the naked city classifieds | food | the agenda | a&e | feature
naked
the
city
thebellcurve CP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter
[ 0]
Rina Cutler, deputy mayor for transportation, says city officials chose a costlier, less far-reaching light-rail system than the one proposed by a French company because it had a more realistic timeline, among other reasons. Dear God, are we doomed to be plagued by corruption and shitty public transportation forever? Yours, Philadelphia. Dear Philadelphia, Oh God, yes. Sincerely, God.
[ + 5] Police apprehend a thief after he took pic-
tures of himself with a woman’s stolen cell phone, which she had programmed to send images directly to her. “Also texted her my address,” he says. “I’m a shitty thief.”
8 | P H I L A D E L P H I A C I T Y PA P E R |
D E C E M B E R 1 0 - D E C E M B E R 1 7 , 2 0 0 9 | C I T Y PA P E R . N E T
[ 0]
Reps from savethemummers.com meet with city officials to discuss the future of the parade. “So what you’re saying,” says city official, “is that without our help you’re not gonna be, and let me make sure I’ve got the terminology correct, ‘feathery enough’ nor ‘sequinny enough’ while you march down the street pretending to be ‘banjo-playing hobbits and stormtroopers,’ even though those movies are, like, way, way old. For the record, have I correctly stated the purpose of this meeting?”
[ - 8] The former owner of the Khyber Pass is charged with conducting surveillance for the 2008 Mumbai massacre that killed 166 people. Plus, he’s the guy who kept booking The Interpreters.
[ - 1] The organizers of the Dad Vail Regatta re-
quest a hold on the Schuylkill River despite moving their event to Rumson, N.J. Sounds like somebody’s getting scull-fucked.
[ + 1] Brendan Witt of the New York Islanders, in
Philly for a game, is hit by a truck outside a Starbucks in Old City. “Oh man, I am such a shitty driver,” says the Flyers’ Riley Cote. “On the upside, I finally know what it’s like to knock somebody down. See, I’m a shitty fighter, too.”
[ - 1] Former Eagle Freddie Mitchell is arrested because of an outstanding warrant for nonpayment of child support, but is released in time to return to his radio show on 97.5 The Fanatic. “I made the mistake of sending the money via FredEx, which I’ve since been informed is something I made up.”
This week’s total: -4 | Last week’s total: 11
GONE FOR GOOD? Brett Mandel, former director of Philadelphia Forward and failed candidate for city controller, has disassociated himself from Philly’s political scene. For now, anyway. NEAL SANTOS
[ man vs. machine ]
YOU CAN’T FIGHT CITY HALL Disappointed in Michael Nutter, good government activist Brett Mandel checks out of Philly politics. By Andrew Thompson n May 19, Brett Mandel sat at Zeke’s deli on Fifth Street, surrounded by a team of staffers he hired to help him win his campaign to be the Democratic nominee for city controller. Mandel looked alert and composed, but exhausted. His stop at Zeke’s was one of the last in 100 consecutive hours of nonstop campaigning, save for a handful of abbreviated naps. “I feel good,” he assured a City Paper reporter. There’s no way that could have been true. He’d just spent days wreaking havoc on his circadian cycle. Within hours, the election results would come in (ultimately, Mandel would lose handily). Were that not weighing on his mind, he would not be human. But then again, Mandel’s self-descriptions often seem at odds with obvious emotional forces. Mandel’s campaign was his final hurrah of Philadelphia crusading, his last resort after abdicating his position as the executive director of Philadelphia Forward, an organization that started in 2004 as a tax-reform advocacy group, but grew to oppose the whole gamut of Philly waste — row offices, patronage jobs, the money that goes somewhere but doesn’t really
O
do anything. In February, Mandel — the nonprofit’s only paid employee — announced he was shutting Philadelphia Forward down. Officially, he blamed the economy: “Foundation support for Philadelphia Forward is drying up as the economy tanks,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer. Several weeks later, he announced his race against City Controller Alan Butkovitz. And then he lost, and no one heard from Mandel again — at least not in the capacity in which he was known. These days, Mandel is executive director of the National Education Technology Funding Corp., a nonprofit that secures interest-free financing for schools. He splits work between his home office in Center City and Washington, D.C., working a job totally divorced from Philadelphia politics. He posted a brief essay to his Web site in November, excoriating the city for its alleged ineptitude, but the fight has become more of a hobby. “I can participate as just a fan or an advocate. I can root for the Phillies while not feeling that if the Phillies lose, I have failed,” says the native of Northeast Philly, who frequently falls into the distinctly Philly habit of using Phillies allegories to explain the world. If one of Philly’s most tireless advocates for reform has thrown his hands up after the mayor he endorsed won — the mayor
A clearcut enemy was more effective for reform than a lukewarm friend.
>>> continued on page 10