

THEATER Griffin StantonAmeisen’s young company presents its second annual

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all-women reading after last year’s King Lear. Sure, it’s a fundraiser (with remarkably cheap tickets) for this fall’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, but it’s also a rare opportunity to enjoy a great cast that will probably never get to play these male Shakespeare characters again. Kittson O’Neill and Lee Ann Etzold play twins separated soon after birth, with servants who are also twins, played by Dana and Leah Kreitz, who have also never met. When they show up in the same city, it’s a comedy of errors. Charlotte Northeast, who just staged Philadelphia Artists’ Collective’s terrific Fair Maid of the West, directs.

—Mark Cofta

Ave., 215-739-9684, johnnybrendas.com.

ROCK/POP Just a heads up: Lead singer Alexander “Chilli” Jesson tried to climb the balcony when Palma Violets played Johnny Brenda’s a couple of years ago. This was when they’d just released 2013’s 180, the debut album that Rolling

PALMA VIOLETS

$15 // Tue., May 12, 9 p.m., with Public Access TV, Johnny Brenda’s, 1201 N. Frankford

BITCHIN BAJAS

$7-$10 // Tue., May 12, 7 p.m., with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Aux at Vox Populi, 319 N. 11th St., third floor, 215-238-1236, voxpopuligallery.org.

NEW AGE/ELECTROACOUSTIC This Chicago

duo makes zone-out music

tuesday

5.12

single of the same name, high-energy enough to warrant some stage climbing.

—Nikki Volpicelli

Stone called one of the best of the year. Now, the garage-punk group’s back with Danger in the Club (Rough Trade). Listen for the muddy, call-and-response

35

par excellence, but there’s a little too much going on — too much personality, perhaps — in their gently cosmic drone-voyages for them to compute as ambient in the simple, minimalist sense we’ve come to expect. At any given point across the 80-minute sprawl of last year’s self-titled, Asian-tinged magnum opus (Drag City), we might be dealing with flutes, harps, organs or birdsong, gauzily bowed strings or

PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

ASK PAPA

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burbling synthesizers, gamelan bell tones or glistening electric guitar leads.

—K. Ross Hoffman

FRED THOMAS $8 // Tue., May 12, 8 p.m., with Radiator Hospital and Quarterbacks, Lava Space, 4134 Lancaster Ave., 215387-6155, lavazone.org.

SINGER-SONGWRITER

Michigan D.I.Y. die-hard Fred Thomas has made plenty of records in his time — scruffy-edged pop with Saturday Looks Good to Me, emo-punk with Lovesick, rootsy folk-rock under his

Alli Katz communicates with Ernest Hemingway via Ouija board.

Send your questions for him to askpapa@citypaper.net.

36

HOW DO I ASK? HOW DO I TELL? DEAR PAPA: Three months ago, I finally got a job after months of unemployment. It’s not bad, but in my desperation I think I took their lowball offer. Do you think it’s too early to renegotiate my salary? Also, how do you negotiate a salary? —Job Market Newbie DEAR NEWBIE: It can be hard to have no job. It makes you feel worthless and you end up at the bar drinking and telling stories of when things are better and when you were better. When someone finally brings you back to the world, you can be awfully grateful, and gratefulness is an awfully bad feeling for someone to have toward their bosses. Forget how happy you are to just have a job and let your bosses know you want to be paid more. They’re hardly going to fire you for it, and even if they do, there’s a stool waiting for you at the bar. —Papa DEAR PAPA: I’m going on a date with a lady from OKCupid next week, but I’m a little nervous. I may have … uh … exaggerated a bit on my height. And on my level of athleticism. This woman seems awesome and I’d like to get to know her better. Do I warn her? Or do I just show up and hope for the best? —Just Shy of 6 Feet DEAR SHY: No one can tell how tall you are if you’re riding a horse on a rhino hunt, but I’ve been told that women no longer want to date men who go on rhino hunts, so that is a poor option. It is best just to meet her.

If she is disappointed in you, then know she would have been disappointed with you eventually anyway, and to hell with her. There are more rhinos in the Savanna.

(Actually, sorry — I have just been told there are no more rhinos in the Savanna.) —Papa

askpapa@citypaper.net

vividly impressionistic spoken-sung confessionals are close cousins to both The Hold Steady’s Midwestern scenester narratives and the radically candid diarism of Yoni Wolf and Mark Kozelek.

—K. Ross Hoffman

ESME MCCLEAR

own name, electronic forays as City Center — but there’s a fresh immediacy to All Are Saved (Polyvinyl). These

citypaper.net/events

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

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C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

REVIEWS // OPENIN GS // LISTIN GS // RECIPES

POUR OVER: Olive oil poached squid at Helm.

MARIA POUCHNIKOVA

HELM // 1303 N. Fifth St., 215-309-2211, helmphilly.com // Tue.-Thu., 5-10 p.m; Fri.-Sat., 5-10:30 p.m.

REVIEW

BY ADAM ERACE

NORTHERN HOSPITALITY

A genuine passion for service at Helm, a chef-driven Kensington BYO. THIS IS A REVIEW of Helm, but the night did not begin there. It started three miles to the southwest at another restaurant, a very busy newcomer across from a pocket park. Outside, Pilates instructors, junior law associates and salt-and-pepper haired professors huddled together while an unseasonably frosty gale mocked their lightweight sweaters and espadrilles.

I was prepared to wait. But when I reached the front door, ready to have my name jotted on a clipboard then head to the bar, the host blocked my entrance like an offensive tackle. “You can’t go inside,” he explained with the snide indifference of an actor auditioning for the part of Scar in a live-action version of The Lion King. This

restaurant seats the bar, and you can’t mill around inside because “the servers need the room.”

I get it. This restaurant is not large, and the policy, while annoying, would be understandable delivered by an employee who had a little more empathy; if I were he, I would go out of my way to be apologetic, or at the very least, pleasant.

Which is how I wound up at Helm, a buddy BYOB radiating warm energy on a scruffy yet hopeful block of North Fifth Street, where derelict garages alternate with renovated trinities with tidy window boxes.

A guy in a chambray button-up and copper man-bun (GM Zach Firestein, I’d later learn) ushered us inside. It would be just a couple

39

of minutes for our table, he explained, then uncorked and poured the wine we brought, which we sipped around a wine-barrel host stand furnished with jaunty wildflowers.

Overhearing our concern about running out of booze, he motioned to a kegerator in the back of the dining room with the Phillies tap handle: “Worst case, you’re welcome to have some of the High Life in there,” he laughed.

“We have wine in the back, too.”

An hour later, we were taking him up on the offer. I felt well cared for, cozy. Or maybe it was just the voluptuous pinot noir Firestein unearthed. He, along with Helm’s chefs/owners Kevin D’Egidio and Michael Griffiths, who hand-deliver food to all the tables, have a genuine, innate understanding of hospitality. “We want people to sit here for three hours, drink and laugh and enjoy the food,” says Griffiths.

The casual, dinner-party vibe and smart, destarched service was easy to enjoy. The food presented some challenges.

Griffiths, 27, and D’Egidio, 31, met as line cooks at Lacroix six years ago. Their collective CV name-checks some impressive restaurants (Ela, Fork, Will) and their style falls in line with the zeitgeist. On the chalkboard menu at Helm, you’ll find alt-grain pasta, sousvide steak, savory-tinged dessert and spring produce only a few hours out of the dirt. The night I dined, you could add charred ramps to any dish for $2 — a ramp supplement! I can’t think of a more hilarious and splendid idea.

But in many ways, these dishes represent a lack of cohesion. Take plating. Some were so self-consciously styled, like a crop of small compressed sweet potatoes whose long, twisted tips created an attractive (but inedible) bramble to shelter lovely shelled mussels poached in Genesse Cream Ale. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the roasted pork loin, buckwheat noodles and mushrooms in smoky lapsangshiitake broth looked like the physical incarnation of the ‘90s band Puddle of Mud. To make it worse, that pork had the pearly sheen of a raw scallop inside — too rare to safely eat.

How do I make sense of the worst piece of pork I’ve ever been served on the same table as the best squid I’ve ever been served, poached in olive oil and vegetable stock until it had the soft snap of licorice? The highs and lows were jarring.

Sometimes, they occurred on the same dish.

That fantastic calamari ran along the rim of a round plate till meeting a beautifully caramelized bulb of fennel, but the tableside pour of clumpy, green preserved-lemon and fennel sauce looked like it had never seen the inside of a chinois. Other dishes needed only a quick edit: A fan of snappy, first-of-the-season asparagus was perfect with its egg yolk, aged cheese and bread crumb comrades; the pebbly wild boar ragu was neither very good nor very necessary.

D’Egidio and Griffiths did turn out some show stoppers, though. The skirt steak looked like it had been sliced with a butter knife, but I was obsessed with the flavor and texture of the beef (cooked sous-vide 18 hours), the prickly burn of jalapeño-poblano romesco beneath and the plate’s potato component, a terrine of shaved Kennebec potato and ramp leaves that was pressed, baked and shattered like a napoleon of potato chips. Inside the golden tortellini, another wonderful entrée, I found creamy puree of Brussels sprouts with glimmers of garlic and lemon. On top, raw Brussels leaves, spring onion, cheddar cheese curds and burnt onion oil. The dish had a real Eli Kulp-ness about it; Griffiths was most recently his sous chef at Fork.

The buckwheat crumble and nutty sun-

A ramp supplement! I can’t think of a more hilarious and splendid idea. choke chip components of a velvety milkchocolate mousse also conjured the High Street Hospitality Group, but Griffiths and D’Egidio’s sweet-savory balance feels more carefully tuned. Forms of grapefruit (zest, preserves, curd) gave their gâteau Basque real personality. Without the vivacious citrus, the thick-crusted, tonka bean Chantilly-topped tart might have felt too heavy.

Soon, grapefruit will fade, and rhubarb will take its place. Peas will pop up on Helm’s menu as ramps retreat for another year. Favas, strawberries, eventually peaches and plums.

Griffiths and D’Egidio have their collective pulse on the growing season, but their honest, tangible hospitality is what I’ll remember most. That makes Helm that rare find: a restaurant with uneven food that I’m really looking forward to visiting again. (aerace.citypaper@gmail.com, @adamerace)

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET

BY CAROLINE RUSSOCK

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TIRED HANDS FERMENTARIA // Well-loved local brewery Tired Hands has expanded its Ardmore footprint with its newly opened Fermentaria. Housed in an expansive building that was once a trolly-repair shop, the Fermentaria doubles as a larger brewery with a full kitchen and bar. Helmed by chef Bill Braun, the menu leans toward south of the border with a selection of wild tacos and raw fish preparations like shrimp tacos with butter-poached tails and crispy heads, uni cream and radish; and a citrus-chili-scallion striped bass crudo. Larger plates, like fried chicken with buttermilk biscuits and spicy coleslaw, and a selection of desserts are also on offer. And, of course, the rotating draft list pours uniquely Tired Hands brews like Vaporizer red rye IPA. Open Wed.-Mon., noon-midnight, 35 Cricket Terrace, Ardmore, 484-413-2983, tiredhands.com.

DUBU // Those in the know are aware that heading north on Broad is the only way to go for really good Korean in Philadelphia. Dubu is the latest addition to the Cheltenham Korean dining scene and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s certainly the swankiest place in town for sochu and sundubu.

Located in the same complex as the H Mart and More Food Court, Dubu specializes in sundubu, a spicy silken tofu stew. Sundubu options number 11, ranging from vegetables to beef, dumpling and oyster, all served bubbling hot in a stone bowl. Korean barbecue classics like bulgogi and L.A. kalbi are also served along with seasonal noodles such as summer-perfect nengmyun: cool vermicelli with beef and vegetables in chilled beef broth. Unlike other Korean spots in the neighborhood, Dubu has a vegetarian-friendly section of their menu with meat-free bibimbap and japchae. Open daily, 10:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m., 1333 W. Cheltenham Ave., 215-782-3828, thedubu.com. GRACE & PATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S // Grace & Patâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is the latest from the folks who brought you South Phillyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sleeper pizzeria hit, Gennaroâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tomato Pie. With Passyunk Square Singing Fountain views, the new spot is offering a similarly short and sweet menu of salads, meatballs and desserts â&#x20AC;&#x201D; plus grandma-style pizza, a square pan-baked pie thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a little thinner than Sicilian and served in full or half sheets. Available in red and white varieties, the pies can be topped to order with everything from spinach and red onion to pepperoni, sausage and bacon. Grace & Patâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is BYO so donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget the Chianti. Wed.-Mon., 5-10 p.m., 1533 S. 11th St., 215-336-3636.

KRUPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TAVERN

2701 Brown St., 215-765-7769

Smoking: No Jukebox/Entertainment: Two flat screens featuring the Phillies, golf and the Stanley Cup playoffs, a dead silent Internet Jukebox, a brand new Megatouch and a video poker machine. Bathrooms: Pink tiled and immaculate for their age, but with an unsettling poster of a girl leaning over a toilet with a caption that reads, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s got a date with a porcelain prince tonight.â&#x20AC;? Headcount/Tab: Two people, $36 including tip: One Yards IPA, one Stella Artois, two Heinekens, two shots of gin. â&#x20AC;&#x153;O H , W E â&#x20AC;&#x2122; V E B E E N HERE SINCE THE â&#x20AC;&#x2122;20S,â&#x20AC;? says Elaine Hepp, owner/bartender at Krupaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on a sunny Sunday afternoon. During that time, Krupaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, located on a quiet block in Fairmount, has been family owned and from the looks of things in the pale yellow, wood-paneled barroom, nothing much has changed. Well, someone took a Sharpie to the smoking permitted sign to let the clientele know that thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no more smoking, but thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s about it.

Elaine tells us that Krupaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s is the last local bar in the neighborhood; all of the others have closed to make way for more â&#x20AC;&#x153;upscaleâ&#x20AC;? places. When she finds out that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve made the trip up from South Philly, sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quick to talk about a recent Inky writeup about East Passyunk Avenue. She tells us that Townsend Wentz will be opening an Italian BYO just a few blocks away from her bar. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The problem is â&#x20AC;Ś that no one wants to waitâ&#x20AC;? for a table, she says, adding that her home-cooked dinners, a Lent-time only operation at Krupaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, packs the house.

But sometimes even regulars donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have the patience to wait for her seafood plates.

Speaking of waiting, she goes on to tell us about going down to legendary Italian Market hoagie spot Sarconeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s to get a sandwich on her way to Home Depot. Sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d called in her sandwich order early in the day, but after nearly an hour, the combination of the wait and the PPA guy on the street writing tickets had her retreating to Fairmount. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had to get to work,â&#x20AC;? she said.

A regular patron comes in for a short pour of Coors Light and tells her that he stopped by Maglioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Market earlier in the day for a hoagie, but it was closed. â&#x20AC;&#x153;There was a paper bag full of bread sitting at the door,â&#x20AC;? he says. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Did you take a loaf of bread and make your own hoagie?â&#x20AC;? Elaine asks. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Nah,â&#x20AC;? he replies. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You could have just left two bucks and been done!â&#x20AC;? said Elaine.

@CAROLINERUSSOCK

caroline@citypaper.net

C I T Y PA PER . N ET // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER

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MORRISVILLE LINCOLN ARMS Convenient Location. 1BR $800+/mo & 2BR $915+/mo. Call 215-757-1278

Bucks County Chapter

Riverton 1 BR, 1st floor, DR, study, washer/dryer, bsmt., a/c, porch, hardwood floors, storage, near river line. Garage extra. Good Credit. $995+ electric & gas. 856-829-0253

Friday May 15th at New Hope Eagle Fire Co. Sugan Rd. & 202, New Hope Pa Games/Raffles & social hour 5pm start, Buffet dinner 7pm.

SOUDERTON: 1 BR $765. Includes Heat and Hotwater. Onsite laundry. No pets. Non smoking. Good credit req’d.

Senior Citizen Discount. 215-723-6333

Come hang with Travis T-Bone Turner, star of Michael Waddells BONE COLLECTOR

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Marabout Spiritual Healing performed by Mr. Kabbah Readings & Dream interpretation Help with problems of love, life, & family, marriage. Master of breaking all sorts of evil eye. Call 267-565-8858 www.hope2heal.net

Administrative SECRETARY/CLERK Legal exp a plus. Call Attorney Diane Mellott at 215-547-5297

Homes for Rent My Treasures Thrift Store SALE OF THE WEEK 50% OFF entire store! T-Shirts $1, all other Shirts $2, Pants and Jeans $3, Dresses $4. Jackets and Coats $5.

4025 Veterans Hwy, Levittown (215) 943-7496 Now Open til 4:00pm Mon.-Sat.

Real Estate Rentals Apartments for Rent Apartments at Rosewood-Warminster JR 1BR $790 • 1BR $890 • 2 BR $990 Both include heat & hot water. Bright, sunny apts, great views! FREE Pool Membership. ? Pets Welcome > CALL FOR SPECIALS 215-675-6389 Bensalem, PA BUCKS MEADOWS 1, 2 & 3 BR apts starting at $790 mo.

Many Amenities. Call 215-245-1133 Bensalem remodeled 2BR $899, separate entrances, balcony, dishwasher c/a heat pets ok 215-638-8220 Bristol Boro 2BR, 1st flr, $950/mo.

No pets. Available immediately.

Call 215-801-4716

Feasterville CROFTWOOD APTS/ CHALET VILLAGE

CAR, TRUCK, SUV, RV, BOAT Sell it in our classifieds.

FEASTERVILLE ELMWOOD AVE. 3 BR, 1BA, large yrd, $1300 mo.

Call 215-579-1773 NEWTOWN AREA SUMMIT 2 BR twin, 2 BA, laundry room w/washer, dryer, good carpets, new paint, garage, private yard $1350+ No pets.

Avail now. 215-932-0117

Mobile Homes Beautiful 28x60 Modular Home for Sale in Bensalem. Please call Terry’s Mobile Homes 215-639-2422

Autos Wanted

Buying All Cars Up to $2000 CASH Bad Engines or Transmissions Junk Cars to $500. 609-977-5337

• Unwanted Vehicles • Wreck/Flood Damaged • Non-running • Free Towing IF IT HAS WHEELS, WE BUY IT!!!

Paying up to $500 CASH!!!

1 BEDROOM Rent Starts at $925!

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Call 609-586-3225 today for your free quote!!

Call Today! 215-355-3048 Levittown, PA ROYAL PARK APTS NEWLY RENOVATED 1 & 2 BRs Starting at $725. Heat and hot water included. Walking distance to schools, shopping and transportation. Available immediately. Call now 215-245-1187 Luxury at Delaview *2 BR Special Beautifully renovated-Waterfront views

Pet and Supplies Pets for Sale English Bulldog Pups Papers, shots, Parents on Premises.

Dewormed. Call 215-696-5832

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Call today at

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BRISTOL BORO 3 BR, 1 BA, newer kitchen, back yard, $1350 mo. Call 215-579-1773

WE BUY

Articles for Sale Bargains at the Bakery!

3050 Richmond Street First Friday & Every Saturday 9am Collectibles & This & That Etc.

Apartments for Rent Morrisville Large bright, roomy, 1 BR, LR, den, EIK, $850/mo. Heat included.

No pets/smoking/drugs. 215-295-3901

HUNTERS NIGHT OUT

There will be GUNS, GUNS, more GUNS, Bows, Crossbows, Hunts, Prints, & much more raffled & auctioned off. Tickets $40. For more info or ticket sales call Eric at 267-446-2496 or Joe 267-446-2492 DON’T WAIT, call now, this event has sold out last 9 years.

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*2 BR= $1099. Tranquility awaits! all for details 215-245-1159

CANOES & KAYAKS Rte. 563 & 412 near Lake Nockamixon.

Saturday & Sunday, 10-6pm naturecanoe.com 215-536-8964

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Close extended families. Contact Robin/ Neil: 866-303-0668 Text: 646-467-0499 www.rnladopt.info robin.neal.lucy@ gmail.com

AIRLINE CAREERS begin here – Get hands on training as FAA certified Aviation Technician. Financial Aid for qualified students. Job placement assistance. CALL Aviation Institute of Maintenance. 888-834-9715

LEARNING CURVE DIRECTORY

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NOTICE Pursuant to §128.85 of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture Title 7 regulations, GROWMARK FS, LLC. hereby gives notice of ground application of “Restricted Use Pesticides” for the protection of agricultural crops in municipalities in Pennsylvania during the next 45 days.

Residents of contiguous property to our application sites should contact your local GROWMARK FS, LLC. facility for additional information. Concerned Citizens should contact: Michael Layton, MGR. Safety & Environment, mlayton@ growmarkfs.com GROWMARK FS, LLC. 308 N.E. Front Street, Milford, DE 19963.

Call 302-422-3002

BUSINESS SERVICES AIRBRUSH MAKEUP ARTIST COURSE For: Ads . TV . Film . Fashion. HD & Digital. 40% OFF TUITION For Limited Time. Train & Build Portfolio . One Week Course. Details at: AwardMakeupSchool. com 818-980-2119 (AAN CAN) ANTIQUES ANTIQUE LOVERS TAKE NOTE – BRIMFIELD, MA starts Tuesday, May 12th. 5,000 Dealers of Antiques/Collectibles. Visit: www.brimfield.com for info on 20 individual show openings.

May 12th-17th, 2015 FURNITURE Leap into spring with our full-service furniture upholstery cleaning team! CALL Upholstery Care USA today: 1-717-5421185. As industry leaders, we can make your spring cleaning a breeze. www.upholsterycareusa.com

CAN YOU DIG IT? Heavy Equipment Operator Career! Receive Hands On Training And National Certifications Operating Bulldozers, Backhoes & Excavators. Lifetime Job Placement. Veteran Benefits Eligible!

1-866-757-9439 CUSTOMER SERVICE Customer Service and Licensed Agent Career Opportunity: Become a Licensed Accident & Health Insurance Agent. Training and Licensing provided to you at no cost.

Great for entry-level and experienced professionals. Email for more information: admin@systemsstaffinggroup.com HELP WANTED- OFFICE/ CLERICA Help Wanted- Office/Clerical PT Clerical Person needed from Monday-Friday, $600.00 weekly.Computer skills are a must. Need to be detail oriented, possess good customer service skills, some cash & items handling skills, Apply Email: johntoadd@aol.com START YOUR HUMANITARIAN CAREER! Change the lives of others while creating a sustainable future. 1, 6, 9, 18 month programs available. Apply today! www.

OneWorldCenter.org 269-591-0518 info@oneworldcenter.org TRUCK MECHANIC/WELDER This is a mechanic position playing a critical role in our growing repair services of heavy duty refuse equipment, including various makes/models of sweepers, boom trucks, and refuse equipment. Mechanics perform a variety of duties related to the repair of heavy truck bodies and trucks with focus on complete chassis, body and hydraulic equipment repairs. Technicians are responsible for diagnosing operational problems and making repairs on the trucks and hydraulic equipment.

In addition to great jobs, we offer great benefits: Positive work environment Aggressive market based pay Employer Paid Medical, Dental, Vision & Life Insurance 401(k) with Company Match Paid Time Off & Paid Holidays Send Resumes to hr@ mawaste.com or fax to 866-723-5250 IMMEDIATE OPENINGS $500.00 hiring bonus offered WERNER ENTERPRISES IS HIRING! Dedicated, Regional, & OTR opportunities! Need your CDL? 4 wk training

EDUCATION MEDICAL BILLING TRAINEES NEEDED! Train to become a Medical Office Assistant! NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! Online training gets you job ready! HS Diploma/GED & PC Internet needed!

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INSURANCE AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $25/ MONTH! Call 855977-9537

HOME SERVICES KILL BED BUGS! Harris Bed Bug Killers/KIT. Available: Hardware Stores. Buy Online/Store: homedepot.com

LAND/ LOTS FOR SALE LAND FOR SALE Spectacular 3 to 22 acre lots with deepwater access – Located in an exclusive development on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

Amenities include community pier, boat ramp, paved roads and private sandy beach. May remind you of the Jersey Shore from days long past. Great climate, boating, fishing, clamming and National Seashore beaches nearby. Absolute buy of a lifetime, recent FDIC bank failure makes these 25 lots available at a fraction of their original price. Priced at only $55,000 to $124,000. For info call (757)442-2171, e-mail: oceanlandtrust@ yahoo.com, pictures on website: http:// Wibiti.com/5KQN

APARTMENTS FOR RENT OLD CITY $1750.00, 2 bdrm apt. Brand new 1.5 baths, all new S.S kitchen. All hardwood floors, spiral staircase, new windows with lots of light. C/A, W/D. 1200 Sq ft. Pet friendly, parking extra. 215-925-7500 ext. 213. rene@tuckerrealtycorp.com

VACATION/ SEASONAL RENTAL VACATION RENTALS OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND. Best selection of affordable rentals. Full/ partial weeks. Call for FREE brochure. Open daily. Holiday Resort Services. 1-800638-2102. Online reservations: www. holidayoc.com

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PHIL ADELPHIA CIT Y PAPER // MA Y 7 - MA Y 13, 2015 // C I T Y PA PER . N ET