Phawker

BY AARON STELLA About a year and a half ago, I began chronicling my stranger-than-fiction life story here on Phawker. Admittedly, much of it is hard to believe, but let me assure you that everything I have shared thus far really did happen. Since almost all of these events occurred during the presidency of G.W. Bush, I am calling this MY LIFE IN THE GHOST OF BUSH, a play on the David Byrne/Brian Eno album MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS. This is the 13th chapter, and for the benefit of newcomers, here’s a quick recap of the preceding 12 chapters: chapter one, life in a fanatic Christian cult; chapter two, post-cult life and coming to grips with my homosexuality; chapter three, the misadventures of a megalomaniac (and closeted homosexual) father; chapter four, my families exodus to Alabama to weather the expected Y2K apocalypse; chapter five, openly gay life in the Bible Belt and getting expelled from school because of it; chapter six, my 9/11; chapter seven, unwittingly moving in with a family of child abductors; chapter eight, forcibly committed by my family to a psych ward; chapter nine, life in an Alabama psych ward; chapter ten, how I got out of the psych ward; and chapter eleven, yet another disastrous experience with yet another foster family and the return of the child abductors; and chapter 12 kicked out of yet another house. You can read the first 12 chapters from beginning to end after the jump. But for now, I’ll set the way-back machine to the summer of 2003, Hanceville AL, where my mother and I have struck a deal in the dead of night that she would leave me alone for the rest of my life if I granted her a final wish. That wish was that I enroll myself in a Catholic Liberal Arts College, called Magdalen College. After being involuntarily committed to a psyche ward, asked to leave my house to live with friends of the family who turned out to be child abductors wanted in three states for various felonies, and enduring not a lick of tolerance for being homosexual (my family included) I had figured it best that I abandon all family ties for good. But the price for that would be costly—and yet, as it all turned out, strangely fulfilling.

Magdalen College sits high atop a plateau on Mount Kearsarge, NH, about a 20-minute drive up a mountain road from the lower lying town of Warner, NH. After easing off the drive onto the college grounds, the scene that seems to appear out of nowhere is idyllic as New England bucolic gets: aged conifers and spruces mothering over moody green grass; characterless dormitories and like classroom huts resting quietly aside dusty gravel paths; the White Mountains, looming in a perpetual haze on the horizon; then, at the center of campus, a large brick chapel rising skyward from a fanfare of flowering bushes and large smoothed boulders, with its haughty spire, reaching heavenward like a bleak finial atop this pristine, naturalist wedding cake. Striking, but still something felt fake, or forced, as I took in the setting, like the feeling of being cornered in a diorama. It didn’t click until one afternoon early on in my first semester when I was walking around campus with a fellow classmate. All the sudden, one of the faculty members comes trotting up one of the connecting gravel paths to tell us that we need to split up since we had be walking alone together for more than 25 minutes. Apparently, that was prohibited.

The college is a small operation: only 64 students, myself included, were enrolled during my first semester (by my second, 10 students had left). Magdalen didn’t exactly appeal to a wide demographic: their student body consisted almost entirely of homeschoolers, and the brood of a special breed of fanatics I like to call “Taliban Catholics”. But I knew this going in my tenure. A few years back, my mother had tricked me into attending the college’s summer camp program under the ruse of it being a theater and music camp. There, I got a taste of Magdalene’s military-styled curriculum, which spared no charms of micro-managed living: no TV, no telephone, no Internet, no music, no reading newspapers until they’d been edited to ribbons, no dating (hanky-panky of any kind was punishable by solitary confinement. No kidding), no singing non-religiously based songs to oneself or in public, and most of all, no arguing the rationale behind any of the rules, no matter how glaringly draconian or indoctrinating they were.

A day in the life of a Magdalen student wasn’t any cheerier either: out of bed by 6:20 AM, morning chores, closet and drawers inspected for neatness, dress for 7 AM Mass (men wore suits and ties while the women wore ankle-length dresses and equally prudish blouses), breakfast, morning classes, lunch, afternoon classes, free time (20 minutes), choir practice for an hour (sometimes longer), sports (rarely co-ed), dinner, fun songs (singing censored bar and summer camp songs like you did in kindergarten), social activity if it was the weekend, study hall (nodding off was punishable by standing for the rest of study hall, which lasted about 2 hours) saying the rosary on your knees, then finally, bed by 11:30 PM. Rinse, wash, repeat every day for the whole year. At times, the faculty would rearrange the schedule to accommodate various events during Liturgical calendar, such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, along with other school wide events, such as trips, and St. John the Baptist Week—the school’s version of Spring Break—where the students would put on variety shows, hold a Sadie Hawkins-style dance with a live jazz band, and engage in other such thrill-inducing yet conservatively begotten shenanigans to relive us of the daily grind.

Speaking of the grind, the education style at Magdalen was quite unique. Almost all of the classes were taught using the Socratic method, meaning that instead of having professors profess to you the facts about various topics, students were encouraged to engage in dialogue with the class at large, ask questions, and come to understand their own truths (as long that those truths didn’t conflict with Catholic doctrine). Your “professors”, in this case, weren’t called professors, but “tutors” so that students would look upon their senior class sitters as peers in a forum rather than experts on the subjects. As it turned out, this method was surprisingly effective, and granted us a rich education on many great works of literature, as well as the intricacies of Latin, music, math, science and English; and what’s more, is that after digging into several class discussions with the same 20-25 people you spent with most of the day, you started to gain an understanding of each other’s perspectives, which made for fast friendships, all as trusted confidants.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say I enjoyed myself part of the time. Still, in retrospect, I’d never in a million years recommend anyone send their kids there. It’s just difficult to distill Magdalen’s defining elements without appearing to take sides. While the college sought out to reform the person, they also tampered with the reformation process to accommodate their religious mandate. Looking back, that long drive up the mountain road, the separation from the distractions of the modern world, all were part of a greater plan: not to liberate the soul, but to create brainwashed acolytes for the Church’s ranks.

I can’t end our story here. And so, for next time, I’ll delve deeper into the finer points of life at Magdalene, and, with a bit of luck and finesse, recapture the moment I had there, at which, I think I finally became an adult — the moment when I finally woke up.

(more…)

FRESH AIR

“There’s no one in contemporary popular music who has created a more impressive legacy — or one that spans a wider variety of styles — than Merle Haggard,” music critic Peter Guralnick once said. Haggard, who helped create the famous Bakersfield Sound, has recorded 38 No. 1 hits, including “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive,” “Mama Tried” and “You Take Me For Granted.” In 1994, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Five years later, he would receive a Grammy Hall of Fame Award for “Mama Tried,” his famous honky-tonk tune about a mother’s suffering after her son is sentenced to life in prison. That song, he tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross, was about “97 percent” autobiographical. “Some things we fudged on slightly to make it rhyme, but the majority of it’s pretty accurate, I guess,” Haggard says. “I was probably the most incorrigible child you could ever meet. I was already on the way to prison before I realized it, actually. I was really kind of a screw-up. Haggard, who attended three of Johnny Cash‘s concerts while locked up at San Quentin, details his years in and out of prison, his musical influences and his many musical successes in an interview that originally aired on April 6, 1995.

ALSO Waylon Jennings once said, “If we could all sound like we wanted to, we’d all sound like George Jones.” Jones, nicknamed “The Possum,” has recorded 14 No. 1 hits and received accolades from the Kennedy Center, the U.S. National Medal of Arts, the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame, among others. Jones, who grew up in rural Texas during the Depression, first performed at the age of 9 in Pentecostal churches and revival meetings. After helping to save souls, in his early teens he played to the sinners, playing at rough-and-tumble road houses. He was underage, but worked with an older couple who served as his guardians. Jones says fights would often break out as the bands played. “Back in those late ’40s, when I was appearing in these places, we had to put chicken wire around the bandstand. We had to keep bottles from flying and busting our guitars up,” he says. “It would be brawls [breaking] out every hour or so. But we got through it. It was part of the training, I guess.” Here, Jones joins Terry Gross for a conversation about his autobiography, I Lived to Tell It All, which describes the many years he was addicted to alcohol and cocaine — as well as his perspective on his celebrated but troubled marriage to Tammy Wynette.This interview was originally broadcast on May 8, 1996.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: One crucial element of the American subconscious is about to become salient and explicit and highly volatile. It is the realization that white America is within thinkable distance of a moment when it will no longer be the majority. This awareness already exists in places like New York and Texas and California, and there have even been projections of the time(s) at which it will occur and when different nonwhite populations will collectively outnumber the former white majority. But it also exerts a strong subliminal effect in states like Alaska that have an overwhelming white preponderance. Until recently, the tendency has been to think of this rather than to speak of it—or to speak of it very delicately, lest the hard-won ideal of diversity be imperiled. But nobody with any feeling for the zeitgeist can avoid noticing the symptoms of white unease and the additionally uneasy forms that its expression is beginning to take. [...] This summer, then, has been the perfect register of the new anxiety, beginning with the fracas over Arizona’s immigration law, gaining in intensity with the proposal by some Republicans to amend the 14^th Amendment so as to de-naturalize “anchor babies,” cresting with the continuing row over the so-called “Ground Zero” mosque, and culminating, at least symbolically, with a quasi-educated Mormon broadcaster calling for a Christian religious revival from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. MORE

 [Illustration by JAY BEVENOUR]

In honor of the Pixies kicking off their Doolittle tour at the Tower next Tuesday, we got Black Francis/Frank Black/Charles Kittredge Thompson III on the horn to break down the 21-year-old classic for us track by track. Look for it later this week on a Phawker near you!

RELATED: Burying The Hatchet With Black Francis

EDITOR’S NOTE: Huffington Post blogger Beau Friedlander posted a largely thoughtful summation of the culture wars and ended with a modest proposal: $100,000 for a sex tape that would end Glenn Beck’s career. HuffPo editors spiked the post after a few hours, and after and initial round of indignation, he issued an apology to Beck. Friedlander is no stranger to controversey, previously he helmed failed liberal talk radio network Air America and back in the 90s published  the manifesto of Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber. In the interest of free speech and people being able to read the post en total and make up their own minds whether the line was crossed, we repost the post that started it all in its entirety:

BY BEAU FRIEDLANDER Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers are happy to throw money at the rising tide of right wing lunacy. Breitbart offered $100,000 for JournoList, the email listserve that brought down WaPo blogger Dave Weigel this June.

Why did they do it? Because they stand to make a lot of money off the anti-black president movement, and they are rich enough to imprint their beliefs on the American sheeple.

High net worth progressive Democrats don’t do this as much, perhaps because they’re not typically in cahoots with Boeing or Monsanto or Halliburton, et al. Also, there are fewer anti-communist, religious crackpots on the left.

Before we get to the reward money, a little “Tea Baggers for Beginners.”

In cultural terms, the original neoconservatives who birthed the baggers were way more frightened by the Broadway musical “Hair” than the film “Rosemary’s Baby” (both from 1968). A mock ad might go like this: “Afraid your daughter might hook up with a black guy (or the nation may choose one to be president)? Have a problem with that homosexual and or promiscuous son or daughter? Does your son need a haircut? Do you often find biblical characters charred into your toast? Then do we have the movement for you!”

A certain breed of brilliant liberal started the neocon movement in reaction to the civil rights movement and the counterculture. They believed in a social order that benefited the wealthiest Americans in unimaginable ways, and they benefited by lending considerable brainpower to the cause. It seemed to these first neocons that the counterculture’s open society might reveal that the emperor had no clothes. They were tasked with obviating that eventuality, and were paid handsomely. Ironically, these anti-communists stole Marx’s opium (i.e., religion) and distributed a far more potent version (evangelical, ultra-orthodox) for free.

(No such thing on the left.)

Enter Glenn Beck, the farce part of the intellectual tragedy sired by the neocon founding fathers Irving Kristol and his historical sidekick Norman Podhoretz.

Beck touts religion, because he says the battle for America’s soul is at stake. It is all about morality, propriety, and doing what’s right. But Beck’s conception of religion is all about control. He replaces God with an ersatz myth about self-reliance and a position of moral superiority spun in ways that magically seem to privilege the few at the expense of many (this includes the anti-Middle East / Islam thinking that led to the war in oil-rich Iraq), etc.

Glenn Beck talks about what’s right a lot. Propriety comes from the same root as property, and that does seem to be the issue. As the culture changed in the 60s, so did neighborhoods. This was the heyday of blockbusting and race-baiting. We are in similar territory with a black president right now. His successful campaign is proof positive that the counterculture prevailed over the conservative movement. And the neocons are mad as hell about that.

Glenn Beck is also a Mormon. It matters. His religion typifies the noble lie that the neocons originally set out to defend against the counterculture–Archie Bunker’s America–where a woman’s place was in the home and with baby, and an African American’s place was in a ghetto. (Mormons revere women much like Hindis do the cow, and they didn’t accept African Americans in their ranks at all till 1978–draw whatever inferences you like).

The new conservatives are true believers in the “One Right Way”, and Democrats only rarely agree on the one best way to go. But we can all agree that Fox News is a bad influence on America.

It is time to pop the tea baggers’ favorite balloon (so what if it will be replaced by another?), and with that in mind I hereby offer to negotiate a $100,000 payday to the person who will come forward with a sex tape or phone records or anything else that succeeds in removing Glenn Beck from the public eye forever. I am not offering the cash myself, but I will broker the deal and/or raise the money for what you bring to the table. (And it better be good.)

If you have the goods, or if you want to contribute to a slush fund to buy more takedowns (probably not tax deductible), please contact me at: glennbecksextape@gmail.com. [via HERE]

Atlantic City, 5:59 PM Saturday Night by JEFF FUSCO

DAILY RECORD: SEASIDE HEIGHTS — A woman allegedly assaulted by private security employed by MTV’s “Jersey Shore” is suing MTV’s parent company, Viacom, the reality show’s production company, 495 Productions, and the entire cast for the assault and on racketeering charges, according to court papers.The documents allege that four private security guards tossed J.P. to the ground last September after she and several friends got in a heated verbal argument with Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. During the course of the argument, four unidentified bodyguards pushed J.P. to the ground, according to the court documents. J.P.’s chin was gashed and she now has a permanent scar, Lavernge said. The alleged assault occurred on the night documented by Episode 108, “One Shot.” During that episode, Stephen Izzo, 26, of Berkeley, was knocked unconscious by cast member Ronald Ortiz, 25, of The Bronx, N.Y. Izzo went to court earlier this year in an unsuccessful attempt to block the release of the DVD box set of the show’s first season. A judge, however, allowed Izzo to proceed with a lawsuit against MTV and the show’s producers, also on the racketeering charges. A warrant was recently issued for Izzo’s arrest because he failed to attend a hearing in Superior Court in Toms River on unrelated drug and assault charges. Ortiz was arrested earlier this month because he did not pay several traffic tickets in North Jersey. MORE

“The Wilderness Downtown,” an interactive film by Chris Milk featuring “We Used To Wait” from Arcade Fire’s new album The Suburbs can be experienced now at HERE. Taking its name from a lyric from the aforementioned song–”so when the lights cut out, I was lost, standing in the wilderness downtown”–”The Wilderness Downtown” exemplifies the Google “Chrome Experience” and HTML5 technology, cueing the opening of multiple browser windows, visually incorporating viewers’ childhood addresses (if they are available via Google Street View) , allowing the viewers to write and share messages to their younger selves and more.  Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. “The Wilderness Downtown” is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait” and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas. MORE

FRESH AIR

“[Jimmie Dale Gilmore's] voice would make even Hank Williams cry,” Nicholas Dawidoff once wrote in The New York Times Magazine. Gilmore, a singer from West Texas, writes songs that would be described as alternative country. But he sings honky-tonk country classics on his album Come on Back , which he discussed in a 2005 interview with Terry Gross. The album, a tribute to Gilmore’s late father, contains versions of his father’s favorite songs like “Walkin’ the Floor Over You” and “Pick Me Up on Your Way Down.” “[Pick Me Up] represents an entire style that I really associate with [my father],” explained Gilmore. “It’s honky-tonk dance music … and it is one particular [song] he really loved. I have this one memory of him with his head tossed back and his eyes closed just grinning when this song came on.” In addition to his solo albums, Gilmore records with the band The Flatlanders, which includes Gilmore’s fellow West Texas musicians Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. He played the character Smokey in the 1998 movie, The Big Lebowski.

ALSO,  Patsy Cline‘s career really only lasted three years — and the complete recorded output from that career lasts two hours and ten minutes — but her importance is out of proportion to those numbers. She was born Virginia Patterson Hensley in 1932 to parents living in the hills of West Virginia, and was performing as a teenager under the name Ginnie Hensley. In 1953, she married Gerald Cline, a construction worker. A year later, she signed a contract with Four Star Records, which was mostly a vehicle for recording songs from its owner’s publishing house. 4 Star put out 18 songs of the 51 she cut for them, and only one charted. The recording of “Walking After Midnight” is actually a remake of the original, which, like all her other 4 Star records, was hard-core country. These recordings were made at Owen Bradley’s famous Nashville studio, Bradley’s Barn, where Decca’s country recordings were made. The minute her 4 Star contract expired in 1960, she signed with Decca, and Bradley saw a chance to record a great pop talent. For her first record, “I Fall To Pieces,” he found a song by Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard, two of the best writers in town. The instrumentation on “I Fall To Pieces” (which included steel guitar by Ben Keith, who later worked with Neil Young) was country, but her phrasing definitely wasn’t. The song shot to No. 1 on the country charts early in 1961 and got to No. 12 on the pop charts. Bradley’s intuition was correct, so he started looking for jazzier numbers from his songwriting acquaintances. A young Texan friend of Cochran’s came up with one — called “Crazy” — which did even better. Until “Crazy” hit No. 1 on the country charts and No. 9 on the pop charts, Willie Nelson was considered a bit too eccentric for Nashville’s tastes, but the song established him and his career took off. MORE

RADIO TIMES

In November 2008, the election of Barack Obama was supposed to usher in a new age of hope, optimism, and postpartisan politics. Instead it provoked unparalleled anger on the far right that eventually twisted important national discussions and pushed ideas from the conservative fringe into the mainstream media. In the ensuing months, countless pollsters and reporters have tried to understand the heart of this mob that appeared so suddenly, but none of them has successfully accounted for the hard-right movement’s rapid growth or explained the hidden connections between its parts. Until now.  In this gripping exposÉ, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Will Bunch reveals the secrets behind the crusade against Obama, exploring how forces like radical militia groups, the Tea Party, pro-gun zealots, and Glenn Beck have combined old-fashioned populist outrage with digital-age phobias to produce a wave of resentment that many have ridden straight to the bank. Pulling back the curtain on the paranoid politics of a new generation, Bunch shows how events such as the election of America’s first African-American president, the economic recession, the rise of social networking, and the phenomenon of Glenn Beck have created a dangerous political moment that poses legitimate risks to democracy in America. From conspiracy theorists to secessionists, birthers to “independent” Tea Partiers, Bunch illuminates the ties among this new array of groups. Going beyond easy caricature, he strips away layers of rhetoric to reveal politicians like Paul Broun, who, as one of the most extreme members of Congress, works as hard for right-wing ideologues as he does for his economically battered constituents, and groups like the Oath Keepers, a fast-growing, ultraradical organization that spreads unsubstantiated fears of Obama confiscating guns and placing U.S. citizens in concentration camps. In addition, Bunch exposes the opportunists who have embraced a new brand of apocalyptic fearmongering, which has made them millions but has also led to the widespread paranoia that has helped fuel a rise in antigovernment violence. The end result shows the true stakes of this political perfect storm, demonstrating how the anger of the far right now threatens to consume America. Powerful, shocking, and thought-provoking, The Backlash is a controversial look at where our democracy is—and where it may be heading.

WORLD CAFE

The New Pornographers is overflowing with talented musicians. You’ve got Dan Bejar and his Destroyer persona, the inimitable Neko Case, and the burgeoning Kathryn Calder. But the unifying thread throughout the band’s five albums has been lead vocalist and chief songwriter Carl “A.C.” Newman. David Dye catches up with Newman in this session of World Cafe, and the band performs songs from its new album, Together, at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia.

NATIONAL HURRICANE SERVICE: This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. The black line, when selected, and dots show the National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast track of the center at the times indicated. The dot indicating the forecast center location will be black if the cyclone is forecast to be tropical and will be white with a black outline if the cyclone is forecast to be extratropical. If only an L is displayed, then the system is forecast to be a remnant low. The letter inside the dot indicates the NHC’s forecast intensity for that time. MORE

BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY I hadn’t been to the Mann since the mid-80s. I was in high school and they had a sweet system going to promote underage drinking. Any time there was a show, beyond the fences in a semi-wooded area of which I have only the fuzziest recollection, there would be kegs set up. How many? Twenty, fifty, a thousand, who knew? But it was beer paradise for thirsty 16 year-olds who otherwise had to take their chances and trek to that “special” distributor in Springfield that (almost) never carded. Outside of the Mann, you’d just pick a keg that seemed mostly full, pay $5 for a cup and start pounding. I don’t know who the keg providers were (23 year-olds out to make a buck?), but no one cared. I must have gone to 25 “shows” in this manner, and sometimes you could just barely hear snatches of the music. Randomly, the only performer I specifically remember is Steve Winwood. Does this still happen at the Mann?

I strongly suspect it was not happening Sunday afternoon, when I made my return to the Mann, 24 summers later. I wasn’t there for beer or rock n’ roll — I had my wife, plus my five- and three-year-old sons on hand to see Yo Gabba Gabba! Live. If you are unfamiliar with this program, it’s pretty much the coolest kids show around, starring five costumed “creatures” and hosted by loveable, orange-clad, 85-pound DJ Lance Rock (Lance Robertson, pictured below right). It’s earned an older following as well, due to some big-name guests and trippy sets and costumes (Dare I invoke Sid and Marty Krofft here? Brobee definitely has a Sigmund and the Sea Monsters thing going). Yo Gabba Gabba! has featured musical guests like The Aquabats, The Shins, Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, Devo, The Killers, Flaming Lips, members of The Roots, and MGMT, Of Montreal, Hot Hot Heat,  and The Ting Tings as well as plenty of other celebrity guest stars. I wasn’t expecting any particular star power on Sunday, but I was much more excited for the show than I would have been if we were there to see Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Handy Manny.

I wasn’t planning to write a review, and thus didn’t take notes; please forgive any omissions. Here’s what I remember. The show started with a live version of the TV intro, which I had hoped for because it’s a great number. Out came the characters:

MUNO: “He’s tall and friendly”. (And shaped like a dildo)
FOOFA: “She’s pink and happy”. (I can’t get into Foofa)
BROBEE: “The little green one”. (With long, thin crazy arms)
TOODIE: “She likes to have fun”. (Don’t we all)
PLEX: “A magic robot”. (I wish I had a magic robot friend)

Judging by merchandise sightings, Brobee seems to be the most popular character. Or maybe they only sell a Brobee version of the backpacks. I sure wasn’t going to get anywhere near the merchandise counter, no matter how curious I was. That’s a lose/lose scenario. As far as my kids know, there’s no such thing as a merchandise counter.

The show consists mainly of singing with a big chunk of dancing. Early on, they did their strong “Peek-a-boo” number, probably the catchiest tune of the day (it’s either that or “Good Bye, See Ya Later”). On the car ride home, I sang the chorus of the Peek-a-boo song at least three times, evilly trying to plant it in my wife’s head. There was a pretty loud rock song with a band (Steel Train) that didn’t go over too well in my section. In fact, for the first fifteen minutes, Torin, who is five, had his fingers stuck in his ears. Note to self: earplugs next time. But Reilly, who is three, was eating it up. Bouncing to the music, dancing when he was asked to get up and dance, big smile on his face. He likes to dance. Torin doesn’t like to dance and wasn’t feeling well; he’d thrown up the day before. So he was a little down. I took him for a walk to pick up a water and a soft pretzel.

The highlight event of the First Act was the balloon drop…four big, long bags of balloons unleashed from overhead. There were a lot of balloons, so it wasn’t cutthroat like a foul ball at a Phillies game. It was actually mostly civil. I was able to secure what I thought was the proper number of balloons (one per child), but unfortunately found out that the balloons that had fallen to us were not the right color. At least where Torin was concerned, the white one was not good, as he required a blue one. Moping, he went so far as to say that he liked “every color that there is in the whole world except white” (forget for a moment that until this year, the kid’s favorite color was white; there is no point in arguing this).

We made it to intermission, which for a few minutes was a “We’ll be right back” screen and music. Which was fine. Then came the low point of the day, when two people (presumably interns) in t-shirts came out on stage to engage in some interactive dance, something called the Bunnyhop, which was truly cringeworthy. Then a video you could barely hear but that did include the words “knucklehead” and “dork”, which are virtually curse words given the audience. Finally, before this pair left the stage, the girl asks the guy, “Have I ever given you a ride in my Kia Sorrento?” Ahem, can you guess who sponsors the tour? My immediate thought was, “You guys just spent ten minutes out here trying to lower our guard just so you could shill for Kia?” One good thing did happen during the intermission. Reilly allowed his red balloon to drift away, back into the “box seats” behind ours. I went to retrieve it, and the seats were empty, with the probable inhabitants standing just outside. I grabbed the red one…and saw a blue one off in the corner. There were no obvious signs of seat occupation or balloon ownership, and I decided that Finders/Keepers Rules were in effect. Blue balloon problem solved! Torin was pretty excited and perked up for the first time since we’d arrived. Not three minutes later I was startled by the loud clap of a nearby balloon pop, and turning to my left my worst fears were confirmed…the remnants of a busted blue balloon draped limply over his fingers. I looked at his face and I knew it was on – tears were coming and they were coming hard. It had been building since we’d arrived, there was no stopping it, and the blue balloon tragedy was the perfect trigger. My wife and I exchanged the look that said, “I’d like to laugh right here, I can barely contain myself, but we musn’t, don’t want to laugh at the poor kid’s pain”. He got over it eventually.

The Second Act was pretty tame. There was a “bubble” song with big bubble machines cranking out the good stuff, it must have been a blast in the first five rows where all the bubble machines were. But the rest of the crowd was left sitting there, thinking, “It must be fun up there.” Then there was a painful bit with costumed food dancing around — there was a chicken leg, slice of cheese, green beans. Weak.  Act Two was rescued, sort of, by the appearance of Yo Gabba Gabba regular Biz Markie, who led a beatboxing beat-along. He also had a handful of kids come onstage to beatbox with him and a few of these were hilarious. It was a fun segment, but ol’ Biz was with us less than ten minutes. He is stealing money on this tour!

The show ended, and we all went home. The red balloon popped on the way out of the Mann, but Reilly took it in stride. Afterwards, the kids showed more interest in why certain cars were parked the way they were than in the show they’d seen. Par for the course. But I know Reilly had fun. Personally, I felt just a little disappointed. DJ Lance Rock did not quite have the stage presence that I assumed he would. He wasn’t bad, he was into it, but the free and easy enthusiasm wasn’t there. Plex gets credit for best character performance. If I’d paid $50 per ticket I may have felt aggrieved, but as I paid $0 per ticket and only the outrageous $15 parking, it was a good value. My wife’s final assessment: “I couldn’t take the dildo seriously.”

‘Ben Franklin, Love Park, 8/25 by JEFF FUSCO

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ASSOCIATED PRESS: A Pennsylvania couple secretly videotaped a Roman Catholic priest having sex with their then-17-year-old daughter in the basement of their home and are now suing, saying he got her pregnant. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Berks County Court, alleges that the Rev. Luis A. Bonilla Margarito carried on a sexual relationship with the teen while he was the chaplain of Reading Central Catholic High School and she was a senior there. The girl’s parents became suspicious and installed a camera in their basement, where Bonilla and the teen were spending large amounts of time. The camera recorded the couple having sex in November, after she had graduated, according to the suit. Bonilla and the teen are now evidently living with each other. Yesterday, an Associated Press reporter knocked on the door of the apartment in Norristown where Bonilla now lives. A woman answered, and she identified herself as the teen named in the lawsuit filed by her parents. She declined to comment, and would not get Bonilla to come to the door. But David Weldon, a maintenance man at the apartment complex, said the couple moved in together two or three months ago, and that she had the baby about six weeks ago. MORE