I also wonder if folks who are all development uber alles still concern themselves with things like “sustainability,” which seems to be a watchword among the gentrifying classes.

The knee-jerk reaction to build things like music venues in blighted areas is tantamount to “drill, baby, drill.” Do you really want to be associated with that?

I voted for you because I thought you best represented what the City needed. I had my doubts, but thought that you’d be the best man for the job. I felt sure of it when I shook your hand after your victory at City Hall station on my way to work.

A year later I wasn’t so sure. You and I had an awkward interaction at a Fels event. I asked you about the casino. You were upset and gave your rote answer. I don’t even remember it. I tried approaching you afterward not just to explain myself, but to give you a chance to turn on the charm and connect with a voter. You didn’t. You tried to avoid me. When I caught up to you, you told me if I didn’t like the casino, I could move. “It’s a big city,” you said.

Another year passed. You managed to survive a tricky winter, despite the fact that the streets were in awful condition. Mayors in Chicago lose elections over stuff like this. The city streets were an insurance nightmare! I know it was record snowfall, but doesn’t that mean city services should rise to the challenge in the name of public safety, or was it enough to don an Action News cap and give us updates?

You have about a year to turn this thing around. I know that the budget’s a mess, but you haven’t done a great job of accentuating the positive. Going after the libraries was a dumb move, even as part of brinksmanship. You lost credibility with the geek crowd from whence you came. You accepted an award from the library the night you threatened to close neighborhood branches. It sickened me and many people in my neighborhood. It really hurt those of us who thought that you’d have a greater degree of sophistication than your predecessor.

Whatever happened to the bully pulpit? Where’s the passion, man? What did you truly believe in in the first place? Was it all just a progressive facade?

You know what? I started writing this letter to condemn your campaign. I wanted to blame you for giving us false hope. But that’s not good enough. I want you to prove me wrong. I want you to wow me in the time you have remaining in office. Do you think you can? Do you think you can go to bat for Philadelphians and show them that you are indeed the bright bulb we thought we elected?

I know your job isn’t easy, but you knew that, too. Don’t just throw these difficult decisions in voters faces. It’s childish. Rise to the occasion and show us what you have. We still want to know about your ideas on technology, on your plans for the waterfront…heck, tell us more about bike lanes! Show us where you want to go. All hope isn’t lost, but you need to step up and lead. Can you?

As I’ve said like 1,000 times before, I got a degree in urban political economy before I found myself getting a steady paycheck for knowing things about folks like Beyonce and Rihanna. Stuff like this, boring as it may seem, really excites me. And sometimes those worlds collide!

Such is the case with talk of a new music venue not so far from my home here in Port Fishington or Olde Richmond as our silly neighborhood association likes to call it. It strikes me as a complete non-starter, not only because that stretch of road is some of the most desolate within walking distance, but also because why in the hell does Philadelphia need another music venue that size? Do they know the live music business is cratering all around us? Is Live Nation really that desperate to find a new and creative way to lose money in a market they already lost?

Aesthetically, Grasso’s design looks like World Cafe Live! on steroids, which is to say, a venue I don’t visit often on steroids. (For the record, I’ve been to World Cafe Live! twice and I’ve never paid.) I’ll grant that there’s an off chance it succeeds if artists like Rihanna, et. al. feel like the Borgata is insufficient to their “premium experience” demands. But I have a hard time believing that the hard luck crowd hitting SugarHouse is going to schlep up Richmond for a big bucks concert later in the evening.

It’s interesting to read David Grasso’s own comment on Philebrity, where I’m sure many folks hip to the scene heard of this for the first time. Grasso addresses the gauntlet he allegedly threw down at the Electric Factory, the venue most likely affected should his new project go forward. You can read his defense here.

I’ve been in Philadelphia and on the music scene for a solid seven years. I’ve seen the rise and fall of great music venues, including the North Star and the Khyber. I’ve seen the resurrection of the Tower. I’ve watched as Clear Channel struggled once they lost their monopoly on the market. I’m honestly surprised to see Sean Agnew having the success he has, and I’m happy for him. Does that mean that Grasso deserves to build a music emporium that would directly compete with a venue like the Electric Factory? Hardly.

I know lots of folks think that the only solution to “save” the Philadelphia waterfront is to develop it as intensely as possible, without care for sustainability. I strongly disagree. I think that if there are areas worth preserving, or even reclaiming, as public space, then that should be the rule, rather than arbitrarily auctioning tracts of land to developers who don’t seem to understand the future of their business. I’d hate to see this become the fanciest dollar store in Port Richmond in five years.

I promised Helen at least 12 date nights last Christmas and I’ve been doing my best to keep up my end of the bargain with the help of friends and family. We finally got around to Zahav last Friday. (Fair warning: their website enables sound. It’s loud.)

We got the three course tasting menu, along with the wine pairing. We weren’t disappointed. Tried lamb tartare, called kebbe naya, and it blew my mind. It was so luscious it just melted in my mouth and the grilled avocado was a pleasant finish. Drank arak for the first time, too. If you’re into licorice-flavored liqueurs, I highly recommend.

If you’re looking to try something new, definitely hit it up. They have some great happy hour specials if you’re just looking to try it out before you get a reservation.

I’ve been tweeting recently with Dave Martorana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video podcast, which you can also view at their YouTube channel. Naturally, I’m eating crow here as they haven’t recorded since the World Cup ended, but I think that’s due to some shenanigans at Indy Hall. Dave’s been great about recommending other video podcasts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video podcasts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seriously. Amazing. I was totally over podcasting. The word just turned me off and the product often wasn’t much better. You know what changed all that? HD technology. Everything looks and sounds awesome, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Perfect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Recommend your favorite beer writers and podcasters. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long overdue for some goodies. Drop your recommendations in the comments so I can check ‘em out!

It was a pretty amazing, if confusing experience. I knew the ball was headed directly at me from the moment it left the bat. It just loomed large as it approached. It seemed to be moving slowly right before it completely exploded into the seats next to me. Even though it ended up being a beautiful night, I’m happy Helen and Charlie weren’t with me because I don’t know what we would’ve done as the ball approached. Duck and cover!

Instead it landed harmlessly in a cupholder. I grabbed the ball and tossed it back onto the field. It nearly rolled to the infield. Should I have turned and handed it to the young girl keeping score behind me? In retrospect, yes, I probably should’ve. But I’m not sure anything will feel quite as euphoric as hearing a stadium full of people cheer the one time you throw a ball inside a major league ballpark. That was amazing.

I’m confident that if we hang on to our seats in left field we’ll probably get another shot in the future. We don’t have many righties who pull or hit for power, but I’m going to guess that sitting in the heart of the lower left field seats gives me as good a chance as any of catching one in the future. (As I wrote this, Jayson Werth hit a ball that snuck over the left field wall. See!?)

You can help the poor Astros out by watching this video of Carlos Lee’s homer here. Look for me at the :18 and listen to the cheer go up. Tell me that isn’t awesome!

Y’all look really dumb. Anyone who vented spleen about the so-called “blogger tax” Monday morning really lived up to the blogger stereotype, which essentially boils down to reactionary twits who can’t so much as fact check before completely going bonkers.

Worse, it shows that for all the gains blogging has made in becoming mainstream media, most bloggers have zero news sense. I don’t work at the New York Times, but in the three years I’ve spent at comcast.net I’ve learned a ton from folks who are trained journalists about what is news and what isn’t.

Y’all got played. The news cycle is dead. If it weren’t for Elin splitting with Tiger, there’d be just about no news at all. (Little secret: people are pretty tired of the whole Lohan saga by now.) If you’re a small news org looking to make hay in late August, go with something local and definitely do something that screams link bait.

It worked. That story spread like wildfire simply because all the self-professed media firemen ran around spraying gasoline. I’m not very active in the local blogging community, but I’d be hard-pressed to join forces with people who spazzed out so relentlessly over something that’s been a known issue for quite some time.

Worse, there were a handful of people who felt that blogging should be subsidized. I’m all for government subsidies, particularly those that go toward housing and feeding people, promoting general welfare sort of stuff. Blogging? You must be kidding. Unless you’re talking about folks electing to pay donations to help cover hosting fees or what have you, you must seriously be joking. Isn’t this what student loans are for?

People really need to ask themselves who’s hurt by this. I’m guessing that most bloggers won’t have the taxman banging down their door anytime soon, or Mayor Nutter holding a press conference outside your apartment building to talk about how much you owe the city in back taxes. Call it a hunch, but I’m guessing most people don’t even have Google ads enabled on their sites. Funnier still, isn’t blogging a dying trend? Isn’t it funny how this story spread virally on Twitter and not throughout the blogosphere as it might’ve just a few years ago.

I get that $300 seems like a chunk of change to folks who are freelancing. I’ve been there. It’s a mess. The hassle made me ditch freelancing entirely and I was fortunate enough to find gainful employment. But if $300 seems like too much to start a business, you have to question your commitment to making it work, as well as possibly rehashing your business model. Fact of the matter is, people want to abolish the small business tax as a lever against all sorts of other parts of the Philadelphia tax code no doubt. Could you imagine what it would be like here if people were paying less in taxes? They’d have to shut the city down and turn out the lights! Next time you complain about the business privilege tax or city wage even, talk to your friends in the ‘burbs who are paying through the nose on property taxes, not to mention their utilities.

When I wrote that tweet about bloggers owing the same $300 bucks as someone baking cupcakes, I forgot to add that at least cupcakes provide a social good, not to mention that they’re freakin’ delicious. Blogging can be a lot of fun, but you really can’t take yourself too seriously. Try harder next time, guys. You’re better than this. It makes us all look bad when you don’t.

Elsewhere, Sean Blanda tries to set the record straight.

I saw the Decemberists there in 2004, when they were plenty famous enough to play a bigger venue, yet not so big that everyone and their brother was a fan. I caught Trad, Gras och Stenar there, too. My first glimpse of the National came there, too. They booked almost anything worth seeing, until Johnny Brenda’s came along and Stacie George stopped booking there and the city’s music scene moved north to Fishtown.

It was a beautiful mess of a place, sandwiched between too many bad Old City spots to count.  Most of them came and went and now the Khyber has (sort of) gone, too. When I read that they intend to transform the dingy bar into a fancy Japanese eatery, I nearly died laughing. It was the sweatiest, smokiest club I’ve ever had the pleasure of patronizing. Don’t get me wrong: Steve Simons has had success as a restauranteur elsewhere in town, even if those spots are pretty unremarkable, but this is nothing short of using concealer to cover one of Old City’s most treasured blemishes.

I’m glad they had the good sense to run the venue into the ground for a good four years or so before doing this. Otherwise I might have really cared.

I wish I were joking when I said that this scene from Step Brothers was the inspiration for Bring Your A’s Game. It’s been a pretty amazing day for the project. Great write-ups at Geekadelphia and Philebrity, great people reaching out, and even more people joining the cause on Facebook!

I’m amazed at the level of interest that’s already been generated. If you know anyone who loves baseball and the City of Brotherly Love, then let them know about Bring Your A’s Game!

Where does this rank among my quixotic pursuits? Somewhere between my childhood wish to become President at 35 (still have two years to get that together!) and swimming in the ’96 Olympics, which is to say, it’s pretty far out there. Does this sound completely insane, yet strangely appealing to you? Be in touch!

As an aside, do you think I should start a Kickstarter account to raise the $295M to buy the team outright?